A Huge Nerd
It started with a debate about Star Wars.
To be fair, it wasn’t supposed to start anything. It was just Peter, Ned, and MJ sitting on the quad during lunch when Flash—passing by with a tray and an unearned sense of superiority—decided to loudly announce that the prequels were the best Star Wars movies and that anyone who disagreed just “didn’t get the politics.”
Peter blinked. Slowly.
“Flash,” he said, carefully setting down his sandwich, “do you even know what the Trade Federation was trying to accomplish?”
Flash stared blankly. “Uh. They had robots.”
“That’s not even close,” Peter muttered, already slipping into what MJ called his “soapbox voice.”
Five minutes later, Peter had stood up, drawn diagrams in ketchup on a napkin, and was passionately describing the flawed economics of the Outer Rim blockade, complete with voice impressions.
By the time he reached “the systemic failure of Jedi bureaucracy,” half the Decathlon team was watching. Betty had started recording. Again.
“Did he just quote an entire deleted scene?” Abe whispered.
“Yes,” MJ said, not looking up from her book. “Verbatim.”
But that was just the tip of the iceberg.
Peter Parker was, without a doubt, the king of nerds.
Not in the “wears thick glasses and snorts when he laughs” kind of way—though, to be fair, he did snort-laugh sometimes. No, Peter’s nerdom was deep. Personal. The kind that made people question if he’d been genetically engineered in a trivia lab.
Case in point: game night.
The decathlon team had decided to bond more—after almost losing Peter to both peppermint and lavender-related death—and organized a tabletop game night in Abe’s basement.
Peter showed up with a handmade dice vault, a binder labeled “Campaign Lore: Volume 1,” and three different sets of metal dice he had apparently forged himself in a mini kiln.
“You have a travel-sized kiln?” MJ asked.
“Technically it’s for melting circuit boards,” Peter said. “But if you crank it high enough and use scrap titanium—”
“Stop. I regret asking.”
By round two, Peter was in full character voice, referencing an ancient spellbook he’d made from tea-stained paper and hand-drawn glyphs.
“You are so painfully extra,” Betty whispered, equal parts horrified and impressed.
Flash quit halfway through. “This is nerd jail. I’m not doing math for fun.”
“Then you’ll never understand the art of arcane spellcasting!” Peter said, dramatically rolling a d20 and knocking over an entire can of Sprite.
Then there was the anime incident.
It was spirit week, and one of the dress-up themes was “Fictional Heroes.” Most people went the Marvel/DC route. Flash showed up as Batman. MJ claimed she was “a metaphor.”
Peter? Peter wore a lovingly recreated My Hero Academia UA uniform.
He even had foam Deku gauntlets.
Not because he thought it was cool. No. Because he related to the character arc of a powerless kid who wants to save everyone and ends up breaking his body to do it.
“I have literal notes,” he said, flipping through a tiny green notebook full of handwritten thoughts like ‘Episode 22 parallels my own growth as a vigilante’.
“You are Deku,” Ned whispered, emotional.
Peter wiped away a single dramatic tear. “Plus Ultra, man.”
But the moment that sealed Peter’s fate forever—the moment that turned his nerd status from “quirky genius” to “unquestionable king of the dweebs”—came in the form of a school trivia night.
It was supposed to be fun. Harmless. Just a fundraiser with snacks and music and some light questions.
Peter took it personally.
He showed up in a Midtown Science hoodie, hair pushed back like he meant business, and brought his own buzzer, “just in case the school ones had delay lag.”
The first five rounds were a blur of Peter destroying everyone.
He buzzed in before questions were done.
He gave bonus context when he answered.
He corrected the quizmaster’s pronunciation of “Heisenberg.”
By the final round, it was down to Peter and two terrified seniors. The audience was hushed. The final question came:
“What element is atomic number 119 and what is its predicted name?”
Everyone stared blankly.
Peter grinned.
“Ununennium,” he said calmly. “It hasn’t been synthesized yet. But the placeholder name is derived from the Latin roots for one-one-nine.”
Silence.
Then the quizmaster blinked and muttered, “Yeah… that’s correct.”
Peter just sipped his juice like it was no big deal.
The next day, someone taped a sticky note to his locker that read:
“PETER PARKER: SLAYER OF TRIVIA. WEIRDLY INTO SPREADSHEETS.”
And Peter? He didn’t mind.
Sure, he was a massive nerd. The kind of nerd who took apart toasters for fun, could recite Pi to 162 digits, and once tried to explain quantum tunneling during a fire drill.
But he was also their nerd.
The kind who fixed your laptop for free, built solar chargers for school field trips, and stayed up all night helping MJ turn her conspiracy zine into a proper encrypted PDF with a password so strong even Tony was mildly impressed.
So yeah. Peter Parker was a huge nerd.
And Midtown wouldn’t have him any other way.