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Peter was a good student. In the months since you had transferred to school and gotten close to your next-door neighbor, it was one of the first things you noticed -aside from his boyish good looks-. He was always the first to raise his hand to answer a question (if you didn’t beat him to it) while most students ducked down behind their stacks of books to avoid it, always helped any students if asked, and with grades usually ranging between high A’s and B’s it was no surprise he was almost constantly found on the honor roll list.
But with all that being said, you also noticed that for a good student…Peter often found himself in detention. A lot. Whether it be for consistently coming into classes late or just not coming to class period. Sometimes for days on end. And as good as his grades were when he did turn in his homework there was also a good amount of times he didn’t turn in any homework or it was turned in late.
Like the school project you two had been assigned and grouped up to do this past week.
–-
You had never been a big fan of group assignments on a count of the fact that no matter how well you did on your part of the assignment there was always the possibility that you could fail due to your other group mates mediocrity and lack of care in their work. This has, on more than one occasion, led to you doing group assignments by yourself in order to salvage your grade.
So, you weren’t exactly jumping for joy when the Chemistry teacher announced he would be assigning groups for the assignment. Going down his roster of names you could already feel the exhaustion, from the possible hours of missed sleep you were going to have to commit in order to pick up the slack of your unnamed groupmate, creeping into your bones.
“Final group: Peter Parker and Y/N.”
At the sound of your name, you picked up your head that had unceremoniously clunked down on the lab table in your despair. Owlishly you blinked at your teacher, processing the information, before turning to the left to stare at your partner. Eye’s meeting when Peter turned to look at you at the exact moment, a shy smile forming on his face as he waved. You grinned back.
–-
“How could you steal my favorite partner away from me!” Ned whined, his head down and cheeks pressed firmly against the cafeteria table to make a show out of his distress.
Glancing up from the book MJ lent you, you stared at his display with uninterested eyes. “Why are you complaining to me about something I, nor Peter, had a say in? You were literally in class when the teacher said he was assigning groups.” You replied, rolling your eyes before taking another bite out of your homemade sandwich. You still didn’t like the school’s food.
A smiling Peter approached the table with slow unsure steps as he noticed Ned’s slumped form and slightly flailing arms. Slowly sitting down next to Ned brown eyes turned to you and MJ in question.
“He’s whining about the groups you were assigned to in chemistry,” MJ mumbled, eyes never looking up from her book as she pointed a finger in your direction “and he’s sad she gets to have all your attention now.”
A light blush dusted over Peter’s cheeks as he stared at his friend in confusion. Sputtering in disbelief at the accusation, Ned’s head popped up to glare in MJ’s direction only to be met with a smirk and the bird flipped at him.
“That’s not it! It’s just not fair that the two best students in the class get paired up to work on a project together!”
“Like a power couple,” MJ mumbled. A loud cough rang out at the table as Peter chocked on the chocolate milk he was drinking, previous blush now back on his face and brighter than ever. Lightly elbowing MJ for her teasing and causing Peter’s chocolate milk coughing fit, you slid a couple of napkins his way.
“The point is that they’ll barely even have to stress over the work while I get stuck working with stupid Flash!” Ned whined, head falling back on to the table to resume his slumped over form. Rolling your eyes at Ned’s continued dramatics you decided to ignore for the rest of lunch. All you ever got paired with was slackers and you had never gotten this theatrical about the woes of it. Or at least not in public; behind closed doors where MJ silently listened to you bitch was a completely different story.
“So…” you started, taking Peter’s attention away from simultaneously glaring at Ned and MJ “did you want to hang out after school? Work on the project?”
“Y-yeah, definitely!” Peter grinned, shaky hand running through his curls “want to go to Queens Center? Sit in the food court or um the Starbucks and talk about it?”
“Sure, see you after school. I’ll wait by the front gates.”
Conveniently the bell rang out, signifying the end of the lunch period. Gathering your stuff and throwing a balled-up napkin at Ned’s head in the process, you headed for the door.
–-
You found, as per usual, that you didn’t have to wait long for Peter. It wasn’t uncommon for you two to walk home together after school since realizing you both were next-door neighbors but it still surprised you how he managed to meet you after school so quickly considering his last class for the day was usually on the other side of the building. Did he sprint? If he did, he never even looked like he broke a sweat.
Walking to the bus station you two began to fill each other in on the day’s events. considering most of the classes you had you shared together it was mostly spent rehashing incidents from class. It wasn’t long before you both found yourself struggling to catch your breath in the laughter that erupted between the two of you.
“Flash’s face…when his sleeve caught on fire…was priceless!” You wheezed, clinging to Peter’s arm to stay upright.
Peter shook with barely contained laughter, “I thought…his face when Ned poured the bucket of water on him was better!”
“He’s going to make Ned’s life a living hell on that project!” Ned’s theatrics at lunch didn’t seem nearly so dramatic now that you thought about it.
You were only a block away from the train when suddenly the ground shook taking you off steady footing and into Peter’s arms for balance, clinging to the sleeves of his sweater. The sound of maniacal laughter rang out and carried through the air as you both watched what looked like smoke rising in a distance.
“What the hell was that…?” You whispered, eyes squinting in a poor attempt to see what was going on.
Peter was already running before you had a proper chance to say anything.
“Peter! Where are you going!?” You shouted “The project!
Halting his sprint, he turned to look back at you, eyes looking around erratically. “Um…I-I just remembered that Aunt May needs me for something really important! I’ll stop by your apartment tonight to work on it!”
Speechlessly you watched him leave, confused by the sudden change in attitude. Shoulders slumping in slight defeat, already missing the presence of your friend, you continued your walk to the train station perking up only slightly at the thought of seeing him later that night.
Unfortunately, he never made it. The only warning in the form of a text at 10PM;
“I’m sorry, won’t make it tonight.”
–-
Moments like that went on for the next couple of days, Peter making plans to work on or discuss the project only to bail last minute, his excuses getting vaguer every time he opened his mouth. You gave him the benefit of the doubt the first couple of times because Peter was your friend and even more so because he was good; He was never the type to take advantage of another person not even for the smallest of favors. Hell, every time you let him borrow your notes, he thanked you with goods from Delmar’s Deli-Grocery.
But when there were only three days left before the project was due and still no sign of Peter you began to realize maybe your judge of character wasn’t that great. With a sigh you turned to the TV, barely taking in any of the information on the green goblin spider-man coverage. It had been going on for days and quite frankly you were tired of hearing about it. Grabbing the remote you turned off the news and tossed it on the couch with a huff, preparing yourself for one of the three all-nighters you were going to need to pull to finish the assignment on time.
--
“Can you please wait?” Peter shouted, running to catch up to your fast-paced stomping. “I want to apologize!”
Tired eyes turned to glare at Peter with fierceness. 2hours. 2 HOURS is how much sleep you got in order to finish the project on time, and by yourself no less! Peter was the last person you wanted to talk to this early in the morning.
“Don’t bother!” You yelled “If you’re worried about whether we have an assignment to turn in, don’t be, I got it done so your grade is intact. But leave me the fuck alone!”
Slamming your locker closed you stomped into your third period (chemistry) paying no mind to the other students watching you, too exhausted and filled with anger to be bothered with what your peers thought of your outburst. The sooner you turned in this project the sooner you could be done with it.
With a huff you sat in your assigned seat which, though two tables behind Peter, you suddenly decided was far too close to him. You could practically feel his eyes burning a hole into you.
“Alright,” Mr. Cobbwell started “before we start class everyone please turn in your group assignment
Assignment in hand you sluggishly made your way to the front of the classroom, not even bothering to acknowledge Peter as he stood with you.
“Good job guys, I can’t wait to see what you guys did.” Mr. Cobbwell praised
“Mr. Cobbwell, I didn’t help…”
Your weary eyes shot up in surprise, jaw falling slack as you watched Peter’s miserable form. What was he doing?
“I didn’t help with the project. She did it all by herself…” Peter turned to face you “I’m so sorry Y/N. I’m so sorry I made you do it by yourself, it was never my intention to make you feel…used.”
You didn’t know what it was, the sad look in Peter’s face, the heartfelt apology, or the exhaustion leaving you to raw and aware of all your emotions, but you found yourself tearing up a bit.
You had it right the first time…Peter was good. He was a good one.
While in the past you had no problem rating out a group mate who tried to slag by on your hard work, you had no actual intention of doing that to Peter. Maybe it was because there was a soft spot still in you for your friend or maybe it was because deep down you really wanted to believe something truly had come up to make it impossible to help. Whatever it was you had every intention of letting Peter get the grade. He…he didn’t need to do it…
Sighing Mr. Cobbwell stood from his desk and motioned to the door. “Let’s have a conversation in the hall, Mr. Parker.”
–-
It was around 4:30 PM when you finally got out of your after-school practice session. You were lucky, practice usually didn’t end until 6 or 7 PM but the minute your coach saw your exhausted face, falsely assumed it was because of sickness and sent you on your merry way only an hour in.
You were so beat you didn’t even bother to correct her.
In the empty hallway you sluggishly you trudged to your locker to grab your backpack, thankful for the lack of student chatter roaming the halls. The lack of sleep had turned into a throbbing headache you could feel behind your eyes and you were already dreading all the rush hour train chatter you were going to have to hear on your way home.
The sound of a Captain America PSA halted your steps. Looking around in confusion you followed the sound to an open classroom you had passed. It was a bit late in the school day to be listening to a Captain America lecture, right?
Taking a couple of steps back you peaked your head into the classroom you passed and had to hold in a laugh at the sight: a passed out Coach Wilson snoring to his heart’s content while slumped over Peter watched the PSA in boredom head-nodding lightly every time Captain America reminded him detention was a time “contemplate the wrong they’ve done” and to remember that “doing something bad…does not make you bad.”
Yeah…Peter didn’t deserve to be left alone to listen to that.
“Psst! Peter…” You called in a loud whisper. Thankfully he heard you the first time around and immediately turned to you at the sound of your voice. Good, you didn’t want to stand there whisper-shouting like an idiot any more than you needed to.
A fit of laughter almost passed through your lips at the comical wide-eyed look Peter sent your way. The snort was that came out was a little bit harder to keep in when he went so far as to point a finger at himself, as if to ask for clarification that he was the one you were calling despite being the only student in the room. He was adorable. You nodded your head before motioning him to come to you with a couple of flails of your arms.
Nervously Peter ran his hands through his hair “Hey…I didn’t expect to- “
“You wanna get away from here?” You cut in, carefree grin making its way to your face despite your fatigue. Owlishly Peter blinked at you, your word being processed -you assumed- before he cautiously turned to look at a still slumbering Coach Wilson.
“Come on he won’t even notice,” You urged “plus you only have 20min left in detention anyway.”
Crossing his arms Peter looked up at the ceiling in thought before cocking his head in the direction of the TV where the Captain America PSA continued to play. “I think Captain America would frown on that.”
Smirking you placed a defiant hand on your hip, “You gonna listen to a former war criminal or me, the girl who’s willing to buy you your favorite sandwich from Delmar’s store on the way home?”
Beaming Peter rushed to go grab his bag, careful not to disturb Coach Wilson’s sleep by running into a desk, before following your skipping form out of the classroom. Once by your side you linked arms with Peter, suddenly a bit more cheerful than drained, and grinned.
“So…what should we do this weekend?!”