Chapter Text
Chapter 1: London
Disclaimer: I don’t own Spiderman or Marvel, however much I wish I did
“Peter, hurry up!” Ned shouted. He and Michelle were already through the gate and halfway on the bus. We were in London for our senior class trip. The one thing that got me through senior year was this trip. Well, and my friends, I guess. If it hadn’t been for those things, I would’ve dropped out for sure, or transferred or something. Midtown was miserable.
“Yeah, coming!” I called back. Instinctively, I almost shot a web and swung to the bus, but I reminded myself just in time that it was a public place and I didn’t have my mask. Not to mention that Spider-man is supposed to be in New York; no one knew he was overseas except Mr. Stark, Ned, myself, and Aunt May. Michelle still hadn’t figured out my secret and keeping it from her was killing me. I figured I’d have to tell her sooner or later, but I was inclined to go with later. I realized that I’d never actually told anyone my secret—they’d all figured it out, one way or another. Whether it was because of their crazy advanced technology, their smarts, or my own carelessness. Michelle was intuitive, though, and perceptive. If she hadn’t figured it out by now, she was bound to soon.
“What took you so long?” Michelle asked as I threw myself into the seat next to her and Ned. She had a sparkle in her eye, and she kept bouncing her knee excitedly. She loved to travel and hardly ever got the chance. She confessed that the furthest she’d ever been from New York was Ohio, and that was when she was five years old for her Grandpa’s funeral. She’d never even been on a plane before.
“Sorry, just…jet lagged I guess.” At least, that’s what I hoped. Ever since we landed, my spider-sense has been all weird. But unless there was something suspicious about a ninety-year-old vendor selling tourist-y hats, I think we’ll be okay.
Ned gave me a questioning look, but I shook my head dismissively. I was sure that if something were seriously wrong, I’d be able to tell.
“Alrighty everyone, listen up!” Mr. Harrington yelled over the chatter. The bus lurched and started down the road (on the opposite side! London is so weird) and we all quieted down. “We will be arriving at the hotel in half an hour, give or take. If you don’t remember the room assignments, I have a list right here,” I grinned at Ned; we’d be sharing a room again. Hopefully, this trip would turn out better than the Decathalon trip. Poor Michelle, she has a very small, close circle of friends which consisted of me and Ned. She had to share a room with Nancy Gibbons; a nice enough girl, but they didn’t really know each other. Michelle didn’t seem to mind, though. She was content to do her own thing without caring if you were uncomfortable. She was definitely an “acquired taste” as Aunt May once said.
The hotel was awesome, but kind of cramped. Everything in London seemed to be taller and narrow, like they couldn’t spread out anymore so they went up instead. With a pang, I wished I could put on my suit and swing around the city for a while. Nice to get a change of scenery once in a while. But no, it would be too risky. If it got out that Spiderman was in London, it might draw threats to me, or worse, my classmates.
Ned must have seen me gazing out the window wistfully. “Bet you wish you had your suit, huh?” He said sympathetically.
“Yeah,” I sighed, but immediately brightened. “But hey, it’ll be nice to take a break for a while!”
“Yeah, I guess so. But have you thought about…you know, what might happen in New York while you’re gone? What if something happens and you’re not there?”
“Mr. Stark said he’d have the Iron Legion stationed around the city, just in case,” I told him.
Ned gaped. “Really?”
“I know.”
“I’d love to see that. Have you seen them before?”
“Well…kind of, I guess.” I thought his eyes would pop out of his head. “Not closely, just as they passed by. Then I saw one all busted up in his workshop once.”
“Wow,” he said quietly. “You’re so lucky.”
“I can ask if you can stop by the tower one day to take a look, if you want,” I offered.
“Seriously? Oh my gosh that’d be amazing!”
I laughed. “Remind me when we get back. But it’s almost 5:00, we should get going.”
For our first night, we were all going to this place called Nando’s for dinner, then we were allowed to explore the area for a while before heading back to the hotel at 7:30. Mr. Harrington said he didn’t want to plan too much for the first day since we’d all be exhausted.
He was right. Half of us were falling asleep in our seats by the time dinner was served. Ned and I rejoined Michelle and grabbed a table away from our classmates. We liked to socialize with them as little as humanly possible.
“Here you are, sir,” the waiter said, sliding my plate in front of me, followed shortly by Ned’s and Michelle’s.
“Thanks,” I said, grinning. He looked as fascinated at our accents as we were by his.
“Where are you all from?” He asked, passing out the silverware.
“New York,” I said. “We’re on a school trip.”
“Which school?” He inquired.
“Midtown Tech,” I answered. He nodded like he knew it, though I wasn’t sure how he would.
“Ah, I see,” he smiled. “Well, enjoy your meal, and I wish you all a lovely stay in this marvelous city.”
“I’m sure we will.” Michelle said. We exchanged broad grins.
“Let’s eat, I’m starving,” I said, picking up my fork.
“You’re always starving.” Michelle muttered. “But I don’t know how even you are going to eat all that.”
I had ordered a big piece of chicken with some kind of spicy sauce, fries (or ‘chips’ as they called them here), garlic bread, and corn on the cob.
“Watch me,” I said, never one to turn down a challenge. Being Spiderman had its perks, but it also came with quite a few challenges. For example, I now had a super-fast metabolism, so I could eat pretty much all I wanted with no repercussions. The annoying thing about that is that I am always hungry and am never full.
Even with the weird sauce burning my mouth and making my eyes water (another annoying thing about being Spiderman: my senses have doubled, so ‘mild’ now tastes like ‘fire from the pit of hell’), I finished everything on my plate and even finished off Michelle’s plate.
“Seriously, how are you still eating?” She pushed her plate away and wrapped her arms around her stomach. “I ate way too much.”
“Do you wanna go explore for a little?” Ned suggested. We’ve still got some time before curfew.”
“Yeah, sure,” I said, and we paid the bill.
The street was kind of cool, there were a bunch of shops all packed tightly together. One of them was an antique shop, not really my thing, but Michelle got really excited by a display.
“Come here guys, check it out!” She was pressed up against the window, pointing at a bunch of coins at the bottom. “They’ve got American currency for sale!”
“No way!” Ned looked inside and laughed. I laughed too, until my spider-sense flared up out of the blue.
“You okay, Peter?” Michelle asked, looking concerned.
Ned glanced up too. “Yeah, you okay? You seem a little…off.” He gave me another significant look.
Trying for a smile, I waved their concerns aside. Michelle dismissed it— “It was probably something you ate,”—but Ned lagged behind with me while she moved on to the next store.
“Seriously, you okay?” He murmured.
“I dunno…I think so,” My eyes skittered this way and that, trying to identify potential threats. Couples strolling past, holding hands, a young woman walking her dog, my classmates walking in clusters…nothing that screamed danger!
Then my gaze locked on something I’d missed earlier—there was a man leaning casually against a building, smoking a cigarette. There was nothing remarkable about him, nothing suspicious on first glance, but I got an uneasy feeling as I watched him. Slowly, he turned to face me, as if he knew I was watching him. But instead of getting angry or freaked out, he took a drag and blew the smoke in a cloud around his face, temporarily obscuring his features. Then he smiled, slow and lazy, and the sight chilled me to the bone.
“Ned,” I flailed around for his arm, refusing to take my eyes off the strange man.
“What?” He spluttered when my hand swatted his nose.
“Sorry. Do you see that guy over there?”
“Who?”
“That guy, right…” naturally, he was gone. Disappeared into the crowd, or maybe behind the building. There’s no telling where he went, and no time to track him down, either. Mr. Harrington was starting to call everyone back together and do a head count.
“Peter?” Ned said worriedly.
“Er…never mind, it’s nothing.” I said, trying for a nonchalant smile. “Where’s Michelle?”
We rejoined our classmates and loaded back onto the bus. We were all tired, but in good spirits. Mr. Harrington told us to get plenty of sleep, tomorrow promised to be quite a full day. Ned and I bade Michelle goodnight and went back to our room.
As I changed into my pajamas, I told myself to put the strange man out of mind. He wasn’t doing anything wrong, or remotely suspicious. I was just exhausted from the trip, that’s all.
But as I lay in bed that night, the memory of that slow smile continued to haunt me.