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Peter Parker was Spider-Man.
“What the fuck.” Flash muttered to himself, as he stared down at the phone in his hand.
The video was everywhere. All over social media. All over the news. It was everywhere.
He didn’t believe it. He couldn’t. There was no way that Peter Parker, the Peter Parker he had known his entire life, was Spider-Man.
But sure enough, so matter how many times he refreshed his feed, the video never changed. It was still Peter Parker’s name that Mysterio announced as Spider-Man. It was still Peter Parker’s photo that J. Jonah Jameson had displayed for the world to see. He recognized the picture. It had been cut out of Midtown High’s article about the decathlon team. Flash’s picture had been right next to his.
“What the fuck.” Flash repeated.
“Eugene!” His mother reprimanded from an armchair across the room, not taking her eyes from the newspaper in her hand, and sure enough, that same picture of Peter Parker was plastered across the front page. They got it delivered directly to the house. It must have only been printed a few hours ago.
“Sorry, mother.”
The whole world had known the identity of Spider-Man for hours and Flash had missed it. He had only seen it now. He was never sleeping in again. He thought of his thousands of followers on his account dedicated to Spider-Man and dreaded seeing the comments and messages that would have crashed his phone by now, had it not been the newest and finest one money could buy. He deleted the app and his phone also immediately quietened, save for a few notifications from group chats with his friends and fellow students he was in. He silently promised to re-download the app once he got to the bottom of this. Because this could not be happening. There had to be some kind of misunderstanding.
Flash rose from the couch he had been sitting on and retreated to his room, darting down the hallways, avoiding attention, not that it was ever directed upon him in the first place. He flopped onto his bed, staring up at the ceiling where a Spider-Man poster he had brought from a street vender only a few months before was plastered up.
Peter Parker couldn’t be Spider-Man.
There was no way. The Peter Parker he knew didn’t swing from buildings. Didn’t save lives. He didn’t idolize Peter Parker the way he had idolized Spider-Man.
-
He didn’t know why he had Peter Parker’s phone number. Probably from some decathlon excursion where Mr Harrington had made sure they all had each other’s numbers so that they could contact each other if they strayed off. Flash couldn’t recall why he had saved it though.
He held his thumb over the call button. He could just call Peter, and clarify that this was all just a big misunderstanding, that Peter Parker was not Spider-Man. He couldn’t be. Hell, Peter probably invented this misunderstanding to begin with, probably thought that now Tony Stark was dead, no one would deny his lie, and because of his supposed connection to Stark, no one would question him.
He stared at Peter’s contact saved on his phone, eloquently named as Penis. Oh God, had he been calling Spider-Man, Penis for the last three years?
He shook his head, exited the app and opened the Decathlon team group chat, which had kept his phone in a constant buzz for the previous ten minutes. Peter was not Spider-Man. There was absolutely no way.
Peter was notably absent from the last few hours’ worth of chats, as was Michelle and Ned. Instead Flash found the rest of the group frantically messaging each other with their theories on whether or not Peter was really and truly Spider-Man. Even Mr. Harrington had sent a few frantic messages. The critical consensus seemed to be: Yes, Peter was Spider-Man. He had conveniently disappeared every time Spider-Man appeared and Spider-Man appeared everywhere Peter went. It was quite frankly a miracle no one had figured it out, or had seen him, sooner.
Flash exited the app, quick as he arrived, in the hopes that none of them saw his name hovering there, tossing his phone aside. He didn’t know if he could deal with them questioning him about what he thought. He didn’t know what he thought. He couldn’t think able the possibility that Peter might actually be Spider-Man. There was just no way.
He stared at the Spider-Man poster. Spider-Man stared back.
Without allowing himself to think, he picked up his phone, found Peter’s contact and clicked the call button. The phone began to ring and Flash stared in horror at Peter Parker’s name. He brought it to his ear.
A familiar voice sounded in his ear and he nearly jumped.
“You’ve reached Peter Parker. I can’t pick up right now, but feel free-“
Flash hung up, flicked through his contacts, found Michelle and pressed call. It rung out and an automated voice began to tell him to leave a message. He hung up and again scrolled through his contacts until he found Ned. He pressed call and held the phone to his ear.
The phone wrung once, twice, three times and then four. He nearly gave up when he heard a click, followed by Ned’s voice.
“Who’s this?”
“It’s me… Flash.” He said, slowly.
Ned exhaled, and Flash could hear the disappointment.
“What?” He retorted. “Were you expecting someone else?”
“Yes, actually. So if you don’t have anything important to say-“
“Wait! No!” Flash exclaimed, dropping his usual cocky tone. “I called you for a reason.”
Ned stayed silent and Flash waited for a moment before speaking.
“Is it true?”
“Is what true?”
“Is Peter really Spider-Man?”
“Why does it matter?”
Flash froze, mind reeling. “Because it’s Spider-Man! Because everyone is saying that Peter is Spider-Man?”
“So why does it matter, Flash? Why do you care?” Ned sounded angry and tired. Flash had never heard him like that before. It was far from the boy he had gotten used to hearing at school, gushing about whatever nerdy interest he currently had.
“What do you mean?”
“What do you think I mean, Flash? Why do you care?”
Flash didn’t know what to say. Why wouldn’t he care? Ned knew him. Ned knew what Spider-Man meant to him. He knew what Flash was like with Spider-Man… what Flash was like with Peter.
“Spider-Man…” He said slowly. “Spider-Man means so much to me. He inspires me every day. He inspires me to be a better man. And if he’s Peter then… then I don’t know what to do. I don’t know.”
Ned was silent on the other end. They both sat in the silence for a moment.
“Have you heard from him?” Flash asked.
“No. No one has heard from him. Not me, or MJ, or Happy, or May. No one knows where he is right now. Or if he’s even okay.” Ned sounded like he was going to cry.
“He’ll be okay.” Flash said, slowly. “He’s Spider-Man.”
Ned laughed. “Yeah… I know.”
They sat again in the silence that followed. Flash thought back to the day before, or even that morning. He would never have guessed what was going to happen. He would never have guessed that Ned would be the first person he would talk to when he found out Spider-Man’s identity. Yet here he was.
It was Ned who finally broke the silence.
“Listen, I’ve got to go.”
“Yeah, no problem.” Flash muttered. “Just, uh, let me know if you hear from him.”
“Okay, Flash.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
Ned hung up and Flash tossed his phone down by his side. The Spider-Man poster stared down at him. He stared back.
He sat up and turned to look out his window, where the city loomed in the distance. He had always wondered if he would be able to see Spider-Man swinging between buildings from his window. He wondered if he would ever be able to see Spider-Man again. He turned back to his phone and opened his messages. He pressed Peter Parker’s name and send out two texts.
good luck spider-man
and sorry