What the Hell is Up With Flash Thompson?
Peter Parker knows a lot of things. For one, he knows a few hundred digits of pi off the top of his head, because he was bored one day. He knows how to save people. He also knows his Aunt May is harboring a crush on their downstairs neighbor even though she won’t admit it. What Peter Parker doesn’t know is what the hell is up with Flash Thompson.
Flash and Peter were friends, once upon a time. That time being sixth grade, when they would pass notes in class and go to pizza shops after school. Until summer came around, hot and muggy and Flash never answered Peter’s phone calls. Peter assumed Flash was busy or maybe his family went on vacation; he knew the Thompsons had a lot of money, but they never really talked about family. Then summer ended and the New York autumn breezes blew Peter’s small figure forward along the walk to school, where Flash ignored his excited wave.
For a few days, Peter tried to say hello to Flash in the hallway or catch his eye in English class. Flash’s eyes would always slide right past Peter, melting him into shadow. Confused and stung, Peter blended into the larger student body. He (mostly) put the end of his and Flash’s friendship out of his mind, and, a few months into the school year, a new student ambled into Peter’s math classroom, where he was waiting to speak to the teacher before class started. The new kid shuffled over, next to Peter, looked at Peter’s dinosaur math pun shirt, and laughed. From then on, Peter Parker and Ned Leeds were best friends.
The arrival of Ned Leeds signified a change in Flash, once again, though Peter didn’t really notice this time. Peter would scan his eyes across his classmates, bored, and catch Flash’s gaze for just a moment before his eyes continued their wandering. Flash got a bit more boisterous in class, rushing to be the first to answer any question posed, and began engaging in loud conversations in the hallway and cafeteria. Usually, Flash was poking fun at one thing (or person) or another. Peter, absorbed in conversation with Ned at almost all times when they were not in class, never sees Flash’s eyes darting over to him, narrowing when Peter and Ned get extra excited about their latest LEGO set.
Which is why, two years later, Peter Parker was wondering what the hell was up with Flash Thompson.
***
A sharp hiss of pain and the slap of his hand against the back of his neck was initially the only outside indication that Peter Parker’s life had just changed irrevocably. Nobody even spotted the spider as it bit the kid lingering behind his classmates on their Oscorp field trip. After a short, nervous laugh, Peter ran to catch up with Ned, completely unaware of what the next few months would bring.
***
Peter Parker was really wondering what the hell was up with Flash Thompson.
When he woke up the day after the spider bite, everything changed; he was, first of all, the most ripped 15 year old he had ever seen, no longer in need of his glasses or contact lenses, and also shockingly hungry. Additionally, everything was just so much. He could hear May muttering over the eggs she was making them for breakfast, but he could also hear a kid screaming outside and somehow knew the kid was near his high school, an entire subway ride away. His pajama bottoms felt uncomfortably itchy and tight and the air was heavy. He wasn’t sure, upon reflection, how much of his discomfort was from his newly heightened senses and how much was a burgeoning panic attack, but it was still so much.
From there, Peter began paying more attention to everything. He couldn’t help it; he could feel a light tap on a desk across the school. Once he realized he was super, school actually proved to be very useful for honing his senses. There was so much noise and movement in any high school, let alone in a high school like Midtown, with compounds in beakers fizzing and Bunsen burners hissing while 2,000 students and 150 faculty members milled around. Peter learned to focus and isolate sensations while in school, which drew his attention to Flash for the first time in two years.
That’s not to say Peter and Flash had no interactions at all since seventh grade; Flash had become something of a bully constantly embarking on an ego trip. He raised his hand before teachers finished their questions (this was especially useful to Peter when he was trying to practice focus prioritization — learning to ignore unnecessary inputs in favor of necessary ones was very relevant to his forays into superhero-ing) and missed way more answers than he should have. When he got an answer wrong and another student answered correctly after him, Peter watched Flash glare at them and mutter threats. Often, he watched this because Flash was directing his ire at Peter. Apparently, spending most of class not focused on the teacher made Peter look like he wasn’t paying attention, and teachers liked dragging inattentive students into their (or Flash’s) line of fire.
Peter was largely able to ignore Flash’s antics until he became super. With his heightened senses and the sudden, drastic changes to his body, he was at least a bit more irritable and ready to hit back at barbs thrown his way. And, really, Flash was the only one who threw them. For a few weeks, Peter managed to brush Flash off. Then there was health class, and Flash made the brilliant connection between Peter’s name and its alliterative friend, "penis." This was, apparently, a delightful discovery for Flash. He began (verbally) pushing Peter more often, his confidence bolstered by the giggles of other awkward freshmen when he passed Peter in the hallway with a cocky nod and a shout of “Hey, Penis Parker!” Admittedly, “hitting back” mostly meant that Peter mumbled some creative insults under his breath while Flash sauntered away. He found a way to channel the energy he could expend on a fight into something productive instead.
Peter began “patrolling,” as he called it, which involved a lot of giving directions and sitting on fire escapes, listening for anyone who needed help. The knowledge he would soon be out on the streets, senses honed in on the trials of other people's lives, was one of the things stopping him from breaking his composure around Flash. That, and the fact that if Peter engaged in a verbal sparring match with Flash, it could very well end in a physical fight and Peter is so much stronger than other 15 year old boys that he’s not sure he could stop himself from hurting Flash badly, even though he wouldn’t have meant to. On top of guaranteeing an escape from his petty school bully, patrolling ended up giving Peter a lot of time to think. This day, he thought in particular of an experience during decathlon practice (which he joined at Ned’s request and consequently only stayed in for him). The afternoon before, he was making his way to the practice when he was sidetracked by a purse-snatching near the school. He heard a scream coming from almost directly outside the school, rushed to grab his suit, and put the robbery to a surprisingly quick and neat end. This is, of course, when he realized the crime was only a simulation, staged as part of a self-defense course that the teacher had decided to take outside as it was an unseasonably pleasant day. He stuttered an apology, disappeared into an alleyway, changed back into his regular clothes, then stumbled into the auditorium the team was practicing in, nearly twenty minutes late.
“‘Sup dickwad! Thought you got jumped,” Flash called from where he was lounging with his feet on an extra chair. Peter turned to him, a hard look on his face, and Flash winked at him, smirking as he settled back in his seat.
He… winked. This threw Peter off so badly, he didn’t remember to voice the (probably ineffective) comeback that he had been opening his mouth to say. He stared at the sandwich he was currently eating with his mask half pulled up, replaying the interaction in his head. He couldn’t admit to being the most socially adept teenager, but a wink felt like an odd thing to direct at the victim of your bullying. Especially when Peter remembers Flash winking at him in sixth grade when he and Peter would playfully give each other a hard time. Peter learned, over plates covered in grease and cheese and red pepper flakes, that Flash winked to emphasize the good nature of his teasing. He remembers listening to Flash ramble and tack on a corny joke, winking and smirking at Peter as they ate their pizza. He remembers how infectious Flash’s energy could be, and how spending time with him was almost exhilarating sometimes. He remembers the old Flash, more clearly than expected.
Maybe Peter was dwelling on the wink because it brought back memories he hadn’t revisited since he was 12. Maybe it was the confusing swell of something he felt in his belly when Flash had directed his attention to Peter the second he entered the auditorium. Whatever it was, it was distracting him on his patrol, and it was weird. He took an unnecessarily vicious bite of his sandwich.
Maybe the issue wasn’t that Peter didn’t know what the hell was up with Flash. Maybe he didn’t know what the hell was up with himself.