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It hadn’t been long since Jack had lost his powers, he still needed to learn how to function in his new form as a human. He was often able to tell when his interactions with other humans had gone wrong, he just had a hard time understanding why. He was constantly mirroring the actions of Sam, Dean and Castiel, despite their tendency, or Dean’s tendency in particular, to get irritated at him. Especially when they were in close quarters.
“Jack?” Dean turned around in the swivel chair he was sitting in to find Jack on an adjacent chair, posture identical to his own. He had his right arm casually slung across his lap, and his chin resting on his right palm.
“Yes Dean?” Jack responded, lowering the octave at which he spoke.
“Stop that…” Jack looked hurt as he dropped his left hand and sat up straight, “sorry… Jack,” Dean started again, “I talked it over with Sam and Cas, and we all think that you should enroll in high school.”
“High school?” He said it as if he was sounding it out from a paper before him.
“Yes. We think it will give you a chance to, well, gain some academic knowledge, but more importantly to interact with people your own age.”
“But I’m not even a year old…”
“Okay, sure, yeah, you’re right, but physically you’re somewhere around seventeen.”
“Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“We think it is. But it’s your choice. If you want to, I have some connections at a school near here, and you can start on Monday.”
“But Dean… we’re in New York.”
“Yeah, about that, we can’t really go back to the bunker right now… with Michael out to get us all, that will be the first place he’ll have his minions stationed.”
Jack was satisfied at that, and mulled over Dean’s proposition. He eventually agreed to begin school the following Monday.
~...~
As soon as Jack walked through the doors, he was glad he decided to attend school. He was sure it would prove to be an exciting adventure. He had enrolled as a junior, and Sam had helped to create fake school records for Jack, giving him exceedingly good grades of course, because it wouldn’t make sense to create a fake record and not give him straight A’s.
It was the middle of March, so Jack had to make a trip to the office first since he was technically considered a transfer student.
“Well hello there, what can I help you with?” The office receptionist asked Jack.
“I’m, uh, the new student,” he informed her.
“Very good!” She seemed overly happy about the news, “Here is your schedule, and a packet of our school rules, which usually goes right in students’ trash bins when they get home. Here are a few other papers that should tell you everything you need to know, if you have any other questions though, feel free to ask me or any of the other faculty members.”
“Oh um,” Jack was a little overwhelmed with all the papers, “is there a tour of the school I can go on? I just ask because, well, I’ve never been to a high school… like this before,” he caught himself.
“Hold on one second dear,” before he could respond, she disappeared into the other room. She came back a little while later gently leading a boy about Jack’s physical age by the arm, “Jack this is Peter, Peter this is Jack. We don’t officially have a new student tour system in place, but Peter here is one of our office aides, and he knows the campus very well, he can show you around.”
“Oh that’s not necessary, I don’t want to…” but before he could finish his thought, Peter interrupted.
“No it’s my pleasure, it beats shredding papers for the rest of first period.”
“Alright,” Jack agreed enthusiastically.
Peter made sure to show Jack every aspect of campus. He took him by the drinking fountain with the best tasting water, and the bathroom that was supposedly haunted, therefore never crowded, and lastly showed him the spot where he sat at lunch.
“Why are you taking me here?” Jack asked, laughing, but confused.
“So you know where you can find me at lunchtime,” Peter explained nonchalantly, “I mean if you want to. You seem really cool.”
Jack laughed and agreed to meet Peter on their lunch break. The two then parted ways because they both had to get to their second period class, they were already twenty minutes late.
They met back at the spot where they had parted as promised, and by the end of the day the two had become friends. Over the next few weeks, they began to spend time outside of school together as well. Neither ever questioned the other when they suddenly had to disappear for hours on end, or in Jack’s case days, because to both it just seemed normal.
Peter soon had Jack addicted to this thing on the internet called YouTube. Peter wanted him to watch a few of his favorite YouTubers, but Jack was far more amazed by this mysterious kid in their very own neighborhood who went by the alias ‘Spiderman.’ Peter just laughed along, always denying knowing anything about the identity of this ‘Spiderman’ in response to Jack’s playful inquiries.
All was quiet at Midtown High School. The boys got along swimmingly, never suspecting for one second that their own secret would be revealed to the other…