Peter remembered, when he'd first gotten his powers, how trivial school suddenly seemed to become. The same thing, day after day, with the same people, whilst he was now able to lift buses and sense threats from what felt like a mile away. It got worse once he'd perfected- well not perfected, it was always a work in progress, shoved deep into the drawer next to his desk in chemistry class or various prototypes stored under his locker's locker unit-his web serum. It seemed dumb to have to study for a math test when he could be out there, helping the world, doing something.

And when he started to, it only got worse. He'd spend the entire day watching the clock, waiting for that 2:45 bell to ring so he could run to the nearest alleyway and change into his suit to make sure nobody in Queens got hurt that day. History class took a back seat to stopping muggings.

Not that his grades had dropped, or changed at all- he was very careful about that- but it all seemed so pointless, when there was so much more he could be doing. School became entirely about going through the motions, and his real life only started once that bell rang, and Patrol started.

If he'd thought school was pointless then, he truly didn't understand why he showed up the last few weeks of that semester. Everyone was disoriented anyway, with the Blip having displaced the majority of the school and the normal academic schedule going out the window. But he still showed up at 7:45 every morning, still greeted Ned with their special handshake, still went to his locker and still changed out his books each period. The one reason he could find, why he showed up, armed with bodega bagels and coffee just like before any of this had happened, every day, on time, was to see Katya. It was the only part of his day that seemed to make sense anymore- their walk through the gates munching on their bagels, their morning greetings to Ned, their kisses between classes in the halls; but Peter could see she was as out of touch as he was, in the quiet moments, when she wasn't fronting for Ned or fellow classmates. She seemed almost more troubled and detached than ever before.

His least favorite part was whenever they'd have to switch class, and he'd have to let go of her hand, and have to let her out of his sight. It felt like the last time he'd do so, and anxiety would wreck his body and brain until they could rush through the halls to reunite afterwards.

That afternoon, on Patrol, which Peter was now doing more out of routine than anything- every time he looked up at the sky, it was hard not to realize that he'd been up there, past that, in space, fighting for the universe, for a world so much bigger than the borough he called home - he and Katya were laying on the rooftop, Peter's phone dialed into the police's radio frequency just in case, as it always was when on patrol. Over what was left of their sandwiches- Peter'd made it through about half of his, but Katya had hardly touched hers, though she was still eating candy, so he wasn't too worried- she broke what he'd been trying to ask for over a week now.

"During the Blip-" she popped an orange Sour Patch Kid into her mouth, "Did you like, you know…see anything?"

Peter wasn't going to waste his breath asking what she meant because he knew exactly what it was. "Yeah. I had like…a weird dream." He tore off a spare piece of wrapper from his sandwich to fiddle with between his hands. "Like, I saw myself- but not me now, you know, like a younger version- and suddenly all these memories just-"

"Attacked you?" She'd rolled over so she could prop herself on one elbow to look at him better. "Like a movie you couldn't stop?"

Peter nodded. "Exactly like that."

"Were they happy memories?"

It took Peter a second to respond. Not exactly- the ones that had involved Uncle Ben, or his absence, hadn't been happy, and the moments about how he'd gotten his powers weren't necessarily happy, but not unhappy, either- but the memories of the two of them he'd had, those had been happy- those had been great. "Not all of them," he settled on, "they just seemed…significant, in some way."

Katya nodded and rolled back onto her back. "Me too. And it didn't matter if my eyes were open, or closed, or whether I was talking or not-"

"-they just kept coming."

"And coming."

There was a pause, filled only by the crinkling of Katya's hand in the candy bag, before she added, "And she- little me- said something weird."

Peter tossed away the spare wrapper he'd since torn into confetti. "What was it?"

Katya hesitated. "That I was going to save the world."

Peter sat up then, just able to see the sidewalk over the lip of the rooftop they were on. It was mostly empty, save for an older lady pulling a shopping cart full of groceries. "Mine said that too."

Katya sat up as well, to intertwine her fingers with his. "And did we?"

The woman pulling her grocery cart pulled into Delmar's across the street, probably to add something else to her horde of shopping bags. Just a normal woman, on a normal day. The police's radio frequency was particularly dull that afternoon. A younger kid walked by in a hoodie with the hood pulled up, but he loped like a preteen, and didn't look like he was going to start anything. Everywhere underneath them, and around them, everything seemed to proceed as normal.

"Yeah," Peter raised Katya's hand to kiss it. "I think we did."