Archive of Our Own

Here’s the thing: Eugene “Flash” Thompson may be many things, but despite what some people might have to say on the matter, he was not an idiot.

He hadn’t gotten into one of the most competitive schools in New York by floating through his classes. His grades were actually well above average, even if they still measured up as lower than many of his classmates, who also went to the aforementioned ridiculously competitive school that he did. Also, he was on the academic decathlon team. As an alternate, but still. He hadn’t done that by sitting around doing nothing all day.

So yeah, not an idiot. That being said, Flash was pretty sure he was smart enough to say that there was something seriously strange happening on their school trip.

As he sat in his seat on the tour bus in London, bored out of his mind, he went over the trip, trying to find any logical explanation for the whole situation.

There was the water monster attack in Venice and the fire monster attack in Prague, and that was weird enough on its own. They had gone to exactly two cities, one of which wasn’t even supposed to be on their itinerary, Mr. Harrington, and somehow an otherworldly monster had ended up attacking them while they were at both? Flash wasn’t in statistics but he was pretty sure the odds of that happening must be slim to none.

And then there was that Mysterio guy. Some dude in a fishbowl hat shows up and destroys a couple of elemental monsters and suddenly he’s the new greatest superhero? Flash wasn’t even sure where to start there. Yeah, superheroes appearing out of nowhere and saving the world was becoming abnormally common. That didn’t mean he couldn’t be a little suspicious.

Also, Spider-Man was still cooler.

Which reminded him, who the hell was that Night Monkey dude? Betty claimed he was a Spider-Man rip-off, but Flash was pretty sure that he watched all the Spider-Man accounts carefully enough (borderline obsessively, if he was being honest) that he would have known if there was a second Spider-Man swinging around Europe before the guy saved his class from another monster attack.

Whatever. Nothing made sense anymore. It hadn’t for a while. Their trip was nearly over anyways, and he doubted anything too dangerous could happen on a bus tour of London.

Flash glanced up and did a quick scan of his surroundings, confirming that they were still stuck in traffic on the bridge. Yep. Nothing new. Well, except for the massive dark cloud that had formed at some point in the last two minutes and was now hanging over half the city. That was new. And a little foreboding.

While Flash stared at the cloud suspiciously, Betty, sitting next to him, mumbled “Is this safe?” A gust of wind shook the entire bus and thunder rumbled in the distance. “This doesn’t feel very safe.”

In the coming minutes, as it became very clear that this was absolutely not safe, as they ran off the bus and off the bridge like their lives depended on it (they did), as it became clear they were witnessing another elemental begin its attack and seriously what were the odds of this happening again I want to know, as he found himself barricaded in a vault with three of his classmates and some random guy with a beard who worked for Spider-Man while they were hiding from killer drones, all Flash could really bring himself to think of under the panic of ohmygod we’re all about to die this is not how I want to die pleasepleaseplease don’t let this be how I die was a solid, tired and completely fed up what the hell.

Yeah, there was definitely something suspicious happening here.

Later, once the drones had been deactivated and the city had determined there was no longer cause to be on lockdown, and once their class had gotten some time to regroup and recover from their third near-death experience in as many days, Flash found himself waiting in an airport, finally on the way home from what was possibly the worst school trip in the history of the universe.

Flash should have been relaxed. After all, the threat of the elemental monsters was gone forever, probably, and all they had left to do was get home, a task that shouldn’t be that hard.

The thing was, it was kind of hard to relax with about three hundred questions bouncing through his head, starting with what the fuck just happened, and it was even harder when he had a feeling that nobody was going to answer them for him. Not beyond a shrug and a superheroes, man, at least.

So Flash was taking things into his own hands. Starting with the people he had recently found himself locked in a vault with in decidedly unordinary circumstances.

 “Hey, Betty,” Flash hissed.

Betty, sitting in one of the oh-so-uncomfortable chairs at their airport gate, frowned as she put her phone down to look at him. “What, Flash,” she said, sounding more annoyed than Flash thought she had any right to. They had shared a near-death experience like, twelve hours ago. Wasn’t that the sort of thing that was supposed to bring people together?

Flash dropped into the seat next to Betty and turned to face her. Betty’s nose wrinkled, like she had been hoping he wouldn’t make himself comfortable. He decided to ignore the gesture. This was a serious situation. “Do you think it’s strange how often we nearly die on field trips?” he asked.

Betty continued to frown. “Is it really that often?”

“Yes, it is that often!” Flash said. “Three times on this trip alone, plus that time in Washington, not to mention when we tried to go to MOMA”—

Betty made a stop gesture with her hand. “Hang on, I wasn’t even at Washington”—

“Yeah, well I was and so were like five other people”—

“And you can’t just count MOMA because that wasn’t specific to our field trip, everyone in the known universe was affected by the blip.”

“That’s why I said not to mention it, Betty!” Flash snapped. “It’s still weird.”

Betty continued to look at him doubtfully. “What’s your point?”

“Well,” Flash started, then stopped. He wasn’t entirely sure what his point was. “It’s weird.”

“Weird things happen all the time,” Betty said matter-of-factly. She wasn’t wrong.

“Yeah, but this was extra weird.” Flash insisted. “Those drones were targeting us specifically. Spider-Man sent someone to find us! That’s not normal weird!”

Flash thought that maybe he could get over the complete insanity that had been their vacation if it wasn’t for that one detail. When the attack had started, the rest of their class had found an abandoned shop to hide in and made it through the entire ordeal with only a few scratches all around. He, Betty, Ned, and Michelle had been chased through half of London and into the crown jewels vault by murderous drones that hunted after them like it was their sole purpose.

“Also,” Flash said, heating up because he had had way too much time to think about this last night, “That guy who was with us didn’t even explain what was happening! He just dropped us off with everybody else and ran off! It was like he was specifically avoiding answering our questions.”

“Maybe it was just your questions,” Betty said. “Because you’re annoying.”

“Hey!” Betty looked like she was about to go back to her phone, so he tried one more time. “C’mon, you have to admit this entire”—he searched for the right word and came up completely blank— “thing was kind of insane, even for us. There’s gotta be some kind of explanation!” At least, he hoped there was one.

Betty stared at him for a disconcertingly long time, and Flash fought the urge to break eye contact. Behind Betty, on the far wall, a television blared coverage from yesterday’s attack, a reporter gesturing at a picture of a broken drone and jabbering on about Mysterio’s deception. Flash absently wondered if they’d seen the drones that had gotten to the vault, and what they’d made of that.

Finally, Betty sighed. “Okay. Fine. What do you want?”

Flash blinked. “Wait, you believe me? You think something’s up?”

“Not particularly,” Betty said, perfectly blunt. “But it’s obvious you’re not going to go away until I agree with you.”

Okay. Not exactly what Flash wanted, but he’d take it. “So will you help me?”

Betty groaned and slouched back in her chair. “If it means you’ll go away, yes.”

“Okay, awesome,” Flash said, ignoring her general rudeness because he was just that mature when it came to important things like this. “So I need you to talk to Ned and Michelle and see if they maybe”-

Betty looked at him sharply, and something vaguely dangerous sparked in her eyes. “I’m sorry, you want me to what?”

Flash blinked, slightly unnerved. “I need you to talk to Ned and Michelle,” he repeated slowly. “They were with us. They probably could help us like, figure out what’s going on, or maybe they even have some ideas of their own.” He got the feeling that at least one of them would also be suspicious. He’d heard MJ talking about conspiracies and murder cases enough times that he thought she’d appreciate that they were basically living in one now. As for Ned, well, as little as they interacted with each other, Flash knew he was smart. He’d probably have some theories, Even if they were ridiculous.

“You’re telling me,” Betty started, leaning forward until suddenly they were very much in each other’s personal space, “that you just came over here and interrupted my episode of Parks and Rec so that you could get me to talk to a completely different person about your conspiracy theory?”

Oh. So he’d messed up. “Can you do it?” Flash asked again, then added hesitantly, “Please?”

“Flash,” Betty said, somehow reaching new heights of exasperation. “Do it yourself.”

“I can’t do it myself!” Flash complained. “They’re not gonna talk to me!”

“Figure it out.” Betty had turned back to her phone and was unraveling a pair of headphones.

“C’mon, isn’t Ned your boyfriend?” Flash tried. He was not talking to Ned and MJ. Ned always gave him these looks whenever he got too close and MJ was possibly the most terrifying person he had ever met. “I’m basically just asking you to go talk to your boyfriend.”

“Sorry,” Betty said, tugging at a knot in the headphones. “I’m just so busy right now.”

“Betty, please.” Suddenly, inspiration struck. “I’ll buy you a frosty at that Wendy’s over there!”

“Frosties are like eighty cents. Try harder.”

“Betty.” She ignored him. “C’mon, Betty. I can get you something more expensive than a frosty, or like, I can probably just get you straight-up money, I have so much money, I will literally pay you to talk to your boyfriend, that’s a pretty good deal”—

“Oh my God!” Betty ripped her headphones out. “Fine!”

“Really?” Flash said. Hoped bloomed in his chest. Okay, this would work. Hopefully he hadn’t just bribed his family’s entire fortune away.

“Yes, really.” Betty said as she stood up before turning and frowning at him. “Now get up. You’re coming with me.”

“I’m doing what,” Flash said.

“Don’t be a baby,” Betty responded, none too kindly. “I’m not doing all your work for your weird conspiracy for you. Get up.”

“No, Betty,” Flash said even as he scrambled out of his seat. “No. This is a bad idea. You don’t need me.”

Betty eyed him dubiously. “If we have to talk about this, we’re doing it together,” she said. “All four of us, and we’re certainly not leaving out the person insisting on talking in the first place.” She grabbed her bag from the floor and started walking. “Now come on. I think I saw them in the food court earlier. I want to get this over with.”

Flash held back a groan. “Betty!” he tried. Betty wasn’t listening. She was making good on her intent to get their talk over with by pressing through the airport crowd with the single-minded intent of a tiger about to go in for the kill.

“Come on,” she called, not even looking back, and the edge in her voice had him running to catch up with her, almost as terrified as when those drones had first caught up to them.

Flash Thompson was not an idiot, and at the moment that meant that he knew this situation was officially out of his hands, and that the best thing to do was to follow Betty before she bit his head off.

Ned and MJ were in the food court, just as Betty had predicted. She had gotten to their table about ten seconds ahead of Flash despite his attempts to catch up, and was now standing next to the pair and talking too quietly for him to hear, though he could certainly see her wave her hand in his direction in a decidedly irritated fashion before crossing her arms. Flash got the feeling he didn’t want to hear what she was saying.

“Hi, Flash,” Ned said as he came up, and yeah, there was the look. In the seat next to him, MJ propped her chin up on her fist and glanced between him and Betty.

“So, what’s happening?” she asked, sounding like she might be mildly interested in the answer.

Flash opened his mouth to explain, too late.

“Flash has a conspiracy that he wants to talk about,” Betty said, which was not the way Flash wanted to start this conversation.

“I don’t have a conspiracy,” Flash said hastily. “I just think we need to talk. About yesterday.”

“What about it?” MJ asked while raising an eyebrow, the picture of coolness. At the same time, and with the exact opposite inflection, Ned blurted, “I don’t think there’s anything to talk about from yesterday.”

“Good luck convincing him of that,” Betty said as she sat in the seat next to Ned. “He’s basically impossible to reason with. I tried.”

Flash sat down next to Betty, resulting in a dirty look from her that he ignored. It’s not like there were any other open seats at the table anyways. “Okay, no, listen. Something’s up, and it must have to do with us. There were attacks in every single city we visited, and yesterday those drones were out to get us specifically. There’s no way it was a coincidence!”

There was a moment of silence at the table, which featured Betty looking bored, Ned looking like he was two seconds away from vomiting, MJ with her signature completely unreadable expression on her face, and Flash desperately hoping that someone at the table has the sense to listen to him.

Ned broke the silence, speaking in a rapid flurry of words. “I don’t know, personally, I don’t think that we should rule out the option of a coincidence, I mean life is pretty weird so”—

“Yeah, see!” Betty jumped in. “Coincidences! Happen every day!” She leaned back in her chair and folded her arms like the matter was settled while Ned smiled at her and said “Thanks, babe.”

“Okay,” Flash said. “No. Complete wrong conclusion to gather, and also I was not done talking”—

“Uh,” said a new voice off to the side. “What’s happening?”

The entire table turned to look at the newcomer, and Flash felt his jaw drop against his own will.

Peter Parker stood next to the table, holding a tray of drinks from the airport’s Dunkin’ Donuts and looking at the scene in front of him with a mystified expression.

“Heyyyy, Peter!” Ned said, sounding downright panicked. “Everything’s fine! Do you want to go talk about that—uh, that thing, over there maybe”—

“No,” Flash said, jumping in before the conversation could become totally sidetracked and he lost what he was pretty sure was going to be his one chance to actually talk to these people. “Absolutely not. You don’t need to be here, Parker.”

Peter cocked his head to the side and glanced between Flash and everyone else. “I don’t need to be here… at the table all my friends are at?”

“Trust me, you don’t want to be here,” Betty said. “You should get out before Flash decides you play some role in his conspiracy too.”

“Conspiracy?” Peter’s brows screwed together. If his presence here wasn’t so potentially disastrous, Flash might have laughed.

“He thinks someone’s trying to kill us because of all of that stuff with the drones yesterday.” Betty sounded awfully nonchalant about the whole thing, seeing as that was exactly what had happened.

Peter’s eyes widened. “Wait, there’s a conspiracy about that?”

“It’s not a conspiracy!” Flash snapped, because first off, this wasn’t a conspiracy, and second, if it was, he didn’t need Peter Parker of all people to be part of it. “Parker, this has nothing to do with you!”

Peter’s mouth opened. Closed. Finally, he seemed to work out how to talk. “Do you want me to—should I leave?” he asked.

Flash opened his mouth to respond, only for MJ to beat him to it. “Actually, I think Flash is right. You don’t have to worry about this.” She was propping her chin up in her hands and still had that completely unreadable look on her face and Flash was about to lose his mind.

Peter’s eyes flicked between all of them. “Okay,” he said uncertainly. “I’ll do that.” He glanced at MJ. “Should we, uh, should we talk later?”

“Yes,” MJ said. “Definitely.”

“Okay. Have… fun.” And then he left. Flash felt like he had missed something.

“MJ,” Ned started.

MJ didn’t let him finish. “I think that we should hear what Flash has to say.”

 “Really?” Ned squeaked, and Betty echoed him. Flash felt the urge to do the same, honestly.

“Yes, really,” MJ said, and turned a look on Flash that gave him the feeling she was about to mentally attempt a dissection of his brain. He tried not to look too outwardly terrified. There was a reason he’d wanted Betty to do this. “I want to know what’s going through his head.”

This was so not worth it, Flash thought.

Betty gave MJ a disappointed look. “I was counting on you to shut him down, MJ, not give him another opportunity to talk.”

Okay, that was enough. “C’mon, Betty, there’s no way that episode of Playgrounds or whatever was that good”—

“It’s Parks and Recreation, first off, not Playgrounds, and secondly, I’d like to see how you’d react if I had dragged you away while you were in the middle of one of those ridiculous vlogs you’re always doing!”

“Let’s try and get on with this before the plane leaves,” MJ said, cutting them both off from what would most likely have become a long argument. She pointed a finger at Flash. “You. State your case. Introduction, main points, conclusion. Just like in freshman English.”

“What?” Flash asked.

“We’re doing a speed run. I’d like my coffee to still be warm when I get to drink it.”

“Um.” Flash said. He tried to shake the feeling that he was about to give a presentation in class and had forgotten all his note cards at home.

“Okay, uh, we nearly die a lot,” he said finally. A solid introduction, he thought, with a strong hook. MJ must have thought so too, because she just raised an eyebrow and waited for him to continue.

“There were those monsters that showed up in every city we visited, which was not a coincidence, first off,” Flash started. “And even if that was, then there’s no way the drones chasing us halfway through the city and into the royal vaults also was.”

“Weirder things have happened,” Ned said. MJ shot him a look, and Flash ignored them both. He was finding his stride and was not about to let them throw him off.

“So that, and like, our entire trip is one thing, but that’s not even the first time something like that’s happened. You guys remember DC, right? We nearly died there too!”

“Not all of us went to DC,” Betty mumbled rebelliously. Next to her, Ned paled. Flash plowed on.

“And there was also that guy who was working for Spider-Man!! How’d he know where to find us? How did he even know we needed help? Spider-Man must have told him, but we’re just some random kids! How did he know?” Flash sat back in his seat with a huff. “It doesn’t make sense!”

There was a moment of silence, broken by a hesitant Ned. “Are you… done?”

Flash thought before he answered, mentally going over his hastily assembled checklist of main points before responding, “Yes.”

“So, let’s summarize,” MJ said, and Flash didn’t understand how she managed to make those three words so intimidating. “You think that we nearly die too often, and that is suspicious.”

“…Yes.” He wasn’t entirely sure that was what he thought, but it was close enough. Probably. “It’s suspicious,” he confirmed, just to be thorough. “Super suspicious.”

He watched everyone’s reactions. Betty looked bored, which was honestly about what he expected. Ned was looking at MJ, concern clear on his face. MJ still had most of her attention on Flash, but she broke her gaze for a moment to glance at Ned and give a quick nod. Then, she turned back to Flash, a look of decision on her face. Yes, Flash thought. She’s gonna believe me.

“Flash,” MJ said slowly and clearly. “That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.”

What, Flash thought. Out loud, he said, “What.”

MJ shrugged. “Like you said, we’re just kids. There’s no way we were on a supervillain’s radar for anything personal. I’m willing to bet Mysterio freaked once he realized we’d been in the towns of two of his attacks and just decided to go after us in case we knew anything by chance. Even if that wasn’t it, the guy clearly wasn’t thinking that straight if he thought he could get away with whatever he was trying to accomplish by destroying half of London. It could have been a complete fluke. As for DC, I think we can chalk that up to being in the wrong place at the wrong time, especially seeing as it was nearly seven years ago.” She shrugged again, monologue over, and gave a small smile that was somewhere between sympathy and amusement. “A weird story, sure, but nothing suspicious about it.”

Flash was pretty sure his mouth was gaping open, but he didn’t really care. He tried to speak, tried to say something remotely intelligent. “Uh?” he managed.

“MJ, I love you so much right now,” Betty said. Of course she was paying attention now.

“You are full of good points,” Ned agreed.

“What just—what?” Flash said, still trying to sort out MJ’s words. “I thought you said you’d listen!”

“We did,” MJ said. “We listened, and I provided an alternate explanation.”

“An alternate, very reasonable explanation,” Betty said. She looked ready to leap out of her seat. “Are we done here?”

“Hang on!” Flash said, a touch desperately. “Spider-Man! Why’d he send someone to rescue us?”

“Dude, Spider-Man’s a superhero,” Ned said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “He wouldn’t just let us die. Saving people’s his whole thing.”

“He probably saw the drones following us and sent someone for help,” Betty said. MJ nodded in agreement, and at that moment Flash realized that there wasn’t a single person at the table who was still taking him seriously.

“You guys really don’t believe me?” Flash checked. “At all? You don’t think anything’s up?”

MJ shrugged. “It was weird, but weird shit happens all the time. Getting attacked in three separate cities and being bailed out by Spider-Man’s friend isn’t even the weirdest thing to happen to us this year.” She turned to Ned and asked, “You want to get our coffees now?”

“Yes,” Ned said, jumping out of his seat in a quick motion. “Absolutely. There is nothing I would like to do more, let’s go.” And then they walked away together. Flash stared after them for a moment, then turned to Betty.

“What the hell just happened?” Betty grinned, more cheerily than Flash had seen all day, then stood up from her seat and grabbed onto his arm.

“We talked,” Betty said as she pulled him out of his chair and bodily dragged him away. “Now will you let it go?”

Flash did not let it go.

They got home, and after crashing in his own bed for eight hours, he spent five hours searching up and looking through news reports on the events in Prague, Venice, and London, then looked through every post he could find on every social media platform he could think to check. He read through the articles and looked through pictures and found one supremely unhelpful Buzzfeed article titled Thirteen Photos of Mysterio Rocking His Fishbowl Helmet: Could This Be A New Trend? He wasn’t sure if it was a genuine need to pick apart what had happened, an intense desire to prove everybody else wrong, or some combination of the two that was driving him on now, but he was going to get to the bottom of this.

Whatever this actually was.

He would have preferred to have someone helping him out, or at least vaguely rooting for him from the sidelines, but this would work too. He’d figure it out.

At the end of his marathon media binge, he was left with a lot more questions than he would have liked, but he also had three new pieces of information, three connections that he was sure fit into a larger puzzle.

The first connection was actually shockingly easy to make, discovered after only a few minutes of watching some shaky footage of the fight with the fire monster in Prague, the one where the Night Monkey made his first (and only) appearance. Flash had stared at the video for about thirty seconds before getting a strange sense of familiarity that only increased as he watched the new hero swing around. He rewound the video a few times, and then, in a sudden spark of clarity, it clicked.

Oh, Night Monkey his ass. He’d spent enough time watching every Spider-Man video he could get his hands on to recognize the vigilante’s signature web-slinging and acrobatics. That had been the real Spider-Man fighting with Mysterio, not some European rip-off or whatever rumor had been spreading. He was sure of it.

A few hours later, right as a headache began forming and he was beginning to question if what he was doing was actually worthwhile in any way, he made a new discovery. Or rather, a man in Venice made a discovery, and Flash discovered the discovery.

Either way, he had a new piece of information, given to him in the form of a picture of the rubble from the square the water monster fight had taken place in, focused in on somebroken stones that had crumbled from a building. More specifically, it was focused on the thin, silvery webs that were clinging to it.

Flash couldn’t find a single bit of video or any other pictures to prove it, but there was a clear conclusion to be drawn from the picture: Spider-Man had been in Venice too.

That led to his third connection of the day, less a connection and more a blindingly obvious fact at that point. Spider-Man hadn’t just come in for the attack on London. He’d been in every city that was attacked by one of the elemental monsters.

That left Flash where he was now, with a fully-formed, very annoying headache and about a dozen more questions than he’d started with.

He knew it wasn’t technically that strange that Spider-Man had been fighting the monsters in Europe. Spider-Man was a superhero. Fighting weird monsters wherever they popped up was probably in his job description.

What was strange was that he’d fought the monsters while in disguise up until the attack in London, and that it seemed like he’d been teamed up with Mysterio, also only until London (had Spider-Man been convinced Mysterio was good too? Had Mysterio fooled Spider-Man?), not to mention that Europe was kind of far away from Spider-Man’s usual stomping grounds of New York City (and Washington DC, that one time), and, most importantly in Flash’s opinion, that Spider-Man had somehow known that he and his classmates would be in trouble, and had sent someone out to protect them.

Flash was pretty sure this whole thing had just gotten even more complicated.

Flash stared down at his phone, stuck in a wave of indecision.

There were risks to what he was about to do, sure, but if it worked out, it would be worth it. Probably. Maybe.

There was only one way to find out.

Taking in a deep breath, he picked up the phone and pressed call.

It rung a few times, each new tone sending a fresh wave of anxiety through him, until—

“Flash,” Betty’s voice came through the phone’s speaker, “if you have called me to talk about anything even remotely related to Europe, or flying drones, or fake holographic monsters, I am never picking up my phone for your number again.”

Flash had been about to jump into a summary of everything he’d discovered while researching, but her words caused him to pause. “Okay,” he started cautiously. “I just think”—

“Never. Got it?” Betty’s voice left no room for argument.

“Yeah,” Flash said, “Uh, yeah. Got it. I was just going to ask you, uh…” He held back a groan and closed his eyes as he tried to think of anything to say that wouldn’t cause her to hang up on him immediately. “Um, where I can watch that show you were talking about at the airport.”

There was a long pause. Betty finally said, “You want to know where you can watch Parks and Rec?”

“Yep.” Oh, he was so fucking dead. Betty was going to kill him.

“You called me at eleven PM to ask about a TV show.” Her disbelief was clear even through the phone.

“Okay, first off, eleven is not that late, and second, yes.” Flash decided he might as well go all in on his blatant lie. “I mean, it must have been pretty interesting if you’d rather have watched it than talk to me, because I’m pretty awesome, I have like three thousand followers on”—

“Stop talking!” Betty snapped.  “It’s on Netflix. Jesus. How do you not know this?”

“Is it popular or something?” Flash asked.

Betty groaned, and he could almost hear her rolling her eyes. “Goodnight, Flash,” she said, and hung up.

Flash pulled the phone away from his ear and frowned and the call ended screen.

Shit.

Nearly a week after his disastrous attempt to call Betty, Flash lay on his bed, half-watching an episode of Parks and Rec on his phone as he tried to sort through all the possibilities.

Mysterio had tried to kill them. Spider-Man had saved them. Spider-Man had been all over Europe, but he didn’t want people to know that. Spider-Man had been working with Mysterio, in Prague at the very least, but in London he had fought against Mysterio.

Flash thought back the videos that had been everywhere in the aftermath of the attack on London, of the monster disappearing in chunks, revealing projected insides, and the broken drones that were left over after it disappeared completely. The theory was that all the monsters had been like that, nothing more than oddly destructive projections, created and controlled by Mysterio and meant to terrify.

There had been plenty of theories on Spider-Man and the Night Monkey and their involvement. Some of them claimed Night Monkey was part of the projections too, or that he was Mysterio’s henchman, and some made the same connection Flash had between him and Spider-Man. Some had even said Spider-Man had known Mysterio’s plan the entire time and had been willingly helping him, only backing out in London because of guilt or cowardice. Flash thought that was the most bullshit thing he’d ever heard.

All Flash could think was that Spider-Man had been just as fooled by the fake monsters as the rest of them, at least until London. He’d seen two of the monsters in action, and if he hadn’t seen video of them flickering away as the drones that powered them died, he would have never believed they weren’t real. He could forgive the guy for the mistake.

They were good theories, but none of them helped explain why Mysterio had tried to kill them. It certainly didn’t explain why Spider-Man had saved them.

MJ had said Mysterio had gone after them because they had been in the same place as both of the previous attacks, but he couldn’t for the life of him figure out how Mysterio would actually know that. And if he had, wouldn’t the rest of their class have been targeted too? It didn’t make sense.

Spider-Man was just as much of a mystery. Flash wasn’t even sure where to start there.

He remembered what Ned had said, about how obviously Spider-Man would try to save them, that’s what superheroes did. Still, how did he know that they would need help specifically? No one else had reported being chased around London by murderous drones. Spider-Man must have known that for some reason, Mysterio would try to target them. How could he know, though?

An insane, completely off-the-wall thought slowly formed in Flash’s head.

Did Spider-Man know who they were?

Part of Flash wanted to say that was ridiculous. The other part remembered an elevator at the Washington monument, and Spider-Man sweeping in to save them, well outside his usual superheroing zone. The other part remembered the time Spider-Man had borrowed his car while he was driving to homecoming, and called him by his name in the process, a story he’d tried to tell to everybody who would listen until Jason Ionello had leaned over in chemistry and said “Everyone knows you’re lying about that ‘Spider-Man stole my car’ thing. It’s getting a little pathetic, dude.”

Back then, he’d been too excited just knowing that Spider-Man knew his name to really wonder how he knew his name. Now, with about four new near-death experiences on his hands, half of which directly involved Spider-Man, he couldn’t not wonder.

He remembered homecoming night again. They’d only been a couple blocks from the school when his car had been commandeered. Could Spider-Man have been coming from the dance? Did Spider-Man go to Midtown?

Flash rolled over on his bed, only stopping when his face was thoroughly pressed into his pillow, and screamed.

A few hours of internally freaking out while Parks and Rec played in the background, and Flash decided that what the hell, his life was weird enough, he might as well run off the assumption that Spider-Man knew him. Or, rather, knew them. If he went to school at Midtown, then it really could have been anyone in the vault that Spider-Man knew.

That had to tie in with Mysterio, but how?

It was possible, he thought, that Mysterio knew that Spider-Man knew at least one of them, and had tried to get them killed to… what? To distract Spider-Man? To break his spirit? Just to be a dick? Either way, there was a potential motivation there.

Was he going after all of them? Just one? Did all four of them know Spider-Man? Flash tried to think of a single mutual friend the four of them had and failed miserably.

Okay, so process of elimination. He could do that.

Betty, as she’d pointed out numerous times, hadn’t been in Washington with the rest of them. Whatever was going on, he got the feeling that she wasn’t directly involved.

That left him, MJ, and Ned.

Flash was pretty sure he wouldn’t miss it if he was friends with Spider-Man. He was kind of a big fan, after all. So he could probably count himself out too. Sadly.

That left MJ and Ned. Flash almost wanted to dismiss them immediately, just on account of neither of them being cool enough to know Spider-Man (though MJ was definitely scary enough, holy shit), but no, he had to be logical about this.

He was pretty sure they both had been caught up in all the Europe attacks, and he knew they had both been at the Washington monument, even if they weren’t both in the elevator. So there wasn’t anything to help him out there.

He tried to think of anything else that could eliminate them. Instead, he found himself thinking back on their conversation at the airport. Specifically, he thought back to how MJ had shut him down with what was objectively terrible reasoning that Ned had immediately agreed with, and how Ned had spent the entire conversation looking like he was about to vomit.

He thought about how in the vault, after the attack, MJ had run off the moment their lives weren’t in danger, and how Ned had looked like he was about to follow her until that guy who worked for Spider-Man had pointed a finger at him and said Do not even think about it.

Holy shit. They didn’t just know Spider-Man. They knew that they knew Spider-Man.

They were in on it.

The phone rang, and the moment it picked up, Flash started talking. “Okay, hear me out.”

There was a long groan from the other side. “You are the worst,” Betty said, sounding pleased as ever to hear him.

“Yeah, sure, but this is technically not about Europe so you can’t get that angry at me, really,” Flash said in a rush, before she could hang up on him.

“I can, actually,” Betty said. “Some of us have lives, you know.”

“You can bite my head off or block me or whatever after this, just please listen,” Flash said.

Betty groaned. “Fine. You’d probably mail me a letter or something if I didn’t let you talk anyways.”

Flash didn’t wait for her to change her mind. “I think Michelle and Ned know Spider-Man,” Flash said. “Like, know him know him. Like, they probably hang out in his Spider Cave or whatever and help him take down bad guys.”

“Flash,” Betty said slowly. “That’s idiotic.”

“No, listen,” Flash said. “They were acting weird in the airport! Something was up! I think they were protecting Spider-Man, because they know him, and that’s why Mysterio tried to kill us! To get to them!”

“You think that because they were acting weird they must know Spider-Man?”

Okay, that did sound a little insane. “That’s not the only reason! Just, think about it for a second. Spider-Man saved us in DC, even though that’s like, way out of the way of New York. He bothered to send someone after us in London, and also, he totally freaking knows my name. Point is, he knows us, and Ned and Michelle know him.”

“Wait,” Betty said, and she actually sounded interested now. “Hang on. Since when does Spider-Man know your name?”

“Since sophomore year! He took my car before homecoming. Crashed the shit out of it too, the dude cannot drive.”

“I thought you made that up.” She sounded genuinely confused.

“Yeah, well I didn’t.” He hadn’t even been the only person in the car when that had happened. Why did no one believe him?

“Really?” Betty asked.

“Yes.”

Betty was quiet for a worryingly long time. “You said you think he knows all of us,” she said finally.

“Yeah.”

“But only Ned and MJ know who he is?”

Uh-huh,” Flash said uncertainly. He couldn’t tell what Betty was thinking, and it was a little terrifying, if he was being honest.

“Are you saying you think Spider-Man goes to our school?” she asked.

“I mean,” Flash said, fairly sure Betty was about to laugh him to his grave. “Yes.” Then, something occurred to him. “Wait. You’re conspiring with me!”

“No, I’m not,” Betty said, though she sounded pretty halfhearted to Flash.

“Yes you are, you totally are, you’re a conspiracy theorist now, I won you over”—

“Flash.”

“Sorry,” he said, though he really wasn’t.

“So,” Betty said slowly. “Just to clarify, you think Spider-Man goes to our school, and that Ned and MJ know him?”

“Yeah,” Flash answered.

“So who do you think he is?”

“I don’t know!” Flash said. “That’s the problem!” Then, because she hadn’t hung up on him yet and he figured he might as well try, he asked “What do you think? Do you have any ideas?”

There was a long silence, then Betty answered, short and curt, “I think you’re still full of bullshit, Flash,” and hung up. Flash pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it.

What had just happened?

A few more days passed, and Flash felt like he was losing his mind.

He was right, he knew he was, but he had no way to prove it. Not to mention, as Betty had reminded him, despite all his very rightful suspicions, he still didn’t actually know who Spider-Man was.

Maybe it was better that way. Whoever Spider-Man was, he probably didn’t particularly want some random student to share the secret. Maybe, Flash thought, he should just let it go. He could do that. Totally. No problem.

Flash sighed. Yeah, no. It was definitely going to drive him crazy not knowing. He was so close, he knew it.

Flash grabbed his phone and started absently swiping through videos from the trip to Europe, looking for some hint, like Spider-Man was going to be lurking around in the background of one of the shots. He was missing something big, and he knew it, but he couldn’t imagine what.

MJ and Ned. Spider-Man. School. Europe. That guy who worked for Spider-Man?

Flash groaned and turned his phone off. It was official. He was stuck.

The rest of summer passed in a blur of mind-numbing boredom, broken up by an occasional attempt to continue his investigation, attempts that always ended in failure and frustration. He texted Betty a few times. Most of time she ignored him, but a few times, she responded. Short conversations would follow that inevitably devolved into them arguing over something stupid and her threatening to block him—a threat she had yet to follow through on, he noticed.

Soon enough, school started again, and Flash was back to the endless cycle of walking through the halls and attending classes, except it was so much worse now than in previous years, because Spider-Man was there somewhere, he knew it, but he wasn’t sure who. It was maddening. He spent a slightly unreasonable amount of time glancing over at Ned and MJ, like Spider-Man was going to jump out of their backpack or something equally ridiculous.

Part of him suspected that the whole thing was ridiculous, that he’d managed to build a conspiracy out of nothing, and that he should just let it all go and get on with his life.

Flash wouldn’t have been surprised if that part of him had the right idea. He tried to listen to it. Still, he couldn’t quite let the whole thing go.

Then, in late September, it happened.

It was a Friday, and they were in fourth period, and their teacher was going on about limits and x and infinity and everyone was struggling to pay attention when Suzanne, who had gone over near the window to sharpen her pencil, gasped and said “Holy shit guys there’s a giant lizard man outside.”

Everybody immediately did the only thing to do when someone said something like that and ran to the nearest window, Flash included, and yeah, that was definitely a giant lizard. The teacher cursed aloud and was saying something about going on lockdown as he made his way for the door when Peter Parker yelped out, “gotta go to the bathroom!” and sprinted out the door, backpack and all.

“Who was that? He shouldn’t have done that,” the teacher mumbled as he phoned the front office.

It wasn’t long after that, when the school actually was on lockdown and the teacher was anxiously clutching a stapler like that would do anything, that someone else who was still quietly lurking by the window shouted excitedly “It’s Spider-Man!”

Everyone ignored the teacher’s frantic orders to stay away from the window and jostled their way over. Flash made his way over too, because there was no way he was missing this, but he was quickly shoved to the back, where he only caught the slightest glimpse of the now familiar red-and-black uniform.

The teacher banged his stapler on a desk with shocking force. “Everybody, get away from the window, now!” he ordered. This time, they listened, and as they awkwardly filed towards the back of the room, Flash’s eyes caught on one person, who was still standing by the window.

“Leeds,” the teacher ordered. “Back of the room.”

“Sorry, sir,” Ned mumbled, and as he turned, Flash caught a glimpse of his face. He looked concerned, a fairly normal reaction considering the circumstances.

But that wasn’t the only thing Flash noticed. He also saw as Ned walked over to the back of the room, and swiped something off Peter’s desk, to quick for Flash to see what it was.

Flash stared at the empty desk, and a terrible, terrible thought occurred to him.

Peter Parker was Ned’s best friend. Peter Parker was currently dating Michelle Jones.

Peter Parker had been in DC, and in Europe, but not when the monsters came. Not when things got dangerous. Not when the superheroes started showing up. Peter Parker was not in their classroom, and Spider-Man fought a giant lizard man outside their window.

Flash kept staring at the desk. Oh, shit, he thought numbly.

It was him. Peter Parker was Spider-Man.