"I'm dead. I am so dead, he's going to kill me. I am deader than a doorbell, door nail, whatever it is that's dead that Scrooge references in a Christmas Carol!"

"Seriously Peter, you need to take a chill pill, sit down and relax. You're beginning to come across a little manic" Ned teases, grabbing his pacing friend by the shoulders and pressing him down into his desk chair.

"Don't tell me to calm down Ned" Peter was bordering on hysterical now, raking his fingers through his brown curls and tugging gently. "What am I going to tell him? What am I going to tell May!"

"Seriously Peter, what is your life! I mean here I am on a Monday night, sat in my room working on Maths homework I shouldn't have left until the last minute because I don't really understand what's going on."

"What bit? I can help"

"No, now shush I haven't finished." He flapped his hands at his seated friend to halt his protestations. "Although maybe later you could take a look at equation four? Anyway, I digress, where was I? Oh yes, I'm here doing my maths homework and you are swinging around Queens, in a super high tech Tony Stark made super suit, webbing up muggers and stopping bank robberies, am I missing anything? No? So why are you complaining!"

Well used to his friends impassioned outbursts, Peter just groaned loudly, peering sheepishly up at Ned through the hands over his face. "I'm not complaining exactly it's just, well"

Both boys yelped in surprise as Peter's phone began to vibrate loudly on the desk where he had set it down upon arriving.

From his vantage point stuck to the ceiling, he would vehemently deny it if anyone asked or Ned was to tell anyone but in his surprise he had jumped so high he had hit the ceiling and stayed there, he could quite clearly see the contact picture that had flashed up on the screen.

"I'm dead, I'm so dead, I'm dead dead dead. I just won't answer, that's a good solution. He won't know I'm ignoring him, I'll just tell him my phone was on silent, that's not exactly a lie."

Ned watched Peter mutter manically to himself on the ceiling, wondering at what point in time exactly his life had become so weird. Although he wouldn't change it for anything, he did sometimes wish Peter would involve him a little less. Seeing that his friend was not going to remove himself from his ceiling in the foreseeable future, he made his way over to the desk to check out who was calling.

Whoever it was must really want to talk to Peter because they were very persistent, the phone still vibrating after a good fifteen minutes had passed.

"Umm Peter" he called breathlessly, "you do know it's Tony Stark, as in the Tony Stark that you're ignoring!"

"Of course I know, Ned!" Peter cried, Ned jumping out of his skin as his friend used one hand and dropped to the floor, appearing suddenly at his shoulder. "I told you he is going to kill me"

"Peter, I am receiving a call from Mr Stark, would you like me to answer?"

"NO! Karen, no. There's no need to do that" Peter laughed nervously, "I'll just call him back later"

"Connecting with Mr Stark" Karen announced cheerfully.

"Hey... Mr Stark"

"Mr Parker, care to explain to me why you have been ignoring me for the past half an hour?" Tony asked, clearly frustrated at having to chase after his young protege.

"Uhh I'm not sure what you mean Mr Stark, I haven't been ignoring you. I've been... studying, with Ned. He needed help with some Maths"

He gestured wildly at Ned, trying to prompt him into speaking. Ned stares at him with wide eyes, Peter jerking his head meaningfully at the phone.

"Uh hi, hi Mr Stark, Tony Stark sir" Ned was finally able to stutter out, "I, uh, I can confirm that Peter is here helping me with maths, you see equation number four is really hard and the teacher didn't really explain quadratics very well so I just needed a little bit of help"

"Alright Ted, thanks for the alibi but I know for a fact Pete hasn't been at your house before the last hour so save the excuses."

A hologram of Tony's face popped up from the screen and swivelled to face a mortified Peter with a judgemental raised brow.

"So Underoos, what have you got to say for yourself?" Tony asked expectantly.

"I don't know what you mean Mr Stark sir"

"Okay kid if you're going to keep on lying then we'll just have to see how well you can pull it off to my face. Happy will be picking you up after school tomorrow so don't be late."

With that, the call ended with a disturbing bloop noise and left the two boys to stare at each other in horror.

"I'm so dead" Peter cried, flopping face first onto his bed and muffled screaming into his pillow.

"You might want to practice your poker face Peter, I hate to break it to you but you suck at lying"

Peter weakly raised an arm to flap his hand bonelessly in farewell as he headed home.

"See you tomorrow Peter"

Once he swung through his window, not even bothering to summon the energy to pull off his clothes, he rolled himself under the covers like a strange slug and was asleep in a matter of minutes.

Or at least that was what he had hoped would happen. In reality, he lay awake all night staring hopelessly at the ceiling interspersed with bouts of mind numbing panic that left him gasping for air and clenching fistfuls of duvet until his muscles unlocked again.

So to say he was exhausted was an understatement when his alarm rang the next morning. The shrill bell seemed to drill right through his head, ringing uncomfortably in his ears in its attempt to rouse him for school and he smacked his hand down onto the button with a deep sigh.

Stumbling into the bathroom, Peter splashed his face with cold water, hoping it would take away some of the tiredness dragging at his eyelids or even put some colour into his pallid cheeks. Maybe it wasn't so bad he thought hopefully, he's had later nights before and been a fully functioning human the next day. But today was not going his way, he couldn't help the disappointed whimper that slid past his lips as he finally raised his head and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. The bags under his eyes were so large he could have carried his belongings in them and they were a deep angry purple that no amount of borrowed concealer from Aunt May could even begin to hide.