The Waterspout

In Which Peter gets Advice, Both from and about Girls

“You’re telling her?!”

Ned sounded slightly worried. Peter rolled his eyes. “I trust her! MJ deserves to know; she’s one of our closest friends!”

Don’t keep secrets from the people they’ll matter to the most.

Ned’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know, what if she tells someone? What if she doesn’t believe you? What if-” Peter cut him off.

“What if everything goes fine? She’ll believe us, and she won’t tell anyone. She’s cool like that.” Another thought occurred to him, and he threw an arm around his best friend’s shoulders. “Don’t worry. You’re status as guy in the chair is anything but threatened.”

Ned tried to hide his sigh of relief, and Peter just laughed.

They rounded the corner and entered their chemistry classroom. MJ saw them and smirked. As he walked over to to his table, Peter practiced the upcoming conversation silently.

Hey MJ, this may come as a shock, but, I’m Spider-Man… Hey, you know the world-renowned superhero Spider-Man? Well, this may surprise you but I’m him… God, just as awkward inwardly as it inevitably would be when he finally spoke to her.

Shaking his head slightly, Peter sat down and pulled out his chem textbook. While his teacher launched into a long lecture describing the oxidizing strength of fluorine, Peter opened to a page filled with the formula for his web fluid. He slyly opened the side drawer to his desk to reveal his beaker, test tubes, and bunsen burner, then carefully organized them into their needed positions.

Scanning his formula, he casually shifted his hand to his stash of ‘borrowed’ liquids. He fell into a kind of meditative rhythm as he began the web-manufacturing routine. His teacher droned on in the background while Peter’s hands went on auto-pilot, pouring in small amounts of salicylic acid, methanol, and potassium carbonate. Whenever his teacher walked down the aisle between the desks, Peter closed the drawer carefully, silently hoping that the fizzing noise was quiet enough that his professor wouldn’t notice.

After he finished adding his activator carefully for 30 minutes, Peter turned on the bunsen burner and set it to low heat. With that, he closed his desk drawer, and did a silent prayer for his desk not to catch fire in the next twenty-four hours.

As he worked, he thought about his conversation with Mr. Stark. It had been strange, to say the least. Well, it had been a conversation with Tony Stark for heaven’s sake, which was strange enough. But the man had said so many things without really saying anything at all.

Why did his tone never match his words? Why did he say cryptic things as though they were obvious? And why did Peter just run away when the man, looking back, had probably needed help?

Stop it. Tony Stark, remember? Not your place.

But he couldn’t stop hearing “I’m always fine” in that flat voice.

The bell rang, loud and obnoxious, jerking Peter from his thoughts. The boy grabbed his backpack and headed towards the door, hoping he hadn’t missed too much during that period of distraction.

Ned and MJ met him outside. They walked her to the physics classroom, waved goodbye, then went to their history class.

The final bell rang at 2:45 exactly. Peter smiled slightly, brain hurting from speaking Spanish for a solid fifty-five minutes. He was itching to begin patrolling right after school, but he had to talk to MJ first. He said goodbye to Ned, and headed the opposite direction, walking to the front doors.

He caught her as she was swinging the first door open. “Hey MJ!”

She turned, pulling out an earbud. “Oh hey Parker, what’s up?”