Chapter Five: Back to School

Monday finally arrived for Peter Parker. He had decided that he would to go back to school, even though he could choose to skip if he wanted.

After the week subsequential to his anxiety attack at school, Peter felt that he was mentally ready to go back. Thanks to the support from some of the other Avengers, such as Bucky and Natasha - not to mention Tony, Peter was able to accept his fears.

After grabbing three weeks worth of assignments, Peter dashed out of his apartment, barely managing to yell a "have a nice day" to his aunt, May.

Sloppily throwing on his backpack, he ran down the streets of Queens to the subway station. As he was finding a seat, he heard a "ding" from his pocket. He took out his phone to see a text from Tony.

—

Have fun at school kid

Oh and don't forget to stop by at the tower on your way home!

—

Peter smiled as he texted him back and shoved his phone back in his pocket.

"Yo, Penis!" An obnoxious but familiar voice called from a corner of the school's lobby. Peter had just gotten through the doors, yet he was still spotted by Flash in... well, a flash.

"Parker, I'm talking to you!" Flash called again as he started to strut towards Peter. "Or were you planning to ignore me by skipping school again?"

Of course Flash had to think that Peter was skipping school solely he wanted to.

Peter continued to walk down the crowded main hallway. Flash was convinced that Peter was ignoring him out of embarrassment, which was partly true, but not for the reason he thought.

"Oh yeah," Flash laughed. "I saw when you collapsed onto the pavement outside. That was so fake."

"Is there a point to this, Flash?" Peter asked as he stopped midway down the hall. He stared at him with raging eyes. Peter truly hated the nightmarish thoughts that haunted him, and he didn't particularly enjoy the fact that Flash thought he was a faker.

"Woah, chill dude," Flash teased. "I get it, you don't want the school to know that your 'illness' that gave you an excuse to skip was all just an act. Too bad though, after your episode on Monday, everyone knows you're a fraud."

Right an illness. That was Peter's cover story. Aunt May had called his teachers (along with Tony who called the Principal), and had told them that Peter had to take off school because of an "extremely contagious case of RSV". Tony even got a well known doctor to back up May's claim with a completely fake diagnostic.

Okay, so maybe he was faking a part of it, but it was a serious reason why he was gone.

Peter sighed and continued walking. "Just leave me alone, Flash." Peter tried so hard to forget about the battle, and he sure as hell wasn't about to let Flash five him another anxiety attack.

Flash noticed how Peter had changed. He had colder eyes, and he gave off a different vibe than he had before.

Flash opened his mouth to say something, but was stopped when a handful of his friends dragged him off to a crowd on the far corner of a hallway.

Peter finally reached his locker, and he sluggishly threw in his backpack. He had only been in school for three minutes and he already wanted to go back home.

"Hey, dude!"

Peter turned to see his good friend Ned. He was carrying a stack of books and a model for physics class.

"Oh, hey, Ned," Peter responded as he grabbed his books out of his locker. "How's it going?"

"How's it going?" Ned repeated. "Dude, are you alright?"

"Hm? Yeah, I'm good." Peter closes his lockers and the two boys started to walk to home room.

"Not... I mean, what happened last Monday? You haven't responded to any of my texts."

Peter pulled out his phone. Twenty-three missed texts from Ned, and a bunch from other people.

"Man, I'm sorry. Something- uh, something happened. I guess I haven't been looking at my phone that much."

"What do you mean, 'something happened'?"

"Listen, Ned. It's... complicated. I'm sorry, it's hard for me to talk about it. I... I'm coping. FRIDAY says I'm still not 'mentally stable' enough to talk about it."

"Ah jeeze, okay. Sorry, I didn't mean to stir up anything." Ned and Peter sat down at their desks and continued to talk.

"So," Ned began. "Did you finish that history report yet?"

"THE WHAT?"

Hello everyone! Sorry this chapter was so short- I was planning on writing something else. I couldn't fit the entire idea in one chapter though, so I figured that I would just make it in the next chapter.

Also, thank you for your request, Killer Kitten. I will most likely get to that in the seventh or with chapter, we'll see.

Okay, thanks for reading, and I hope you all have a nice day (or night, depending when you're reading this)!