A Sleepwalker
The Academic Decathlon competition was going well. Suspiciously well, actually. Peter had answered all his questions without accidentally quoting obscure Star Wars trivia, Ned hadn’t fainted mid-presentation this time, and Flash had only insulted the opposing team’s fashion choices once.
It was a good day.
That night, the team checked into a pretty standard roadside motel. The kind with buzzing lights, questionable carpet patterns, and beds that made you think twice about laying your face on the pillows.
Peter had a checklist he had to follow before going to bed. It was a very official, very Stark-approved checklist titled:
“Things to Do Before Bed So You Don’t Sleepwalk into a Bus”
(by Peter Parker, supervised by Tony Stark, edited by FRIDAY, legally monitored by Happy)
The checklist included:
Lock all windows and doors.
Set motion-detection override on phone.
Put tracking sticker on pajamas.
Tell someone, anyone, you’re going to bed in case you go missing.
It was a good system.
Unfortunately, it was also a system that only worked when he remembered to do it.
He meant to go through the checklist. He really did.
But Ned was already asleep, Flash was watching boxing videos at full volume, and Peter… passed out the moment his head hit the pillow.
2:46 AM.
Abe was brushing his teeth in the tiny motel bathroom when he heard it.
Click.
The front door creaked open.
“Guys?” he called. No answer.
He poked his head out—and saw Peter, barefoot, in sleep-rumpled pajamas, walking into the motel parking lot like he was in a trance.
“Peter? What are you—dude, it’s freezing!”
No response.
Peter shuffled onward, ignoring a “Slippery When Wet” sign and tripping over a parking block. He hit the pavement hard—shoulder-first, cheek scraping the concrete—and rolled right into a gravel patch lined with decorative desert plants.
“Oh my god!” Abe shouted.
2:49 AM.
Flash woke up to Abe shouting, “HE’S BLEEDING!” and immediately screamed, “WHO? ME?!”
Ned bolted upright, glasses crooked. “What?! Who’s bleeding?!”
Abe was half-carrying, half-dragging Peter back into the room, both of them scraped and disheveled.
“He was outside! He walked out! He didn’t say anything! He just—left!”
Peter stirred, groaning, now awake and very confused. “Wait… why am I full of gravel?”
Ned’s face went pale. “Oh no. You forgot your protocols, didn’t you?”
Peter looked down at his scraped forearms and bleeding knee. “I think I forgot everything.”
Flash pointed at him like an exorcist. “Why were you outside? What kind of weird nerdy vampire are you?!”
“Sleepwalker,” Peter muttered, wincing. “I’m a sleepwalker.”
3:12 AM.
MJ showed up in the hallway wearing plaid pyjama pants and judgment. “Is it true Peter tried to wrestle a cactus in his sleep?”
“No,” Ned said. “He lost to a cactus in his sleep.”
Peter sat on the edge of the bed with an ice pack on his head and Band-Aids all over his legs. “This is why Tony installed sleep sensors at the Tower. This is exactly why.”
“Doesn’t help you here,” MJ shrugged. “You’re in motel-town now. No FRIDAY to stop you from going full zombie.”
Peter groaned. “He’s gonna kill me for forgetting.”
“No,” MJ said, smirking. “He’s gonna upgrade your pyjamas with GPS and taser cuffs.”
Later, at the competition…
Peter limped into the classroom with a bandage on his cheek and a weird leaf stuck in his sock.
Flash whispered to Abe, “He’s like if a superhero and a Roomba had a very clumsy baby.”
Abe whispered back, “Don’t tell Peter, but I locked the motel door with three chairs and a mini-fridge last night. Just in case.”