Chapter Text
Ok. Peter’s life wasn’t the best, but it was pretty good. Tony was his father, Thanos was gone. Everyone was nice and happy. You know the deal (unless you didn’t read the first two fics, which you don't really have to, but I’d suggest reading the first chapter of the first fic if you’re confused).
His life was dandy until his AcaDec team found out about his whole alter-ego. But Peter thought it was nice, having them know the truth. It added to the number of people he could trust. But it also added to the number of people who could mess up and give up his secret to the world…
Whatever!
The crime rate was growing, though. People wanted the world to go back to how it was during the Blip. When countries weren’t divided and the world felt like one huge community. There were multiple radical groups who were trying to overthrow the new (old) laws that were being put into place.
And that meant that Peter, Spider-Man, had to fight these criminals. While juggling school. And the AcaDec team didn’t help.
Once, Tony urgently pulled Peter out of class, and the AcaDec team immediately came up with crazy stories as to what happened. When Peter was dropped off at school later the same day, the AcaDec team’s stories had caught wind and the whole school thought Peter had fallen ill with a magical disease.
Magical. Yes, like Doctor Strange cast a spell on a random student and made him suffer kind of magical. Peter would have to work with his team to teach them how to lie better.
Mr. Harrington, even though he was the AcaDec coach, had no idea about Peter being Spider-Man, since he was absent when Peter told his team. So Peter had to deal with a concerned Mr. Harrington.
In the last week, the school had been targeted by some criminal organization. They thought that bombing a school would be a great idea to help their cause. Of course, no one was harmed, except for Peter. The AcaDec team said that Peter was inconveniently in the room where the bomb went off. Peter was in the room, yes, but it was highly intentional. He had been warned by FRIDAY and his Spider Senses, so he had gone to check out the threat.
If he hadn’t been there, Midtown would be Notown. (I’m so bad at puns I’m sorry).
And the school’s response? Throw the kids into a field trip far, far away from downtown New York.
So that’s where Peter was now.
In Virginia. And D.C.
For a week-long, school-sponsored, senior class field trip.
Problem?
Yes.
Big problem.
Spider-Man operated in New York City, not at the Washington Monument.
And an even bigger problem?
An Avenger or two were suspiciously following Peter’s Senior class.
Clint and Natasha, for all their spy training, were hard to miss. They had been publicly known for years, and they couldn’t exactly hide their faces with baseball caps and sunglasses all the time. People had figured that out.
His classmates had noticed. Which made questions spark and catch like wildfire.
Yippee.
But hey! The AcaDec team was here to the rescue! They were so good at lies!
“They probably aren’t even the Avengers,” Abe scoffed. “Some fakes I’d guess.”
“We didn’t assume they were Avengers until you said something, Abe,” Kikoru said. “Thank you for giving us ideas. Now the rest of us are questioning our sanity even more.”
“Yeah,” another kid, Salem, agreed. “The whole Academic Decathlon team is really calm. And if those stalkers were the Avengers? Why aren’t you, like, freaking out?”
“Well, that’s because they’re heroes…” Betty said with the utmost confidence. “Yup… No other reason…”
“When you say there’s no other reason, that makes us think that there’s another reason,” Tandra stated.
“Can you all shut up and let me write? Your blabbering is distracting,” Kikoru sighed.
MJ thought it would be the perfect time to change the topic. “Ok, whatever about the ‘stalkers’. Why are we in Virginia of all places?”
That made the whole class think. The Senior class, composed of one hundred students exactly, had gotten split into four main groups and sent off on the most random trips. Nobody had stopped to ask why. The simple answer was this: they were waiting for the school to be rebuilt.
But then why would they get sent away? Why not go to homeschool or online classes? They had done something like that in 2020, when the whole world was under lockdown. Why not do online classes while the school was being rebuilt?
It was strange, and thinking about it made Peter’s Spider Sense hum. He texted Tony about his unease, but was left on delivered.
A horrible, probably highly outlandish, idea dawned on Peter. What if these organizations wanted the school to be separated? What if they knew about his identity? What if they wanted revenge on Peter for doing what he thought was right? And this was their way of retaliating?
Peter unknowingly began to breathe harder and faster, and he nearly made himself hyperventilate. MJ and Ned calmed him down. They’d get to know his thoughts later.
“You good?” Abe asked, clearly paranoid since Spider-Man was worried.
“Yeah! All good,” Peter said with a thumbs-up.
He’d have to survive six more days away from home. What’s the worst the could happen?
—
STOP. FREAKING. ASKING. WHAT. THE. WORST. COULD. BE. PETER.
He jinxed himself again, if you couldn’t tell.
Three days into the rather boring trip, his Spider Sense flared as the class was crossing a street, and he all but backflipped over oncoming traffic. Only a few people noticed, those of which being Kikoru and her friends, since they seemed to be the only classmates who weren’t blind and braindead.
“It almost hit me so I jumped out of the way–” Peter began, but was promptly cut off by the entire AcaDec team.
“Peter does gymnastics!”
“What? Nothing happened!”
“I think you need glasses,” Abe said to Tandra. Tandra wore glasses. “Must’ve- must’ve seen something.”
“It was the wind.”
Peter sighed. When they got back to normal practices, he was definitely going to make his team shut up with the cover stories.
The teacher on duty, Mr. Lopez, gathered the children into a big group and ushered them onto a bus. The bus driver crawled into traffic and began taking them from the park to the Washington Monument. Many of the AcaDec students tried to object to the location, but the complaints fell on deaf ears.
Peter knew they’d be fine. Ned didn’t have the glowy thingy anymore. Nothing would explode if they went to the top of the repaired monument.
Mr. Lopez led the group of twenty five students to the base of the monument and inside. Peter’s heart was hammering in his ears, much like the rest of the AcaDec team, because of slight PTSD. MJ was mad that Mr. Lopez forced her to go into the monument; she would have much rather stayed outside.
The students all walked through the metal detectors with ease, except, of course, for Peter. He may have been wearing his suit underneath his clothes. The detector beeped loudly and his classmates stared at him with annoyed faces. Peter stepped aside by demand of the guard, and allowed himself to be patted down.
It was humiliating. And you know what was worse? Nat and Clint had inconspicuously followed the group to the monument. And Clint was recording. When Peter was let go, he grabbed his phone off of the conveyor belt and saw that he had one unread message.
It was the video that Clint had taken. He shot Hawkeye a glare.
“Who are you looking at?” Betty asked quietly, completely startling Peter.
“Clint, the little devil,” Peter sighed. Betty nodded.
Mr. Lopez made the kids crowd in the elevator, but they were split up since the elevator could only hold around ten people. The entire AcaDec team got put onto the elevator ride together, but they were the last group to go. None of them spoke as the elevator climbed upwards.
Sally, an AcaDec team member who had been on the previous D.C. tour, looked like she was about to cry. When she caught Peter’s gaze, her fear melted away into assurance. The lady in the elevator spoke in a monotone voice as she explained the history of the monument.
The elevator dinged, and they stepped into the cramped observatory room. Peter looked at the window which he had burst through. He smiled despite himself. Things were much simpler back then.
“I’m surprised they were able to fix this elevator so fast,” Betty remarked.
“Well we had six years to fix it,” the woman said flatly.
“Oh. Right. The Blip.”
“You must’ve been a part of the vanished. I’m sure you’ve heard this a million times, but welcome back.”
“Were you working here? For that entire time? I remember you.” Betty cocked her head.
“Yes. I’ve worked here for the past fifteen years, and nothing will stop me until I die. Where do you remember me from?” The woman’s voice had lifted, as if talking about something other than the history of the monument enlightened her.
“When the elevator gave out. Six years ago. Sorry about being so quiet,” Betty apologized on behalf of the AcaDec team, “we were all a little frightened to be in this elevator again.”
The woman made a face with a strange emotion behind it. She then continued the monotonous tour, forgetting about the previous conversation. They got back into the elevator and rode down in silence.
—
At the hotel, Mr. Lopez allowed the students free roam. Peter and his AcaDec team all huddled into their room, which consisted of six bunk beds. Peter was hanging upside down, his knees hooked onto the top bunk.
He was chatting with Ned about potential new Web designs, although they could not come up with any that Karen didn’t already have.
Abe, who was sick of sitting around and reading a book, stood up stiffly. He looked out the window and saw it was getting dark. “Mr. Lopez will be wanting us for dinner soon,” he commented. “Do you guys want to sneak to the pool after?”
Peter flipped himself upright. “Yeah!”
“But let’s not invite the rest of the class,” Betty added. “This is an AcaDec only excursion. It’ll make up for that time that Peter ditched us for some cool Spider-Man activities.”
“Come on, that was one time!”
“One of many, you mean?” MJ betrayed.
Peter huffed. “It was one time that I missed the pool. Is that better?”
“Yes.”
There was a rasping on the door, and Mr. Lopez turned the knob. “Meet us down in the cafeteria for dinner.” He turned and left, leaving the door ajar.
“Man, these hotel servings aren’t nearly enough food,” Peter complained to Ned.
“I could add extra on my plate and give you the leftovers,” Ned suggested.
“Like usual? You know it’s never enough.” Peter had only intended for his whining to reach Ned, maybe MJ, but the entire AcaDec team heard the complaints. They all offered that they do that same as Ned.
“Oh- Oh- Okay!” Peter said, flustered at the many offers. “Thank you!”
“No problem,” Sally said.
Peter blinked away a headache and drowsiness. Cho had previously told him that the reason for his drowsiness was that his powers were upgrading. And yeah, she was right. Peter now healed faster, his senses were sharper (since that was apparently still possible), and he was stronger.
Some drawbacks included: being extra hungry, like, EXTRA extra hungry, occasionally tired, and fangs. Peter now had fangs. And venom. But he couldn’t control when the fangs would pop out or not.
Peter stretched and yawned and followed his team out the door and into the hotel buffet.
—
During dinner, the two Avengers inconspicuously made their way near Peter’s table. They were quiet as always. Peter hated how Tony thought he was a child in need of protection. He pulled out his phone and texted Nat and Clint.
Spiderling
You know that you and Clint don’t have to hang out around me right
мама паук
Stark told us to, kiddo
Spiderling
If anything happens ill be fine
I
Literally
Snapped away thanos
I think im good
мама паук
Not according to Tony
And Cho
Cho told us to make sure you were alright
Katniss
Because somebody got cool powers
That are somehow getting cooler
Spiderling
But im fiiinnnnneeeee
мама паук
Nuh uh, you say that too much for it to have any meaning
Morgan wants to call you by the way
Peter shut off his phone after being unable to come up with a response. He glared at the two Avengers until Mr. Lopez called for the students.