Peter didn't really know what to expect when he first entered high school, Aunt May and Uncle Ben were all about how it was "an important step" in his life but he didn't really see it. After all, it was just moving up one more grade. He thought things would be more or less the same.
He couldn't have been more wrong, what with Flash, Liz, Sally, and his other middle school friends suddenly turning on him and becoming his tormenters. The sudden and unexpected betrayal stung far more than any physical blow ever could. He didn't even know why things turned out as they did, it just came out of the blue to him, but as Uncle Ben always said sometimes you just gotta roll with the punches and make sure you always get back up.
And so he did, and that was how he managed to make his first friend in Midtown high. Admittedly he was a strange friend, but Andrew has proven so far to be a good one. The other boy with an almost impossible appetite was always full of good humor, the same cheesey puns that he himself was quite partial too in fact. He didn't force Peter into anything nor try to take advantage of the nerd's smarts.
No more hundreds of "little favors" like doing other's homework or making fun of his interests such as comics and science.
It was nice having someone your own age support you for once. Although he could do without the physical exercises and boxing lessons Andrew and Uncle Ben got together to teach him how to be "tougher" and "manly".
Manly and Peter Parker might as well be antonyms as far as he was concerned, but they wouldn't relent and he eventually gave in. It was simply less exhausting to go along with the flow.
If nothing else it was good exercise and he found himself enjoying the quality bonding time with the old war veteran and the occasional nightly jogs and outings with Andrew.
It also helped that he was actually starting to put on some weight and pack on muscles, nothing like seeing your own biceps actually have a noticeable bulge when you flex in the mirror to build up some good old fashioned self-confidence. Especially so after Aunt May had introduced him, read as all but dragged him by the ear, to a meeting with her friend's niece. A beautiful redhead called Mary Jane Wattson, or as her friends called her, MJ. She had all but insisted he did the same.
Friendly, gorgeous, outgoing, a true social butterfly if there ever was one because after just that one meeting he was already charmed.
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"... Nice."
That was all Andrew could say after Peter brought him to meet his newest friend, MJ, and he had to say that the movies and comics don't do her justice. While Jean was also an incredibly good looking redhead, she was still young and growing, more cute or pretty than anything. Mary Jane was already a budding beauty even at the tender age of 14.
Seeing his younger friend already sporting an obvious small crush and fumbling with his words more than usual was heartening though. Mostly because he was happy to see that he wasn't the only one with Foot-In-Mouth-Syndrome, but also because Peter really needed to "put himself out there" more. Maybe this time with him here to prevent Uncle Ben's death and Peter already having a more confident and positive outlook on life the two would be able to get together sooner as they were meant to be?
It had to be a lot easier pursuing romance or a social life when your family wasn't constantly struggling financially nor were you depressed with guilt. Hell, maybe Andrew could even stop Green Goblin or Doctor Oct from being a thing in the first place? Besides Venom and Carnage, those were the only spiderman villains he really knew more than "they are spiderman's villains".
There won't be any cloning bullshit or body-swapping or demon out to break Peter's marriage for some inane reason if he had anything to say about it!
... Fuck why did he want to be a hero again? That sounded like far too much insanity for his liking and didn't this shit happen on a semi-regular basis?
"You alright there, Andrew?"
Peter had tried to call his friends names a couple of time but the boy stood there in a daze, the odd part of it all was how his expression rapidly switched between being happy to smug to confused and annoyance to finally settle on an almost defeated looking resignation. All within a minute. He really hoped the boy wasn't having a stroke or something. It took MJ snapping her fingers in front of his face repeatedly until the boy snapped out of it.
"Huh? Oh yeah, sorry. I was lost in thoughts."
The bell rang and a horde of hungry and wild high schoolers stampeded through the halls in order to escape the cage of classrooms and for feeding time.
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"Well, if you boys are quite done, how about we hurry up before all the seats are taken?"
Taking the advice the trio rushed through and managed to find a nice empty table in the corner of the room. Normally it would be quite a feat to manage to cut through the chaotic crowd with a scrawny nerd and a young girl, but when your friend leading the charge weighed more than half the people around combined, well there's something to be said about mass, momentum, and inertia.
Everyone quickly learned to make a path for them or at least avoid running into them if they didn't want to get knocked on their butts. Everyone besides Flash who kept doing stupid pranks like trying to trip Andrew anyways. The kid didn't even realize that if he had actually stepped onto him or fallen then Flash probably would be wearing crutches for the next three months.
"So, have you guys heard?" Mary Jane started off the conversation right as they sat down. He turned to give a glance at Peter but the boy only shrugged in confusion. They both turned as one towards the girl who gave an exasperated sigh. "Seriously, do you guys live under a rock or something? I'm talking about Captain America. Rumor has it that they found his plane buried in the ice somewhere."
Andrews's eyes widened as he leaned forward. Was this it? Was the Avengers forming already? He had heard rumors of a green monster somewhere up north that he was pretty sure was Hulk, but with Captain America found and Tony's kidnapping only being a matter of time...
He needed to hurry up- and... and what? He was part of the X-men he couldn't just leave to join the Avengers nor could he just reveal himself and bring attention to mutants. As far as he knew heroes were all unique freak accidents/impossible or incredibly hard to replicate phenomenons, if S.H.I.E.L.D, Hydra, or Weapon X hasn't fully understood what they are yet then he would be bringing a lot of problems if they found his connection to Xavier.
Shit, what was he going to do?
"What are you talking about?" Peter didn't share his internal dilemma and was pretty skeptical of the whole affair. "Isn't this like the 4th time someone "found Captain America". Which clickbait article did you find this time?"
"This isn't the same Peter!"
He tuned out the two's back and forth debate on the likely hood of someone not only finding the plane but the man himself was apparently rescued. Peter's argument of sound scientific reasoning and nobody being able to survive in those conditions, and especially not after so many years, would probably hold a lot more merit if this wasn't a comic book universe.
Here, the impossible was an everyday occurrence.
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"Hi, I'm Jean Grey, it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
"Hey, nice to meet you. The name's Scott Summers."
"Oh, um hi! I'm Peter Parker."
While he didn't have any plans to introduce Peter to the X-men until he became Spider-man he decided it would be alright for them to hang out as friends. And what better way to bond than going to an arcade?
Laser tag is always a great way to make friends and bond in his opinion. At least that's what he heard, he's actually never been. Jean decided now would be a great time to unleash her inner asshole apparently and spent the first 5 minutes of the 30-minute session literally following him and shooting him in the back.
For of you unfamiliar with the rules, everyone gets a laser gun, you wear a glow in the dark vest with sensors which disables your gun once you get shot. After you get shot you have 15 seconds to reposition before you're "back in the game". Eliminations earned you 10 points, there were certain environmental targets that randomly appeared which earned you 30. She earned 320 of her 765 points just from killing him repeatedly.
So yeah, he couldn't do jack shit besides trying to run from a hysterically laughing red-headed munchkin half the time. He couldn't even hide after he lost her because, and although she vehemently denied it, she kept using her telepathy to locate him. Her cute smile and long fluttering lashes didn't fool him from the amusement hidden barely beneath the surface of her eyes, emerald pools that practically glowed.
He knew she was full of shit.
Surprisingly Peter actually won, sneaky little bugger went and got almost all the random targets and also took out Jean and Scott from a distance when Andrew decided to get revenge. Poor Scott was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"Well, that was fun!"
"Yeah, we should do it again sometimes." Scott tossed everyone a bottle of water while they went to check the scoreboard. "What the hell? I thought you said this was your first time, dude?" Peter was confused as Scott was, being behind the group and couldn't see well.
"Huh? Yeah, it is. I don't normally go to these types of places." Mostly because the money could be better spent elsewhere, partly because he just didn't have many friends and going to places like this alone didn't seem appealing to Peter.
"No way, then how did you get friggin 2455 points?! That's literally more than both Jean and my score combined!"
"Wicked, nice one!" Jean was impressed. "I was so sure everyone else was dead most of the game besides me! Well, at least Andrew was dead pretty much the entire time." This earned her a growl from the boy while she just laughed at him because it was just so easy and fun to mess with him. After a bit of time ribbing the embarrassed Peter Parker, the crowned Laser Tag Champion, they all shared a pizza before calling it a day. Andrew saw Peter off at the train station before returning to the X Mansion. It was Friday night and Storm was picking the movie this time for once.
They even managed to rope Logan into it too! Although how much would an American horror movie which emphasized shitty jump scares and copious amounts of fake blood and gore work on someone who literally cuts through soldiers like tofu on a semi-regular basis was up to debate, but it might prove entertaining at least.
And if, by some weird coincidence, an actual alien-looking tentacle complete with fanged mouth and covered in blinking eyes slithered pass his legs during the scary scenes... Welp who knows? Ororo disapproved of the prank at first, but the three younger kids managed to convince her to the humor of it all. It was a harmless prank after all.