"So she's probably undercover, with like a day job and stuff," Katya told Peter through bites of her bagel as they walked into school the next day, "Since she's been stationed here for so long. I don't know the political part of it, but I was thinking after school we could do some recon and see if we can get a gauge of her schedule."

Peter nodded, chewing at his own breakfast sandwich. "And we can do patrol at the same time, as long as we keep our distance."

"Right." Katya nodded. "I've got my tracker on her, of course-" she slipped up her sweatshirt's sleeve to show it wrapped around her wrist, "But maybe we could use one of your suit's drones to tag her whilst we're farther away, or get busy with other..stuff."

"That could work-" Peter wondered why he hadn't thought of that himself, but cut himself short as they reached Ned's locker, just as he was closing it. When he spied them, he smiled brightly.

"Hey guys! Ready for the second half of The Phantom Menace tonight?"

Katya and Peter glanced at each other. They hadn't discussed how- or whether- to tell Ned.

"Erm-" Peter began, "Katya and I kind of have to go to the internship a little earlier today, so I don't know if that's going to work out." Ned's face visibly fell. "Sorry, dude."

"That's okay," he sighed, and Peter felt a pang of guilt. "I kinda figured something like that might happen."

Katya reached out to pat his shoulder. "But we'll watch it as soon as we can, I definitely want to keep working on the …" she hesitated, as if scanning her brain for the name, "Millenium Falcon."

Ned smiled at this, before falling into step with them as the three began towards their first class. "So is this like, super secret Tony Stark stuff?" He actually did a pretty good job of keeping his voice hushed, which Peter was proud of him for. He nodded.

"Yeah, some super-important undercover stuff. We can't talk about it too much right now, but we might-" he glanced to Katya, hoping she was getting through his Look that this was more of a placation than anything, but that it could also be useful, "need our Guy in the Chair, so we'll keep you posted."

Ned smacked his hands together, grinning. "Awesome! So what should we call it?"

Katya raised an eyebrow. "What should we call-?"

"You know-" Ned lowered his voice again, "the Operation, what's it's code name?"

"Oh! Erm- " she looked to Peter.

He floundered for a minute before coming up with "How about Government Homework? Like, "sorry, I gotta do my government homework-" He turned to Katya "Don't worry, there's a class here called AP Government here, it's just usually taken by upperclassmen."

Katya visibly relaxed. "Oh. Okay. Yeah, that could work."

"Operation Government Homework it is," Ned emphasized unnecessarily.

They came to the crux in the hallway where the three had to split, Katya heading straight while Ned and Peter's class was on the left. Without thinking, Peter pulled Katya closer to him by the hand a stamped a kiss to her temple. "See you next period."

Katya giggled but cut herself off, as if trying to fight it. "See you in an hour, pauchok."

When Peter turned back around he didn't expect Ned to look as flabbergasted as he did. "What?" Peter balled up his now empty tinfoil, but felt his cheeks heating up.

"Erm, what was that?!" Ned's voice was back to being loud, dangerously close to the gushing stage.

Peter shrugged, trying and failing to keep the smile from his lips. "Nothing, you know, just…"

"So you guys are a thing now?!"

Peter scuffed his shoe against the hallway, watching his sneaker leave a long black mark that joined the mosaic of burnt rubber that was already there. "Yeah, I guess we are."

Ned clapped him on the back, now in full-on gushing phase. "DUDE! I knew it- that's awesome- oh my god-" he kept cutting himself off with half thoughts, almost more excited for Peter than he was for himself. "A crime fighting duo in love?! It's just like the movies-"

Peter's eyes widened as they finally reached their class. "I didn't say- I mean- we haven't-"

"Oh c'mon Peter, it's obvious-"

"If it's so obvious then why did you sound so surprised?" He lowered his voice, now that they were taking their seats at the back of the class.

"I wasn't surprised, I'm just excited for you!"

"Okay, but just-" he lowered his voice to a hiss, even though he couldn't keep the smile off of his face. "It just sort of happened , so don't make it weird, okay?"

Ned scoffed. "How could I make things weird?"

Peter started fiddling with the pen he'd pulled out for class between his fingers. "I just…haven't really got to tell her that yet. It just sorta happened, and we haven't really talked-"

"Dude-!"

Thankfully Peter didn't have to hear the rest of what was surely going to be a lecture from Ned, or think twice about what he just said-haven't gotten to tell her yet- as the final bell rang and they were instructed to take out their textbooks.