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The crescendoing sounds of guitar chords wakes Peter up on a Wednesday morning. Waking up with a jolt, the boy haphazardly slaps around his nightstand to grab his phone. Once he dismisses the alarm, he decides getting up can wait five minutes and decides to check his notifications.
He wishes he had just gotten up.
BREAKING NEWS: SHOOTING IN GEORGIA KILLS 8 PEOPLE
SUSPECT KILLS 8 PEOPLE ACROSS 3 LOCATIONS IN ATLANTA
8 DEAD IN 3 MASSAGE PARLORS IN GEORGIA, SUSPECT IN CUSTODY
A familiar guilt begins to materialize and sit in Peter’s stomach. It seems like every week, there was a mass shooting in the US, injuring or killing people. And Peter couldn’t do anything about it.
He knows that logically, it shouldn’t all fall on him. He’s one person, and even with his spider powers, one person couldn’t possibly be responsible for over 300 million people. It’s physically impossible for one person to bear all that. So why was it that every time he saw these headlines, he feels guilty for not being there?
A knock on his bedroom door breaks through his thoughts.
“Peter? Sweety, you’ve got 15 minutes before the train comes, are you getting ready?” Aunt May asks through the door.
His body jumps him out of bed before he can think about it, and groggily answers, “Yep, yep, almost ready.”
After quickly brushing his teeth and wiggling into his binder, Peter grabs the apple and granola bar Aunt May put out for him, gives her a quick kiss, and runs out to catch the train to school.
~~
“Sup, nerd,” MJ greets as Peter puts his things in his locker.
“MJ!” he exclaims, almost hitting his head on his locker door. “Yeah, hey, thanks for the morning scare.”
“Where’s your fellow nerd?”
“Ned? Yeah, I dunno, I haven’t seen him. I texted him this morning, but I didn’t get an answer.”
“Sick?”
Peter shrugs. “I don’t think so. Seemed fine yesterday.”
MJ just hums, then heads off to her first period without another word. By now, Peter has accepted her mysterious ways, and just gets the rest of his stuff. Normally, he’d be a bit shaken that he was able to talk to her with a straight face (instead of stumbling over his words), but Ned being absent in the morning overrides his crush for MJ.
When he takes a seat in his first period, the empty desk next to him distracts him from the teacher’s lesson. Not like he needs to really pay attention in Trigonometrics anyway.
Peter-man: Hey man, where are you? Wanted to show you this cute cat I saved yesterday.
Peter-man: Hey, you alright? MJ actually came up and asked about you. Are you sick?
Peter-man: Ned, please just let me know if you’re ok.
Delivered at 8:06AM
Peter continues to take notes on his laptop every so often, while checking on his phone under his desk. As the teacher continues to give their lesson, Peter becomes more and more worried. Did something happen to Ned? Did some villain figure out that he had a guy in the chair? If anything happened to Ned because of Peter, he’d never forgive himself.
By the time the bell rings to signal the end of first period, Peter still hasn’t received a text back, or indication that Ned has even seen the text. His brain starts to think of horrific scenarios.
Ok, if I get a text back and it’s either not from Ned, or it’s Ned saying he’s in trouble, I’m getting out of here, he thinks to himself as he fumbles with his locker combination. I don’t care what Mr. Stark is going to say, Ned comes before school.
It isn’t until the end of third period that Peter receives a text back. At that point, Peter had almost convinced himself that Ned had been captured, and he was going to have to track him and bust him out. But when he sees the three dots from Ned’s side of the text pop up, Peter almost lets out a cry of relief. Instead he bites it back, and checks his phone.
Ned in the Chair: I’m fine.
...That’s it?
Peter-man: Omg dude!! I’m so glad you responded, thank god. What’s up, man, are you sick?
Peter remembers to get off his phone to fake taking some notes, but when he sees another text pop up, he stops to read it.
Ned in the Chair: No, not sick. Not feeling great though.
Ok, now Peter is a little worried. It isn’t like Ned to give such short answers.
Peter-man: Oh, I’m sorry, dude. Can I come over after school to see you?
Ned texts back sooner this time.
Ned in the Chair: If you want, yeah you can.
If he wants? Of course he’d want to!
The bell rings again, and Peter jerks his head up in surprise. Well, thankfully only one more period before he’s free.
~~
Fourth period had gone by at an almost painful pace. Peter pretty much had his eyes glued to the clock, counting down the seconds until the bell. When it did ring, he had been the first out the door. He had hurriedly said something to MJ, who came up to his locker, and left to go change in an alleyway.
With a thwip of his web, Peter’s off to go see his best friend. He’s not exactly sure why he’s so anxious, but something about Ned’s texts had definitely been off. But at least his friend isn’t in any physical danger.
In almost record time, Peter makes it to Ned’s house. Knowing which window to knock on, he raps the glass in the secret pattern they made. He grins when he sees Ned, who unlocks the windows and lets him in.
Peter’s a little shocked when he sees his friend. Ned’s still in his pj’s, with bedhead, and eyes slightly red from tears.
“Hey...are you ok?” Peter asks, a bit taken aback by Ned’s state.
“Um...not really, actually,” his friend replies, avoiding eye contact. He goes back to his bed and sits down on it.
Taking off his mask, Peter sits down on the bed beside him.
“Do... you want to talk about it?” he asks gently. “It’s ok if you don’t want to, though. Just offering.”
Ned is quiet for a moment.
“Can I put on the mask?” his friend asks quietly.
“Oh--sure, yeah, sure, here,” Peter answers, a little surprised at the random request, but he hands over his mask.
Ned puts it on, and some of the tension in his shoulders relaxes.
“Did you see the shootings in the news today?” Ned murmurs.
“Y-yeah, it’s horrible.” Peter silently berates himself for such a lame answer. It’s a shooting, people were killed.
His friend is silent for a beat. “Did you see who the victims were?”
A wave of guilt hits Peter. No, he hadn’t seen who the victims were. Peter hadn’t even read the articles he saw, he had just read the headlines. The thing that MJ always complains about people doing, he also did that morning. He had to get better about that.
“I didn’t...why? Oh god, Ned...did you know them? Were they family?”
“No, well…” Ned notices Peter’s panicked look and quickly raises his hands. “No, Peter, no they weren’t family. Thankfully.”
Peter can at least breathe a small sigh of relief.
“...The victims were all Asian American,” Ned says.
Another wave of guilt and shame washes over him.
Peter is ashamed to admit that he hadn’t really given much thought about racism and the violence that comes with it. Of course, being friends with MJ, he was educated on how silence on the matter is dangerous, and what it means to be a good ally and to be anti-racist. He had even gone to some BLM protests, both as Peter Parker, with MJ and Ned, and as Spider-man. The latter had definitely angered some people on Twitter, but if there were people who got mad at the idea of everyone having equality, then he didn’t need them anyway.
But this is different, somehow. This act of racism clearly affected his best friend since kindergarten, and Peter feels ashamed that he didn’t even reach out to him properly.
“Ned...I...I’m so sorry,” Peter says earnestly, at a loss for words. “I, I should have read through the articles, I--” but Peter cuts off his flimsy apology. He what? He got used to seeing shootings happening in America every week, and so just didn’t bother to read the news on them, wanting to avoid the guilt that came with the fact that he couldn’t save everyone? Didn’t seem to be the best thing to say right now. Peter tries to stick to MJ’s advice, and keeps the conversation on Ned.
“No, it’s ok,” Ned excuses, waving his hand. “Everyone’s busy before school, and--”
“No, Ned, it’s not ok,” Peter interjects. He can hear him trying to trivialize it, but the truth is that Peter should have done better. “Christ, Ned, MJ even told us about the importance of reading articles, and I...well...didn’t do that. And...I am really sorry.”
There’s a long pause before Ned takes off the mask. His eyes are watery, but he has a lopsided smile on. Peter gives a small smile back before going in for a hug.
He feels something warm drop onto the suit, and he takes a moment to pat Ned’s back before Ned retreats. Ned sniffs and rubs his eyes.
“It’s just...scary, you know,” his friend says after grabbing a tissue. “My mom and dad were pretty worried this morning. So I got scared, and they let me stay home from school. They, uh...since they know about Flash and his gang, they didn’t want anything to happen to me.”
Now that he thought about it, Peter isn’t sure if Flash would actually physically threaten any of them. But he feels like Ned’s parents made the right call. He wouldn’t want to test out any sort of theory involving Flash becoming physically violent.
“Plus, seeing that, then all the bullshit on Twitter...I just...wasn’t feeling it,” Ned sighs glumly. Peter nods in understanding. He’s always appreciative of May letting him stay home throughout the school year so far due to dysphoria. This is equally, if not more, serious.
“It sucks, though,” Ned continues. “And I saw this great tweet about it. With hate crimes like this, it just makes all the other racial traumas resurface, and we just have to...I dunno, sit in it, while having to just...continue functioning as people. Like, after seeing the news, I kept thinking about stuff from, like, elementary and middle school. Like, do you remember Sarah from the fourth grade? How she kept calling me Chinese, and shouting stupid shit like ching chong at me?”
“Oh, god,” Peter groans, very much remembering that.
“And the teachers just didn’t do anything about it! And just, like, the number of times I got weird looks for bringing adobo or whatever leftovers I had for lunch. Just, stuff like that gets replayed over and over in my head, and I’m...like mad? But also depressed that this shit happens, and makes me scared. I dunno, it feels dumb.”
“Hey, dude, come on,” Peter chides gently. “That’s not dumb. You’re right to feel that way. Were my feelings dumb the other week when my dysphoria was really bad after Flash drew dicks in my folder?”
“No, god, of course not--”
“Then same thing here, man. You should be allowed to feel these things. And I’m glad I’m here to help.”
Ned smiles at his friend, who reciprocates.
“Thanks, Peter.”
“Any time, Ned.”
They sit in silence for a moment, with Ned feeling like some of the weight on his chest has been lifted, and with Peter glad he can help him after he’s helped him so many times during his darker days.
“So what do you wanna do?” Ned asks, breaking the silence. “I guess I should get notes--”
“What, no,” Peter interrupts firmly. “Dude, screw school right now.” Then he gets a brilliant idea. “We can get to the roof of this building, right?”
After grabbing his mask, Ned and Spider-Man take the stairs up to the roof, and Ned laughs as he and Peter take turns seeing how far they can shoot his webs.
~~
“Ow!” Peter yelps, putting his burnt finger in his mouth. He puts down the soldering tool he had been using to fix an old robot of Tony’s.
“Woah, kid, you alright?” his mentor asks, looking up from his diagrams for a new suit.
The weekend had finally come around, and Peter had been ecstatic to visit Tony, and play in his labs, especially after going the rest of the school week without Ned. His friend had said he wanted some space this weekend, which Peter totally understood, but felt a bit bummed and lonely.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m good, Mr. Stark,” Peter replies dismissively.
“Are you sure? That’s the third time today you’ve hurt yourself. What’s going on?”
For a brief moment, Peter contemplates lying, and saying it was midterm season or something. But then he remembers he said midterms were done last week.
“Uh…” he flounders.
“Did something happen? Did you get hurt while you were out patrolling? Don’t tell me you did and didn’t tell me--”
“No, Mr. Stark!” Peter exclaims, cutting him off. “No, not that. I’m fine, it’s just...well…”
Not able to come up with a decent fib, he opts for the truth.
“Did you see the headlines a couple days ago? About the shootings in Atlanta?”
Tony hums. “I did.”
“Um, yeah, so there’s been a lot of protesting and stuff, since it was a hate crime, and it’s just been affecting my friend, and yeah...I guess I’ve just been thinking about it a lot.”
“Your friend, Ned,” Tony confirms.
Peter looks up at him in mild shock. This is the first time in a while that Tony had actually called his friend by the right name, and not some silly nickname as part of the inside joke.
“Y-yeah. He’s been having a hard time lately…and I dunno, I’m just at a loss. I wanna be able to do something, but I’m not sure what.”
After Peter and Ned had exhausted the web fluid from both shooters that night, Peter had gone home after patrolling and looked up every petition he could find to sign against anti-Asian hate and racism. He updated his twitter bio, tried to share as many resources as he could, and read through stories of other Asian Americans of their stories. But it hadn’t felt like enough.
Peter notices Tony setting aside his specs and walking over to his table. The billionaire pulls up a stool and takes a seat beside Peter.
“Did I ever tell you about my time at MIT with Rhodey?” Tony asks after a pause.
A bit confused, Peter shakes his head.
Tony stares off into the distance, smiling as he reminisces. “As a fourteen year old kid, I probably would have gone insane without him. Or jailed, who knows. He was sixteen when I was a first year student, so naturally being that young we stuck together. But the number of times professors ignored his questions, people believing he wasn’t a student, and honestly, people just unwilling to recognize that he existed. At one point it got so bad, I would raise my hand whenever Rhodey had a question, then direct the professor to him. The professors would rather answer my question than his.” At this, Tony rolls his eyes, irritated at the old memory.
“So...what did you do?” Peter asks hesitantly.
“Well, as two youngsters, there honestly wasn’t much we could do. Rhodey tried attending the few minority groups centered around Black Americans, but they all failed to really include him because he was so young. But I got an up close view of the casual racism that Rhodey faced, and honestly still faces, every day of his life. Of course, it took me years to get off my lazy, ignorant ass and actually do something about it. And honestly, I’m still learning. As a white guy, I just gotta accept my mistakes and try to grow. Luckily, my growth has led me to use my abundant monetary privilege to pull strings so that Stark Industries funds charities and organizations to help underrepresented groups.”
Peter chews on those thoughts for a moment. One part of him soaks in the information, but another part is unsatisfied. What if he wants to do something now?
“Is that it? Just...learning from your mistakes?” he asks after a few beats. “And throwing money at people?”
“Only if you can, kiddo,” Tony smirks. “But it’s all about learning. Doing research, making sure you know your history, privilege, etc. And just help raise the voices that can’t be heard.”
Peter must have made a face, because Tony lets out a breathy chuckle. “I know it’s tough. But Rome wasn’t built in a day.” He claps Peter on the shoulder before getting up to go back to his workstation.
Smiling, Peter turns and says, “Thanks, Mr. Stark. For talking about...this...with me.”
Tony can’t help the endearing smile that escapes him. “Any time, bud.”
~~
By the time Monday rolls around again, Peter’s glad that Ned feels well enough to come to school. He sees his friend come up to his locker and they fistbump a greeting.
While Peter grabs his things for his first class, he notices Ned turning around and talking with someone. Once he grabs his things, he turns around to find Ned chatting with MJ.
“...if I bothered you too much--”
“Dude, no, don’t sweat it. Any time, I’m here to listen,” MJ says.
Ned smiles and nods. “Same here, then.”
MJ returns the smile, then gives Peter a quick nod of acknowledgement before melting into the sea of students in the hallway.
“What’s up with you and MJ?” he asks.
“Oh, MJ’s been texting me sort of throughout the Atlanta incident. Giving me resources, lending an ear, you know.”
“Oh,” Peter says, a bit dejected. Did he not do a good job of listening?
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Ned says quickly. “It’s just, you know, since we’re both people of color, it’s...different. But seriously, I appreciated you coming over that day. I needed it.”
“Yeah man, any time.”
They go off to their first class, and it seems all good. Ned stops at his teacher’s desk, with Peter hovering by the door, to confirm that they got his email from his parents about his absence. Their first teacher affirms him, hands him a few papers, probably missed homework assignments, and said to reach out if he needs help.
They part ways for their respective second period class, but when they meet in their third period, it isn’t until then that Peter thinks about his talk with Tony.
Again, hovering by the door, Peter balks at what he hears his teacher say.
“I did get your email, Mr. Leeds, but I fail to see how this event affects you in any way? You didn’t have any relatives or friends who were victims of the event. Why is this a concern for you?”
Peter can hear Ned swallowing, then trying to stutter out a response. He can feel his heart rate increasing, and his palms getting sweaty.
What kind of teacher asks those kinds of questions? How does anyone have those thoughts running through their heads? How…?
“Well, in any case, since you missed the quiz on Friday, I will have to mark it a zero,” the teacher says, seeing how Ned isn’t saying anything. He gets up from his desk with some papers and heads to the door. He clears his throat as a sign for Peter and Ned to leave the classroom, and they quickly shuffle out, still too shocked for words.
The minute the door closes, Peter starts chastising himself.
You idiot! Mr. Stark told you that things like this could happen, why didn’t you say anything? Ned needed your help!! God, some hero you are.
“Ned,” Peter says abruptly when they reach their lockers. “Ned, I’m so sorry, I should have said--”
“I-It’s ok, Peter,” his friend responds, clearly shaken by what happened, but trying to brush it off. “It’s fine, I can just...I dunno, I’ll see if I can just make it up later or drop it or something--”
“No!” A few people turn heads when Peter shouts, making his ears burn. “No, Ned, what...what he said was wrong. It was so wrong. And I should have said something! But...but I didn’t...and I’m sorry, I really am.”
Ned is quiet for a moment. “I mean, it’s not your responsibility to take care of me. If anything, I should have said something.”
“No, but you’re my friend, and I should be here to help you.” And, you know, I’m also Spider-man, Peter wants to say, but he leaves that part out.
“We should say something,” Peter says.
“What? To who?”
“I dunno...the...administration?” he suggests lamely. “Ok, I don’t know.” Then Peter perks up. “But...maybe MJ does?”
~~
Peter, Ned, and MJ text back and forth that night to help Ned muster the courage to tell his mom about what the teacher had said earlier in the day. The next morning, Midtown High’s administration finds out that Mrs. Leeds is not a force to be reckoned with.
After strutting right into the principal’s office, the three of them exchange smiles as she gives the principal a piece of her mind. Peter especially appreciates her cutting the principal off and continuing a very deserved rant. The offending teacher is then promptly called to the office, and Ned is given an apology, and allowed to retake the quiz up until the end of the quarter, and is given the appropriate extension for his assignments.
Mrs. Leeds gives Ned a hug and a quick kiss on the forehead before saying, “Let me know how today goes, sweetie. I’ll come pick you up after school, and you’re all welcome to come over for dinner if you want.”
“Thanks, Mrs Leeds,” Peter says with a smile. He’s looking forward to dinner with Ned’s parents, they always cook great food, something he can lack at home. No offense to Aunt May.
“I’d love to, I can finally measure the exact level of nerd the two of you exhibit,” MJ says with a smug grin.
Peter wonders if Ned should hide their bigger lego sets, if not to save his crush from dunking on him, then to not supply MJ with an endless amount of ammo for quips later.