Peter sneezed.
Ned squinted at him suspiciously but didn't change his gait as they continued towards the bus stop.
Peter sighed, sniffling a little as he kept pace. "You really didn't have to come over just to walk me to the bus, Ned," he pointed out for the third time that morning. It'd definitely been unexpected to see Ned at his door thirty minutes earlier, especially since he'd been over just yesterday afternoon and they'd be meeting up at school anyways.
Ned scoffed, shooting him a baleful glare. "Sure I didn't," he said sarcastically, taking a moment to gesture at - well, at Peter's entire person. "We've both seen how well you can take care of yourself," he jabbed derisively.
And that - such an insult - just wouldn't stand. Peter groaned feebly, ducking his head and giving Ned his best puppy dog eyes. Ned stared at him with an expression that rapidly shifted into disgust, and Peter's lips quivered as he tried to let out a dejected whimper to really sell it even though his lungs were very, very suddenly filled with an aching, intense desire to start uncontrollably laughing. Unfortunately, his pathetic whine cracked half way through, and he broke, guffawing loudly as he companionably rammed his weight into Ned's side.
Ned tried valiantly to keep a disapproving face even as he was nearly shoved right into the brick wall on his other side thanks to Peter's unwittingly strong shove, but his lips inevitably ticked upwards. This fact clearly made him more irritated than anything, since he jabbed Peter in the stomach with his elbow and scowled as soon as he regained control of his facial muscles.
Peter yelped, laughter ceasing abruptly as he clutched at his side and gave Ned a wounded look.
Ned sucked in a sharp gasp too, realizing what he'd done and quickly withdrawing his elbow to spin and face Peter full on, his hands flapping around helplessly. "Oh my god Peter I'm so so so sorry, dude - I completely forgot about your -" he glanced around quickly, and, noticing that a few fellow pedestrians were relatively nearby (and were definitely giving them weird looks), he lowered his voice and whisper-hissed, "- wound," before returning to just below normal volume and continuing, "Are you okay?! Is it bleeding again? Do you think you'll need stitches?!" voice continuing to rise in pitch with every panicked question.
Peter couldn't help it: he snorted, then snorted again at the look on Ned's face, giving a negating shake of his head. "I'm fine, Ned - I was just messing with you," he glibly admitted, snickering as he dodged a weak punch aimed at his shoulder. "It's completely healed already - just a lil' scar left," he explained, giving his stomach a solid pat for emphasis. And it was true: Overnight, the entire bullet wound had closed up with only minimal interference from Peter in the form of liberal amounts of Neosporin and a decent sized Hello Kitty Band-Aid (thanks, May).
Ned's lips pursed and his eyes narrowed, gaze intently studying Peter for a solid few seconds before his shoulders drooped and he let out a weary sigh. "You're not good for my heart, Peter," he halfheartedly complained, turning away and once more beginning to trudge in the direction of the bus stop. "I'm supposed to be six teen years old, not sixty. Gray hairs aren't conducive to that, okay? So stop giving them to me," he stressed, running an agitated hand through his solidly black locks of hair, unconsciously doing a very great job at undermining his own words.
Peter muffled another laugh, instead subtly coughing into his elbow. By the baleful glare Ned sent him, it probably wasn't half as inconspicuous as he'd intended, so he shrugged apologetically, breathed out sharply through his nose, and gave Ned a couple of sympathetic pats on the back. "'m sorry Ned," he tried, and he really was being sincere. Mostly. He still couldn't get his lips to stop quirking upwards, but - it was the thought that counts.
Ned sighed, the breath a full body movement, and waved him off with far more exhaustion than he ought to have so early in the day, coming to a halt in front of their stop just in time for the bus to pull in with a squeal of tires and a hiss of the brakes.
.
"How's your shot doing?"
Peter very valiantly did not go into cardiac arrest. Instead, he promptly choked on his orange juice, inhaling a generous amount of the drink before promptly attempting to eject both his lungs straight out of his body via violent coughing, juice spraying out his nostrils like they were two tiny, Avant Garde fire hydrants.
The epitome of unaffected as always, MJ merely raised an eyebrow, somehow conveying a rich mixture of disappointment, contemplation, disgust, and the faintest hints of what may or may not be minorly sadistic amusement. The contemplation, at least, was most likely for her sketch journal. Again. Fantastic.
"Geez, Peter, you alright?" Ned exclaimed, giving his friend a few hard smacks on the back as the brunette continued to splutter uselessly. At least most of the juice that'd come back out had ended up on his own plate instead of all over the table, even if that meant that his PB&J sandwich was now a soggy, orange juiced abomination of a mess.
Peter stared morosely at the remains of his now drowned food, giving a belated nod in response to Ned and fumbling for a napkin to wipe all over his face. He'd had just two bites of his sandwich. Two bites. Peter really felt like he deserved to have a good day by now, and this was really not giving him much hope for it.
Meanwhile, Ned seemed to take Peter's continued silence as tacit permission to answer MJ in his stead. "Uh, but yeah, MJ. Peter said he's all better now, from bein- from the shot," he responded, only fumbling a little. Peter was so proud of him. His boy, all grown up, managing to not spill any dangerous vigilante secrets or wrongfully implicate himself regarding some form of made-up infraction. Yeah, Peter definitely wasn't gonna be letting Ned forget about the porn thing. Ever.
Speaking of being better, though, Peter would rather not continue the current track of conversation, so he gave MJ a hopefully somewhat believable smile and a shaky thumbs up, his orange-flavored lungs spasming only a little.
Yeah. It could still be a great day.
.
.
.
It could not still be a great day.
Did Peter say it could be a great day? 'Cause if he did, he lied. Earlier-Peter was a lying liar who lies. Today was a not great day. Today was a bad day. A very, very, very bad day. So bad, in fact, that Peter's vocabulary had clearly regressed to that of a toddler.
"Ned. Ned. This cannot be happening."
Ned gave Peter an absent pat on the shoulder, clearly not giving this issue the dire attention it deserved. "Mhm, that's nice, Peter," he replied, watching Betty Brant stand from her seat and walk over to one of her friends to chat while they waited for their teacher to return.
"Ned, this is - this is bad," Peter emphasized, trying to underscore the dire importance of the situation even with his drastically reduced language capabilities.
"Yeah," Ned said idly, leaning his head against his hand and sighing dreamily as Betty let out a tinkling laugh and threw her head back with the sound.
Peter smacked Ned in the face with a wad of papers.
Ned let out an undignified yelp, reeling backwards and nearly falling straight out of his seat, clutching onto the desk for dear life until he managed to yank himself forwards, his chair landing back on four legs with a scraping thud instead of tilting precariously on the back two. A good chunk of the class took a few moments to stare at the boy before turning away again and resuming their chatter, their attention lost once the quick bit of drama was over.
Ned glared at Peter, snatching the stack of papers from his limp hand and setting them on the desk with a solid thunk of his palm against the surface, still scowling. "What was that for?" he hissed accusingly, gesturing harshly at his completely unmarked face.
Peter narrowed his own eyes, then gave an exaggerated, knowing glance in Betty's direction. "Well, maybe if you'd just listen to me, instead of making eyes at -"
Ned spluttered, turning red and immediately turning Peter's own papers against him, using the sheaf to swat repeatedly at Peter's chest. "I was not making - making eyes at her!" Ned exclaimed in a sharp whisper, giving Peter a few more whacks for good measure, the hypocrite.
Peter very graciously did not point out said hypocrisy, nor did he roll his eyes back into the far recesses of his sockets like he wanted to. Instead, he charitably agreed, "Sure you weren't."
Ned tossed the stack back onto the desk, throwing his hands up exasperatedly. Several loose papers fluttered down onto the floor, and Peter watched them go with a sense of forlornness. Those had been in order, before. And they didn't have any page numbers on them to easily put back in order.
Would it be too petty of Peter to think of this as an acceptable villain origin story?
He blinked back into focus as Ned snapped his fingers in front of his face, asking - with a tone of voice that implied he'd asked it already - "So, what did you have to tell me, then, that was oh so important, hm?"
Peter's gaze lit back up into righteous despair, and he grabbed Ned by his shoulders, ignoring the other boy's immediate alarm. "The Avengers," Peter practically dry sobbed, giving Ned a very-carefully-not-brain-jiggling shake.
"Oh, that," Ned replied, expression clearing. Then he frowned, obviously confused, the poor bairn. "What's wrong with that?" he asked.
Peter removed his hands from Ned's shoulders to smack them against his own face, dragging his palms down against his cheeks as he moaned in horror. "What's wrong with that?" he repeated incredulously, shaking his head in disbelief. "What isn't wrong with that!" he exclaimed, gripping at his hair.
Ned continued to not see reason, tilting his head as he tried and clearly failed to think it through. "I don't… it's the Avengers, Peter. I'm really not seeing an issue here," he admitted. His lips pursed in concern. "You sure you're okay?" he tried, looking like he was halfway tempted to check Peter's temperature.
Peter groaned, slumping, and turned back in his seat to face his desk, giving it up for the moment. "I'll explain after school," he conceded, lackluster, receiving a bemused but acquiescent nod in return.
Peter spent the following few minutes staring blankly at the little half-sheet form that was sitting innocuously on his tabletop just like it was on everyone else's - as if it wasn't an ominous sign of his impending doom.
Because, as much as Peter would like to meet the Avengers in some perfect fantasy world, he knew that getting up close and personal with a literal group of superheroes while being a secret vigilante - something that was illegal - himself was just asking for trouble.
And this slip of paper - asking for a guardian's signature of approval to allow students to go to the Avengers panel that had been randomly selected to be hosted at Midtown High School of all the schools out there - was basically a one way ticket to 'try your Parker Luck here and find out!'
Yeah, no. Hopefully, Peter could come up with a sufficiently plausible excuse not to attend.