And There Went Normality (Who's She?)
When the first episode landed, the world stopped turning. Or at least that's how it felt to one Peter Parker.
Mr. Stark had, in the previous days, been quite busy during their lab days, updating FRIDAY's systems for some major event, but he never would have guessed it was to make a Reality TV show with her cameras.
As a result, Peter had been out of the tower for a few days now, seeing primarily to his responsibilities as Spider-Man, and as High-School-Student Peter Parker. It had been a slow few days recently, which made sense. The Avengers were back in town, and everyone, even the dogs knew (trust him, dogs were usually smart and they saw EVERYTHING) that the Avengers were trying to stay on good behavior, and might do anything to get back into the public's favor. And that meant that criminal's decided to stop messing up lives for the week, or at least keep it on the down-low. As in, so down-low that FRIDAY might take a couple days to find them.
Of course, Peter loved that the city was safe, but it made patrol rather boring. And taking away lab days with Mr. Stark, cutting back on intern work (thank you Mr. Stark, for making that a real thing) and hyper-focusing on school projects. School projects which, much to the chagrin of his classmates, were turned in earlier than most of the others, and clearly high-quality.
Again, the perks of working with Mr. Stark was that he'd let you reuse his old stuff that he didn't want. Which meant a lot of cool tech!
Which also meant jealous classmates *aherm* Flash *aherm*.
And that was the reason that one Peter Parker found out about the new TV show.
Because of Flash.
Of course it was Flash.
Peter had been walking down the corridors of the school after his final class of the day, discussing (no, not legos, you basic doof) the different qualities of Thor's hammer and what it was potentially crafted from. It was a typical nerd discussion, both in the science aspect and the geeky fan-boy aspect, but who cared? They were at a nerd school, and thus allowed to talk all the science they wanted.
Or well, they should have been. One Eugene "Flash" Tompsen decided at that very moment to interrupt them, his eyes flashing (lol) as he glared first at Peter and than Ned. "Yo, Penny Parker, I have words for-"
"Me, maybe?" Michelle challenged, glancing up from her book with a cold stare. "Because I don't really care, Flash. Get your tail in gear back to your own business. Hint," She frowned. "It's not over here."
Peter sighed. "What do you want Flash?" (What? You think he's gonna let the guy go take out his anger on someone else?)
The taller boy turned back to him, brows furrowed in a heavy frown. "I wanna know why you're stealing tech from Stark Industries. I mean," He shrugged, playing it off like he was some kind of cool person, who was doing Peter a favor by confronting him. "I get it. You're an orphan who can hardly afford to buy lunch every day, but dumpster diving?" He smirked. "Well isn't that low."
Peter sighed. "I have an internship, Flash. I told you."
The other boy rolled his eyes. "Yeah, sure. And you work with Tony Stark of all people. Newsflash, Puny, everyone knows you don't work there."
Ned frowned. "Yeah? Well where's your proof."
For once, the bully didn't scowl or yell at Ned, instead turning his smirk to him. "What, you don't keep up with modern events, Deadward? It's all over the place," He crossed his arms. "After all, with their new show up and streaming-"
Peter started. "New WHAT?"
Flash only grinned wider. "What, you didn't know? Wow, Parker, it's a good thing you don’t have an internship; you'd miss anything and everything important. Duh, the new show they're playing? The one about the Avengers? The one were you definitely didn't show up?"
But Peter wasn't paying attention anymore. "Oh shoot, oh man! That's why Mr. Stark was updating FRIDAY! Oh gosh, how did I miss that?"
Flash, realizing that Peter wasn't paying attention anymore, but also knowing he had actually won this round, just smirked and walked away, leaving Peter with his two (only) friends to try and comfort him.
"Dude, you were probably just busy this week. I mean, that project you turned in during shop classes was really cool! I know I'd be busy trying to perfect that, not checking social media or whatever." Ned shrugged, placing a hand on Peter's shoulder. "It's fine. Besides, Mr. Stark was probably gonna tell you himself."
MJ rolled her eyes. "Yeah, nerd. Plus, isn't it kinda hard to keep up with local news if you're making it all the time?"
Both boy's turned to her in confusion, Peter paling even more than he already was. "What?" He squeaked. Ah, puberty in all it's glory.
MJ cocked a brow, but the simple gesture spoke volumes to the boys. "I'm not stupid, Parker, I know."
Quick Peter, play dumb! "About the internship? That's nice," Peter nodded breathlessly. "Because everyone else-" He sighed, running a hand through curly brown locks. "But that doesn't really count as saving the world, more like," He frowned. "Helping to help save the world? I just help build stuff and-"
MJ rolled her eyes. "No, I mean the other part." And congrats to MJ for being descrete as she held up one hand, posistioned in the signature Spider-Man webshooter posistion that somehow everyone in New York recognised.
"Oh, my gosh!" Peter didn't know the girl's name, or her voice, but her face would forever beseared into his memory as she cooed at them. "I didn't realize you spoke sign-language, Michelle! Oh, how cute!"
"What?"
Peter took the moment to calm his nerves as the two girls talked, mind racing as he realized what she had told him.
MJ knows, MJ knows, MJ knows! Oh shoot, MJ knows!
He didn't know when Ned steered him out of the building, but when he realized that MJ wasn't with them on their walk back to the train, he became worried. "Hey, dude, where's MJ?"
Ned gave him a look, but shook his head. "I'm going to let that slide, but only because she just dropped a bomb on you, so you were probably freaking out."
Peter nodded. "Yeah."
"She ran off back home," Ned jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "But I guess she didn't want to walk with us after what Nancy said."
Peter raised a brow, making his friend stop where he was standing.
"Dude! Did you miss that whole thing?"
"Other than MJ telling me who I am? Pretty much!" Ah, the prepubescent squeak.
Ned grinned like a lunatic. "Ok, this is great! I get to tell you myself! So apparently, this," He held up the same symbol MJ had, the Spider-Man hand position. "Is actually the ASL sign, for 'I love you'!"
Peter's face fell as his ghost fluttered out of him.
Ned grinned like a Cheshire Cat. "And Nancy apparently thought that MJ was sneakily declaring her-"
"Ok stop, stop!" Peter raised his hands before him, a bright flush making it's way across his cheeks. "I get it. Goes to genius school."
Ned smirked.
Running his hand through his hair, Peter let out a whoosh of breath. "Hopefully she won't tell anyone."
Ned cocked a brow.
"I'm screwed." Peter corrected himself.
Rather than dealing with the idea that the entire school would probably think he and MJ were a thing when they got back next week, that is, if Nancy was as bad a gossip as Ned made her out to be, Peter turned his attention to the elephant in the room. Oh forget it! It was Hulk in the Compound! A TV show? Really?
Kissing Aunt May's cheek at the door, and then running into his room, Peter booted up his computer and took to the Internet. The show proved as easy to find as he had thought it would be.
And man, as he played the first episode, was he worried as all get out!