Archive of Our Own

1.

It was official.

Eugene “Flash” Thompson was the biggest idiot to ever walk the planet. Possibly the galaxy.

It was eleven PM on a Friday night, and Flash was sitting on his bed, scrolling back through every social media platform he had. Nearly every one of them was dedicated to a single person: Spider-Man.

Spider-Man, who, when not wearing a spandex spider suit and mask to match, apparently went by Peter Parker.

Every single one of the pictures he had of Spider-Man, every single post where he ranted and raved about how awesome Spider-Man was, every single video praising the masked vigilante, every single one of them was also praising Peter goddamn Parker.

This just might be the worst day of his life.

It had been about twelve hours since the attack on their school that had led to this realization, and eleven since he’d had it more or less confirmed by Peter himself when, right as normal school activities were resuming, Peter had slipped back into the class, hair and clothes still vaguely askew and rushing out some bullshit excuse to the teacher before sliding into his seat next to Ned.

“Everything’s fine,” he’d heard Peter mumble out to Ned, before the other boy could get a word in.

“Are you sure?” Ned had asked. “That guy looked pretty serious and I saw him throw you like, really far”—

“Ned,” Peter had snapped, and looked around the room surreptitiously, while Flash feigned intense interest in his worksheet. “Not now. I’m fine. Promise.”

From there their conversation had petered off into Peter trying to discuss the worksheet that absolutely nobody, their teacher included, cared about at the moment while Ned shot him concerned glances and Flash did his best not to openly gape at the both of them.

They were so obvious.

Flash was pretty sure that was the worst part. He had spent the last three months trying to figure out who Spider-Man could be, giving every classmate suspicious looks and shooting glances around the halls like he was going to catch someone crawling across the ceiling to avoid the passing period hallway crush, and the entire time Ned and Peter had been not-so-quietly whispering about it three feet from his face. The answer had literally been right in front of him.

The dominoes had been falling for the rest of the day, one realization leading to another: all the strange events that had plagued their school over the past few years, each with an undeniable connection to Peter, all the times Peter had flaked on decathlon and been late to class only for Spider-Man to show up and save the day, Peter’s long-lasting and stubborn insistence that he’d had a Stark internship, and oh god, he’d called Spider-Man penis for nearly two full years.

Flash scrolled down, revealing a new post. Spider-Man is THE BEST superhero out there, don’t even try to change my mind. Brave, nice, down to earth, and AWESOME!! #teamspideyforever

Flash turned his phone off and tossed it across the room. This was the worst.

The rest of the weekend passed slowly. Flash spent a good portion of it furiously scanning all the Spider-Man watch accounts, and even more furiously avoiding it because honestly, what the fuck.

He’d tried to convince himself a few times that maybe, just maybe, he was wrong, maybe Spider-man was someone else, literally anyone else, and even gotten close to succeeding once or twice before rationality kicked back in like a fucking… like a mammoth being held back by spiderwebs. Or something equally unlikely.

Peter was Spider-Man. There was no more getting around it. That left Flash with the rather large question of what to do with this information. There wasn’t exactly a guidebook on what to do when that guy you’ve been throwing insults at for three years suddenly turned out to be a superhero who’s saved your life multiple times, and also borrowed and completely wrecked your very expensive car that one time. Flash was kind of flying blind here.

He almost wanted to ignore it. Pretend he’d never gone on the hunt for Spider-Man’s real identity, pretend he wasn’t actively walking the halls of his school with his greatest hero, just let Spider-Man be Spider-Man and let Peter be Peter.

But that was the problem. It was a little ridiculous, maybe, but Spider-Man really was his hero. The guy was awesome. The videos and reports and stories about him ranged from him saving people from serious emergencies and occasional full-blown bad guys to taking pictures with excited fans and helping a kid find his dog for two straight hours in the middle of the summer heat to him just swinging around looking cool. He was brave, and kind, and a bit of a show-off, and he clearly put every bit of himself into helping out the people of New York City.

Spider-Man was genuinely one of the best people out there. And he was Peter Parker. And Peter was… well, Peter. Peter, who always faded into the background, had nearly no social life outside of like, two friends, and probably still thought the definition of a good Friday night was building legos with aforementioned two friends. There was a reason Flash didn’t idolize him.

There was a reason Peter had been so far down the list of suspects for Spider-Man that Flash hadn’t even registered him as a possibility until he sprinted out of class in the middle of a monster attack in a ploy so obvious it was a wonder the entire school hadn’t also figured it out. It was basically inconceivable.

Flash had to figure out how the two connected, how Peter Parker was Spider-Man and how Spider-Man was Peter Parker.

He had to talk to Peter.

After decathlon, Flash decided, after thinking on it for a while (and completely ignoring his homework while he was at it). That seemed like a good plan. He’d go catch Peter after decathlon, say hi, try and be friendly even though they were clearly on very different levels of the popularity chain, somehow work his way up to mentioning the whole Spider-Man thing, and then they would… talk. Or something.

He’d figure out the details while he was there.

Flash waded through school on Monday, and came to school on Tuesday braced for another day of slowly losing his mind as he watched Peter tap his pencil against his desk in fourth period like he wasn’t the reason Flash had probably failed a chemistry quiz yesterday, with nothing to do but wait until decathlon practice to talk to him without an entire classroom of kids watching.

Or at least, that was the plan.

Flash made it to school relatively early, due to a weird fit of nervousness over his plans for the day as he was getting ready in the morning that somehow ended with him leaving for school twenty minutes earlier than usual. As he walked through the nearly empty halls of the school, on the hunt for anything to do to waste the extra time, he was met with the sight of Peter, rummaging through his locker in the middle of the hallway.

Normally, this would have been a prime opportunity to make a snide remark before disappearing off into a side hallway, and Flash could already feel the urge to do just that rising up, the vague threads of some scathing insult coming together. He started off down the hallway with new intent, and was nearly at the locker before he remembered that this was Spider-Man, and that realization was enough to stop him in his tracks.

He had been about to give Spider-Man some poorly fleshed-out insult with all the confidence of a renowned jester entertaining the masses, except there weren’t any masses, it was literally just him and the actual fucking Spider-Man, who he apparently instinctively mocked, and fucking hell, what had he been thinking, was he really just going to go and walk up to Peter after decathlon like he hadn’t spent years actively being a total asshole to him just for—what? For shits and giggles? The approval of like five other assholes who the majority of the school probably hated?

Peter had known, Flash realized as his sense of dread and embarrassment and horror and probably some other emotions that he couldn’t even put a read on other than that they were bad somehow managed to engulf him even more than they already had. All this time, he’d been making fun of Peter only to turn around and praise Spider-Man in—well, probably not the same breath, but like, pretty damn close, and Peter-Spider-Man-had seen this happen, and Flash really couldn’t start to figure out what exactly that meant, other than it was, again, really freaking bad—

“Hey, uh, are you okay?”

The words snapped Flash out of his thoughts. He frowned at the person speaking, not really comprehending who it was, until suddenly the world snapped into focus and he realized it was Peter staring at him, locker closed and looking like he was torn between genuine concern and making a run for it.

Flash stared back at Peter, who was holding a stack of textbooks and spirals and wearing one of those dorky t-shirts that seemed to make up the majority of his wardrobe and looking infuriatingly normal, and the only thing he could think was that’s Spider-Man, I’m staring at Spider-Man who is Peter who is Spider-man who is standing in our hallway, and then he realized he’d been staring too long and an already awkward situation was about to become unbearable if he didn’t talk right now, so he opened his mouth, and—

“You’re Spider-Man,” he blurted. Immediately, he wanted to disappear.

Peter, who had been shifting uneasily for the duration of their impromptu staring contest, froze. For one long moment, they stared at each other, Peter wearing an expression of pure shock, and then he spoke.

“What?”

Flash really hadn’t been planning on saying that. He didn’t know what he had been planning on saying, when he did have this conversation, but jumping all in immediately with you’re Spider-Man had not been it. Still, as he stared at Peter’s shocked face and realized there wasn’t much going back from this, he did the only thing he could think to do and pushed everything else to the side, all the bad and the embarrassment and everything he didn’t want to think about right now, and he kept talking.

“You,” he repeated slowly, leaving no room for misunderstanding, “are Spider-Man.”

Peter didn’t move. He didn’t do much of anything, actually, though his face had gone an impressive shade of white. “What?” he repeated.

“Do I really need to say it again?” Flash asked.

“I’m not—I’m not Spider-Man!” Peter hissed, even as he looked around the hallway frantically, clearly hoping no one else could overhear. “What—why would you even think that?”

“Well,” Flash started, because boy did he have an answer to that, but Peter cut him off again.

“Is this- is this like, some kind of joke? Because”—

“It’s not a joke!” Flash interrupted. “Dude, you’re so obvious. It’s painful to watch.” Admittedly, these were bold words from someone who’d been clueless about Spider-Man’s identity until about three days ago, but Flash figured being confident was the way to go here.

Peter stared at him for a long moment. When he spoke again, it was only to say, again, “I’m not Spider-Man.”

Flash held back a wave of irritation. “Yeah, you definitely are,” he said, mostly succeeding. “Do you need me to pull out the receipts? Because I’ve got them.”

“I—what? Receipts?”

“Receipts,” Flash confirmed. Taking that as his go ahead, he continued speaking. “First: You disappear in Washington, and hours later Spider-Man shows up and saves our butts.” Ignoring Peter’s sputtered my stomach was hurting, Flash went on. “Homecoming, same year, you apparently ditch Liz at the dance, which, rude, and then Spider-Man shows up, jumps on my car, says ‘hey, Flash, I need your car,’ takes my car and then crashes the shit out of it. Also kind of rude, by the way.”

“Okay, hang on,” Peter said, face bright red. Maybe he did feel bad about the car. Good. That had been expensive.

“Literally everything that happened in Europe,” Flash continued. “I don’t know what was going on there but there’s no way Mysterio was just chasing us around London with killer drones for the fun of it, and there’s definitely no way Spider-Man sent his like, personal bodyguard after us without knowing who we were at least a little.”

“These are all just coincidences!” Peter snapped, apparently finally crossing the line from flustered to irritated.

“Oh, really?” Flash asked, and didn’t wait for an answer before delivering the killing blow. “Even that time you sprinted out of the classroom five minutes before Spider-Man showed up to beat the crap out of that lizard guy who just happened to decide to attack our school? You’re saying that was just a coincidence?”

Peter gaped at Flash for a long moment, and if Flash had still been in any doubt about Peter being Spider-Man, it would have disappeared right then. No one who wasn’t actually Spider-Man could pull off the very particular mixture of shock, despair, and confusion Peter wore right now.

Which made it all the more surprising when the next words out of Peter’s mouth were “No.”

“What do you mean, no?” Flash demanded.

“I mean,” Peter said, in the same slow voice Flash had been using himself earlier, “you’re wrong.”

“I’m not wrong,” Flash said. “I just laid out like, five separate reasons why I am clearly not wrong”—

“Yeah, well, you are!”

“No, I’m not,” Flash said, feeling more irritated by the second. “Dude, I’ve clearly got you cornered, so can you just admit it, and then maybe we can actually talk”—

“No,” Peter snapped, shockingly forceful. “I’m not Spider-Man, and we’re done talking about this.”

“We’re not”—

“You’re wrong. Get over it.” Peter glared at Flash for a moment, then grabbed his bag from the floor, where it was resting by his locker. “I’m going to class.”

Peter walked past Flash down the hallway, almost but not quite shouldering him aside, and in the moment, Flash was so shocked at Peter’s outburst—had Peter just shouted at him? Peter Parker? —that he couldn’t do anything but turn and watch him leave.

Flash spent the rest of the day stewing in indignation over their conversation.

He could admit, in hindsight, that going up to the person with the super-secret identity that half of New York has been wondering about for years, who has made a point of keeping said super-secret identity tightly under wraps, and loudly proclaiming their super-secret identity in the middle of a school building had maybe not been his best idea. In his defense, he had been panicked. Loudly shouting you’re Spider-Man had been about the best thing he could think to do in the moment.

But Peter hadn’t needed to be so rude about it.

Flash clearly had it figured out. He had explained to Peter exactly why he clearly had figured it out. So why was Peter still insisting on keeping the front up? It was pointless.

Well, unless Flash had it wrong and Peter wasn’t actually Spider-Man.

But that wasn’t what was going on. No way.

He was not wrong.

And he was going to get proof of it. More than he already had, that was.

When Flash got home, after a particularly grueling decathlon practice (Peter must have told his friends about their conversation, because MJ would not stop giving him absurdly difficult questions), he pulled out a piece of paper, grabbed a pen, and scribbled on the top Operation: Get Peter To Admit He Is Spider-Man.

It was on.

2.

Operation-get-peter-to-admit-he-is-spider-man got off to a bit of a slow start.

Flash started by listing every way he could think of to get Peter to reveal himself as Spider-Man. Once he got rid of any possibilities that could potentially reveal Peter’s identity to other people (he wasn’t a dick), and the ones that could potentially get someone hurt (again, not a dick, and really not looking to go to jail), he was left with a short list.

A short and boring list. He only had two ideas, and they were both about as exciting as brushing teeth. Subtlety was the worst.

Whatever. It’d be worth it in the end.

On Friday, Flash put the first item on his list into action.

Their school was hosting a decathlon competition, and while they didn’t have to travel like the other team, it did mean they were in charge of set-up. It was a low-level competition, not one that would be deciding whether they would be moving on or not, so it wasn’t likely there’d be a huge crowd, but they still needed to look professional and prepared, and Mr. Harrington had them all scrambling around the small auditorium they were using for the match, trying to make the stage and audience section presentable. Between that and all the usual chaos that came before a match, everyone was running around, looking for various parts to their uniforms or searching for spare chairs, or trying to heave a second table up onto the stage. Thanks to the overall chaos, when Flash offered to go get the buzzers from Mr. Harrington’s room, no one noticed him taking a few minutes longer than the short walk from the auditorium to his classroom should have.

Flash hurried back through the halls, gripping the plastic storage bin labeled buzzers with every bit of strength he had, hoping desperately he wouldn’t drop it before he got to the auditorium.

Finally, he made it to the auditorium entrance, and heaved the bin onto the small table to the side of the doors. No one was there to see him struggle, thankfully, so he groaned and leaned against the wall, letting his arms flop uselessly at his sides for a moment.

There was a chance this plan had some flaws, he thought as he massaged his arms.

After the brief moment of recovery, he waited, popping the lid off and on again to look occupied, until the person he was looking for walked by, dragging a few plastic chairs behind him.

“Hey, Peter!” Flash called.

Peter stopped dragging the chairs and turned to look at him. “Yeah?” he asked, sounding suspicious, which was ridiculous. Flash hadn’t even done anything. Yet.

“Can you take these inside and set them up?” Flash gestured at the buzzer bin. “I would, but I need to change, and I left my jacket in my car.”

Peter squinted at him. Definitely suspicious, then, but it didn’t matter, as long as he didn’t actually figure out what Flash was planning. “You really don’t have the time to do this?”

“No, I don’t,” Flash said. “Really.”

Peter stared some more, then seemed to accept that Flash wasn’t taking no for an answer. “Fine,” he said, and Flash cheered internally.

Peter didn’t want to actually tell him he was Spider-Man? Fine. But if he caught Peter in the act, doing something no normal person would be able to do, then he wouldn’t have much choice but to admit it. And lifting a bin filled with one hundred and fifty pounds worth of weights with ease would definitely check that box.

Or, that’s what was supposed to happen.

Peter walked over and, instead of grabbing the sides of the bin like he was supposed to do, pried the lid off the bin, peering inside. Flash tried not to wince. Oh, shit.

Peter frowned and looked up at Flash. “This is full of dumbbell weights.”

“Huh,” Flash said, hoping desperately that he could play this off. “That’s strange.”

Peter shook his head in disbelief and stepped away from the bin. “Okay, it’s like, really obvious that you did this.”

Okay, so playing it off wasn’t going to work. “Oh? Is it?” Flash snapped back instead. “Obvious like you being Spider-Man is?” Peter’s face twitched. Ha.

“I’m not”— he cut himself off, with visible effort. “Are you going to, like, keep doing this?”

“Depends.” Flash leaned against the wall, because it was a cool move and now seemed like a good time to look cool. “Are you going to keep doing a terrible job of lying about being Spider-Man?” Oh, yeah. He’d nailed that delivery.

Peter sighed. “Forget it.” With that, he walked back into the auditorium, leaving Flash in the hallway with nothing else to do but heave the dumbbells out of the bin and hurry back into the auditorium. Feeling vaguely embarrassed, Flash did just that, setting up the buzzers and hoping nobody questioned the appearance of the rouge dumbbells too much.

That, Flash thought as he left the hallway behind, definitely could have gone better.

So, Flash’s first attempt at getting Peter to reveal his identity had… not gone to plan. That was fine. Trial and error and all that. Flash had back-up plans for just this reason.

The next week, Flash walked into school with a new plan.

The old plan had been shaky from the start, Flash realized. It required too many things to go right, and he really should have known from the start that any plan where he and Peter actually interacted would go wrong. They never talked. Of course he’d find it suspicious when Flash asked a favor of him less than a week after Flash had accused him of being Spider-Man.

This plan was better. He didn’t have to talk to Peter at all. All he had to do was watch and wait. It was about as close to flawless as Flash was going to get.

Flash waited for each class to end, waited as the final bell rang, and then, as students poured out of their classes, Flash slipped ahead, doing his best to stay in front of the crush.

Flash made it outside and immediately stared craning his head to find Peter. This plan wasn’t exactly time-sensitive, but Flash really didn’t want to have to wait until tomorrow to try again, which is why he internally cheered when he spotted Peter’s head, already moving towards a side street. Flash quickly changed direction and followed him.

Years of keeping up with Spider-Man made his habits obvious, and at this point nearly everybody who followed the hero knew that he almost never put in an appearance before 2:30 on school days. This was close enough to their own school’s release time that not only did it give Flash another handy piece of evidence that Peter was Spider-Man, it also likely meant that he could follow him to wherever he changed and get some more than conclusive evidence that Peter was Spider-Man.

Flash hurried after Peter as he took an eclectic mix of side streets and main streets, doing his best to stay out of sight. Flash thought he was doing a pretty good job of it, too.

Then, Peter started speeding up.

Flash cursed and tried to match his pace, which worked for about half a minute, before Peter started speeding up again.

Peter must have caught on. Flash would have wondered how, except, well, Spider-Man. Flash  gripped the straps of his backpack, doing his best not to break into an outright run and still keep Peter in sight. About twenty feet ahead of him, Peter was still speeding up, just on the edge of actually running too.

God, he was getting sweaty. Why was Peter making this so hard?         

Right as he thought it, Peter started making things exponentially harder by darting off into a side alley out of nowhere. Flash cursed and rushed after him, nearly knocking someone over in the process.

By the time Flash made it into the alleyway, Peter had disappeared, and Flash was pretty sure the chances of finding him around the other corner were low.

Flash groaned and leaned against the wall. So much for being stealthy.

The next day, Flash tried again.

That was the great thing about this particular plan. There was a limit to the number of times you could try to get someone to take a mysterious box from you when said someone was already suspicious of you. There wasn’t a limit to the number of times you could trail someone after school.

There was probably a limit to the number of times Flash could do it without getting frustrated to the point of quitting, but hopefully it wouldn’t come to that. He’d be sneakier this time. It would work.

The bell rang and Flash started making his way out of the classroom, preparing to follow the same steps as the day before, but before he could get farther than a few steps, someone grabbed onto his arm.

“Hey, Flash, do you think we could compare answers on that last worksheet real quick?” Betty’s voice came from behind, and Flash cursed internally.

“Uh,” Flash said. “Betty, this isn’t really a great time”—

“Yeah, sure. This will only take a minute.” Betty held out her hand expectantly.

“Betty,” Flash tried again, but in an odd twist on their normal interactions, Betty would not stop talking.

“It’s just, these last few problems really confused me, and I think I’ve got them, but I’d rather check them now than have to worry about it later”—

“Here!” Flash said, shoving his notebook at her. It was clear she wasn’t backing down any time soon. “Just hurry, okay?”

“Uh-huh,” Betty said absentmindedly. She riffled through his notebook for a minute before pulling out the sheet of paper they had been working on in class, then started checking her answers with mind-numbing slowness.

Flash waited impatiently for her to finish, and then spoke when he couldn’t bear it anymore. “Betty, I’m really in a hurry right now”—

“Yeah, I know, just give me a few more seconds,” Betty said. “Calm down.”

Flash groaned, and waited. Betty took a solid thirty seconds longer, in which she didn’t correct a single mistake, before she handed the paper back to Flash.

“All done,” Betty said brightly. “Thanks, Flash.”

“Yeah, okay,” Flash said, snatching the paper from her and shoving it into his bag. “Sure. Did you even need to check anything, or were you just torturing me?”

“I mean, I wasn’t trying to torture you,” Betty said. “But now that you mention it, it was about time I got to be the one annoying the living hell out of you, don’t you think?”

“You’re the worst,” Flash decided as he threw his backpack over his shoulder. “I hate you.”

“Sure you do,” Betty said, and Flash didn’t have time to decipher the fact that she clearly didn’t believe him at all, but he knew he was annoyed about it.

As he hurried out of the classroom, cursing under his breath, Flash knew it was already too late. Peter would be long gone by now, probably already halfway to swinging around the city. He’d have to try again tomorrow.

Alright, Flash thought as the school day neared its end the next day. Third time’s the charm.

The bell rang, and Flash immediately jumped up from his seat. “No,” he said to Betty, a bit preemptively, but she only looked slightly miffed, so he was pretty sure it’d be fine. Then, he raced out the door to the front of the school.

There. He spotted Peter, heading the same way he had been the last time Flash had tried this. Wasting no time, Flash took off after him.

At first, it went much the same way as it had the first time. Flash trailed Peter, this time staying farther behind him and making more of an effort to hide behind other people, since clearly last time hadn’t been good enough. It was going about as well as he could hope for.

Then, after about five minutes, Peter turned a corner, and when Flash tried to follow, Peter was… gone. Not suddenly thirty feet ahead, not making a dramatic escape into another side alley, just completely disappeared.

Flash cursed and stopped in the street, heedless of other people walking by, and spun in a slow circle, even though it was clear already it wasn’t going to help at all. He’d lost Peter. Again.

Letting out a frustrated groan, Flash turned around, resigned to walking back to school having failed again. Maybe this plan wasn’t quite as genius as he’d originally hoped.

Then, Peter popped out from the entryway to a store, nearly giving Flash a heart attack in the process.

“Why are you”— Peter started. Before he could get farther, Flash cut him off, blabbing in a way that only happened when something truly unexpected happened. For example, when the guy you were trying to track jumped out of a random building and scared at least ten years off your life.

“Okay, what the fuck dude, you can’t just jump out at people like that! What are you doing, stalking me?” Flash’s mouth was running well ahead of his brain, and he desperately hoped Peter wouldn’t catch onto the irony of what he had just said.

Peter, clearly distracted from whatever he had been about to say, blinked at Flash. “I’m sorry, what?”

“What do you mean, what? I’m just walking here, and you think it’s funny to try and jump out and scare the living crap out of—out of some random passerby, just trying to get from one place to another? It’s cruel Parker, that’s what it is, cruel.” Was Flash being fair? Probably not, seeing as he had been following Peter around about two seconds before. But he wasn’t about to admit that. No. He’d play innocent. Aggressively innocent.

Peter looked like he wanted to break something, which meant his plan was already working. “You’re impossible.”

“I’m impossible? I’m not the one who was just nearly attacked”-

“Attacked—You were following me!”

“Um, no, no I was not”—

“Yes. You were following me, because you still think I’m”—Peter’s voice lowered drastically—“Spider-Man, which you are still wrong about, by the way, and this is getting really weird and annoying, so could you just stop it.”

Flash could tell when playing innocent wasn’t going to work any longer. “Yeah, well, if you’d stop being stubborn and just admit it, maybe I’d stop.”

Peter glared. “I’m not going to admit it!”

“Oh, so you’re admitting you have something to admit, then?”

Peter frowned at him for a moment, clearly confused, and then scowled. “I’m not Spider-Man!”

“Evidence points to the contrary, buddy.” Like that terrible cover.

Peter glared. It might have been intimidating, but even with the knowledge that this was Spider-Man, Peter was still about the least scary person on the planet. “Okay, you know what? This is weird. This is weird, and even if I was Spider-Man, it wouldn’t work, because it’s also stupid. And even if it wasn’t stupid, even if I actually was Spider-Man and you had all the evidence in the world to prove it, I still wouldn’t trust that sort of information to you. I wouldn’t trust my math answers to you. So could you just, like, stop this and let me go home without being paranoid that you’re going to like, break into my house or something?”

Okay. So maybe Peter was a bit intimidating even without the mask.

“Listen,” Flash said, feeling weirdly embarrassed and angry that he was embarrassed. “You should be glad I decided to tone it down. Originally I was going to pretend to rob you.”

Peter twitched. “What?”

“Yeah, so like, if you think this is bad, you should just remember, it could have been way worse”—

“No,” Peter said. “No. Stop talking. Just—stop it. This isn’t going to work, and I’m tired of dealing with it.” Then, he turned and started walking away, effectively ending the conversation. Or so he thought. Flash wasn’t pathetic enough to actually go running after him, but he still wasn’t going to let him get the last word on this.

“Well, I’m not going to stop!” Flash shouted. “I’m going to do—the opposite of stopping! I’m gonna go even harder! Just wait!”

Peter, already halfway down the block, showed no sign of listening.

3.

Just as he had promised he would, Flash spent the next few weeks doing everything he could to get Peter to admit to being Spider-Man. Unfortunately, at the moment, all that really meant was him being extra irritating to Peter and mouthing I’m watching you at him every time they happened to make eye contact. Peter had solidly foiled both his previous plans and he didn’t exactly have any new ones to fall back on. Luckily for Flash, he was very good at being irritating.

It was a simple dance, really. Peter didn’t make it hard. Quick jabs at his eclectic after-school schedule and doing the Spider-Man hand gesture at him in the middle of decathlon were enough to set him off. Even throwing out a casual busy last night, Parker? was enough to make Peter’s cheeks flush.

One day, their English teacher announced a paired project, and in the resulting scuffle as everyone frantically made their way towards their friends, Flash plopped down in the seat next to Peter.

“No,” Peter said immediately. “Absolutely not. We’re not going to be partners.”

“Really? Who else were you planning on doing this with anyways?” Flash asked, and waved his hand at the rest of the classroom, conspicuously absent of any of Peter’s two other friends.

“Literally anybody except for you,” Peter responded. His eyes scanned the room, and he started to stand up. “Look, I’m finding somebody else, so”—

“No, you aren’t,” Flash interrupted, and raised his hand. “Hey, Ms. Tucker! Me and Peter are working together, okay?”

“Okay, Flash,” their teacher said, not even looking up from her computer, and just like that, their fate was sealed.

Peter stared at him. “Are you serious?”

Flash grinned and patted the desk next to him. “I’ve never been more serious in my life.” This was going to be fun.

“So,” Flash said the next day. “We have two weeks to do this, right?”

Peter looked at Flash for a moment before answering, like he hoped he’d just disappear. “Right.”

“And since Ms. Tucker’s probably not going to be giving us much time to work on it on class, we probably need to come up with a plan to work on it outside of school.”

Peter looked like he’d rather do anything else. “I guess we should.”

“Right,” Flash agreed. “So, I was thinking we could work on it at your house”—

“No,” Peter said firmly. “No way.”

“Why not?” Flash asked, waiting for Peter to take the bait.

“I don’t trust you to behave in my house,” Peter said, which was a lot blunter than Flash had expected.

“Wow, rude,” he said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to hide something from me, Parker.”

Peter glared at him. “We can work in the library after school if we have to,” he said, clearly ignoring Flash’s last comment.

“After school? Are you sure you won’t be busy? You know, with that large-scale embroidery project you’re always working on?” Flash grinned a little as he said it. He was pretty proud of that one.

“Stop it.”

“I will,” Flash said. “If you admit that I’m right.”

Peter frowned. “Right about”—he cut himself off, clearly realizing what Flash was talking about, and glared. “No.”

Flash shrugged. “Whatever you say. You sure do love making things hard for yourself, don’t you?”

Peter, apparently done with trying to talk to Flash, buried his head in his arms and refused to leave them for the rest of the class.

The next two weeks passed in about the same manner. They worked on the project (in the library, Flash did not win that argument) and Flash made a point of being as annoying as humanely possible, which, as it turned out, was pretty damn annoying. One instance he was particularly proud of was when he had found a spider crawling across the table at decathlon practice and slyly said hey, Parker, it’s you. That had earned him an impressively red face and a mumbled that doesn’t even make sense.

The day of their presentation arrived, and while Flash was a little disappointed to see this particular method of tormenting Peter leave him so soon, he could tell Peter was anything but. He’d never seen someone so relieved at the dawn of a major grade’s due date in his life, as a matter of fact.

The teacher gave them the five minute warning for their presentation, and Flash looked at Peter. “I’m ready. Are you ready?”

“I’m ready,” Peter said. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he added, and something in the tone of his voice implied that he thought that was incredibly likely.

“Yeah, I know,” Flash said, irritated. “I don’t want to tank my own grade.” Then he turned to look at the teacher. “We’re ready!”

Their presentation went fine, not that Flash had expected anything less. Like he’d said, he didn’t want to tank his grade. He was perfectly capable of getting work done while being as irritating as possible to Peter, and Peter in turn was remarkably talented at getting work done while Flash irritated the living hell out of him.

“That was pretty good,” Flash said once they finished and returned to their seats. “Maybe we should go do something to celebrate after school—oh, wait, unless you were planning on jumping around the city in spandex for a couple hours again.”

Peter, halfway into sitting down in his chair, froze. “Why are you like this?”

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,” Flash said. “You’re bringing this onto yourself. You know what will make me stop.”

Peter stared at Flash for long enough that he was starting to get uncomfortable (not that he’d ever admit that to anyone), then heaved out a breath. “Lets say,” he said slowly, “hypothetically, that I am Spider-Man. Do you really think that you’re going to be able to like, annoy me into actually admitting it to you?”

“Um, yeah,” was Flash’s instant response. “Dude, you’re like, three seconds from cracking right now. I’m gonna bet it takes me a few more weeks, tops.”

“Well, it’s not happening,” Peter said, full of confidence, then winced. “Hypothetically.”

Flash decided to let that one slide.

The next day, Flash was late to decathlon practice, thanks to a doctor’s appointment. School after five o’clock any day was basically a ghost town, so Flash was more than a little surprised when he rounded a corner and saw Peter, all but sprinting down the hallway, especially considering Peter also should have been at practice. Flash stopped, and so did Peter, skidding just a little. For a moment, they both stared at each other.

It was a safe bet, Flash was beginning to learn, that Peter being late for things would be due to something Spider-Man related, but right now it was even more glaringly obvious than usual. His hair and clothes were—well, rumpled was putting it lightly, and Flash was pretty sure his shirt was on backwards. Also, he kind of smelled.

“Oh my god,” Flash said before he could think better of it. “Dude, I really hope you’re sprinting for a bathroom and not practice, because you need one.”

“Don’t”- Peter started, then blinked. “Wait, what?”

Flash was well aware this wasn’t his usual irritate-peter-to-his-breaking-point method, but he couldn’t help it. “You can’t go to practice looking like that. This is why people think you’re an escort, you know.”

“Wh—people are still saying that?” Peter asked. Then, he squinted at Flash. “Have you been spreading it?”

“Uh, no,” Flash said. “Obviously. Why would I do that when I know you’re Spider-Man?”

“I’m not”— Peter started, and then cut himself off with a sharp inhale. “I had to run to the store to grab something. No Spider-Man, and no escort.”

“Okay, then why’s your shirt on backwards?” Flash asked.

Peter paused. “That’s why I was at the store,” he said. “I needed a new shirt.” It was altogether a terrible lie, and judging by Peter’s flustered expression, he knew it too.

Flash rolled his eyes. “Okay, you know what, sure. I’m serious about the bathroom though, you like, really need to clean up.”

“Oh really,” Peter said.

“Yeah really. This is like, painfully obvious. I can’t even make fun of you right now.”

“Nothing’s obvious, because I’m not Spider-Man,” Peter said stubbornly.

“Yeah, you definitely are,” Flash said. “What even happened?”

“I went to the store.”

Okay, sure,” Flash said. “You know what, I’ll just look at my phone. I bet I’ll find someone talking about it in like, ten seconds max.” Flash pulled out his phone and started doing just that, getting onto twitter and scrolling quickly.

“Can you just stop talking? Please?” Flash was almost impressed at how aggravated Peter sounded.

“Um, if you think you can walk into school looking like you just lost a fight with a garbage bin without me pointing it out you must be out of your mind. Honestly, I don’t know why you’re still pretending I don’t know you’re Spider-Man when you’re doing stuff like this,” Flash said, still scrolling.

Finally, Peter snapped. “Would you shut up?”

Flash did shut up, more out of surprise than anything else. “Um, what?”

“You’re not—this isn’t funny, okay? I don’t know if you think it is or if you think this is like, you being friendly or what, but it’s not any of that, it’s just super fucking annoying, and you need to stop.”

“I’m not”— Flash started.

Peter cut him off quickly. “You’re an asshole,” he said, because apparently he wasn’t done. “And whatever—this thing you’ve been doing for the past few weeks is, it’s not helping you out.”

Flash was starting to feel offended. “I’m not trying to be an asshole”—

“Yeah, well you’re failing. This whole thing where you try to like, annoy me into admitting I’m Spider-Man? It’s not going to work. It’s never going to work, because I don’t like you, and even if it was true, which it isn’t, you would be the last person on the planet that I would ever tell. So can you please just get over this and leave me alone?”

Flash stared at him for a moment, completely dumbstruck. At some point in their conversation, they had moved closer to each other, and Flash could see Peter’s eyes. He meant it, Flash realized, with a numb sort of shock. He meant every word of what he had just said.

“Okay,” Flash said, finally, after a prolonged moment of eye contact. “Sure, fine. Whatever.” Something truly ugly was twining its way through his stomach, and he needed to leave. Now, preferably. He pushed past Peter, making his way down the hallway.

“You smell like you just swam through a garbage dump!” he shouted over his shoulder as he left. He hoped it would make him feel better, somehow, but instead the ugly feeling in his stomach only pulled tighter, lodging itself even deeper into his body.

4.

Flash really, really hated admitting he was wrong. Obviously. Everything about it was humiliating. The knowing smirks of everyone in the room waiting for you to be brought down, secure in the knowledge that they were correct, the person on the other side, patiently explaining their take like you were a toddler who couldn’t be trusted to know the difference between a square and a triangle, the triumphant look of someone who has just utilized google and is about to deliver a killing blow. Even in decathlon, the snickers from an incorrect answer were enough to make him want to storm out of the room, which probably had something to do with his long-running streak of never answering a question in an actual competition.

Point is, Flash really wanted to keep pushing Peter. He was right, he knew it, and yet he had still been downright mocked three separate times with completely factually inaccurate information. It was enough to make him boil over. The way Peter had said it all, with a straight face, like he wasn’t lying through his teeth every time he said I’m not Spider-Man, was an insult, plain and simple. He should have kept pushing, but he couldn’t.  Every time he tried to settle back into anger and twist the awful feeling in his stomach into motivation, he’d remember the look on Peter’s face as he finally snapped at Flash. There hadn’t been a single drop of goodwill in that look.

Flash had been acting annoying, he knew that. That had kind of been the entire point. And he knew that he had never exactly been nice to Peter, but somehow that hadn’t translated to Peter actually hating him.

It sounded unbelievably stupid in retrospect, but he really hadn’t meant to make Peter hate him.

So Flash tamped down the little monster that screamed at him to prove Peter wrong, and he backed off. He stopped talking to Peter in class, he stopped throwing out vaguely spider-themed comments when they passed each other in the hall, and he stopped periodically interrogating Peter on his secret identity. He stopped all of it.

Flash managed to stay completely out of Peter’s hair for nearly two weeks. It was an…awkward two weeks, mainly because despite ignoring each other in every other way possible, Flash kept looking at Peter, and, for whatever reason, Peter kept doing the same. It made for a lot of awkward eye contact. Their English class was by far the worst, since their teacher had decided that any partner work they did for the rest of the year would be in the same pairs from their last project. Something about saving time. Flash, personally, didn’t think it was worth it, and he got the feeling Peter agreed, judging by the impossibly stilted conversations they were having about Great Expectations. Other than that, Flash did his best to keep away and only interact with Peter when it was necessary, which, as it turned out, was basically never.

Then, Peter got himself blown up.

Well, Spider-Man got himself blown up. And that was kind of the problem.

Flash hadn’t been keeping up with all the Spider-Man sites nearly as religiously as he used to for a while, but he still tried to keep notifications on for anything big. His phone going absolutely wild for no apparent reason at eleven p.m. on a school night definitely counted as something big.

It was hard to tell what was going on in the video. Whoever had been filming it was obviously terrified, and hadn’t exactly been close to the action, all of which combined to make a very blurry, very shaky video that cut out at least twice as the person holding it dropped their phone completely. It was still good enough to see the action though, and Flash didn’t much like what he saw.

At first, it was just Spider-Man fighting some bad guys, nothing abnormal there. Then, something had exploded. A bomb or a grenade or something, Flash was hardly the expert, but it had gone off, and it had flung Peter. Which was hardly something new, but it had really thrown him, and he hadn’t exactly… gotten up afterwards. Not for a long minute. It looked bad.

Honestly, Flash would have thought nothing of it three months ago. Everyone had seen Spider-Man do some pretty dangerous shit. Flash was sure that wasn’t the worst he had ever taken, and it probably wasn’t even the worst thing he had even seen him take. But all that had been before he knew that Peter was the one doing all the dangerous shit. Before, he probably would have winced in sympathy and then moved on with his life, maybe posted something wishing him well. Now, the only thought in his head as he paused the video and stared at the screen in shock was that that was Peter.

He had gotten up, at least, and he had walked away, more or less. That meant he was probably fine, right? Still, Flash couldn’t help but feel worried. He spent the rest of the night resisting the urge to shoot Peter a quick text, just to ask if he was okay.

Flash hadn’t been expecting Peter to show up to school the next day. Like, really, who shows up to school after getting blown up? Flash wouldn’t have, he could say that much for sure. But Peter thought differently, clearly, as Flash saw when he walked into English, clearly tired and doing his best to hide what looked like a pretty bad limp and overall looking completely miserable.

Flash knew he shouldn’t go over. He was pretty sure him going over was basically the last thing Peter wanted. But Peter looked absolutely miserable as he reached over to pull a notebook out of his backpack and something was tugging at Flash’s insides and he felt bad, as ridiculous as that was, and before he could think better of it, Flash jumped out of his own seat and moved to sit in the one next to Peter.

Peter glanced over at Flash, and somehow managed to look even more tired than he already did. “Not in the mood, Flash.”

“Okay,” Flash said. “Sure. Just”—he lowered his voice awkwardly—“are you okay?”

Peter didn’t even look at him. “I’m great. Never better.” Of course. Flash didn’t know why he’d expected anything different.

At the front of the class, their teacher looked like she was gearing up to give a massive lecture. Flash hesitated, wondered if he should say what he was considering saying or if it was only going to irritate Peter more, then decided if that possibility hadn’t stopped him before it probably shouldn’t stop him now. “I could take notes for you,” he offered.

Peter’s jaw clenched. “Why would I need you to take notes for me?”

Okay. Flash had tried. “I don’t know,” he hissed back quietly. “Maybe because you got blown up last night and probably shouldn’t even be at school right now?”

Peter did turn this time, to give Flash the full scope of what turned out to be a very halfhearted scowl. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, then opened his notebook to a fresh page. Then, their teacher started class, and they spent the rest of the period taking notes. Peter looked absolutely miserable the entire time, and Flash couldn’t even bring himself to find it slightly vindicating.

Peter zombied his way through the rest of the school day, and Flash didn’t try to help him a second time. He did spend most of the classes they shared blatantly staring at him, and trying to work through the thoughts swirling around his brain. It was stupid, he knew, but as he stared at the back of Peter’s head in every class they shared, as he slowly worked through his assignments in all the classes they didn’t, all he could think was a dumbfounded that’s Spider-Man.

He knew Peter was Spider-Man. Obviously he knew it. He’d spent the last month trying to get Peter to admit it to him, he’d hardly forgotten it. But the thing was, he also sort of had forgotten it. Or, he hadn’t fully connected the dots between the two. Watching Peter come limping into class the day after Spider-Man took a bomb certainly did that. He couldn’t ignore it now if he wanted to.

He'd spent the last few weeks annoying the living hell out of Peter, sure, but he’d also been annoying the living hell out of Spider-Man. Even if he had refused to admit it.

Flash remembered the look in Peter’s eyes when they had made eye contact in that hallway two weeks ago, and felt that same ugly feeling in his stomach resurface.

If Spider-Man hadn’t hated him before Flash had started his whole get-Peter-to-admit-his-super-secret-identity tirade, he definitely did now.

The next day, Peter seemed to be feeling better. As Flash slid into the seat next to him, Peter sighed and said “Really? Again?” It wasn’t a pleasant greeting (not that Flash had expected one), but it was about ten times less apathetic than the day before, so he took it as a good sign.

“Yep,” he said in response. “You’re never getting rid of me, Parker. Sorry if you were hoping otherwise.”

“Great,” Peter said. “Just what I want.”

“I’ll leave in a second,” Flash said. “I just wanted to say something.”

Peter looked like he was bracing himself. “What.”

Flash hesitated.

The night before, he had thought. A lot. In the end, he’d only been able to come up with one coherent thought.

He wasn’t entirely sure how to come back from, well… everything he’d done to Peter, but he knew he had to try. If not because he was Spider-Man, then because Flash had to do something to ease the knot of guilt that had taken up residence in his stomach over the past few weeks. He just needed to figure out how.

See, the thing was, Flash wasn’t entirely sure how to be nice. That was probably terrible. Scratch that, it was definitely terrible. But it was also true. The friends he’d had for as long as he’d been at Midtown were about as friendly as sharks in a tank, and fully willing to turn on each other at any sign of weakness. There weren’t many displays of kindness there. His parents weren’t much better. Point is, he hadn’t had much practice at being nice, or genuine, or any of the things it took to maybe stop being such an asshole to that guy you’d been bullying for about three years now.

But he had to try.

He knew what he needed to say. That much was obvious, even to him. I’m sorry. Two simple words. It shouldn’t have been hard, but for some reason he couldn’t quite get them out. Peter was still looking at him, waiting.

“Don’t get blown up again,” is what he ended up saying, before the silence got awkward. “I was worried. It was terrible.”

Peter’s brows scrunched up together. “What?”

Before he could say anything else, or get angry again, Flash jumped out of his seat, quickly saying “That’s all, see you later,” and then moved back to his normal spot. He glanced over at Peter once he was seated. He was looking at Flash too, and his expression seemed stuck somewhere between irritation and confusion. What? he mouthed at Flash, and Flash shrugged in response and turned away to pull his notebook out of his bag. When he looked back, Peter’s attention had returned to his notebook too.

Not so great of a first try, but he’d get there. He had to.

Flash was done making Peter Parker’s life difficult.

5.

The next few weeks were… weird.

Flash really didn’t know what he was doing. He tried to be helpful whenever he and Peter got paired up in English, which seemed to confuse Peter more than anything else, and he stopped making Spider-Man jokes after Peter gave him the stink-eye for the nth time and he realized oh yeah that’s probably super annoying. It was better than before, but Flash was pretty sure he was still doing something wrong, judging by the overwhelming awkwardness of every single one of their interactions. The first time he offered to help Peter with cleanup after a decathlon practice he had stared at Flash like a bug had crawled out of his mouth.

“Um, I mean, I guess,” he said after a moment, and slid the file for question cards over to him. Whoever had been using the cards over the day had tossed them in a haphazard pile on the table after using them instead of organizing them back into their correct category, like Mr. Harrington reminded them to do every practice. He had yet to be listened to, as far as Flash knew. Flash stared at it in dismay.

“Man, I asked to help, not be tortured,” he complained.

Peter’s face went red. “Sorry?” he said, and tried to take the file back. Before he could, Flash lunged out and grabbed it.

“No! I want to do it!” Before Peter could get any ideas, he grabbed a stack of cards and started filing them, slowly and painfully. So boring.

Peter stared. Flash tried not to note how he wasn’t doing anything to help out now. “What are you doing?” He asked finally.

“Uh, isn’t it obvious?” Flash waved a hand at the cards. “I’m helping.”

“Yeah,” Peter said. “But why?”

“I’m just a helpful guy, Parker,” Flash said.

Peter kept staring. “This is weird,” he said finally, with the air of someone announcing a massive decision, except the decision this time was that Flash was being weird.

“I’m sorry,” Flash said. “Do you want me to stop?”

Peter hesitated. “No.” He shook his head. “I mean, maybe? You’re acting weird,” he repeated. “This is weird, You’re—planning something. Or…something.” He trailed off awkwardly. “This is weird,” he said again. It seemed to be the only thing he was sure of.

Huh. Flash really wished he’d figured out that acting nice was the way to drive Peter insane before he’d sworn off being mean.

“Sorry to disappoint,” Flash said, and, if he was being honest, he kind of was. “I don’t have any nefarious schemes.”

Peter squinted at him. “Really.”

“Yes, really,” Flash said. “I’m being nice now. It’s happening.”

Peter tilted his head and frowned at him, and Flash got the distinct feeling that he didn’t believe it. “Okay,” Peter said slowly, and that confirmed it.

“I am!” Flash insisted. “Really! It’s happening! I’m changing. People can change.”

Peter gave him an odd look, then his expression morphed to something new and he nodded his head quickly. “That’s great!” he said, with about half the enthusiasm one would expect from a statement like that. “I have to um, go, though. So, um, are you good with those? Great, bye.” And with that, he left out the door.

Flash was pretty sure he had just seen Peter’s pretending-to-be-happy face. He couldn’t say it was all that convincing. He watched Peter go for a few seconds before he realized Peter had just left him with all the cards. “Hey!” Flash shouted. “Wait! I didn’t want to do this all by my own!”

Peter didn’t come back, shockingly.

Flash wished he could say that was their most awkward encounter.

The next day, Flash sucked up his courage and went to the only person he could think of to help him out.

“Hey, Betty,” he hissed in the middle of chemistry. Their teacher was reviewing problems to their last test and had long ago accepted the whispered conversations that were happening all over the class.

Betty glanced over at him. “What.”

“You’d say you’re friends with Peter, right?”

Betty frowned. “I guess,” she said slowly. “Why?”

“Would you say he…you know, doesn’t like me that much?” Flash tried not so sound too weird while asking the question. Going off the look Betty gave him, he had failed.

“Well, yes?” she said, like it was the most obvious thing on the planet. “Is this new information?”

Flash ignored her last comment and pushed onwards. “Okay. Cool. Great. How do I fix that?”

Betty stared at him and shook her head. “What?”

“How do I get him to not hate me?” Flash asked.

Betty shook her head again. “You want me to tell you how to get Peter to not hate you,” she checked.

“Yes.” Flash was pretty sure he was failing at not sounding desperate.

“Why?”

Flash paused. He’d decided a long time ago that he couldn’t tell Betty about how he’d figured out Peter was Spider-Man. Even if they had kind of been working on it together, sharing his identity with another person had felt too wrong. Right now, this meant that all he could really say in response was a stilted “You know, just…because.”

Betty squinted at him. “Right,” she drawled. “You’re funny.”

“What does that mean?” Flash asked.

“Nothing,” Betty said. “And I don’t know. Honestly, you might be better off if you just don’t talk to him.”

“Don’t talk?” Flash said. “What’s that supposed to do?” He’d done the not talking thing for two weeks and gotten basically zero results. He couldn’t imagine it’d get him any farther now.

“You’re kind of infuriating,” Betty said. “Shutting up might be your best bet.”

“Okay, well that’s not helpful,” Flash told her. “Like, at all.”

“Did you want my advice or not?”

“Telling me to shut up isn’t advice!” Flash hissed.

“What do you want me to say?” Betty snapped. “Be nice? Stop randomly insulting him? Try to avoid shoving him into any lockers if you can?”

“I have never showed him in a locker,” Flash said.

“My bad,” Betty said.

“You know what? Forget it,” Flash said, and turned back to his test. It had been a stupid idea anyways.

A few minutes later, Betty spoke. “Ugh, you know what, fine.” she said. “Stop looking so miserable.”

Flash perked up. “Really?”

“Yes. Just tell me why you’ve suddenly decided you and Peter need to be friends. For real. Not just because.” She did air quotes around just because and gave Flash a pointed glare.

“What?” Flash hissed. “Why is that necessary?”

“Because you’re acting weird,” Betty said. “I’m pretty sure I’m technically like, conspiring with the enemy right now. I need to make sure you’re not going to misuse my help.”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Flash complained. “How am I supposed to misuse this?” At Betty’s glare, he shut up. Ugh. This was absolutely not worth it. “I just… feel bad,” he said haltingly. “For how I treated him, and stuff. And I want to make it up. Somehow.”

Betty stared at him for a long moment, and if he didn’t know her well enough by now to know that this was just her thinking his words over, he probably would have been seriously unnerved. Well, he was still a little unnerved, actually. But less.

“Okay,” she said finally.

“Really?” Flash asked, almost not believing it.

“Yes. Just don’t complain. And don’t argue. I know better than you, okay?”

“Okay! Fine!” Flash said quickly.

“Okay,” Betty said. She leaned forward. “Listen up, okay?”

“Okay,” Flash said, and leaned in too.

Betty lowered her voice, and said, slowly and clearly, “Apologize.”

Flash leaned back out. “I know that”—

“Shh!” Betty snapped. “No arguing! Just listen! You need to apologize, and tell him you’re sorry for being a dick, and then you need to tell him that you’re gonna stop being such a dick, and then you can ask if he’d be willing to start over. In that order. No improvising.”

“Wait,” Flash said. “But”—

“I said no complaining,” Betty reminded him.

“Yeah! This isn’t a complaint! Just”—Flash paused for a moment as her realized that this maybe technically was a complaint, then decided to forge on anyways. “Are you sure there isn’t a version of that where you like, leave the apology part out?”

“Flash.”

“I was just wondering!”

“No! that’s the most important part! You can’t just leave it out!”

“I can’t say it!” Flash hissed. “I’ve tried. It never comes out.”

“Flash,” Betty said, “Suck it up. Try harder.”

“You’re not being helpful!”

“Yeah, well, you’re being stupid!”

“You know what? Never mind,” Flash said, and turned back to his work. Betty did the same, clearly just as exasperated with him as he was with her. He wasn’t sure why he was so angry. He knew she was right, and she hadn’t said anything he didn’t already know. He’d just been hoping for a different answer. Why he’d thought Betty would supply it, he couldn’t guess.

“Listen,” Betty said quietly after a few minutes. “I’m serious about apologizing. If you get over being like, embarrassed or whatever’s holding you up right now, Peter’s a nice guy. I’m sure he’ll accept a ceasefire to…whatever it is you guys have going on.”

“…I’ll think about it,” Flash said, and he meant it. Maybe that was why he’d gone to Betty. She was semi-decent at knocking some sense into him. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Betty said. She sounded like she meant it, too. “Now shut up. I’m trying to learn.”

Flash did think about it. A lot. For the rest of the week, it was basically all he could think about. During classes, at home, at their slowly increasing number of weekly decathlon practices, the entire two-hour bus ride to semifinals (they won, thanks for asking), and, without question, any time Peter was in the room. Despite all that thinking, he had absolutely nothing to show as far as actually apologizing.

It shouldn’t have been so hard. It was two words. Two measly little words. But every time he thought of saying them, they got stuck in his throat. They wound through his head, getting more and more tangled with doubts and unease until he was worried they might be stuck in there forever.

It was because he was never alone, Flash told himself at first. Peter’s two friends were basically always attached to him at the hip. He wasn’t going to walk up to all three of them, and he couldn’t ask them if he could talk to Peter alone, seeing as they were both weirdly protective of him.

Besides, it seemed like they were slowly falling into a sort of rhythm, almost. Peter had stopped acting blatantly confused when Flash did something helpful, though there still was a touch of hesitancy to all their interactions. Maybe this was the best it got. Would an apology really help that?

Flash knew he was kidding himself. He knew he needed to do like Betty suggested and suck it up, but he couldn’t. He’d never been the best at following through on unpleasant tasks.

Then, a week later, as he walked to lunch, he overheard voices in an adjacent hallway to the one he was walking, and it wasn’t until he’d already turned the corner that led to it that he realized what had drawn him to check it out.

It was Peter. Obviously. It was always Peter. Peter… and Toby? And Brett? It took Flash a moment, but then, with a sudden swoop of his stomach that made him feel sick, he got it.

In the hectic rush of his own decision to be a better, less terrible person, Flash had almost forgotten that he wasn’t the only kid to pick on Peter.

He couldn’t quite tell what was going on, but it was clear that Brett and Toby were giving Peter a hard time about something, and instead of arguing back or walking away or snapping at them like Flash knew Peter could do at this point, Peter was standing next to his open locker, with a resigned expression that Flash recognized from, well, from many of their own interactions.

No one had noticed Flash yet. He could walk away, and no one would ever know. He almost did.

The thing was, Flash and Brett and Toby were technically friends. They hung out together at school, got lunch together, sat together in class sometimes. When one of them threw a party, the others would be there. But that was as far as it went. They didn’t talk, not about anything even mildly important. If one of them were to vanish off the face of the earth, he doubted there would be any tears shed. (Actually, that last one might have been proven, with the blip and all.) It was less friendship and more all the self-proclaimed popular kids hanging out together to keep up the charade of popularity. Point is, Flash wasn’t overly close with them. Also, as much as he hated to admit it, nobody had quite grown to admire him, popularity wise, in the same way they had before the blip. New fish in the sea, no room for the old ones. Or however that saying went.

All this was running through his head as he tried to convince himself that what he was about to do wasn’t a terrible idea and stepped fully into the hallway.

“Hey, assholes,” he snapped before he had a chance to think more about what he was about to say. “You’re not funny. Stop picking on Peter and get a life.”

They did stop, only to turn an incredulous look on him. Flash glanced over quickly to look at Peter, who was giving him a very similar look of his own.

Eventually, Brett spoke. “You want us to stop? You?”

Flash was already having regrets, actually, but he wasn’t going to let Brett know that. “Yeah. I do.”

“Really?” Brett said. Toby seemed pleased to fade into the background. Peter’s eyes were flicking between Flash and Brett like he was watching a tennis match. “You do? A couple weeks ago, you said that he was completely insufferable, and the most annoying person in the school, and that you ‘couldn’t wait for the day someone finally proved him wrong’ about his ‘I’m better and smarter than everyone complex’.”

“Yeah, well I changed my mind about that!” Flash said quickly. He didn’t look at Peter. “Do you seriously not have anything better to do with your time? Maybe like, actually study for calculus so you don’t have to cheat on your midterms again?”

That got him a sour look, which was good, because it was exactly what Flash was aiming for. Never let it be said that he didn’t know how to hit where it hurts. “You know no one really likes you, right?” Brett said. “You’re almost as annoying as Parker, you just have money going for you.”

That…stung, actually, but Flash refused to let it show. Or, he only let it show a little. Just for a second. Maybe two.

“Yeah, well, you’re not anywhere near the top of my list either. Screw off.”

Brett rolled his eyes and started walking away, Toby awkwardly trailing behind. “Bye, Flash,”  called back, and there was something scathingly dismissing about his tone. Flash wasn’t entirely sure that had been a win, but he decided to count it as one anyways.

Then, he turned to face Peter, who was apparently losing his mind. The glare he was leveling Flash with was somewhere between genuinely angry and incredibly confused, and Flash wasn’t sure what to do with it.

“Um,” Flash said eloquently. “Hey.”

“Why are you doing this?” Peter snapped.

“I—what?” This hadn’t been how he’d been expecting Peter to react.

“You! You’re—you’re supposed to hate me! And now you’re just acting all nice suddenly, and doing whatever that was, and it doesn’t make sense!” Peter made an aborted half-step, like he wanted to start pacing but had just stopped himself. “You can’t just—switch sides suddenly. You and him were friends! You can’t just yell at him for me! Why would you do that?”

“Listen!” Flash yelled. Peter shut up abruptly. Flash kept talking. “I know I’ve done like, a lot of shitty things but I’m trying to be better! And I know all the shit I said was really bad and all the stuff I’ve been doing for the past few weeks was… weird and probably like, way over the top, but I’m sorry about it. All of it. And I know it probably shouldn’t have taken me realizing you were Spider-Man to stop being such an asshole to you, but I’m done with all that now. I swear.”

Peter stared at him, almost but not quite gaping.

Flash shifted awkwardly, suddenly realizing exactly what he had just said. “Listen. I’m trying to be better. I meant all that stuff I said a few days ago about being nicer and, you know, less terrible, and all that, and, um, if you’d rather me just ignore you completely, I—I can do that. But I’d like if we could be friends. Or—not friends, that may be a bit of a stretch, but if we could just start over and I’ll like, try not to be as terrible this time, then that’d be nice. If you want.”

Peter was still staring. After a long pause, he spoke, slowly, like he was still working through the words even as he spoke them. “You meant all of that,” he said. It sounded less like he was asking for confirmation from Flash and more like he was just saying it for himself. “You’re serious.”

“Yeah,” Flash said anyway.

Peter shook his head. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he said, waving his hand down the corridor where Brett had gone. “You guys are friends.” God, he was so nice. It was infuriating.

“Not really,” Flash said. Friends had always been a generous term to describe their relationship, and Flash was pretty sure it applied even less now, if at all.

“Okay,” Peter said, still staring. Flash was starting to get a little concerned. Leave it to him to break Spider-Man by being nice.

“I really am sorry,” Flash offered, even though he’d already said it. The words rolled off his tongue surprisingly easily now, like his speech had burst a dam and now the words could flow easily.

Peter looked at him for a long moment. “Thanks,” he said eventually. He opened his mouth, then hesitated. “I don’t”—he started, then shook his head. “I don’t know about friends,” he said. “But, um, we could be acquaintances? Or, like, friendly acquaintances? Or—something?”

Flash laughed before he could stop himself. He thought it must be from relief. “Yeah, sure,” he said. “Friendly acquaintances it is.”

Peter nodded. “Good,” he said. He sounded relieved too. Then he blinked and frowned at Flash, like something had just occurred to him. “But I’m still not Spider-Man.”

6.

Just one field trip, Flash thought. Just one field trip where our lives aren’t put into imminent danger, that’s all I am asking for.

He didn’t even know what had happened. One second, they were all walking, the entire decathlon team taking a tour of the city or something before they went to back to the hotel. Half of them had been stealthily shuffling question cards to prepare for their finals match tomorrow, and the other half had been actually enjoying the sights, and then next thing he knew, there was sand everywhere.

It was whipping around, nearly blinding them, crashing into buildings and shattering glass and Flash had never once thought of sand as a weapon before now but he was starting to reconsider that opinion, and his classmates were doing everything from ducking down and cowering to running away screaming to staring vaguely at the center of the sand-shaped blob of a thing about half a street away from them with a resigned expression that could only come from kids who had dealt with far too much of this kind of bullshit in far too little time.

Someone bumped into him on his right, knocking him forward heavily, and Flash realized they were being herded towards an alley, which was probably a good idea, it couldn’t be worse than being out in the streets with this thing, and then he looked over and saw who was doing the herding.

It was Mr. Harrington, grabbing a few students by the arms and yelling at the rest to follow him. Arguably, this should have been one of his better moments as a figure of authority, if it weren’t for the fact that one of the students he was stubbornly gripping onto in an attempt to protect was Peter.

Peter, who was also Spider-Man, and could almost definitely be helping them right now, if he wasn’t being viciously protected by a well-meaning teacher. Peter, who clearly knew this and was looking between his arm and the sand monster with a downright frantic expression. Flash waited for him to super-strength his way out of what looked like an already flimsy grasp, but it must have been too obvious for Peter or something, because instead he just let himself be pulled along like an incredibly malcontented ragdoll.

Flash held back a groan. He hated his life. Everything about it. Truly. But if this would help Peter, and by extension, Spider-Man, and by extension, literally everyone taking up space in the surrounding four blocks or so, it wasn’t like he had much of a choice.

Flash dredged up every drop of drama he could find, collapsed to the ground, and screamed.

Instantly everyone turned to look at him.

Mr. Harrington dropped the arms of all the students he’d been holding onto and rushed over to Flash.

“Flash,” he said urgently. “What’s wrong? Can you get up?”

“I think I’ve been shot!” Flash yelled. “Shot by the sand! It must have a sand gun or something!”

“Okay,” Mr. Harrington said desperately. “But can you get up?”

“No!” Flash yelled. “I’ve been shot!” He spared a glance for Peter. Instead of doing anything useful, like running away and saving them, he was staring at Flash, confusion written on every line on his face, along with just a touch of concern.

Flash was too busy pretending he was grievously wounded to give him a full explanation, but he shot Peter a look that he hoped conveyed something along the lines of RUN. Peter must have gotten it, because he glanced down at his arm for a moment before looking back at Flash, comprehension running across his face. Then, he ran.

Flash waited until Peter was far enough away that he was guessing no one would notice him, and then jumped to his feet. “Sorry,” he said. “False alarm. I think I just stubbed my toe.” Mr. Harrington was apparently too relieved that one of his students wasn’t actually dying to question it, and he simply grabbed on to Flash’s arm and started leading everyone back towards the alley. “We’ll be safe in here!” he called to everyone as they sheltered against the walls. Just over someone’s shoulder, Flash caught a glimpse of a red-and-black blur, and felt relief bloom in his chest.

They would be safe. If there was one thing Flash knew, it was that Peter would do everything he could to protect them.

Hours later, after Spider-Man had reportedly swooped in out of nowhere and drawn the sand monster far, far away from them, leaving them all to run and hide in a building and wait out the rest of the fight, and after things had seemed safe again and their team had made their way to their hotel, Flash ran into Peter in the hallway.

“Hey,” Flash said, surprised. If he’d just fought a sand monster in the middle of a city on what was supposed to be a relaxing tour, he thought he’d probably be passed out in bed about now. “You okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Peter asked. Flash tried not to roll his eyes.

It had been two weeks since their declaration of being “friendly acquaintances”. Flash still wasn’t entirely sure what that meant. Peter, at least, seemed more at ease, and most of the awkwardness in their interactions had finally faded away. Sometimes they nodded at each other in the hallway, and they had compared answers on their English homework once.

Flash wasn’t sure how any of that translated to their current situation, though. He had more or less completely dropped the while Spider-man thing, but this seemed like a special situation. Flash had just helped Peter run away and Spider-Man them out of danger, and Peter had accepted it. It was basically a confirmation of what they both already knew. But Peter was still playing dumb, clearly. Was he allowed to talk about it now? He decided to take a chance and push it just a bit farther.

“So, what was that guy’s deal?” Flash asked. “Was he following you, or was that just another case of us having the worst luck on the planet?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Peter said, fully unconvincingly.

“Uh-huh,” Flash responded, and decided to let it go. He was too tired to push the issue any farther.

“But, uh, I was getting some snacks at the vending machine and it gave me too many skittles,” Peter continued, and held the candy out towards him, expression somehow staying completely blank. “So, uh, if you want them, you can take it.”

Flash stared at the skittles for a moment. Was Peter thanking him? With candy?

“You’re killing me, man,” Flash said, and took the skittles.

+1.

A few weeks later, Flash paced through the aisles of a store, holding back a growl. This was stupid. He wasn’t even sure why he was doing this. He could have just asked not to be in the stupid decathlon secret santa, but somehow he’d let himself get roped into it and now he was here, in some random store at the mall, trying to figure out what to get for Ned Leeds of all people.

Flash frowned at the pile of puzzle games he’d been standing in front of for ten minutes. It was becoming increasingly clear he had absolutely no idea what he was doing, and he really didn’t like it. He’d tried looking at legos, which were the one thing he knew Ned liked, but all the ones under their twenty-dollar price limit had been, quite frankly, terrible.

Flash groaned and made his way out of the store. Whatever. He’d just get candy, or something. Everybody liked candy, right? Maybe he’d throw in a t-shirt or something. T-shirts and candy. The marks of an expert gift-giver.

Then, in an awkward almost-collision that had them both wobbling back on their toes, and Flash doing a short desperate pinwheel, he found himself face to face with Peter Parker. For a moment, they both did nothing but stare at each other in shock.

“I’m not stalking you!” Flash blurted before Peter could get a single word in. Peter cocked his head at him, and Flash winced. “That probably sounded like something someone who was stalking you would say. But I’m not!”

“Okay,” Peter said, and then there was another long moment of extended silence where Flash very seriously considered just walking away. “What are you doing here?” Peter asked eventually.

“Nothing. What are you doing here?” Flash snapped back defensively, then realized that probably wasn’t either a necessary or appropriate response. “Sorry. Um, I’m…shopping.”

Peter frowned up at the store name. It had been some puzzle store, full of lots of rubik’s cubes and similar games like that. “Okay. For what?”

“I can’t tell you that,” Flash declared. Then something occurred to him. “…Unless you can keep a secret.”

Peter gave him a quizzical look. “I think I’ll manage,” he said dryly. There were many things Flash could have said to that (once he got it), but he chose the high road of ignoring it completely.

“I got Ned in the gift exchange,” Flash explained. “And you and Ned are friends, right? So you probably know what to get for him. And I don’t know what to get for him, like, at all. So if you had any ideas…” he trailed off hopefully.

“We’re doing the exchange tomorrow,” Peter pointed out. Flash couldn’t tell if he was being judged or if Peter thought he was being helpful, or maybe both.

“I was hoping something would come to me,” Flash said. “It didn’t.”

Peter seemed to accept that. “I mean, you could just get him some candy.”

“That’s a last resort present.” Flash said. “I’m not doing that.” Nevermind that that’s been the only thing he could think of three minutes ago.

Peter rolled his eyes. “Okay. Something Star Wars related, then.”

“I’m too cool to know what that means,” Flash declared.

Peter stared. “Please tell me that was a joke.”

It had been, but there was no way Flash was telling Peter that. “Got anything else?” he asked again.

Peter was still giving him a mildly concerned look about the Star Wars thing, but he shook himself out of it and shrugged. “I don’t know, I guess you could get him a hat?”

Flash frowned. That didn’t sound like it could go too wrong. “Okay. What kind?”

“Literally anything,” Peter said. “There’s no way to go wrong with it.”

“Huh,” Flash said. “Okay.” Ned was always wearing hats, now that he thought about it. “Who do you have?” he asked.

“That’s a secret,” Peter said.

“Right,” Flash said. “You and your secrets.” Peter raised an eyebrow. Okay, that one might have been on purpose.

“Right,” Peter echoed, then cleared his throat. “Um, actually”-

Whatever Peter had been about to say was cut off by an explosive bang and what sounded like shattering glass, somewhere very close by. Peter and Flash both froze, along with the rest of the mall. Then, almost as one, the screaming started and everybody started rushing away in a massive, panicked mob. Flash was fully ready to join them, then Peter’s hand latched onto his wrist and pulled him to a stop.

“Hey, uh, Peter?” Flash tried to extract his arm from Peter’s hand, with absolutely no success. “I know this is like, your thing, but I’d kind of rather join the panicked mob I think”—

Peter shushed him. “Wait,” he said. Flash was pretty sure he was listening, hearing something Flash didn’t have the slightest hope of picking up on. Then, he turned, hand still wrapped around Flash’s arm, and started tugging him away from the noise, nearly sprinting.

Flash scrambled to catch up. “Um, woah,” he shouted. “Hey! What’s happening?”

Peter ignored him and kept running, pulling Flash behind him so fast it was all he could do not to trip over his own feet and send them both tumbling to the ground. Then, Peter led them into a seemingly random store and suddenly they were bursting out of an emergency exit and standing outside the back of the building. No one else was around.

“What was that?” Flash demanded. Once it was clear Peter was done running. Peter dropped his bag to the ground and started digging through it and holyshithewaspuullingoutthespidermansuit.

“I’m going to go deal with that, you need to stay out here and don’t come back inside,” Peter was saying and he was probably still talking and Flash couldn’t pay attention to a word of it because Peter was pulling on the Spider-Man suit as he spoke.

“Ohmyfuckinggod,” Flash said as he remembered how to speak.

Peter was still talking and in the middle of shoving his arms through the suit, but he froze when Flash started talking. “What?” he demanded.

“You—you’re—Spider-Man!” Flash yelled.

Momentarily distracted, Peter frowned and said “Yeah?”

“You—you can’t just spring this on me!” Flash said. “You can’t just run out and just fucking—put the Spider-Man suit on like that’s nothing!”

“You know this,” Peter said, and started working his arms back through the suit, like he wasn’t blowing Flash’s entire mind right now.

“Yeah, but I wasn’t expecting you to ever actually confirm it!” Flash yelled. “Dude, that’s the Spider-Man suit! You’re putting the Spider-Man suit on right now!”

“Yeah, I know,” Peter said. He slapped the spider symbol on his chest and all at once it seemed to shrink and fit to his body.

“How are you not losing your mind right now?” There was a chance Flash wasn’t thinking straight, he reflected as he heard the words coming out of his mouth.

“Because, I’m—we don’t have time for this,” Peter—Spider-Man—decided. Probably a good decision. He pushed Flash down. “Just stay here, and don’t come back inside, okay?”

“Yeah, no shit, I don’t want to die,” Flash said.

“Okay,” Peter said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. If you have to, get farther away.” And then he aimed a web at the roof and swung off—swung off, Flash was watching Peter swing away to go fight bad guys, or—help with an explosion, or something, he actually wasn’t sure what was going on but either way, Peter was going to deal with it, because he was the fucking Spider-Man.

Flash slid down the wall and looked up towards where Peter had disappeared. “Holy shit,” he whispered.

Peter came back, about twenty minutes later, still in the suit. There was a small scrape up his arm, and a couple of patches where the suit looked like it had taken a beating, but other than that he seemed fine, and there was no sign that he’d just been Spider-Manning around like no tomorrow. But it was fine. Flash was over it.

“Hey,” he said, and pulled the mask off and looked down at Flash. “Are you okay?” Without waiting for an answer, he grabbed his clothes off the ground and started changing quickly. In any other situation, Flash would have wrinkled his nose at how gross that was, but as it was, that was basically at the very bottom of his list of concerns.

“I’m great,” Flash said. “You know, I’ve just been chilling down here, letting my ass get numb and watching you fight a motherfucking Godzilla explosion man on my tiny phone screen, not, you know, fighting a motherfucking Godzilla explosion man because I’m the fucking Spider-Man.” Okay, so maybe he wasn’t over it.

Peter sighed, finished tugging his shoes on, and sat down next to Flash. “I thought you knew this already.”

“I mean, yeah,” Flash said. “But there’s kind of a big difference between knowing that you’re Spider-Man intellectually and having you confirm it two feet from my face by changing into the Spider-Man suit and then running off to fight some kind of like, eldritch demon.”

“It wasn’t an eldritch demon,” Peter said. “Or Godzilla.”

“Oh? Really? Then what was it?” Flash demanded.

“I...don’t know,” Peter admitted. “But it wasn’t that big of a deal, really. Could have been way worse.”

“Of course it wasn’t,” Flash said. “It didn’t even try to destroy any national monuments and it only exploded like, half a mall, so obviously it wasn’t a big deal. How is this your life?”

Peter frowned. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Flash groaned and threw his hands over his face. It was a touch dramatic probably, but he felt like he’d earned it. “I’m great. Obviously. Not losing my mind or anything.”

“Obviously,” Peter repeated.

“Yeah, obviously,” Flash said. “I just didn’t think you were ever going to like, actually tell me. I definitely wasn’t expecting you to tell me by pulling on the Spider-Man suit and then immediately running off to fight a not-eldritch demon in the middle of a mall outing.”

Peter frowned. “Oh.” It was such a non-reaction Flash couldn’t help but laugh.

“Why did you?” he asked after a moment.

“Huh?”

“You definitely didn’t have to change in front of me just now,” Flash said. “You could have just let me find my own way out, or you could have changed somewhere else. So why?”

“I mean,” Peter said awkwardly. “You knew already, and this was kind of an emergency? I didn’t want to waste time making sure you were safe and then run off to find a different place to change. It seemed kind of pointless.”

“Oh,” Flash said. It made sense when he put it like that.

“And, I mean, I trust you,” Peter said, even more awkwardly. “I guess. For some reason.”

“Oh,” Flash said again. That surprised him. “Um, thanks,” he tried. “I won’t let you down.” The words didn’t come out quite right, so he tried again. “I won’t.”

“Thanks,” Peter said. They sat in silence for a minute, then Peter blurted out, “This is so weird.”

Flash laughed before he could stop himself. “You think this is weird? I still can’t believe I spent years just, obsessively making fun of Spider-Man,” he said, and immediately wanted to stick his foot in his mouth.

Peter didn’t look upset though. Instead, he hesitated for a moment, then started to speak. “Can I be honest?”

“Please.”

Peter rolled his eyes at him. “You did… you used to bother me, like back in ninth and tenth grade, but, I mean, eventually, I kind of… stopped caring, I guess? I mean, I didn’t like it obviously, but you didn’t like, scar me for life or anything. So you can stop apologizing every five minutes.”

“Oh,” Flash said, surprised. “That’s…good.”

“Ned and I had a running tally of how many times you’d insult me and then compliment Spider-Man in the same conversation too, so that helped,” Peter continued.

Flash froze, horrified. “I changed my mind. Please shut up forever.”

Peter snorted and did not shut up. “I think it was at like eighty-seven when you finally figured it out.”

Flash groaned and hid his face in his hands. “I literally hate you.” That made Peter laugh for some reason, and Flash couldn’t quite find it in himself to be annoyed.

“Um,” Peter said then, looking around. “We should probably go. Like, now.” Flash remembered that there had just been a giant

“Yeah,” Flash said. “Good idea. Also, I still need to find a hat.”

They both stood up, and Peter grabbed his bag. “So, uh, see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Flash said. “Tomorrow.”

They parted ways then. Flash walked off to his car, mulling over those three words from Peter: I trust you.

He wasn’t entirely sure what to do with a superhero’s trust, or Peter’s and this was both of those things. He wasn’t sure how to not mess it up, but he’d try. I won’t let you down, he’d promised Peter. I won’t let you down, he’d promised Spider-Man.

Peter Parker was Spider-Man, and Spider-Man was Peter Parker, and Flash wasn’t going to let him down.