Title: Everyday Superhero

Chapter 13: Superhero

Trigger Warning: This chapter describes a school shooting and its aftermath, loosely based on two shootings in recent history. The first was the attempted but unsuccessful shooting at Mattoon High School, Illinois in 2017. The second is the shooting that took place in Saugus High School, Santa Clarita, California in November 2019, ending in the deaths of 3 kids (including the shooter). I have definitely not pulled my punches in this chapter, but that said, this story does have a happy ending. Okay, onward.

During his first weeks back to school in the fall of 2020, Harrington found himself missing his last year's class just as much as he'd expected. He kept expecting to run into them everywhere. Seeing someone other than Betty Brant and Jason Ionello doing the Midtown Daily Newscast was immediately off-putting. In the afternoons, he would sometimes look up expecting to see Peter stretched out on his sofa and feel a pang of wrongness when he didn't.

And then, of course, as more weeks went by, he got used to his new classes, and new faces with their unique histories and struggles made their way into his heart, taking precedence over the old ones. There were two girls now who loved coming in and working in his classroom at least two afternoons a week. There were kids who weren't being challenged enough, kids who were obnoxious and rude, kids who were adorably awkward and funny, making him smile to himself on his way back from work as he remembered the things they'd said. And soon, he stopped missing his kids from the previous year, too involved in the day to day of teaching and loving a new set of students.

Peter stayed in touch with him. Sometimes it was just quick texts, funny science memes or just a picture of something he'd designed in Stark's labs, punctuated with emojis and exclamation marks. Once, in the first weeks of his freshman year, he emailed Harrington a research paper and asked him to read it over before he submitted it. Sometimes, he would also call to talk about college or his new friends, about whether he should finally tell MJ his secret (Harrington told him yes) or to ask if it was time for him to move out and get his own place (Harrington told him no).

He rarely mentioned Spider-Man, not because he was deliberately trying to avoid it but because he had more new, exciting things in his life which seemed more important. That was okay- like every New Yorker, Harrington saw Spider-Man around all the time. No one could escape the sight of him swinging across the city, jumping from rooftop to skyscraper to hot dog stand.

There were always clips of him, too, videos shared and uploaded by anonymous New Yorkers who'd spotted him rescuing a cat from the top branches of a tree or carrying a woman in labor across heavy traffic so she could get to the hospital in time. It made Harrington happy to see him out there every day, living the life he'd always wanted.

And if there were also times when Peter was hurt- burned while rushing into a fire, stabbed trying to stop a mugging, crushed jumping in front of a speeding car, and during one terrible week, kidnapped by a new supervillain named Mysterio and missing for days until the Avengers were able to rescue him- then the spike of worry that always came with it felt as familiar to Harrington by now as a second skin. So was receiving text messages from Tony Stark, which still came without fail every time Peter was in trouble. The man had never forgotten his promise to Harrington, as if he knew without having to be told that even though Peter was no longer Harrington's student, he would never stop being one of his kids.

As more time slipped by, Harrington realized he was now nearing the two-decade mark of his teaching career. He didn't quite know how it had happened or when it had crept up on him. Those first years at Midtown Tech still felt like yesterday. Ashley and her classmates, co-teaching with Morita, watching kids leap from Myspace to Facebook to Twitter to TikTok.

He had no illusions about himself- a man in his mid-forties, divorced, childless, and married to his job. He knew how empty it looked from the outside, but he loved the work fiercely still. There was a deep sense of comfort that came with having done this for so long. There was little now that could truly shock him after the tumultuous years of having Peter as his student. The lesson plans, the exam prep, the little crises and heartbreaks, all of it was routine and familiar without ever becoming boring.

Still, no matter how much time had passed, the one thing Harrington never grew used to were the active shooter drills. Nor did it ever stop hurting, no matter how many times it happened, when he turned on the news and saw headlines about yet another school shooting.

During the first Code Red drill of the fall of 2020, Harrington had panicked when he'd realized that hitting the panic buttons would still alert Tony Stark. He'd quickly shot off a warning to the billionaire, annoyed with himself for forgetting this would happen. Later that evening, he texted Stark again to apologize.

Now that Peter's no longer in school, you probably want to readjust the settings on the panic buttons so they can be deactivated for drills, he suggested. Otherwise, I'm going to have to keep texting you every time this happens.

And that's a problem why? came the reply. It's not like it's going to be any different from what you've been doing for the last three years.

Harrington had paused at the response, feeling a little wrong footed. I just thought it might get annoying to have to deal with it indefinitely.

Harrington, I seem to remember that one of the conditions of a certain infamous NDA involved continued protection for the school even after the exit of a certain Spiderling. You held up your end of the deal. Don't make me look bad by trying to talk me out of mine.

Despite the lightness of the words, the underlying seriousness of the promise was clear. And so texting Stark before every drill remained a part of Harrington's routine, and it bought some comfort to have a tangible reminder that if anything ever really happened, he'd have some superpowered help.

It was always a difficult thing to think about. Most of the time, he could ignore it, but it was always there, a quiet fear in the background waiting to be realized even as one year slipped by and melted into two, and then into three. And then, one February afternoon in 2024, it finally happened, the thing he'd been bracing for since Columbine in 2001, since Sandy Hook in 2012, since Parkland in 2018. Despite how often he'd imagined it, he'd never pictured one of his own students' faces behind the loaded gun.

Matthew Atwood Jr. was a lithe, small-built senior who kept his head down, got his assignments done on time, and never made waves. He had dark brown hair, pale skin and dark eyes which crinkled with warmth when he smiled. He was an introverted kid, but he had a close group of friends and a girlfriend who went to a nearby school. He was bright, a member of Midtown's track team, and he also participated in a local Boy Scout troop. His mother, a wiry middle-aged woman, was always polite at parent teacher conferences. Harrington had been Matthew's teacher for a year and a half, and in that time, he'd never had a problem with the kid...

...which was why it was completely incomprehensible when he looked up one day in the middle of class and saw him reaching casually into his backpack and emerging with a semiautomatic rifle in his hands. Instinct born of years of training kicked in. Harrington hit the panic button under his desk hard and lunged forward as Matthew turned and pointed the gun toward the right side of the room. He wrapped his hand around Matthew's in a tight, bruising hold. (He'd never touched a kid so roughly before). Two gunshots went off inches from his ear, and he heard students scream and cry out. With brute strength he'd never known he had, Harrington wrenched Matthew's arms upwards, pointing the gun towards the ceiling.

The kid snarled at him and tried to pull away, but even as they both grappled for control of the gun, Matthew never stop shooting. Chunks of cement rained down on the room as pieces of wall and ceiling shattered. The shots were deafening, making Harrington's eardrums throb in protest. He felt the recoil of the gun run through his own body over and over again, almost as if he were the one pulling the trigger. Around him, kids were screaming, diving under desks, and Harrington had the stray, panicked realization that he and Matthew were blocking the path to the doorway. His other students were trapped in here, unable to even take advantage of the time he was buying them.

Matthew struggled against his teacher, kicking at his legs and they both stumbled, sending the two of them careening dangerously through the front of the classroom. A desk toppled to the floor a few feet away, but Harrington couldn't hear the crash at it made, completely deafened by the endless stream of bullets.

For one second, Matthew let go of the gun with one of his hands and elbowed Harrington hard in the ribs, making him cry out. His grip loosened and the gun dipped dangerously low. A bullet shattered the top of a desk, sending splinters of wood raining down onto the blonde-haired girl who'd been hiding under it. A surge of adrenaline at the sight of her panicked blue eyes made Harrington's grip tighten again as he regained control of the gun, even as he realized in the back of his mind that this had been Kristy, not Ashley. Somehow, he kept Matthew's arm pointed upwards even as the kid kept struggling against him with increasing desperation, trying to hit him and stomp on his feet to get him to back off.

Then there was a click instead of a bang. The gun had finally run out of bullets, and it happened just as Matthew managed to wrench himself from Harrington's grasp with all his strength, finally breaking free with a vicious jab to his side which hit him right above the kidneys. Harrington stumbled and fell hard to the floor, clutching his side. Matthew was advancing on him with an expression of blinding rage, grabbing more bullets from the pockets of his sweatshirt.

"You don't have to do this," Harrington choked out. "You haven't hurt anyone yet, it's not too late-"

"Shut up!"

Harrington tried to scramble up in another desperate attempt to grab the gun, but Matthew saw him coming and kicked him. The blow connected hard, and Harrington fell backwards with another cry of pain. His back connected hard with the bottom edge of a desk. His middle-aged body screamed in protest, and his eyes blurred as he watched Matthew finish reloading the gun. The kid aimed right at him, and there was no warmth in his brown eyes now, nothing even remotely familiar about this child who'd sat in his room for a year and a half learning chemistry and physics.

Harrington didn't want to watch this. He closed his eyes.

Glass shattered somewhere in the room.

There was a thud, a cry of pain, a gunshot which made him flinch, and then...

Nothing.

Just the sound of crying kids, and the speaker overhead crackling as the security system announced the Code Red. Harrington opened his eyes, expecting to look up into Matthew's rage-filled face, and instead saw Peter Parker, brown curls mussed and windswept, eyes shocked and frantic as he kneeled beside Harrington.

He was wearing his Spidersuit, but his face was bare, inches away from Harrington's. There was a bloody gash on his cheek, dripping freely down his neck and staining the red of his suit darker. Harrington noticed the mask seconds later, lying inches from his own nose. It was torn and smoking from where a bullet had grazed it. Harrington jerked away from it, fighting back a wave of nausea as he realized what had happened, and then he saw Matthew, webbed to the floor and unconscious. The gun was nowhere in sight.

"Peter," said Harrington, his voice coming out in a croaking breath of air. "Your cheek..."

"I'm fine," Peter dismissed the concern. "It was just a graze."

Lying awkwardly on his side like this, Harrington couldn't see the rest of his students. Panic propelled him upright, his head jerking wildly around the room as he tried to get his eyes on everyone. In his mind, he was already counting. Peter's hands gripped his shoulders, moving so his face was right up close to Harrington's. "They're fine," he said. "I promise, they're fine, okay? No one's hurt, Mr. Harrington. You saved them."

It hit Harrington, then, what had just happened, here, today, in his classroom. He took in the room, the overturned desks, the shattered windows, the chunks of ceiling on the floor and worst of all, the tops of his students' heads cowering behind his sofa, a vision come to life from the very darkest of his nightmares.

He broke down sobbing.

"Hey, no, come on, Mr. Harrington." Peter's voice was pained, his hands tightening on Harrington's shoulders. "I swear, no one was hurt, everyone's fine, come on..."

Harrington barely even heard what he was saying as he wrenched away from his grasp and collapsed backwards onto his butt, covering his face with his hands.

If I'd changed the seating arrangement the way I'd planned, he would have been at the back, out of my reach.

If I'd been standing anywhere else in the room, I wouldn't have been able to get to him.

If he wasn't so small for his age, would we all be dead right now?

If I'd talked to him more, asked him about his homelife...?

If I'd pushed him to talk about his dad, but fuck, that was two years ago, and he always seemed mostly okay...

If I'd partnered him with his friends for that group project, would this have still happened?

If I'd...?

"Harrington, hey, come on, snap out of it. You have to breathe, okay? Please, just- can you look at me for a second?"

Strong hands grasped Harrington's wrists, prying them away from his face with gentle force, and he came back to himself with a trembling start. He sat up shakily, his face wet and blotchy, his side throbbing where Matthew had hit and kicked him. Tony Stark was on his knees in front of him, his Ironman suit standing upright and empty a few feet away. Peter stood nearby, his face pale as his eyes swept around the half-destroyed classroom.

Behind him, Harrington saw five of his students, their own faces streaked with tears, but still pointing their Starkphone cameras in his direction with shaky hands. And fuck, he realized. Peter's face. All these years hiding it and now it was blown wide open and of course his stupid Gen Z kids were filming it because that was what they did, and now it would go viral in hours, and fuck...

Peter correctly read the mute horror in his eyes and crouched down beside him again. "It doesn't matter," he said firmly, though he couldn't quite conceal a flash of fear. "It was bound to happen eventually." He glanced at Stark and added, "Tony has contingency plans in place."

Stark shot him a warm, reassuring look. "You bet I do, kid," he said. And since when had Mr. Stark become Tony, Harrington wondered fleetingly. Stark paused and bent his head low, murmuring into an invisible earpiece, "No, Steve, tell them to stand down. It's taken care of."

Harrington's gaze drifted, falling once again on Matthew. He was awake now, and thrashing wildly, struggling to break free of the webbing, which was holding strong. As Harrington looked towards him, their eyes caught. His entire body jolted from the shock of it, and words were escaping his lips before he even knew what he was saying. "I don't understand. Why would you do this? You were such a good kid. You were kind; you said hello and good morning in the hallways, and you... you just..."

Matthew drew in a deep breath, his eyes glittering with hatred. "Fuck you," he spat in answer.

Harrington reared back as the words seared into him. His face twisted in agony as fresh tears welled up, even as Peter made an angry noise and moved quickly between him and Matthew, obstructing him from view. Stark was trying to talk to him, hands clutching his arm in an attempt to get his attention, but Harrington was sobbing too hard to hear a word either he or Peter were saying. He knew he'd lost something today which he would never get back again. He bowed his head and shook apart on the floor, not even caring that he was being filmed, or that his kids- Peter included- were seeing him completely wrecked after all these years of trying to project strength and confidence.

The next hours passed in a blur of disjointed images and sounds. There were sirens in the distance, then cops standing in the doorway of his classroom, gaping at the sight of Tony Stark and an unmasked Spider-Man standing in the middle of a high school shooting. There was Jim Morita running into Harrington's classroom, chest heaving and eyes wild. His face was thunderstruck as he took in the damage to the classroom, then Tony Stark, then Peter Parker. He'd stared in shocked recognition for a moment, frozen, and then he'd schooled his expression and stepped forward, his voice washing over the room with calm authority as he talked down the shaken students the way Harrington should have been doing.

Soon, police officers were leading students outside. A few of the seniors looked in Harrington's direction with expressions of shocked concern because even thirty minutes later, he had not stopped crying. The embarrassment had set in now, and he kept trying to pull himself together, but every time he thought he almost had, he'd hear the echo of that fuck you and the tears would come all over again. A few kids walked over to him as they left the room, their eyes wet as they first thanked Harrington, then Peter. Through it all, Ironman and Spider-Man stayed at his side, almost as if they were standing guard.

Finally, when the kids had left and Matthew had been removed from the room, Morita motioned to Peter and Stark. The three of them exchanged a few quiet words while Harrington sat numbly on his chair, trying not to think. Then Stark and Peter turned to leave, casting troubled glances in his direction and telling him they would call him later.

Fifteen minutes later, he found himself sitting alone in Morita's office with two police officers- Morita was outside, dealing with the students and parents- as he tried to answer a series of incomprehensible questions.

Can you walk us through what happened today?

When did you notice the gun?

Did you ever notice anything strange about Matthew?

Did he have any enemies, kids he didn't get along with?

Was he bullied?

Did he ever seem disturbed or emotionally distressed to you?

Did he have friends? Do you think anyone else was involved in planning this?

Harrington kept saying "no" over and over again until the word had lost all meaning. The only thing he could give them, after searching his mind for clues over and over again, was the keychain he knew Matthew loved which had a hollow bullet dangling from it. They left him sitting there and he didn't know how much time had passed before Morita came back into his office, looking wan and exhausted. They sat across from each other for ten minutes without a word exchanged, and then Morita drove Harrington home, the silence between them tense and absolute.

He spent the majority of the next day watching the news coverage on his couch, ignoring his phone as it buzzed and lit up with an endless stream of phone calls and messages. Stark and Peter had both called him six times each, Morita had called him four times, and there were countless emails from parents and students and strangers. He spoke briefly to his parents to reassure them he was okay and ignored everyone else as he tried to grapple with the fact that millions of people knew who he was, now.

They had watched him talking to an unmasked Spider-Man, addressing him by his first name. They'd watched him try to talk to his student, who was a school shooter, they'd watched the kid say fuck you back, they'd watched Peter Parker and Tony Stark try to steady him as he'd sobbed like a lost child on the floor of his classroom. He was famous now, Spider-Man's former science teacher Roger Harrington, that guy who lost it on camera. He watched with numb disbelief as news anchors projected his profile pictures from LinkedIn and Facebook, as CNN dissected his life and went over his educational qualifications and experience, speculating about how much he'd known about Spider-Man.

Spider-Man being unmasked as a slender twenty-one-year old with a youthful, sensitive face had been a massive shock. People were suddenly realizing that for three out of the seven years he had protected New York, he had been under the age of eighteen. The reaction on social media was shocked, emotional, and hysterical. People posted stories about the times Spider-Man had saved them, and the phrase #ThankYouPeterParker was trending.

Midtown Tech alums from the Class of 2020 emerged on social media and talked about what Peter had been like as a student. Betty Brant posted a clip from her 'Under the Mask' segment from the Midtown Daily Newscast which featured Peter and Harrington both asking the question "Who is Spider-Man?" with her own reaction of "WTF?!" in caption. It promptly went viral. Flash Thompson tweeted a humorous message directly to Peter's Twitter handle. "...So Parker, I guess you did have a pretty good reason for missing Nationals that one time. #ThankYouPeterParker."

A few people also asked what Midtown Tech had been doing all those years when Peter was a minor. What Roger Harrington, who'd clearly known who he was, had been doing. People dug up old viral clips of Peter injured in fights against alien spaceships and crazed supervillains, reposting them with comments like "Omg I just realized he was sixteen in this!" and "Did Spider-Man miss a month of school to fight Thanos? Can I please see what that doctor's note looked like, lmao!" A few people wondered angrily how May Parker and Tony Stark and Roger Harrington and all those other teachers at Midtown could ever have let this happen to a teenager in high school.

Those voices were in the minority, but they made old doubts rear their ugly heads. The choice he'd made years ago to sign the NDA suddenly seemed less defensible now. He felt terrible when he realized that after all these years protecting Peter, his face had been exposed to the world right there in his own classroom because of a bullet fired in a school shooting. The kid's life would never be the same again, and Harrington couldn't help but wonder what everything he had done was for if it was all going to end this way anyway.

In all the noise surrounding the reveal of Spider-Man's identity, the news of another school shooting was lost somewhere. No one had died, so no one seemed to care that another gun had been fired in another school building, that students had cowered under desks in dark classrooms for hours before the police finally got everyone out. Morita sent out an email to the school community, announcing that Midtown Tech would be closed for ten days as they tried to figure out what their next steps would be.

At one point, after hours of sitting in his apartment unable to focus on anything else, Harrington actually attempted to get some schoolwork done. There was a pile of ungraded tests that had been sitting on his desk for over a week. He rifled through the sheaf of papers, feeling strangely disconnected from the assignment in front of him. Then, he spotted Matthew's name written out in neat, careful handwriting. In tears once again, he shoved the pile of papers away from him as if they'd burned him. He knew in that moment that his students would never get this particular assignment back.

On the third day after the shooting, Harrington's hazy, spiraling existence was interrupted by a sharp knock at his door. He opened it to find Jim Morita standing there, his expression grim. There were dark circles ringing his eyes and he looked dead tired. He pushed past a surprised Harrington without waiting for an invitation, heading straight for his living room and sinking onto a sofa chair with an exhausted hiss.

"Jim?" he stammered once he'd found his voice. He crossed the room and sat down across from his friend. "What are you doing here?"

Morita narrowed his eyes and glared at him. "You wanna explain to me why you've been ignoring everyone's phone calls?"

Harrington hunched his shoulders and looked away. "I didn't know what to say to anyone."

"Yeah, well, you better figure that out," Morita snapped. "Because Tony Stark called me this morning to ask why you weren't answering his calls or messages. Peter Parker has reached out to me twice. I've had teachers, parents, students, school board members and reporters calling me off the hook for two days straight, and the only thing anyone wants to talk about is you and Spider-Man. Are you okay, when did you know about him, how much did you know, how much did I know, and I can't answer any of that, can I, because you basically went AWOL on everyone, and because I really don't want to have to explain how much I clearly didn't know anything."

Harrington flinched at the harshness of his words. "I'm sorry, Jim. I've just been..." He sighed shakily. "I know you're furious, and you have every right to be. I would..." He steeled himself. "I would understand if you wanted to fire me."

"Jesus, Roger." Morita deflated with a long exhalation, reaching up to rub tiredly at his face. "I'm not going to fire you. If you think those kids and their parents don't know exactly who saved them that day, you're out of your damn mind. The last thing I'd want to do is fire you." He studied Harrington again, his expression drawn. "I just want an actual explanation. I need the full picture of what happened with Peter Parker when he was in high school if I'm going to be answering questions about it. And also, as your friend? I'm worried about you. Because that video was fucking awful."

"Yeah." Harrington stared at the floor, feeling the ever-present threat of tears. "I haven't...I couldn't watch the whole thing through."

Morita didn't say anything, watching him closely.

"About Peter," Harrington continued, trying to force away the tremor from his voice. "He was bitten by a radioactive spider when he was fourteen. It happened on the field trip to Oscorp during freshman year- yeah I know, the kid's a walking disaster," he added in response to the incredulous expression on Morita's face. "I found out when we went on that trip to SI's Science and Tech museum when he was in 10th grade. There was an attack by Justin Hammer's drones, and he went missing."

"You left the panic room to look for him, didn't you?" Morita recalled.

"Yeah, and I found Spider-Man instead." Harrington let out an explosive breath. "He yelled something at me, and I recognized Peter's voice. Then Tony Stark showed up, and... well. That was how I got involved in all this, I guess."

Morita eyed him with an expression of heavy disappointment. "So this kid is fifteen years old," he said slowly, "and you find out he's throwing himself into danger and practically getting himself killed on a daily basis. And you're okay with that? You didn't think it might be a good idea to report it to CPS, or at least tell me?"

"Of course I did," said Harrington, deeply hurt. "I agonized over it for days. On the one hand I had Stark, begging me to please protect this kid, because if his identity ever became public, his shot at a normal life would pretty much have been over. And on the other hand, there was Midtown Tech and every other kid here, because what if we all became targets because of Spider-Man, what if some villain found out who he was and attacked him at school? The way Adrian Toomes did only months before that. It was the toughest decision I have ever had to make, but I've kept this secret for seven years, and in all that time, I've never said a word to anyone. I know you would have done it differently, and maybe that would have been better; I honestly can't say anymore. But if you think I didn't weigh all of this in my mind a thousand times before I decided, if you don't think I worried about him and everyone else every day he was in this school, and hell, every day after that, too, then you don't know me at all."

Morita digested this, and when he looked back at Harrington, shock had replaced the accusation in his eyes. "You really didn't tell anyone?" he asked in disbelief. "For seven years? Not even your parents?"

"Not even my shrink," said Harrington, and there was a strange sense of relief to have this out in the open at last, to realize that he finally could tell his therapist, now that everyone knew.

When Morita spoke again, his tone was quieter. "Is that all there is, then? Or is there anything else I should know?"

Harrington thought about it for a minute. "Yeah," he said. "The three-million-dollar donation we got that year, that was from Tony Stark. He's also the one who paid for the extra training and security." At the stunned look on Morita's face, Harrington explained, "It was one of my conditions for signing the NDA he gave me. I knew we would be in much more danger because of Spider-Man there, so I asked him to pay for ALICE training and panic buttons that would alert NYPD and every superhero in the city."

"Wait, the buttons call superheroes too?" Morita asked, his eyebrows rising to his hairline. "Is that how Spider-Man got there so quickly?"

"Yeah, I think so," said Harrington. Then, he added fiercely, "But that was all I asked for, Jim. The three million dollars was his idea, and it happened after I'd already signed the NDA. I don't want you to think I was letting him buy my silence, or-"

"No, I know that," Morita cut in gently. "I do know you, Roger."

Harrington sagged in relief, feeling something approaching calm for the first time since the gun had gone off in his classroom. He'd been completely paralyzed these last few days, but with Morita's tacit forgiveness and understanding, he felt like he could breathe at last. Or at the very least, screw up the courage to pick up his phone and call a few people back.

He looked at his friend, taking stock. He had slumped a little into the side of the chair, his eyes opening and closing in the slow, long blinks of exhaustion. In their two decades working together, Harrington could not remember ever seeing him look this drained and tired. Because he was an administrator, Morita had few close friends among the school staff. Harrington was an exception to that because of how long they'd known each other, and now he felt a stab of guilt as he realized he'd basically left his friend alone to deal with this mess. "How are you doing?" he asked.

Morita let out a weary sigh. "There's just so much to do. Mary's recommending that we hire a few psychologists and grief counselors in case students or teachers need support the first couple of weeks back. We're also thinking about getting emotional support animals, but I'm still not yet sure how quickly I can arrange that. I also need to email teachers by tonight- we need to be back in the building soon to try and figure out how we're going to get ready for the kids to come back. Obviously, that doesn't apply to you; you can have more time if you need it-"

"I don't want any more time," said Harrington immediately. The thought of sitting here, stewing in his own thoughts for more time than he absolutely had to, was absolutely awful.

"Yeah, I thought you'd say that. I'm still figuring out a new classroom for you, too. And then there's..." He paused, looking conflicted.

"What?"

"The school board and some of the parents wants us to add metal detectors now," he said. "I hated the idea once, but we'll probably have to say yes now. If it makes everyone feel safer, then we can't deny them that. But I keep thinking if we had done it earlier, would this still have happened? It's not like we couldn't have afforded it, with three million dollars in the bank."

"Hey, this is not your fault," Harrington said sharply. "You had good reasons not to install them. And most of the school board supported you."

"I guess the important thing to remember is that no one was hurt," Morita said, as if he needed to say it out loud to convince himself. "This was bad, but it could have been so much worse. Thanks to you and Spider-Man, at least we didn't lose anyone."

We lost Matthew.

The thought stole through Harrington's mind, unbidden. He hunched a little but didn't give it voice. The last thing he wanted was to put more burdens on Morita's shoulders, but it was a hard thing to forget- the realization that they had taught and loved and cared for this kid for three and a half years, and all along, he'd been capable of this kind of darkness and violence, and none of them had ever seen it coming.

The next day, he found himself sitting uneasily in a corner booth in an expensive Italian restaurant in Soho, waiting for Tony Stark and Peter Parker to arrive. Looking around at the plush seating and fancy décor as he sat under the soft light of a chandelier, Harrington had never felt more out of place in his life. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting when he'd finally called Stark and Peter back, but it hadn't been this.

Unconvinced by his declarations about being fine, they had both insisted on meeting in person. Stark had even sent a car and chauffer over to his apartment to pick him up, which seemed unnecessarily extravagant, but the billionaire had insisted, and he hadn't protested because his own car was still parked at school. Now Harrington sat waiting, nervously wondering how this meeting would play out. Before the day of the shooting, he hadn't seen either Stark or Peter in person since graduation.

The last time he'd spoken to Peter had been a month ago. The kid had called him to give him a rapid-fire, gushing update on a new, supposedly game-changing alteration he'd made to the formula he used for his web fluid. The conversation had left Harrington breathless with wonder, barely able to keep up with the lightning quickness of his mind. Peter had only grown sharper and brighter with every passing year at college, and the teacher in him had felt a fierce surge of pride at his success, as well as gratification that this kid would still want to call him three years later to discuss chemistry formulas.

He couldn't help but wonder if Peter still held him in the same regard now, or if his image of Harrington had been shattered by watching him fall apart so spectacularly. Perhaps some small part of him might even resent him for being the unwitting cause of his identity being revealed, not that Harrington could be anything but grateful for his intervention.

The troubling thoughts were interrupted by the door sliding open. Tony Stark and Peter Parker walked in, Stark dressed impeccably in a navy-blue Armani suit, and Peter... Harrington gaped as he took in his former student. He was in black trousers and a fitted dress shirt, an expensive leather folder clutched in his hands. He was at least three inches taller than Harrington remembered him, his shoulders had broadened significantly, and the planes of his face seemed more defined. It was so different from the old days of frayed jeans and science pun T-shirts that Harrington felt for a split second as if he were looking at a complete stranger, until Peter gave him a shy wave, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet when he came to a stop.

"Hey, Mr. Harrington," he said as he slid into the seat across from him.

"Hey, Peter," said Harrington warmly, relieved to see the kid he knew was still in there beneath this handsome, well-dressed young man. He nodded in greeting towards the billionaire as he sat down beside Peter. "Mr. Stark."

"Harrington," Stark returned, his brown eyes intent on Harrington's face. "It's good to see you're well and unhurt." He paused as he thanked the waitress who came to place menus in front of them before stepping away. "I'm sorry I can't stay very long, but dinner is on my tab, and you're both free to order whatever you want. The way this one eats you might even come close to bankrupting me." He cuffed Peter playfully on the shoulder, who glared at him without any real heat.

"I do not eat that much, Tony," the kid protested, and there it was again. Tony, not Mr. Stark.

Stark's hand came up to rest on Peter's shoulder, an instinctive gesture. "Sure you don't." He looked again towards Harrington again. "I wanted to remind you that under the terms of our agreement, there's a job waiting for you at SI if you need it."

Harrington was startled at the unexpected offer. "Uh...I don't?" he said, confused. "Not that I'm not grateful, but we're halfway through the year right now, and I already have a job."

"So Principal Morita isn't going to fire you?" Peter asked.

"No, he's not." Stark and Peter both relaxed. Harrington wondered what the hell Morita could possibly have said to make them think his job was actually at risk. It must have been pretty harsh for them to be this worried.

"If you ever change your mind, the offer is always on the table," said Stark. "And, uh." He hesitated, glancing towards Pete for a second. "I also wanted to apologize. I have it on good authority that a certain legally binding document I made you sign seven years ago might have been a little, well, exploitative, was that the word you used?"

"It was more like unfair," Peter corrected, but there was a slight edge to his voice.

"Yeah, well." Stark shrugged. "As you can probably tell, the kid is not happy with me."

"That's really not necessary, Peter," Harrington said, frowning. "He was only trying to protect you. And besides, I thought it through, remember? I knew what I was signing on for. No one was being exploited."

Stark looked relieved at his answer, even if Peter frowned, still unsatisfied. "Alright then," the billionaire said in brisk tones. "I have a meeting with a couple of very influential congressmen to discuss a certain Spiderling's public exposure situation-" he jerked his head towards Peter, who made a disgusted face at his choice of words- "so I can't stay longer. Just one last thing- have you been having trouble with any reporters? I used FRIDAY to make sure no one would be able to get a hold of your home address."

Harrington blinked, startled. That he might have trouble with any reporters had not even occurred to him, though he realized now that it should have. He was touched that Stark had gone out of his way to look out for him, especially in the middle of everything else he and Peter were dealing with. "No, I haven't," he said. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," said Stark. "Let me know if that changes."

"I will, thanks," said Harrington awkwardly.

Stark rose and shook his hand, clapped Peter gently on the shoulder and then walked out, leaving Harrington to study his former student across the table. The moment felt strange and uncertain, and he was reminded how long it had been since he'd seen Peter. He was relieved of the distraction when the waitress approached them again to ask if they were ready to order, and they spent a few minutes perusing the menu. When they'd placed their orders- he tried not to boggle at the price tag or at the number of dishes Peter had asked for- silence fell between them again.

"How are you doing?" Harrington asked. "It's been so long; I can't believe how great you look, and so grown-up-"

"I'm sorry I didn't come and see you sooner." Peter's words came out in a guilty rush, making Harrington straighten in surprise. "I know I should have; I really wanted to do more than just call every once in a while, but I was worried that it might put you at risk. Everyone who gets too close to me always is, and you had all these other kids to worry about. I thought I'd been a danger to you and Midtown long enough. I was always so scared all through high school that someone would come after me and get you and everyone else killed. And now I realize you were worried about the same thing too."

As he spoke, he opened the leather folder he had brought with him, and Harrington's breath caught in shocked recognition as he saw the words Nondisclosure Agreement in big, bold lettering, printed under a Stark Industries letterhead. He spotted his own signature in red at the bottom of the first page, and knew it would be on every other page as well. "I never thought I'd see this again," he said softly.

Peter slid it towards him, and he leafed through the thick sheaf with shaky fingers, lost in memory. This had meant so much, once, and he felt a pang of sadness that the whole thing seemed a little pointless now that Peter's identity was out in the open. When he looked up again a minute later, Peter was watching him with a pained expression that made him straighten and shake his head immediately.

"Hey, you do not need to feel guilty about this," he said. "I've appreciated every single phone call in the last few years. I don't have that many students who have actually stayed in touch as long as you, so there's no need to feel bad that you never came to see me in person. I get why you didn't. As for the NDA, I hope you know it was just as much about protecting you as it was about everyone else. I don't regret signing it- I'm just disappointed that it seems to have been for nothing, now. I'm sorry that after all this, you got revealed trying to save me."

"It wasn't for nothing, Mr. Harrington," Peter protested, his eyes going wide and shocked. "How can you even think that? If this had gotten out when I was fifteen, I would have fallen to pieces. Especially in those first three years of high school, I was a complete mess. This is bad, but I'm an adult now, and no can take me away from May. We're moving into the Tower full time for extra security. It's not ideal, but with Tony's help, we can handle it. There is no way we could have, then."

Harrington studied Peter's face, noting the self-assured conviction in his voice and the casual way he used his mentor's first name. Definitely an adult now, he thought. He felt a tension which had been coiled inside him since the moment he'd looked up and seen cameras pointing at Peter's exposed face finally ebbing away. Maybe his life wasn't going to be completely wrecked by this after all.

He went back to leafing through the NDA, making a face as he encountered the convoluted legalese that had scared him so much the first time he'd read it through. "I'd forgotten how complicated this thing was."

"Oh, I had it out with Tony about that, too."

Harrington looked up sharply at his tone. "You're really mad at him about this," he realized, troubled. "You don't need to be, Peter. I'm not sure why he showed this to you in the first place, but he should have made it clear that this was my choice. I knew what I was doing."

"You keep saying that," said Peter, "but I had to sit down with two people from SI's legal department to figure it out, and even then it took over an hour. I have no idea how you possibly could have understood it without hiring a lawyer. Did you?"

"No," answered Harrington. "I didn't want to involve anyone else. I looked up a lot of the jargon online and made a lot of notes. It took a bit, but I figured it out eventually."

"You should never have had to do that." Peter frowned unhappily, and then sighed. "All through high school, I always thought the NDA was just you agreeing to not tell anyone my secret. I never guessed it was more complicated than that until Tony said something about how it was a good thing you'd insisted on installing those panic buttons all those years ago, and that was when I found out all the Code Red drills and extra security at school only happened because you added it in as a clause. I realized there was more to the agreement then I'd known, so I asked Tony if I could read it. And when I did..." His eyes flashed. "Some of these clauses- did you really understand what you were saying yes to? The part about how you'd never work in education or STEM if you did something to reveal me, even on accident? About how you'd be liable even if you were personally in danger and told someone while you were under duress?"

"Yeah," said Harrington. "I actually asked Mr. Stark to leave that in there. I thought it would give me some protection, in case people ever did learn that I knew who you were."

His answer seemed to upset Peter even more. "And that's another thing," he said. "If this had come out then, Principal Morita really would have fired you, right?"

"You were a minor," Harrington reminded him. "He wouldn't have had a choice."

Peter drew in a deep breath, staring at him with a stricken expression on his face. "You were really willing to risk all of that, for me?" he asked. "I wasn't worth that. I wasn't worth your life, or your job." In that moment, despite the formal clothes and the broad shoulders and the added height, Peter looked just like a fifteen-year-old again, the same one who'd looked at Harrington across a conference table years ago and pleaded silently for his protection.

"You were one of my kids." Harrington's hands left trails of warmth on the NDA as he handed it back to him. "You still are. Of course you were worth it, Peter."

The kid took it with slightly fumbling fingers, cradling it as if it were something precious before he placed it gently back into the folder and closed it. For a minute, neither of them spoke, and then the waitress arrived with their food, interrupting the charged moment.

As Harrington ate his mushroom risotto, he watched with amusement as Peter inhaled a plate of lasagna, the first of three main courses he'd ordered. Stark hadn't been kidding about his appetite. After a while, he set his fork down and fixed Harrington with a searching look. "How are you, really?" he asked. "With the shooting, and... you know. All of this." He gestured vaguely to encompass the mess of the last few days.

"Better than I was," said Harrington.

"I still cannot believe you jumped the kid with the gun," said Peter. "It was completely insane, Mr. Harrington. And after, you just closed your eyes as if... I'm going to have nightmares about seeing you like that for years."

Harrington didn't say anything immediately, his eyes stinging again as his thoughts drifted towards Matthew. Fuck you rang in his ears again. "I still can't..." he said with difficulty. "I keep thinking about what I could have missed, with him, and there's just nothing. No sign at all. He really was such a good kid. His mom...she must be completely wrecked. I can't wrap my head around it." To his mortification, a few tears had welled up despite his best efforts, and he reached up to wipe them away quickly. "Sorry. I'm a mess."

"No, you're not," Peter objected immediately. "I know how much you cared about us, Mr. Harrington, and I doubt that's changed over the last three years. You don't have to feel bad for being affected by this. But-" he paused, fixed Harrington with a steely look. "You know you can't hold yourself responsible for not seeing it coming, right? It sounds to me like literally no one did, not even his mom, and sure, it's really, really awful, but it's not your fault. Sometimes, people just...aren't what they seem. I saw that with the Vulture when I was fifteen, and then with Mysterio, and then with so many others over the last few years. It just...is what it is."

Harrington looked at his former student, struck by the strange reversal taking place here; himself in tears, Peter dispensing words of wisdom and assurance. For the first time since the shooting, Harrington found himself really starting to believe it, what he'd already known in his head but not his heart, that maybe Matthew wasn't on him. Maybe he'd done the best he could, the way he had for Peter and all the others.

"Thank you for saying that," he said, feeling bolstered as he met Peter's warm, brown eyes. "It means more than you know, coming from you."

Three days later, Harrington found himself driving towards Midtown Tech. As he approached the school gates, a swarm of reporters suddenly buzzed around his car, thrusting mikes at his windows and yelling questions he could barely hear. Overwhelmed, he ducked his head and kept driving, glad that Morita had requested Dell to get his car back to his apartment a couple of days ago. If it had still been parked in school, he would have had to take the subway and enter the gates on foot.

He pulled into his parking spot and took a long, deep breath. There were only teachers in the building today, but even so, coming back here for the first time since the shooting was going to be hard. When he walked into the building, several of his colleagues approached him with expressions of concern and gratitude. The thank yous were embarrassing enough, but the endless questions about how he was doing were worse. After watching him crying on camera, everyone seemed to think he was completely fragile.

They gathered first in the auditorium, and Morita addressed them as a whole staff, talking somberly about the challenges they were going to face when students returned in three days. He talked about how they were going to be easing back into school with no lessons taught for the first three or four days. Puzzles, packs of cards, and board games would be kept in every classroom. There would be extra counselors, service animals in the open areas, and there were already volunteer parents and students moving through the building, tying balloons to door handles and bannisters and writing out kind, friendly messages on lockers.

After the meeting, Harrington headed to his new classroom, which was in the 9th grade hallway. "I know it's not ideal, but it's the only room we could find which was big enough," Morita had informed him, grimacing. "We've had it cleaned, and someone should be by later today to put up some new bulletin boards. The projector works, of course. I'll ask a few of the volunteers to box up stuff from your old room and move it here for you. I'm sure you don't want to have to go in there."

Harrington blanched at the thought of walking into his old classroom, grateful that Morita had thought to spare him that. He pictured his old room where he'd been teaching for over a decade and a half, the red and yellow rugs and the lumpy sofa and the boxes of whiteboard markers and the color pencils and sticky notes being moved into the new room which he now needed to make a welcoming space for himself and for his students, and he shook his head. "I don't want anything. You can donate it or give it away; I don't care."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

Morita nodded. He didn't look surprised. "Alright," he said. "But you're going to have your work cut out for you getting a whole new room ready in three days from scratch. I'll assign a couple of teachers to help you."

"No," said Harrington again firmly. "Thanks, but I need to do this on my own."

He spent the next few days hard at work, making multiple trips to Home Depot and Staples and Ikea to get everything he needed. It cost a small fortune, but he didn't care. He spent hours creating colorful, welcoming bulletin boards with light-hearted science puns which reminded him strongly of Peter. He spread new rugs on the floor and blew up two brand new inflatable beanbag chairs and changed his entire desk arrangement to be oriented towards smaller, close-knit groups of friends, at least for the first few weeks.

And yet, when he looked around the room on the day before school was set to reopen, he knew something was still missing. He knocked on Morita's door and said hesitantly, "Hey, so about those volunteers..."

"Yeah?"

"Do you know if my sofa was damaged? Because I think I might want that after all, for my new room."

Morita smiled at him knowingly and said, "Your sofa's fine, Roger. I'll ask Julius and Kelly if they can help move it."

A day later, when his seniors shuffled warily into the new classroom, they gaped in surprise at how completely everything had changed. The shape and color of the rugs, the artwork on the walls, and the color of the bins used to store office supplies were all completely different, and many of them told him it was great, Mr. Harrington, even better than your old room. And still, a few of them gravitated towards the old sofa with relief on their faces, as if they were glad to see something familiar, and Harrington knew he'd made the right choice in keeping it.

That first day back was quiet, relaxed and peaceful, exactly as the teachers had planned. There were dogs and cats in open spaces for kids to pet, and many of them spent hours with them. Harrington spent most of his time just talking to kids, snacking on baked goods sent by their parents and challenging them to friendly board games. Many of them had questions about Spider-Man and what Peter had been like as a student, and Harrington told them as much as he could without getting into too much detail.

The second day was more eventful, because Peter Parker and Tony Stark announced on Twitter that Peter had signed an agreement with the governor of New York which would allow him to keep being Spider-Man, but with the blessing of NYPD, now. They were also addressing the public for the first time in a press conference at noon that day. Naturally, the kids went crazy with anticipation, petitioning their teachers to watch the press conference in their classrooms.

Harrington said yes but felt a swooping dread in the pit of his stomach when he realized that because of an awful, coincidental quirk of timing, the conference would air during his lesson with the same seniors who'd been caught up in the shooting. They'd been hit the hardest by all this, and they were all reeling from Matthew's conspicuous absence, especially the kids who'd been his close friends. They startled at loud noises or when locker doors slammed shut, and many seemed constantly on the edge of tears.

Harrington was worried that he wouldn't be able to handle the pressure of trying to keep it together for all of them, especially since he had no idea what Peter or Stark were planning to say. Thankfully, Morita guessed that he might need some support, sending him a casually worded text at 11:30. Hey, I'm thinking about dropping by your new classroom in a bit. Just to check in on the kids and see how they're doing.

Harrington was grateful for the tact as well as for the gesture. Morita was definitely a good friend.

Right before noon, Harrington couldn't conceal the slight tremble in his hands as he set up the projector and found the link to the live stream. His students were on edge, too, waiting in a mixture of tension and anticipation. Morita shot him a steadying a look from where he stood to the back of the room. Harrington hit play and stepped back, moving to one side of the room as he tried to find a spot where he could both monitor his students and watch the projector.

The press conference hadn't started yet, but reporters were already sitting in the large press briefing room at Stark Tower, their cameras pointed in the direction of a long table covered with a white tablecloth. Beside it was a podium with a dizzying number of mikes attached to it. Then, a door opened off to the side and Peter and Tony entered the room. There was a murmur of surprise amongst the reporters when they were followed by all of the Avengers. No one had been expecting that. Peter looked nervous as he took his seat at the edge of the long table. Stark sat right beside him; his expression impassive, but one hand came up to gently cover Peter's shoulder.

Captain Rogers stepped up to the podium first, holding up a hand to quiet the reporters. "I'm not taking many questions," he said. "This is still Peter and Tony's press conference. The Avengers and I are just here to show our support. We have known and loved working with Peter for several years now, and we consider him to be an honorary Avenger."

"Why just honorary?" a reporter demanded from the back of the room. "Shouldn't he be a full-time Avenger by now?"

"You'll have to ask him that," the Captain responded with a rueful smile. "It wasn't for lack of trying."

Peter just shrugged sheepishly. "What can I say? I'm just your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man."

Captain Rogers stepped away from the podium and then Stark rose to take his place. He carried himself with easy confidence, his shoulders relaxed and his hands open at his sides.

"I know I'm not the main event today, but well, you all love me too much for me to deprive you of my presence," he said, eliciting a few laughs. "I'm actually feeling a sense of déjà vu. If it wasn't for the fact that we already gave you seats, I might have had us all sitting down on the floor eating cheeseburgers again." There was more laughter at the reminder of his first, infamous press conference. Then, Stark's voice was somber in a way it rarely was during public appearances, and the reporters straightened in anticipation, taking note.

"Sixteen years ago, I stood in a room a lot like this one and told a group of reporters that I was going to be closing down the Weapons Manufacturing Division at Stark Industries. You all thought I'd lost my mind, and my stock prices fell through the floor, but I'd seen it up close in Afghanistan, the damage those weapons could do. I knew something had to change. Since then, I've seen evidence of that damage over and over again; in the Middle East, in Africa, in Sokovia. I know I've made a lot of mistakes over the years, but I'd like to think that after a decade and a half of trying to fix it, I have managed to leave things a little better than they were. Which is why it makes me furious that nothing has changed here. A child should not be able to go into a store and buy a gun or order an untraceable kit online. It can't be that easy for them to just walk into school one day and start shooting."

The grim words had a visceral effect on Harrington. For a moment he gave into weakness, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the wall where he was standing, trying to force back the ever-present image of Matthew suddenly rising from his desk with a rifle in hand. When he opened them and looked around, he found Morita standing by his side and many of his students in tears.

"If you watched that video and focused on Peter's face instead of the kids crying and terrified under their desks and the teacher breaking down on the floor, then you missed the fucking point. Because that's the true cost of all this, and I'm done seeing this play out over and over again in my backyard. Something has to be done, and if that means funding a wide-reaching gun buyback program right here in New York City, then I can do that. If it means going after politicians who won't vote for stronger gun control, or leveraging my money and influence to support politicians who will, then I'll do that too."

Stark stopped and looked around the silent room, his gaze lingering on the reporters hanging on to his every word, on his teammates sitting quietly nearby, and finally on Peter, who was watching him with admiration on his face. "Something needs to change, and it needs to change now, before we lose anyone else. I'm just sorry I didn't do this sooner."

Stark sat back down, and now it was Peter's turn. He stepped up to the podium, dressed in dark jeans and a grey button-down shirt. He looked a little nervous, but still more calm and self-assured than Harrington would have expected given the circumstances. "I don't really have a speech prepared," he said. "Except, well I'm bummed that I didn't get to announce my identity with, 'The truth is, I am Spider-Man.' It has a certain ring to it, like in this really old newscast I saw." The reporters laughed, and Stark shook his head, shooting him a look of fond exasperation. "I'm not really sure how this all really works?" Peter continued with a shrug. "I guess you guys should just ask me some questions."

"How long have you had your powers?" a blonde woman asked from the front row. "And how did you get them?"

"Since I was fourteen. I got them in a lab accident. I won't say any more than that."

"Where do the webs come from? Does your body secrete them?"

"Ew, no, why does everyone keep asking me that?" Peter made a disgusted face. "No, I made the web fluid myself in chemistry class. The formula is patented. And before anyone asks, no, I don't lay eggs, and no, I can't summon an army of spiders. I'm not Ant-Man."

From his seat at the conference table, Scott Lang flashed a smirk at the reporters, raising his hand in a two-fingered salute.

"Which means you've been Spider-Man pretty much from the moment you got these powers," one of the reporters commented. "Right from your freshman year in high school."

"Um, yeah?" Peter frowned. "I mean, didn't everyone already know that?"

"We did," said the reporter. "I'm sure you've seen the comments about how shocked people were to realize you were a minor when you fought some of your most iconic battles. Is there a reason you decided to throw yourself in danger when you were that young?"

"Yeah." Peter's expression grew serious. "I lost my uncle to a man with a gun when I was fourteen. He was carjacked right in front of me and he bled out in my arms. I wanted to do something to stop that from ever happening to someone else." He drew in a deep breath and faced the camera squarely. "I was in grade school for Sandy Hook. I had classmates with family members who survived the shooting in Parkland. I grew up with Code Red drills and ALICE training sessions, and I participated in the 'March for Our Lives' protest in 2018. So did my teacher Mr. Harrington, who lost a student in a shooting years ago on a field trip. This is the second time this has happened to him, and it shouldn't be possible, for one person to survive two mass shootings, but it happens a lot more than it should in our country." He paused for a moment to gather his thoughts. "I can't begin to tell you how horrifying it was, to look around that classroom where I spent years learning chemistry and physics with my friends and see shattered glass and overturned desks and bullet holes in the walls. That could just as easily have been me, a few years ago."

Harrington felt a tightness in his chest again at the graphic description. Around him, he noticed many of his students were pale, some of them holding hands or hugging each other as they watched this, but some were also nodding in agreement, a fierce light of agreement and recognition in their eyes.

"You mentioned your science teacher," said another reporter. "Roger Harrington? In the video, you guys seemed pretty close."

"We are," said Peter.

"He clearly knew who you were." The reporter watched Peter curiously, obviously wondering how he would respond. "I'm sure you've seen the comments and the speculation about his role in all this. Can you shed some light on that? There are a lot of people who are asking why he didn't do anything to protect you when you were in high school."

"He did protect me," Peter protested at once. "He protected my identity so I could have a normal life when I was a kid. He protected my mental health when he encouraged me to see a therapist. He protected my academic future when he helped me get the accommodations I needed. And when someone pulled a gun in his classroom, he tackled the shooter and stopped him from aiming it at his students. It wasn't caught on camera, so maybe that's why no one is talking about it, but if he hadn't stalled the shooter for long enough, there was no way I would have been able to get there in time. He saved every single kid in that classroom just as much as I did."

He was looking straight into the camera, and it was as if he was speaking to Harrington directly, as if he could see him in his classroom where he stood crying once again, completely unashamed this time, surrounded by the kids he'd saved. Because even if it had taken Peter to point it out, he'd finally realized: the thing he had been dreading all these years had happened. Someone had fired a gun in his classroom, and while it was horrifying and awful and would haunt him for the rest of his life, he also hadn't lost any of his kids. He'd spent seventeen years terrified that he'd see another child's blank eyes staring up at him in silent accusation, but when it had counted the most, he had stopped it from happening.

"As far as I'm concerned," Peter said, looking right at him, his eyes fierce, "he was the real superhero that day."

END.

The 1st part of a 3-part epilogue/companion piece to this story has already been posted! It's called "Everyday Gifts," and is basically Peter's perspective on the final chapter of the story, learning everything Harrington and the others did for him, and how he dealt with his identity being revealed. Here's the summary:

After his identity is blown wide open stopping a school shooting at Midtown Tech, Peter finds himself grappling with the burdens his choices have placed on those who love him. Looking back on his teenage years with freshly opened eyes, Peter is forced to reckon with the consequences of being Spider-Man: what it means to him personally, the shadows of worry it's cast on his aunt and mentor, and everything it has cost his former teacher, Mr. Harrington.

A companion piece and epilogue to Everyday Superhero.

Notes:

This is a long final note, so please bear with me.

Harrington's heroic actions in this chapter are inspired by the real-life superhero teacher Angela Mcqueen, a forty-year-old woman who teaches Math and Physical Education at Mattoon High School in Illinois. She saved her students in 2017 during an attempted shooting in the cafeteria by tackling the shooter and wrenching the gun upwards so the bullets only hit the ceiling. She single-handedly stopped the shooting, saved dozens of lives, and rather than breakdown, proceeded to walk around the cafeteria asking if people were okay. She was awarded the Carnegie Medal for her bravery.

The details about the shooter are also based on an actual event- namely, on the sixteen-year-old who shot up Saugus High School in November 2019. I didn't use his actual name and his age is different, but the rest of it is pretty accurate, including the detail about the keychain with the bullet. No one who knew him saw it coming or had any explanation for why he brought a gun to school on his sixteenth birthday and killed two people and then himself. It is kind of devastating that I had already started this story months before Santa Clarita even happened. I knew all along that the final chapter would have a shooting, but I never dreamed the shooter would be inspired by a real event that happened after I began this fic. The Santa Clarita shooting hit me very hard because of that, and even now, I look up stories about the school and how they're coping with all this on top of Covid-19. What a terrible fucking school year it's been for those kids.

Harrington's anguish over Matthew was inspired by a conversation I had with a colleague. She taught for ten years in an inner-city public middle school and has multiple former students who have died because of gun violence and one former student who is now in prison for shooting and killing another child. She told me, "That kid was one of my kids in 6th grade. I had him for a whole year. And I will always carry that with me, the knowledge that I taught this kid who then left my classroom and killed someone else. That's the part no one talks about, the fact that the shooters are our students too." I thought that was pretty gut-wrenching, and I wanted to include some of that here.

Finally, I would like to thank you all for all the comments and the support on this story. I hope you enjoyed this and I'm excited to hear what you thought about the ending.