Jumper

Peter felt… conflicted. 

Was this a new sentiment to him? Oh, most certainly not. He has made peace with his constant state of inner turmoil and the never ending bouts of chaos that made up his life. However, he now had something new that he was conflicted over. 

See, when he started the day before last, it’d been normal - as normal as his days could be, obviously.

More directly, when his day had begun, he never would’ve even had half a smidgen of a mind to consider that it’d finish with him having met an Avenger, being finagled into having coffee with said Avenger, also being given said the man’s contact number, and finally having the soul-eviscerating epiphany that the Hawkeye actively thought Peter Parker was a suicide risk. 

Peter would say that Mr. Barton more so thought he was in danger of throwing himself off a building, but then that’d make the man actually right, so he wouldn’t be saying that.

Now, he let out a drawn out groan, the sound promptly muffled as he face planted into his mattress and exhaled all the air from his lungs, letting himself deflate and mold into the fabric like the sad, sad lump of human that he was. 

“Peter, you’re gonna be late for school!” May called, giving an accompanying rap against his door as she passed by.

“Mmmmph,” he succinctly replied, face adequately mashed into his blankets.

School.

The bane of every adolescent’s existence.

-

“Ned.”

“Yeah?”

“Ned.”

“Uhuh?”

“Ned.”

A sheaf of papers whapped against the side of Peter’s head.  

There was a pause.

“Ned.”

“What?!” Ned burst out, giving Peter a final, crinkling smack across the arm that didn’t even garner a blink from the very clearly out of it teen.

MJ squinted over in their direction, hand sliding towards her backpack, and Peter managed to snap back to himself with a full body shake, sending an undoubtedly weak glare at MJ before turning to give Ned his full attention.

“Ned.”

Ned made a sound that, coupled with his very specific facial expression, imbued the sense that he was strangling a scream.

Peter snorted, ducking away from Ned’s continued paper retaliation, managing to get out an, “Alright, alright!” that got Ned to lower his swinging arm, eyes still narrowed in suspicion. 

“It’s eight in the morning, Peter,” Ned said, a statement and reprimand in one.

Peter nodded sagely, adding, “On a Monday,” with sufficient comradery. 

Ned pointed his now thoroughly wrinkled wad of papers at Peter. “Straightforwardness,” he commanded.

Peter dipped his head in something of a bow. “Your wish is my command, my liege,” he simpered, making Ned exhale sharply through his nose.

A shadow fell over the duo, and Peter glanced up to see Flash standing in front of their desk, a look of something between disgust and pure incomprehension written across his face. 

“God, you’re such nerds,” he condemned in an emotion that could most closely be defined as disbelief, as if he couldn’t understand the sheer amount of nerdiness that was emanating from them as he shook his head in revulsion and turned away to find his seat.

Peter and Ned stared after him for a moment before slowly looking back at one another.

“This is the nerd school of NYC, isn’t it?” Peter questioned.

“Yup,” Ned agreed.

-

Class ended up starting shortly thereafter that interaction, so Peter had to wait until now - lunch - to finally spill the beans to Ned.

“Ned.”

“Start that again and see what happens.”

Peter shot his best friend a wounded look, poking his fork in his lunch tray lasagna. “You sound like MJ,” he complained.

Ned preened from around his mouthful of grapes, chewing and swallowing like the civilized teenager he was before responding with an eloquent and earnest, “Thank you.”

Peter snorted and rolled his eyes, waving him off. “Alright, though. I do actually have something to tell you,” he admitted, leaning in across his seat and gesturing for Ned to do the same, who did so with a faintly suspicious look on his face. Peter motioned for him to keep quiet, then, in a whisper-hiss, divulged, “I met an Avenger.”

Ned - who’d leaned in and had been intently listening as he brought his hand up to his mouth to munch on another handful of grapes like they were popcorn - gasped loudly and promptly aspirated on a grape that got sucked down into his esophagus with his giant intake of breath.

“Shoot!” Peter exclaimed in alarm, jumping over the table and whirling around to deliver several hard smacks to Ned’s back with just a dash of enhancement to them. He ignored the heads he could feel turning to eye the scene, and, on the fourth blow, the grape shot out of Ned’s mouth like a literal projectile, hitting Abe in the back of the head. On pure instinct alone, Peter ducked under the table and dragged a still wildly coughing Ned to the ground with him. 

Ned hit the linoleum floor with a grunt and a sad groan, desperately clutching onto his chair like a seasick maiden and thunking his head down against it. Peter valiantly resisted the urge to pull a face at the thought of how many butts had been there first. Instead, he gave Ned a few gentler, comforting pats onto his probably bruised back. The other teen groaned again, but, instead of giving the logical - if hopefully satirical - question of whether Peter had actively been trying to kill him, he instead stayed true to character and raspily demanded to know, “Which Avenger, Peter?”