Chapter Two
Peter Parker had officially been at Midtown for a week. Students still weren't sure what to make of him. He was nice, really nice.
He was friendly with anyone who approached him, his smile literally lit up the room. He was willing to help out anyone who asked.
And teachers loved him, he was incredibly smart and contributed to the class. Even the Ap Physics teacher, who hated everyone, spoke with Peter before class every day.
His friend group, however, was strange. Many people were itching to be friends with him. Though he stuck with Ned Leeds and Michelle Jones.
To many, Ned Leeds- to be blunt- was a loser. He didn't particularly have many friends. Though there was that one time sophomore year where he managed to score Betty Brant. But they broke up and reverted to acquaintances.
He was a nerd and that was saying a lot since this was a STEM school. He also got picked on quite a bit by a certain posse in the school.
Some would call hanging out with him social suicide, but Peter didn't care. He wasn't looking to be friends with the popular kids who wanted to leech off him.
And Peter was quite nerdy as well. They had a lot of the same interests, their friendship came organically.
The other person he talked to the most was Michelle Jones. Which was shocking. Michelle had kept to herself ever since freshman year. She read at lunch instead of talking to anyone. She was incredibly pessimistic, which was the opposite of Peter's bubbly personality.
She had pretty much been an outcast her entire high school career, much to her pleasure. Despite this, she was definitely going to be voted 'most likely to succeed,' during their senior superlatives. She was a natural leader and had all the qualities to be a force in whatever line of work she went into.
She could be weirdly charming though. She took over as captain of the decathlon team after Liz Allen's father got arrested by Spiderman. The team begrudgingly respected her. And some people (Brad) had hopeless crushes on her.
Her glare was scary enough that most people didn't try to approach her. But Peter did so, and she was actually open to it.
Watching them eat lunch together was weird, but it also made a lot of sense.
…
“So how is school going?” Aunt May asked him over Thai food.
“Uh, really good actually.”
She raised an eyebrow, “What does good mean? You told me your other school was good and you were getting bullied and treated like a liar.”
He winced, he hated lying to her, but he felt like he had to. She was doing so well to raise him alone after Uncle Ben died, but he could tell she was struggling more than she let on. He didn’t want to burden her anymore, he knew she would be hard on herself.
When he met Tony May was skeptical but after a while, it was clear the billionaire cared for him, and May began to trust him. Getting suspended was hard on him but May and Tony were furious. He didn’t even have to lift a finger, they had it all taken care of. He was grateful to both of them. They both had done so much for him.
By now, both he and May considered Tony as family.
“It’s actually really good. Everyone is really nice, there are some people that aren’t but they haven’t done anything to me. The teachers are great too. I’m acing all my classes so far.”
“Of course you are,” May rolled her eyes, “There was no doubt.”
“I thought it would be worse that everyone knew about me and Tony but it’s not that bad. The hype died down after a few days. It’s still there but people just whisper about it. It’s a lot better than being called a liar by the whole school.”
She shook her head, “The staff was so incompetent. How are your new friends, Ned and Michelle right?”
“Yeah, they’re great. Ned and I are getting really close, we’ve been talking about having a Star Wars marathon sometime soon. And Michelle is so cool, she’s really smart and pretty, but she’s also terrifying.”
“Don’t let your boyfriend hear all that.”
He chuckled, “I don’t mean it like that. I think Gwen would like her, I should introduce them.”
Gwen was his only friend from his old school. He was sad to leave her but she would be thriving without him. They still texted a lot.
“I’m joking. But I can’t wait to meet them both. You better not lose any more backpacks this school year mister. But you have a job so you can buy all the backpacks you need.”
He laughed, when he first started going out as Spider-Man May was so confused about why he kept ruining and losing backpacks. And he was a terrible liar when it came to her. He didn’t know how she believed all his excuses.
He was a decent liar around anyone else, and his skills have gotten better hanging around the Avengers. They may be good guys but they could lie their asses off. Even Cap.
“You haven’t been going over to Tony’s recently, anything going on?”
“No, he just had a last-minute business trip. I’m still not sure when he’ll be back. He’s really busy, we haven’t been able to call.”
“He must be dying to hear all about Midtown.”
“He texts me whenever he gets the chance to.”
“Who knew Iron Man would be such an overprotective dad?”
Peter’s cheeks flushed red, May always joked about Tony being dadlike to him but he never really commented on it. He wasn’t sure how to feel about it.
He was too scared to address those feelings for now. He didn’t know if he ever would.
He was just living in the moment for now.
Right now, he was just enjoying laughing over Thai food with May.