found out by accident
If Ned Leeds was ever going to be certain of one thing in his life, it would be that he had no idea what was going on with his best friend these days and that is saying something because Ned Leeds would argue that he knew quite a lot about Peter Parker.
Ned knows that Peter is incredibly smart and that chemistry is his favourite subject. That he likes pickles and prefers for his sandwiches to be smooshed super flat. That he likes Star Wars more than Star Trek. That he moved in with his Aunt May and Uncle Ben when he was 8 after his parents died in a plane crash. That he still has nightmares about the day Ben was shot in a mugging gone wrong and that he still blames himself for the untimely death. That he pretends to smile and insist he’s fine so he doesn’t worry May because he thinks she’s been through enough.
Needless to say, Ned knows a lot of things and yet he feels like he’s watching a stranger take over his friend’s life.
Grief and loss can change a person, Ned was well aware. He remembers when his grandfather had passed away and the almost shell of a person his father had become for months as he coped with the loss. But just like he had been there for his father, Ned had supported Peter through everys stage of the grieving process and had been the shoulder for him to cry on and the floatie to keep him above water. He thought things were getting better and that Peter had finally settled into his new normal in the wake of his uncle’s death, but then he disappeared for a week (with The Tony Stark — at least that’s what May said, but she had no reason to lie) and ever since then he’d seemed to lapse back into Weird™ territory.
He didn’t think it was jealousy fueling the strange feeling in his gut. He was excited for Peter to have the Stark Internship. Being one of the few scholarship kids at Midtown and watching May work long hours just to make ends meet took its toll on Peter. Ned could only hope that the internship at Stark Industries would open doors for Peter that his friend hadn’t even seen as options before, maybe even help him get his foot in the doors of places like MIT.
So, it was definitely not jealousy that he felt. It was more of an uncomfortable hurt that Peter hadn’t told him about the internship — let alone that he had applied for one in the first place.
He missed the days when he and Peter would stay up too late building complex LEGO models until their fingertips were sore, talking about the latest Film Theory video, and generally not caring what the outside world thought of their friendship.
Ned couldn’t help but feel left out.
He looked at the nearly completed Death Star in his lap, the sounds of city life dulled by the closed window providing a background white noise to his thoughts. Peter had seemed excited enough during school and Ned had gotten his hopes up that Peter would actually follow through this time and they could spend some time together like old times.
Ned snapped out of the daze, realizing the cars honking and the general bustle of the street seemed almost louder for a moment. He glances back at the window —
Spiderman. THE Spiderman crawls across the ceiling, sending a web to the edge of the door with the flick of his wrist and a soft thwip so he can pull it shut. His feet make no noise as he drops to the floor and when Spiderman pulls off his mask, the Death Star tumbles out of Ned’s hands and crashes to the floor in thousands of pieces.
“What was that?”
Peter’s head snaps back to the door he just closed at the sound of May’s voice, “Nothing!” He yells, looking back at Ned and repeating himself in a panic, “Nothing.”
“You’re the Spiderman… from YouTube…” It’s not the most eloquent string of words, but Ned stands by his reaction to finding out his best friend is a literal superhero.
“I’m not —” Peter presses the emblem on his chest and the form fitting spandex loosens and falls away from his body, “I’m not—”
“You were on the ceiling,” Ned whisper-shouts.
“No I wasn’t — Ned! What are you doing in my room?”
“May let me in! You said we were going to finish the Death Star!” It’s hard to miss the flash of guilt on Peter’s expression and Ned feels a moment of vindication.
“Well you can’t just bust into my room!” Peter’s words hold no bite, especially not when he quickly kicks his suit under the bed to face the door seconds before May throws it open with an expression akin only to a kid who’s been caught with their hand in a cookie jar.
“That turkey meatloaf recipe is a disaster. Let’s go to dinner… Thai. Ned, do you want Thai?”
“Yeah—” “No!”
Ned glances at Peter as they speak at the same time, eyebrow quirked and Peter shifts awkwardly, “He’s… got a thing.”
“A… thing… to do…” Ned nods, grateful that May doesn’t call either of them out on their obvious lies.
“Okay… maybe put on some clothes.” May smiles, giving Peter a strange look as she closes the door. Realization clicks in Ned’s brain the second the latch clicks into the frame.
“Oh! She doesn’t know!”
“Nobody knows! Well, Mr. Stark knows, he made me that suit — but that’s it,” Peter rambles, pulling an oversized shirt over his head.
“Tony Stark made you that? Are you an avenger?” Ned gasps, watching as Peter plays with the sleeves hanging over his hands.
“Yeah… basically…” He reaches out the second Ned sways, “You can’t tell anyone about this, you gotta keep this a secret!”
“A secret? Why?”
“You know what she’s like! If she finds out people try to kill me every single night, she’s not gonna let me do this anymore, c’mon Ned, please…”
Ned holds back his wince. Spiderman seemed so untouchable when it was some random guy in a mask, but Peter was his best friend. He couldn’t imagine people trying to actually kill him. “Okay… okay okay okay okay… I’ll level with you…” He thinks about all of the things that he thought Peter could have been hiding these past few months, from the possible self destructive habits he could have picked up in the wake of his uncle’s death to the inevitable drifting apart that friends often go through. Of all the things it could have been, it turned out that his best friend was a freaking Avenger, not just reevaluating his friendship with Ned, “I don’t think I can keep this a secret, this is the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me! Peter—”
“May can not know right now, I can not do that to her…” Peter says desperately, his voice breaking, “I mean… with everything that’s happened to her… please…”
Ned thinks about his best friend, out there saving people without even an acknowledgement of the good that he’s doing in the world. How many lives Spiderman has already saved since pulling on the wide-eyed mask.
He thinks about the one life that Spiderman hadn’t been able to save and the weight of that life that’s bared down on Peter’s shoulders ever since.
“Okay.”
“Just swear it, please.”
Ned doesn’t even hesitate, “I swear.”