Chapter Text
When Peter had been a little kid, back before his parents had died, his dad had always used to read him books before bed.
The books, of course, had never been kids’ books. Richard Parker, as a geneticist and a staunch bibliophile, had always had the firm belief that the mind could only be broadened by “real” literature. As such, while most kids were read Dr. Seuss and Bunnicula, Peter had been read The Iliad, The Odyssey, Middlesex (which was both comforting and too close for comfort at the same time), and many of the works by Shakespeare.
It was from the latter, actually, that Peter had discovered his favorite quote, not from Star Wars like you’d probably expect with a nerd like him instead. It was from The Twelfth Night, to be precise, Act II, Scene V: “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ‘em.” It was his favorite quote, because it was one of those ones that had actual, real world applications.
For instance, Steve Rogers had been born great. Even before he’d been injected with the super soldier serum, he’d been a good person, always willing to do the right thing and to stand up for what he believed in. He’d gotten his ass handed to him more than times than most people could count, or so Peggy Carter had said, but he’d always gotten back up again. He’d always said “I can do this all day,” because if it meant he was doing the right thing, he would.
And Tony Stark, who had been Peter’s idol even before becoming Iron Man, had achieved greatness. He admittedly might not have been the best of people up until he’d been kidnapped in Afghanistan, but once he’d realized what had been going on with his company, he’d sought to fix it. He’d built a suit of armor to protect the world, had flown a nuke through a wormhole, had stopped a killer robot (though it was the same one he’d created), and etcetera. Regardless of who he’d been before, Tony Stark had achieved greatness, of that there was no doubt. Not to Peter, anyways.
...But then, there was him. Peter. Although he’d never admit to it silently, much less out loud, a part of him figured with the idea of real-world applications for the quote, he had to fit into the last category. Because “some have greatness thrust upon ‘em?” Yeah, he supposed you could say that for what happened to him.
It wasn’t every day you got bitten by a radioactive ladybug, after all.
~~~
See, it all started out like this:
Every day, Peter made it a point to wake up with a smile on his face. It was something Aunt May had taught him, way back when after...well, the accident. “You may not be happy right now, Peter, and that’s okay,” she had said. “But if you wake up with a smile on your face, it means at least you’re trying to get there.”
Today was no different. While his alarm clock beeped at him incessantly, Peter smiled and hit the button on it to turn it off. He sat up in his bed and rubbed at his eyes, looking around at the room – though, also of course, there wasn’t much to see. Not without his glasses. He was pretty blind like that. Always had been, ever since he could possibly remember.
Grabbing his glasses off of the nightstand, Peter slipped them on and hopped out of bed, before starting his usual morning routine. He went to the bathroom and brushed his teeth and washed his face, then came back to his room and brushed his hair. He changed out of his PJs and into his regular clothes: binder, typical science pun t-shirt, hoodie, jeans, socks, tennis shoes, and the necklace he kept his inhaler and his parents’ wedding rings on. He smiled again at himself when he was done. “‘I am successful, I am powerful, I am handsome, I am happy,’” he quoted, with a barely-held snort for good measure. “‘Successful, powerful, handsome, happy.’”
“Morning, Peter,” Aunt May greeted him when he walked into the kitchen. She was already dressed in her scrubs, a spark of mischief in her eyes as she handed him the bowl of cereal she’d prepared for him. May couldn’t cook to save her life, but at least she tried to make up for it whenever she could. “Sleep well?”
“Like always,” Peter answered. Happily, he shoved a spoonful of cereal into his mouth.
May smiled at him, reaching over to card a hand through his hair. He tried to swat it away, but with both of his hands full, his efforts weren’t of much use. “And are you excited for today?”
“‘M al’ys excit’d fir school, May.”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full. It’s not polite,” she teased. “And I know, bambino. But it’s not every day that you get to go on a field trip to Oscorp, now, is it?”
Peter swallowed down his food. “No,” he agreed after a moment. “You’re right. It’s not.”
Her hand traveled down to his cheek and patted it. “And you have everything, right? Backpack, inhaler, lunch money?”
“Yes, May.”
“And you’re going to be safe, right? No wandering around, not doing what you’re told?”
“Yes, May.”
“Alright then.” She kissed him on the forehead and patted his cheek for a second time. “I’ve got to go to work. Love you, honey.”
“Love you, too!” he replied, before stuffing another spoonful of cereal into his mouth.
After May left, Peter quickly finished off his cereal and washed out the bowl and his spoon by hand, before putting them back where they belonged. Then, he grabbed his backpack from where it was perched up against the couch, and slung it over his shoulder. Instinctively, his eyes trailed over to a specific picture on the wall as he headed over to the door, a picture of two men, one with dark brown hair and the other blonde, and a woman with curly brown hair. He smiled sadly at the sight.
“Love you, Mom, Dad, Uncle Ben,” he said quietly. “I’ll be back after school!”
The walk to school did not take him long. Peter traveled the well-familiar path to the nearest subway station, then took the subway to the necessary stop. Once there, he walked the rest of the way to his school, the Midtown School of Science and Technology.
His friends, Ned and MJ, were waiting for him on the steps of the school. When they both saw him, their faces immediately brightened. Well. Ned’s brightened, MJ merely nodded her head in greeting.
“Peter!” Ned greeted, holding out his hand. With practiced ease, the two of them went through their handshake. “You excited about the trip today?”
Peter smiled. “You bet.” He turned to MJ expectantly. “What about you, MJ? Are you excited?”
Predictably, she sniffed with faux-haughtiness. “Oscorp is a company that doesn’t follow regulations, overworks and underpays their employees, and has a CEO who should be the very definition of why we should eat the rich,” MJ said, before punching him in the arm playfully. “But despite that, yes, I’m excited, loser. Who wouldn’t be?”
Peter laughed.
The three of them walked into the school and to their first period class, Biology. Their teacher, Mr. Harrington, who was also the head for their Academic Decathlon team, was looking more than a little frazzled when they arrived. He peered down at all three of them through his glasses as they took their assigned seats at one of the black tables, appearing visibly relieved. “Ah, good. Peter, MJ, Ned, you’re all here,” he said, marking them off on his clipboard. “That just leaves...Flash and Seymour.”
He hurried away quickly; as such, he did not here MJ’s snarky remark of, “The assholes, he means.”
“MJ!” Peter admonished, but the effect was somewhat (read: very much so) tampered by his accompanying laughter.
As they waited for Flash and Seymour to show up and the announcements to come on and signal them to head back outside and to the buses, Peter took out his sketchbook – or, rather, the notebook he had set aside for doodling – and began to draw a science beaker in the comic book style while he chatted with Ned and MJ about their usual stuff. Truthfully, he didn’t think he was very good at it. Drawing. Not like MJ. She could draw portraits of people “in crisis” in minutes, while he always took an agonizingly slow amount of time to get anything worthwhile drawn at all.
...But, whatever, Peter thought, huffing out a hot puff of air softly. His drawing skills, or lack thereof, didn’t matter right now. All that did was the field trip to Oscorp.
Oscorp, the same place where his dad had worked before he and his mom had been killed in a car accident.
Peter frowned, and dug his pencil into the paper a bit harder than he perhaps should’ve. Truthfully, he didn’t remember much about his parents. He’d been eight when they had died, but it had been six years since then. That was plenty of time to make it so that he didn’t remember nearly as much about them as he wanted to. In fact, the only things he really remembered about them were the simple things, like his mom’s smile or his dad reading him those books. Or, you know, that one time his dad had brought home a jar full of spiders and proceeded to burn them all alive in their backyard.
But that was a story for another time. Eurgh.
Flash and his friend, Seymour, both walked in as soon as the bell rang. Mr. Harrington gave the two of them a reproachful look, but Flash ignored him in favor of looking at Peter. Or, more accurately, glaring at him. Peter, in turn, ignored him in favor of concentrating on his drawing. It was a well-practiced routine, and one he wasn’t going to give up anytime soon.
A couple of minutes later, one of the secretaries came on the announcements and instructed all of the freshmen students to head to the entrance of the building, since it was for all of the freshmen that the field trip was for. Peter closed his sketchbook and shoved it and the pencil he’d been using back into his bag, before he followed MJ, Ned, and the rest of their class plus Mr. Harrington back towards the front of the school.
Once they got to the front of the school, the teachers that were already there sectioned them off onto the buses. They told them that whoever they sat with on the bus was going to be their partner at Oscorp; naturally, this meant that Peter and Ned sat together, although they would’ve anyways. MJ sat across from them, stretching out her legs on the seat and glaring at anyone who even thought about asking if they could sit next to her.
Peter kind of loved her for it. He could never be passive-aggressive like that.
He even told her as much.
“A good thing, too,” MJ said, smirking over her copy of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. “There’s only room for one of those in this relationship.”
Unfortunately, at the same time that she spoke, Flash walked past them. He snickered, loudly, to Seymour and one of his other friends, and said in an even louder voice, “Did you hear that? Sounds like the girl is in a relationship now. How cute!”
Peter gritted his teeth in response. He wasn’t going to take the bait.
MJ, meanwhile, had no such qualms. Without even looking up, she said, “Get a life, jackass. Or get laid. One of the two, please, so you can stop being such a whiny little shit.”
Peter had the pleasure of seeing Flash’s cheeks heat up as he gawked at her, then quickly walked away. Smiling, he mouthed her a nice, big, “Thank you!”
MJ rolled her eyes, before she scribbled something on the sketchbook that was resting in her lap – in case Peter had another moment of crisis, probably. He was her favorite person to sketch for that – and turned it around. What are losers for?
Scratch what he’d said earlier. He definitely loved her for it.
The ride to Oscorp didn’t take long – or, at least, no longer than it usually would’ve in New York traffic. They were shuffled out of the bus when they got there; MJ, with her long legs and unfair height advantages, was able to be one of the first people to get off, despite the fact that they were about smack-dab in the middle of the bus. Peter, however, since he was very much the opposite, very much at a height disadvantage, had to wait, and so did Ned since he had taken the window seat.
This, of course, meant that when Peter was finally able to squeeze himself in-between his classmates, he wound up directly in front of Flash. The other boy pushed him with a hard shove, causing Peter to stumble and Flash to laugh as mocked, “Sorry, Pussy. Didn’t see you there.”
Again, Peter gritted his teeth.
He felt Ned’s eyes on him the entire time it took him to get off of the bus, and they continued to be on him as Ned himself got off of the bus and walked up to where Peter and MJ were standing.
MJ looked at both of them with a raised eyebrow. “What?”
Peter sighed, seeing the nervous expression on his male best friend’s face. “Just spit it out, Ned.”
“I don’t understand why you never tell the teachers about what he does,” Ned complained.
MJ’s curious expression turned into a scowl. She crossed her arms. “What did Flash do now?”
“Nothing,” Peter said quickly.
“He called you Pussy again, Peter,” Ned retorted, frowning. “I don’t see why – ”
MJ’s scowl deepened. “He what?”
“ – you don’t go to the teachers about that. It’s not cool.”
“Flash’s not cool, you mean,” Peter corrected. He shrugged. “It’s not that bad.”
“Just because it isn’t that bad doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do something about it,” MJ pointed out.
Peter fiddled with the straps of his backpack. He knew it would be of no use to explain it to them. The three of them had been friends ever since they were little kids, but there were just certain things they couldn’t understand. Would never be able to understand.
His eyes flitting around, Peter saw their fellow classmates beginning to congregate in a specific area about twenty feet away from them that was closer to the Oscorp building’s entrance. “Come on,” he said, abruptly letting go of his backpack’s straps to grab his best friends’ hands and pull them along. Ned let out a very undignified squawk at the gesture, while MJ huffed indignantly.
As a lifelong resident of New York City, Peter was well-acquainted with the exterior of the Oscorp Industries headquarters building in Manhattan. It was a tall, black and, in his opinion, ugly building, with the word OSCORP being written both towards its top and along the right of the building’s main entrance side. Peter could even see those words now, or at least the letters R and P that were part of them. The rest, he would have to crane his neck upwards in a way that would be just a little too uncomfortable for him.
However, as the son of one of the former geneticists for the company, Peter was also (somewhat) well-acquainted with the interior of the building. As such, while the rest of his classmates, MJ and Ned included, all gaped and marveled at the shiny white floors and floor-to-ceiling glass windows once they were led inside, Peter merely shoved his hands into his hoodie’s pocket and gazed around in mild curiosity.
“Welcome to Oscorp!” one of the interns said, a girl with a black headband in her shoulder-length dark brown hair, as greeting. She had a microphone on her shirt, so they could all hear her. “My name is Felicia, and I’m one of the interns here at our New York City branch. I will also be one of your tour companions today!”
A quiet chatter arose at her usage of the word “companion” instead of “guide.” Felicia seemed to expect this, as she paused, smiling, and it was only when the talking calmed down that she continued. “Yes, I know. Companion is a strange term to be used in this kind of setting, isn’t it? However, we here at Oscorp believe that students tend to learn best when they are mostly left to their own devices. Because of this, instead of me or one of my colleagues leading you through this tour, you will be leading yourselves, with the help of a scavenger hunt worksheet.”
“Awesome,” Ned breathed next to him.
Peter hummed noncommittally.
“Our top three scientists, Dr. Michael Morbius, Dr. Curt Connors, and Dr. Olivia Octavius have set up three different exhibits for you all to explore today,” Felicia said. Four of her fellow interns, with the help of the Midtown teachers, handed out the aforementioned worksheets while she spoke, along with clipboards and pens. Peter, Ned, and MJ accepted one worksheet rather than two. The intern that gave it to them looked rather put out at this, but said nothing. Peter gave a small grin, watching him as he walked away with a scowl.
“Dr. Morbius is our leading expert on hematology, while Dr. Connors is our lead herpetologist and Dr. Octavius knows more about the genetic code than just about anybody. Take your time going through their exhibits, and don’t touch anything unless the instructions specifically say you can. Around twelve o’clock, we’ll lead you to one of our cafeterias, and then after that your field trip will be over, or so I’ve been told. Any questions?”
There were indeed a few, but Peter didn’t listen to any of them.
“This is so awesome,” Ned whispered conspiratorially.
MJ snorted, rapping her fingers against their clipboard. “You already said that. Now, losers, where do you want to go first?”
They decided to go to Dr. Connors’ exhibit first. It was fairly interesting. True to form, it was entirely dedicated to reptiles – geckos, some larger lizards, even a few snakes. But despite being a herpetologist, Dr. Connors seemed interested in the creatures mostly because of their regenerative properties. Or, at least, the regenerative properties were what the signs were focused on, and so too were some of their worksheet questions.
“How can geckos regrow their tails?” MJ asked.
“Stem cells,” answered Ned.
“And where else has regeneration been observed in crocodiles besides their tails?”
“The maxillary bone,” said Peter. He frowned at the sign he was currently looking at, which was discussing cross-species genetics. “You know, I hope Connors doesn’t get any bright ideas. It would suck if he somehow turned the entire city into lizard-people.”
Both MJ and Ned stared at him.
“What?”
Ned shook his head. “Only you, Peter. Only you.”
Peter huffed and reoriented his glasses. “Yeah, yeah. Just don’t come complaining to me when you wind up growing a tail.”
They went to Dr. Morbius’ exhibit next. His was dedicated to bats. Specifically, vampire bats. Peter eyed the creatures warily. They were hideous little things, with upturned noses and tiny, but sharp, fangs. He couldn’t imagine why someone would willingly work with them if they weren’t a zoologist or something, even though one of the signs said they were just a small part of Dr. Morbius’ research. The man was a hematologist, after all, and not whatever a bat specialist was called.
“You know they actually won’t bite you,” MJ remarked to him while she wrote something down on their sheet. “At least, not unless they’re really desperate.”
Peter shuddered. Partially for dramatics, partially because he really just didn’t like the bats. “All it takes is one time, MJ. Just one time.”
She rolled her eyes in response.
Last but not least, they went to Dr. Octavius’ exhibit. Hers was a bit more interesting than either Dr. Connors’ or Dr. Morbius’, although that might have just been in Peter’s opinion, because hers was dedicated to spiders. And, the one incident with his dad notwithstanding, Peter had always loved spiders. They were so, so cool. The ability to climb walls and shoot webs was awesome, even if the story of Arachne (courtesy of Ovid, the misogynistic asshole) was the stuff of nightmares.
And Dr. Octavius’ exhibit certainly had a lot of spiders, more than he had ever seen together in one location before. There were wolf spiders and black widows, jumping spiders and tarantulas, vampire spiders and recluse spiders, and even an empty terrarium dedicated to a new, genetically-modified spider species that Dr. Octavius was just on the “brink” of creating, or so the sign next to it said.
“Don’t you think this little guy is cute, Ned?” Peter asked, in reference to a little black spider that was just hanging out – heh, pun intended – on a leaf in its terrarium.
Ned made a face. “Peter, I think you’re the only person who could say that a spider looks ‘cute.’”
“But look at it! It’s absolutely adorable!”
“No, Ned’s right, Pussy. Only a freak like you would think a spider is cute.”
Instantly, Peter’s back stiffened. He was tempted to turn around then and punch Flash in the face, because he would deserve it, but he didn’t. Instead, though he still clenched his hands into fists, he moved to walk away. And he probably would’ve been successful at doing it, too.
Had Flash not tripped him with his leg at the last second.
Peter let out a yelp as he fell, followed by a grunt once he hit the floor. His hands scraped at the tiles as he put them in front of him, futilely hoping they would help steady him. He felt the sharp edge of a tile dig mercilessly into his left hand, followed by a stinging sensation that told him it had definitely drawn blood.
“Peter!” Ned exclaimed.
“Whoops, sorry – ”
“What is going on here?”
Peter grimaced as he got up off of the floor. One of the other teachers who had come along on the trip, his World History teacher Mr. Dell, was giving him and Flash, but mostly Flash, a thunderous look as he marched over.
His words gave Peter a weird sense of déjà vu, though he didn’t know why.
“Nothing, sir,” he said quickly.
At once, Flash, Ned, MJ, and Seymour, the latter two of whom were standing a bit of a ways’ from them with the clipboards, all gave him looks of surprise. Well, Flash, Ned, and Seymour looked surprised. MJ looked pissed. She glared at him, her eyes narrowing in a way that let him know just how much she didn’t want him to be doing what he was right now.
“That didn’t look like ‘nothing,’ Peter,” Mr. Dell told him. “It looked like Flash purposely tripped you.”
“It was a mistake,” Peter said. He looked at the other boy expectantly. “Right, Flash?”
“Right,” Flash agreed.
MJ began to open her mouth, an angry flush beginning to dust her cheeks.
Peter looked down at his palm. He was right: it was bleeding, though certainly not as hard as it could have been. “Mr. Dell, can I go clean this up?” Peter asked, turning his hand towards his teacher for good measure.
The man gave him a resigned look. “Of course, Peter. The nearest restroom is just over that way.” He pointed to one of the hallways that linked the three exhibits together.
Hurriedly, Peter nodded and left the room. He knew that MJ was definitely going to bother him for covering for Flash later. Ned too, probably. It was as he’d said: they didn’t understand. They looked at him and saw him for the person who he was: Peter Benjamin Parker, the fourteen-year-old kid who was almost an orphan, who loved Star Wars, Star Trek, and literature, and who was a complete and utter nerd and proud about it. They didn’t see what Flash and a good chunk of the rest of the world saw, all that they would ever see.
Peter found the restroom easily enough. He went inside and washed his hands. The warm water made him hiss, because it burned at his fresh wound, but the soap soothed the pain a little. He watched as the white suds, now tinged with red, went down the drain, heading off towards the sewer system. Probably. He didn’t quite know how the whole water waste thing worked.
Peter liked who he was. Really. That hadn’t always been the case. Two years ago, back when Uncle Ben had still been alive and Peter had just started puberty, he had hated himself. Just like how he had hated himself when his parents had died, or how he had hated himself when that one daycare teacher had called him a girl even after his parents had spoken to her about it.
But, he liked himself now. He could wake up with a genuine smile every morning, just like he had that morning. He could be proud at the fact that he had gotten into the Midtown School of Science and Technology because of his, Ned, and MJ’s science fair project last year at their middle school, that they had all gotten in. And he could enjoy his time here at Oscorp, the ultimate prize for the mentioned science fair project, too, regardless of what Flash had done or could yet still do.
Because he didn’t need the approval of Flash or anybody else to like himself. Really.
Really.
He just needed to not give them anymore of a reason to be a pain in the ass than they already were.
Just when Peter’s eyes started to burn, he blinked. Shaking his head, he took his hands away from the faucet – since it was one of those touch-free ones, it turned off automatically – and dried off his hands with a paper towel. He threw the towel into the trash and stepped out of the restroom, his left hand instinctively clenching and unclenching into a fist, the masochist part of his brain silently appreciating the way his scrape still stung.
Although the NYC headquarters for Oscorp was a modern building through and through, with its polished black exterior and white and transparent interior, the hallways that were in it without windows were still very much a labyrinth. Peter traversed the maze back to the exhibit rooms slowly, in a hopeless attempt to prolong the inevitable rant MJ would give him about him letting Flash “do whatever the hell he wanted.” His eyes glanced in through every door window and at every plaque next to the doors, displaying the names of the scientists that worked there and the names of the projects they were working on.
Most of them, of course, made no sense to Peter, either because they were written in jotty handwriting or because he simply didn’t understand them. He might have been a near genius (“you’re just being humble, bambino,” May told him whenever he said that) who was currently attending the best STEM school in the city, but he was also fourteen years old. He didn’t know everything about everything; not yet, at least.
It was towards the end of the hallway, though, just before the door to one of the exhibit rooms, that one of the doors caught his eye. Unlike the others, it was propped open, just a smidgen, and the plaque next to it read MARY WITHERSPOON – COCCINELLA REGINA.
Peter frowned, looking at it. Obviously, whatever Mary Witherspoon was working on, it had to do with – or was – an animal species. But he didn’t recognize the name. Coccinella sounded familiar to him, but no animal appeared inside his mind when he thought about it.
Quickly, Peter glanced up and down the hallway. No one else was around. Sucking in a deep breath, he pulled over the sleeve of his hoodie on his right hand and pushed the door open before slipping inside.
And yes, he knew that this meant that he was breaking Felicia’s rule of “don’t touch anything unless you’re specifically told to.”
He also knew that he was breaking May’s even earlier rule of “no wandering around, or not doing what you’re supposed to.”
But what they, or Mary Witherspoon, whoever she was, didn’t know, wouldn’t hurt them.
Besides, if no one saw you breaking the rules, were you really breaking the rules? No, Peter didn’t think so.
The inside of the room looked pretty much like Peter expected it to. There were a few white tables, a whiteboard, and a white bookcase, which all went nicely with the white floor, ceiling, and walls. Pushed back in a corner was what looked to be a more formal desk, with a computer and framed pictures on top of it. But Peter didn’t look at that desk for long, as his eyes focused in on the terrarium sitting on top of one of those white tables in the center of the room.
– Oh, and yeah, there was also water. On the floor. Peter found this out a second later as he instinctively walked forwards the terrarium. He slipped and slid, clamping one hand against his mouth to prevent himself from screaming while he used the other to steady himself against the table.
Unfortunately, this also caused the lid of the terrarium to come off – it must’ve not been put on there that well. Peter watched in horror as it fell first onto the table, then somehow bounced off of it and onto the floor with a loud clatter. His body tensed; he waited for someone to inevitably burst into the room and demand what he was doing.
...But, after several, long, agonizing moments when nobody did such a thing, his body relaxed and he brought his hand away from his mouth. Letting out a sigh, Peter walked over to the other side of the table and reached down, grabbing the lid to the terrarium, before standing up again and putting it back on the enclosure.
Once confident the lid looked just like it had before, Peter leaned down to see what was in the enclosure. At first, he thought there was nothing at all except for a plant, ‘cause his eyesight was just that bad, even with glasses, but then, on the leaves of the plant, he saw them. Seven little ladybugs, with eight black spots on their backs instead of the common seven.
“Hi, guys,” Peter whispered, with a slight smile on his face. Ladybugs weren’t his favorite bugs by any means...or rather, he should say favorite non-bugs, because they weren’t true bugs at all. But they were cute. They weren’t nearly as cute as the spiders in Dr. Octavius’ exhibit, but still, cute. “Sorry I knocked off your lid. I’ll, uh, just be going now. Don’t tell Dr. Witherspoon that I was here now, alright? I mean, I’m assuming that she’s a doctor, but the plaque wasn’t exactly – ”
Abruptly, Peter shut his mouth. It wasn’t like the ladybugs would have any idea what he was saying.
Shaking his head at his own antics, Peter quickly headed back over to the door, skirting around the puddle of water he could now clearly see on the floor, and left the room. Swiftly, he headed back to Dr. Octavius’ exhibit, where Ned and MJ were both waiting for him. Ned with a look of concern, and MJ with a scowl, clearly ready to chew him out for his earlier behavior.
Never once did it occur to Peter that, just like there were eight spots on their backs, there should have been eight ladybugs in the terrarium. Never once did he think to look down at the sleeve of his hoodie, which the eighth little ladybug was climbing up towards his collar, where it smoothly disappeared underneath the thicker fabric of the hoodie and the thinner one of his shirt.
If it had, perhaps the sudden burst of pain that he got an hour and a half later on the bus ride home wouldn’t nearly have been as surprising as it was.
But again, this was only just the start of things.