Chapter Text
For an ex-HYDRA assassin and current vigilante, Peter could be quite stupid. Sure, he was good at school. Trig identities? No problem. Secret identities? That's where things got tricky.
The thing was, Peter's original plan was to never tell anyone anything. He was going to start anew, where no one knew his past. He was going to keep his life as Spiderman a secret from the world.
And then the Avengers found out about everything. Peter definitely had not planned for that, but it was okay. They were okay.
But Ned, Ned was a different story. Peter could never tell his friend about his life. He was sure that Ned suspected something, considering the fact that Peter would occasionally just vanish off the face of the Earth for a few days, only to reappear and go about his life like nothing had happened. And there was the fact that Peter lived with the Avengers, though Ned seemed more focused on the fact that his best friend lived with his childhood idols than the actual logistics of the situation.
Peter's new plan was to never tell Ned, and that plan was going along swimmingly. Until Peter had to go and screw everything up for himself.
The day had started off normal. He'd gone to school and Academic Decathlon practice, then gone out on patrol as Spiderman for an hour or two before heading back to the tower for dinner and homework. He had swung to the top of the tower after a night of muggings and car thieves, then climbed down a few stories until he got to his window. Stark always left it unlocked for him. He carefully climbed inside. It had been a nice night, and then he heard it.
"What the fuck." Right, Ned was coming over for the night, because it was a Friday and they wanted to do a campaign of D and D over the weekend. Which meant MJ was also there.
Peter did a flip off the ceiling and slid his suit off, trying to think of a way to explain the situation without telling his friends that he was Spiderman. "I swear this isn't what it looks like."
"Really? Because it looks like you're Spiderman, which is totally cool by the way. I was like fifty percent sure it was you," MJ said."It's nice to have my suspicions confirmed."
"I'm not Spiderman, I promise. I'm just," he tried to come up with something, anything, "testing out his suit for him."
"By climbing in through the forty-second window?"
"Yes." That was believable, right?
"Uh huh," MJ said, in a way that meant she definitely wasn't buying it. Peter tried to glare at her, but it was hard to be intimidating while he was trying to find a sweatshirt to cover himself up. Ned was sputtering in the corner, the dice he had been holding in his hand strewn about the floor.
"But you're scared of spiders!" He finally muttered. "You can't be Spiderman!"
"Oh my god!" MJ was completely wracked with laughter at this point. "You're Spiderman, and you don't even like spiders. That's fucking hilarious!"
"Oh shut up! They have too many legs."
"You totally need to go to my house so that I can show you my tarantulas."
"You keep tarantulas? Why?"
"Cause they're cool?"
"Wait," Ned interrupted, "does that mean you've been Spiderman this whole time? Since he first showed up?"
"Obviously, Ned," MJ said and scoffed.
"I'm not Spiderman!" Peter was trying to protest, but he knew he had already failed.
"And it's possible to not pronounce fresh avocado as free shavacado," MJ said. "Now can we please start our campaign?" Peter nodded enthusiastically, and Ned, still in shock, picked all the dice up off the floor. MJ was their Dungeon Master, and she had already set up the board with the mini-figures they had all painted at Ned's house a few weeks before. MJ liked to say that she only participated in Ned and Peter's nerdy things for their cultural significance, but she had been enthusiastic about the opportunity to paint small plastic figures. Although she had vehemently denied that fact the next day.
The campaign was a good one. Peter's tiefling wizard and Ned's dwarf fighter kept getting sidetracked helping small children find their mothers or pulling thorns out of a dog's paws, but MJ had long accepted that that was the ways things were going to go, and they had fun.
It was several hours later when MJ announced that she was going to go get Oreos from the kitchen, which left Ned and Peter together in the room.
"So do you lay eggs?" Ned asked, absentmindedly tossing one of his die into the air.
"What?"
"Cause you're Spiderman. Do you lay eggs?"
"No, Ned, of course I don't lay eggs."
"You climb up walls. I didn't think it was too far of a stretch," Ned said as MJ walked back in with three containers of cookies. She handed one to Ned and Peter and kept the other two for herself.
"What were you two talking about?"
"Nothing," Peter grumbled.
"Because if we're talking about the Spiderman thing, I have a lot of questions," MJ said.
"Not you as well."
"I'm sorry," she said, "but it's not every day you find out one of your best friends is a part-time superhero."
"This is shocking for us," Ned said, eating one of the Oreos. The crumbs dribbled down his chin.
"Well, it's shocking for you. I was expecting it." Ned cocked his eyebrow at her, and she teasingly scowled at him.
"Fine. How about this? You guys each can ask me one question, and I reserve the right to refuse to answer. After that, can we please let it go? Go back to our campaign and stop talking about it?" They both nodded.
"That sounds good," Ned said. "So do the webs come out of your body?"
"Ew, God, no. That would be disgusting."
"Terrible question, Ned, but don't worry. Now it's my turn. How did you get your powers?" MJ asked.
Peter should have expected that question. It was the most obvious question, the most logical question. It should be a simple answer. But it wasn't one answer, was it? It was the entire history of Peter. It was his time at the base, and the fear he'd felt when he was first alone, and May, and Ben, and Bucky, and Stark. It was knowing he was useless, and the rush of a kill. It was being fucked up, but trying to heal. He wanted to tell Ned and MJ everything, because they deserved to know, but he couldn't bring himself to do it.
"I'm sorry, MJ, but I don't think I can tell you that."