i was just on the pavement
For someone who was surrounded by bad luck so often that he’d given it a name after his own, Peter was somehow always underprepared.
He always forgot his toothbrush when he went to Ned’s house, he never had more than two pens on him during the entirety of the school year, and he was pretty sure he had just lost another backpack.
It was even well hidden this time; high enough that no one could just snatch it, and out of sight so it wouldn’t be suspicious that a school bag was covered in Spider-Man’s webs.
(That might’ve been the issue, he mused to himself, climbing in through his bedroom window as quietly as he could, he might’ve hidden it so well even he couldn’t find it.)
At least he’d had enough sense to keep his phone, wallet, and house keys on him (May wouldn’t be as understanding about him losing the only entrance into their home over his chemistry homework).
“Peter?” Speaking of May …
“Yeah!” He called, yanking his arms out of his suit triumphantly as he looked for a clean shirt. Or a slightly used one. Or the hoodie he’d worn six times that week. It always won.
He had just stepped out of his suit and into his sweatshirt when May was knocking and then cracking the door open. “You went patrolling right after school?” She asked, but it sounded more like an accusation.
Peter stood there, trying to give her his best ‘ I have literally done nothing wrong in my entire life ’ smile, slowly moving his discarded suit further away from him with a foot.
“…No?”
She leaned against the door frame, giving him a very Aunt May face. “Uh-huh,” He continued to smile, hoping that if he didn’t blink she wouldn’t see right through him. “Did you at least get any work done before?”
He opened his mouth, then closed it, puffing out his cheeks before answering truthfully.
He needed to be honest if he was going to patrol again before bed. That was the deal.
Unless the deal was ‘be honest AND do everything your Aunt says’, which sounds more like a deal May would agree to.
“I got all of my work done. It’s all in my bag,”
May hummed in approval, then paused, glancing behind him at his messy but otherwise empty bed.
She quirked an eyebrow at him. “And where is this bag you speak of?”
He pulled his mouth around for a second before pushing the words through his lips. “Anywhere between Mr. Delmar’s and…Brooklyn?”
She sighed through her nose. “Peter…”
“I’ll find it! I will definitely find it AND all the work that I did! Like, I bet I can totally hack into some security cameras—” He felt his teeth clack shut at the look he was being given. “Completely legally, of course!”
She shook her head, huffing out a laugh and pushing herself off the wall. “You’re lucky you’re a smarty pants in school, or else I wouldn’t ask Stark to track your bag every time you lose it,”
He scrambled after her, stopping himself from sliding all the way into a wall with his socked feet. “Wait no! Don’t bother Mr. Stark with this! He’s very busy ,”
“Peter, that man spends his free time building robots out of toaster ovens, I think he can spare me a text conversation,”
Peter paused in his frantic pace behind his Aunt, frozen on the spot. “You guys… text ?”
She turned to look at him, her back just touching the counter. “I’m not a dinosaur. I know how to text,”
“Well yeah,” He tugged at his earlobe, glancing at her open computer on the couch. She was probably going through her emails when she heard him come in. “It’s just, Mr. Stark doesn’t text me ,”
“Aw, sweetie,” She glanced up at him before looking back down at her phone, her fingernails clacking against the screen. “You just send him Iron Man memes and TikTok’s. I wouldn’t answer either,”
“Rude. My TikTok’s are hilarious. I think Mr. Stark is just a dinosaur,” He picked at his hoodie strings as he wandered into the kitchen for a snack. “I’m allowed to say that, he’s definitely older than you,”
“You’re on thin ice, pal,”
“And I’m a great ice skater,”
“Okay, Mr. Hockey-Pro,” She turned to lean on her elbows, watching as he dug around in the cupboard, emerging with a box of tea and half a sleeve of crackers. “Do you want Thai or Pizza tonight?”
“I thought we were making pasta?” He said, but it came out more like ‘I fut we wer miking pustah’ around the crackers shoved into his mouth.
May gave him an unimpressed look, checking the time from the oven clock and grabbing a menu from the pile next to the coffee machine. “Just in case,”
“Juft im cashe,” He agreed, solemnly, and she threw the laminated paper at him, laughing when he caught it with a hand, waving it around a few times to release his sticky fingers.
The next morning, his backpack was sitting next to his desk, a note on top of it taped in Mr. Starks scrawl. ‘ Don’t lose your shit again ’ it said, and Peter smiled, planning on his next hiding spot as he ran to catch the train.