5

Peter got through his bedroom window from the back alley and crept across the ceiling, throwing his mask on his desk. He dropped down to the floor and stretched. The fight with the ATM robbers had left him a little sore. He knew he should come up with a story about how he’d been in his room all afternoon and go say hi to May, but first he had to change.

He turned toward his dresser to get some clothes ... and saw Ned, holding the building set he was working on. It slipped out of his hands and hit the floor, shattering into three thousand eight hundred and however many pieces.

“Peter, what was that?” May called from the living room.

Peter and Ned looked at each other for a long moment. How did people handle this kind of thing? Peter didn’t know. His secret identity wasn’t secret anymore.

Eyes wide, Ned said, “You ... you’re the Spider-Man—from YouTube?”

“Peter?” May called again.

“Nothing, May!” he shouted back. He tapped the spider-symbol on his chest, and the suit deactivated, turning baggy so he could pull it off. “This is just a costume,” he said to Ned.

“You were on the ceiling!” Ned said. His face was glowing, like it was the coolest thing he’d ever seen.

“No, I wasn’t!” Peter threw the suit into his closet, and a web shooter hit the wall. THWIP! A web shot out, and Peter instinctively leaped to dodge it. He ended up clinging to the ceiling, with Ned staring up at him. He dropped back down.

“Why are you in here?”

“May let me in. We were gonna finish this ...” Ned said, gesturing to the pieces strewn across the floor.

At that moment, May walked into Peter’s room. She wore an apron covered with food stains. “Well, that recipe didn’t work,” she said ... And then she noticed Ned sitting on the bed and Peter standing in his boxer shorts. There was a long pause as she took it all in. Then, playing it cool, she said, “Anyway, I thought we’d go get Thai. Ned, you in?”

“He can’t,” Peter said.

“Okay,” May said. “Maybe put on clothes.” May shut the door, and Peter started to frantically get dressed.

“She doesn’t know?” Ned asked.

There was no point pretending now. “No one does,” Peter said. “Except Mr. Stark. He made the suit. But listen, Ned—”

“You’re friends with Iron Man? Wait, are you an Avenger?”

“Not officially,” Peter said. “Yet. But soon.”

“This is incredible! I feel like I’m gonna explode!”

“You gotta keep this secret, okay?”

“Secret? Why?”

“I’m already a big enough headache for May,” Peter said. “Can you imagine if she found out guys try to kill me every night? She’d freak!” He got serious. “She can’t know. Okay? Swear it.”

Ned looked a little surprised by Peter’s sudden intensity. “Okay,” he said. “I swear.” Then, a few seconds later, he added, “Can I try on the suit? How does it work? Is it magnets? Oh my God, it’s magnets, isn’t it?”

“I’ll explain everything later, all right?” Peter ushered Ned toward the door and tried to close it behind him.

“Wait,” Ned said. “How do you do all this and the Stark internship?”

Ned was a really smart guy, but sometimes he didn’t see the obvious things. “Ned, there is no Stark internship.”

“Ohhhhhh—”

Peter shut the door.

At the restaurant, May kept trying to get Peter to join the conversation, like she could see he had something big on his mind. “Honey, you haven’t touched your larb. Too larb-y? Not larb-y enough? How many times do I have to say larb before you talk to me?”

“Sorry,” Peter said. He tried to smile. “Just thinking about some internship stuff.” He was also thinking about Ned and whether his friend could keep the secret. Then another part of his mind was occupied with feeling bad about the Academic Decathlon team ... And that led to Liz. He liked her a lot and wanted her to like him, too.

“You sure it isn’t too much?” May asked. “Life is about balance. You never have time to relax. You’re always distracted.”

She was definitely right. Just then, Peter was distracted because a newscaster on the restaurant TV started talking about the ATM robbery. “We’re covering a violent incident in Queens tonight,” she said over footage of police at the scene, “involving illicit alien technology left behind from the Battle of New York. According to the Department of Damage Control’s director, Ann-Marie Hoag, this is—”

May was trying to get Peter’s attention again. “Laaaaarb ... Peter, I larb you so much ...” But he was still captivated by footage of the Battle of New York. During the fight, energy beams the same purple as the ATM robbers’ cutting tool shot in all directions. May waved her hand in front of Peter’s face.

“Peter, hey. Hello...ant to hang out.” She glanced over her shoulder and saw what was on the TV. “If you ever see something like that, you turn and you run.”

“I know, I know ...” Peter said.

“I mean it. I don’t want you getting vaporized.”

This was getting uncomfortable. Peter changed the subject. “Hey, um ... I need a new backpack.”

“What? That’s, like, the fifth one!”

“I promise I won’t lose the sixth.”

“You know the straps go over your shoulders and not someone else’s, right?”

“Yeah.”

May shook her head. “Unbelievable.” But then she started to laugh. Embarrassed, but also grateful that he had May in his life, Peter laughed, too. r0nNxZFa+pl7U5Q6ktODkQr/0qHn5uI+i8psS2jH+6YeQtEUpu9F4EDmGEQBcuh0