Two weeks later…
"Did you finish all of your homework?" May asked as she rinsed off their breakfast plates.
"Most of it. I'll finish the rest during first period," he said while stuffing his homework into his backpack.
"Peter," May sighed. She may not be his biological mother, but she had perfected the exasperated tone of voice seemingly ingrained in mother's DNA.
"I know, I'll try to finish all of it at home from now on," he said, waving away her concern. "Besides, my grades are better than they've been since the start of the semester."
"That's true," she acknowledged. "And I'd like them to stay that way."
"So would I, but you know how crazy my Spanish teacher is when it comes to grades," he said defensively.
"Fair enough," she conceded. Abruptly, her demeanor changed. Peter tensed, already knowing what she was going to say. He overheard her phone call last night but hoped that she'd wait until after school to bring it up. "Tony called last night after you went to bed. He finished the modifications to your suit. He said you could go over to the Facility after school to pick it up, if you wanted to."
Peter pulled on his jacket slowly, his mind whirling. He didn't think Tony would be done for at least another week since the Avengers had been in Israel dealing with a hostage crisis for the last few days. He'd been following it loosely on the news so he knew that they had only gotten back last night. They knew better than to ask if he wanted to join them right now. It was still too soon.
Actually, the Avengers had kept their distance. After dropping him off at his apartment, he'd only talked to Tony once. He knew May was keeping them updated on how he was recovering so he did his best to mask his pain. He threw himself head first into school and decathlon practice so that May wouldn't have a chance to comment on the dark rings under his eyes. He made sure to eat when she was watching, but stopped the second she wasn't. Food tasted like ash in the aftermath. He just didn't want to worry May and the Avengers more than he already was. The only way to do that was to keep lying to May and to stay away from them. They were too perceptive for him to trick.
"I said that I'd go over to Ned's house after school," Peter lied.
"If you promised Ned that, then of course you should follow up on it. You can pick up the suit another time," May said immediately, a fake smile plastered onto her face.
"Okay, I gotta go now or I'll be late. I love you, May," Peter said, kissing her cheek. "See you tonight."
"See you tonight," she echoed.
Peter hurried to leave, sure she'd notice that he was leaving five minutes earlier than usual. He didn't want to talk about the Avengers. He knew she was confused about why he was avoiding them considering that they were the only ones who understood what he was going through, but he didn't know how to explain himself without sounding insane. They would see through his lies and fake smiles in a heartbeat. They would see the rings under his eyes and how much weight he lost and he wasn't ready for that. He wasn't ready to talk about any of it.
The bus ride was long and uneventful so Peter just slipped on his sound-cancelling headphones and made sure to dial it so that he could still hear slightly. He didn't want to be caught entirely unaware in case something happened. New York did seem to be the stomping ground for lots of villains. He nestled down into his seat and closed his eyes, trying in vain to get some rest before they got to school. He even made sure that one of the Midtown students he rode with on the bus would wake him up when they arrived, but sleep never came. Every time he shut his eyes, all he saw was a hallway of flickering lights and a man lying in a pool of blood.
"Peter, we're here," the girl said, reaching over to shake his shoulder to wake him up.
He lurched forward, her hand narrowly missing. "Thanks, Marlene. See you in English."
Ignoring her mildly bewildered expression, Peter grabbed his backpack and all but ran off the bus. He wound his way through the cars and students clustered in the parking lot and didn't bother to stop at his locker once he was inside. Flash and his friends had taken to hanging around the water fountain near his locker and he didn't feel like dealing with their taunting. Instead, he went right to his first period class and sat down between Ned and MJ.
"There you are," MJ said, not even looking up from her sketchbook. She was coloring in a phoenix she had drawn the outline to yesterday during decathlon practice while Flash had ranted mindlessly. "Do you think the tail feathers should be orange or gold?"
"Both. Start orange, fade to gold," he said, pulling out his math homework. May would kill him if he didn't finish it.
"Nice call," she complimented, selecting the appropriate colored pencils. He'd be surprised if he heard from her again this period. She got so absorbed in her artwork that she tended to forget about reality. He couldn't help but envy that ability.
"MJ is calling another decathlon practice after school. She wants to make up the time we lost to Flash's impromptu tirade yesterday," Ned said. He hesitated. "Can you make it?"
"Of course. I told you guys, my schedule is clear for awhile," Peter said, punching numbers into his calculator. He could do the math in his head easily, but he was too sleep deprived to trust his brain to give him the correct answers.
"When do you go back to Stark Industries?" Ned asked, trying to keep his voice light and failing. MJ's eyes flickered between them like she was following the ball at a tennis match, and not a very interesting one at that.
"Whenever Mr. Stark needs me again," Peter said a bit coolly.
He knew he shouldn't be mad at Ned. He hadn't told his friend about what happened two weeks ago, just that he was taking a break from being Spider-Man. Needless to say, Ned was dismayed beyond belief and kept subtly asking when his friend would start patrolling the streets again.
"Easy on the testosterone," MJ complained.
"Sorry," they muttered, turning to face the front of the room as the final bell rung. Both MJ and Ned noticed Peter's involuntary flinch at the piercing sound.
The day flew by quickly in a series of tests and lectures that were comforting to Peter. The monotony of school had once bored him, but now it provided a chance for him to ignore his problems by diverting all of his energy into school. Of course, that could only work to a certain extent. In history, they discussed the Howling Commandos, the Tesseract, Steve, and Bucky. In auto shop, they studied the designs of the first Iron Man suit. In Spanish, the jocks got into an argument with the teacher, claiming that there was no reason to learn another language. The teacher responded by pulling up the statistics of how many languages the Avengers knew, since it was no secret that everyone of them wanted to work for S.H.I.E.L.D. once they graduated. That seemed to be the goal of most kids these days and he knew the Avengers hated. They fought so that future generations wouldn't have to, but that didn't seem to be working. In fact, more and more villains and world-destroying events had happened during their formation that ever before.
And to round things off, the school had to lockdown during fifth period because Captain America and the Winter Soldier were chasing down terrorists practically in the parking lot. While all of the others kids were freaking out, Peter worried that the Avengers would request that he help them. They undoubtedly knew that this was his school.
Ned and Peter were crouched under desks next to each other so they were able to have a conversation without their teacher noticing. They technically weren't supposed to be talking, but Peter was confident that he'd be able to tell if a threat was coming.
"Are you going to help them?" Ned asked, visibly shaken. His guy in the chair was used to being far away from danger.
"I can't. I don't even have my suit, just my Web-Shooters," Peter explained. Even if he was adamant about taking a break from being a hero, he wasn't going to go around completely defenseless. Even before he'd met Tony, he always had his Web-Shooters on his wrists.
"What about MJ? She's in another class," he whispered, panicking.
"She'll be fine," Peter insisted. He knew Steve and Bucky were going to try to draw the terrorists away from the school, especially because Peter was here. Despite what many people thought after Sokovia, the Avengers weren't careless with lives.
"You don't know that," Ned said.
"Yeah, I do. Most of the school has already been evacuated. I can hear everyone leaving. And someone's coming right now. Stay down," Peter ordered. He raised his voice. "Everyone get back!"
His classmates and the teacher all ran to the back of the room, not questioning the fact that Peter was giving orders in their shock. Peter positioned himself so that he was nearly out of view of the door, but could still web up whoever came through. The lock was picked within seconds and Peter was greeted by the grinning face of Natasha Romanoff.
"Hey, pauk. I thought I'd find you here," Natasha said as he clambered to his feet. Pauk was Natasha's preferred nickname for Peter. It meant spider in Russian. "How many people?"
"Thirty-one. Fastest route out is down the east stairwell," Peter said, ignoring everyone's dumbfounded looks. He had helped her evacuate civilians enough times to know what to do.
"No good. They're moving to the east," Natasha said. She gave him an exasperated look. "Tony has your only one, doesn't he?"
She meant his suit. "Yeah," he said, avoiding her piercing gaze. "I can still help out if you want me to."
"No, Tony would have my head if I made you. Besides, the boys have this under control. Call it," she said, jerking her head at the cluster of confused people.
"Mrs. Diaz, take everyone out the west stairwell and go to the soccer field. Run once you're out in the open," he said as Natasha moved on to the next classroom. By his calculations, that should be the last classroom, assuming that there was another Avenger evacuating the other half of the building.
"Peter, where are you going?" Mrs. Diaz cried out as he followed Natasha.
"And how do you know Black Widow?" Flash yelled. Peter ignored both of them.
"You're coming, aren't you?" Natasha asked, her expression unreadable as she watched the students file out of the room, some of them crying in fear. Peter nodded, unable to speak. "Rooftop. Grab anything you need."
He nodded and ran to his locker. He quickly grabbed all of his spare web cartridges and his sunglasses. Two weeks later and his senses were still heightened.
He met Natasha and Clint on the roof and watched for a second as they gave Bucky and Steve cover fire. His breath began to hitch as the horribly familiar sounds of battle reached him. Natasha noticed him hesitating.
"Peter, you don't have to do this," Natasha said, still firing down below.
"Yes, I do," he said shortly before turning off the sound entirely and standing next to her.
Peter waited for his shot. He knew Clint and Natasha were watching, knew they must have told the others that he was here by now over the comms. He couldn't screw up. He couldn't take this much longer.
"Now," he whispered, firing a web.
All three terrorists were pinned down in one shot.
Peter turned to the two assassins.
"Take me home," Peter said, his hands shaking.
"A typical day of work for the Avengers became anything but today as the terrorists they were attempting to neutralize neared Midtown School of Science and Technology. Captain America and the Winter Soldier stopped two of the five terrorists blocks away from the school after they blew up an empty car in a crowded parking lot. No one was injured, but they led the two Avengers on a car chase that ended in the parking lot of Midtown High when the Winter Soldier shot one of their tires. Black Widow and Hawkeye showed up at the scene moments later and evacuated the staff and students. Once they were all outside, Black Widow and Hawkeye gave their teammates cover fire from the roof of the school. In a surprising turn of events, a student joined them and used Spider-Man's Web-Shooters, pinning the remaining three terrorists down in a single shot. Tony Stark later announced that the student is his head intern, Peter Parker, and created the Web-Shooters, which is why he was able to wield them so effectively. Parker also codesigned Spider-Man's suit with both Iron Man and Spider-Man. Aerial footage shows-"
Peter muted the TV and sighed. He knew most people would buy their cover story, but he'd be getting questions for weeks, if not months. He couldn't even deny his involvement because people had gotten footage of him on the roof. Six news stations had already called his apartment asking for interviews but he just let their calls go straight to voicemail. May didn't know whether to be amused or furious since he'd been Spider-Man for over a year without recognition but had just fought terrorists without a suit. She compromised by deciding to stay out of it after checking him thoroughly for injuries.
"I'd understand if you don't want to go to school tomorrow," May sighed, pouring herself a large glass of wine.
"No. If I don't go, it will only make things worse," he said, pulling out his phone. "Actually, if you don't mind, I'd like to go get my suit back from Tony. I really should have it with me at all times."
May was so surprised that she nearly dropped her wine. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah, I am. I miss being bulletproof when there's guns near me," he said with a wry grin.
"Okay, you should go call Stark. He'll send someone to take you over there."
Peter went into his room and sat down on his bed, the cool metal of his phone somewhat comforting. After taking a steadying breath, Peter dialed.
"I thought I'd be hearing from you," Tony said by way of greeting. "What do you want?"
"Can you send Happy to come pick me up? I miss my suit." Peter tried to sound casual, even as he felt himself relaxing just from hearing Tony's voice. His life would have been so different if Tony had never sweet talked his way into Peter's apartment. He wasn't sure if that was good or bad, but he did know that he missed Tony.
Tony laughed. "And here I thought you were calling because you missed me. You know, you owe me big. I had to sing your praise all day so the news doesn't tear you apart. I'm exhausted."
"As if you don't love the attention. How much has Stark Industries climbed on the stock market?"
"According to Pepper, three points. Probably four by the morning," Tony said smugly.
"It sounds like you owe me then," Peter countered.
"Fair enough. Happy will be there in a few minutes. See you soon, kid."