My story begins on the school bus, on the first day of freshman year in high school. That year started off relatively normal, I guess. I was just sitting on the bus, listening to music, when Flash Thompson yanked my headphones off my head. My glasses came off with them, but he didn't seem to care. Jerk.

"Listening to music, huh, Parker?" I tried to take them back, but Flash's strong grip was too much for my skinny arms.

"Just hand them over, Flash. Please!"

He just laughed in my face. "Take 'em." He threw them on the floor and sat back down with his buddies. Man, if I were bigger, or stronger, I'd show him…

The bus coming to a stop knocked me out of the seat, and Flash and his friends laughed at me as they walked out. I grabbed my headphones and my glasses, then stood up and caught the eye of a blond girl, who gave me a sympathetic smile and looked away. I've made such a fool of myself… whatever, I have to get to class.

I checked my schedule and saw my first period class, biology. The teacher greeted the class at the start of the day.

"Good morning, students. My name is Dr. Otto Octavius, and I will be teaching you how life works this year, scientifically speaking. You'll be learning everything from how the brain thinks to the way spiders breathe. But that's for later on."

"Now, how about we say our name and something interesting about ourselves? I'll go first! Before I worked here at Midtown High, I used to work at Oscorp. Until I was… let go. Now, hmm… who's next… you, young man! Tell us who you are." Aw, man, he pointed at me.

I cleared my throat and stood up. "I'm, uh, Peter Parker, and um… I've won first place at Midtown Science Fair three times." I sat down quickly and looked around the room. I saw the classroom split equally amongst impressed, jealous, and not caring. Dr. Octavius was one of the impressed ones, but he just moved on with the icebreakers.

Class was over pretty quickly, but Dr. Octavius made me stay after class to talk.

"You said you won first place three times? With what experiments?"

"W-well, in sixth grade, I won with a potato-powered supercomputer. In… seventh, it was a perpetual motion machine. And, uhh… in eighth I did a baking soda volcano that wrote a message from a typewriter."

"Good God, Peter, that's incredible! Between you and me, you're probably the smartest in the class… Well, Peter, I'm looking forward to having you in my class, and I can't wait to see some more of your great experiments." I smiled.

"Thank you, Dr. Octavius." I left pretty quickly, but that conversation absolutely made my day.

As I walked to my next class, I wasn't as excited as I had been for science. As a matter of fact, this was the opposite of science. Phys Ed. Ew. I hated it with a passion! And what did it teach? Nothing! A complete waste of my time. Oh, thank God! I wasn't alone this time around. Harry was there, too.

"What's up, Pete?"

I ran up to Harry and high fived him.

"Run five laps around the gym!" Coach yelled. Great.

"So, Pete. You liking high school so far?" Harry asked through heavy breathing

"Kinda. Our science teacher's great. Hey, where were you? I didn't see you there. He called your name, though. Didn't sound too happy, either. He said he worked at Oscorp."

Harry nodded. "Otto? Oh, yeah. My dad mentioned him once or twice. Hates him. Never said why, though."

I looked surprised. "Hates him? How? He seems like the type of guy your dad would like. Very much a nerd, too."

Harry laughed. "Yeah, I suppose. Wonder what happened. Hey, we're taking a field trip to Oscorp sometime next week, pretty sure. That'll be awkward."

"Well, maybe someone else will chaperone. Don't we have a classmate that actually works at Oscorp? An intern or something?"

"I think so. Jen or Wren or something."

"Gwen?"

"Yeah, that's it. Gwen." Harry looked at me slyly. "Heard she's cute, too."

"Is that all you think about?" I shook my head and laughed.

"Hey, you two! Don't waste your breath on talking! You're the last ones running!" shouted Coach.

"Oh, jeez, we are. Alright, turn on the speed, buddy!" Harry left me in the dust. I attempted to follow him, but my body betrayed me and I had to slow down. I took a whole five minutes more to finish running.

I found Harry on the bleachers, so I sat down next to him. "You never explained why you skipped first period."

"Oh. Yeah, that was, um, my dad."

"Something happened to Norman?"

"Yeah. Apparently, this morning, he just… collapsed. I had to go see him in the hospital." And then the bell rang. Harry got up fast. "Let's just get to class."

The rest of the day was not nearly as eventful. Luckily, I didn't see Flash, but I didn't see Harry much, either. Looked like we only had a few classes together.

After school, I found my bus, but when I got on, there were no empty seats. I looked around, and the only seat that wasn't full was the one right next to the blond girl from earlier. I shrugged and sat down next to her.

She pushed her circular glasses up on her nose and spoke to me. "You're the guy who lost his headphones earlier, right?" She had a sweet voice, a bit low and quiet. "And by the looks of it, your glasses, too."

"Oh— yeah." I pointed over at Flash and told her what happened.

"He sounds terrible."

"Yeah, he is terrible."

"That guy's a junior. Shouldn't he have better things to do than messing with freshmen?"

"He should, but he doesn't. It was like this in middle school, too. By the way, he's a freshman, too. That imbecile has been held back so many times that he just got to high school!"

"Wow. Hey, all this talk about Flash, I don't even know your name."

"Oh. Sorry. I'm— Peter. Peter Parker."

"Hi, Peter. I'm Gwen. Gwen Stacy."

"Oh. You're the girl who works at Oscorp?"

"That's me." She flashed a brilliant smile.

The bus stopped moving, and my head hit the seat in front of us. As I rubbed my throbbing head, Gwen said this was her stop and she needed to get off. I got up to let her through, but the line of people moving through the bus (combined with peer pressure to not hold up the line) pushed me all the way out the bus. I didn't even have my backpack!

Gwen got out and looked confused when she saw me there. "This isn't your stop, is it?"

I shook my head and sighed. "No, it's not. Guess I'm walking home." And then I did. I could get my backpack tomorrow.

When I got home, my uncle Ben and aunt May greeted me at the door. "How was your first day of high school, Peter?"

"I don't know, Uncle Ben. I have classes with Harry, some good teachers, I made a new friend today… that's all good stuff, right?"

"Oh, honey, of course it is! That's great!" Aunt May crooned.

"But it doesn't feel great. I don't know…"

Uncle Ben looked over at Aunt May, and I think they had some kind of silent conversation with their expressions.

"Come on, kiddo, let's get you something to eat." Uncle Ben took me by the shoulder and led me over to the kitchen.

And pretty soon I went to bed, ending the first day of my story.