A/N: These characters are based off of those presented in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Therefore, this fic will contain minor spoilers for 'Spider-Man: Homecoming.' Enjoy!

Chapter One: Distress Signal

It wasn't Peter's fault he had failed English II.

The robbery of the Manhattan Federal Credit Union had conveniently fallen on the day of the final, and while he didn't mind not writing a five-hundred word essay on the motifs of 'The Great Gatsby,' May Parker certainly wasn't pleased when she received a phone call from Midtown High informing her that her nephew would have to attend summer school.

"I can sympathize if the class was hard," she told him over breakfast. The bagels she toasted were burnt and only tolerable through copious layers of cream cheese. "But you had an A before you suddenly disappeared on the last day! Couldn't you have let the police department handle this one?"

"Mr. Stark wanted me there," Peter replied sheepishly around a mouthful of scrambled egg. "And I couldn't have let those guys get away—think of all the college savings accounts that would've been depleted had I not helped out!"

"Think of the college savings account you're betraying each time you skip school," she snapped back, fork clanging on her empty plate.

Ever since she had discovered what Peter was really doing during his internship with Tony Stark, it took her every ounce of self-control not to march into the man's billion-dollar skyscraper and throttle him. Who did he think he was, converting young, impressionable minds into defenders of the human race? What happened to permission slips, and getting a signature from a parental guardian first?

She understood what being an Avenger meant to Peter, but it was difficult to be excited for him when she still saw him as a three year-old boy in need of a diaper change. Often times, it was that version of him she envisioned losing every time he failed to come home when he said he would. Some parents feared their children partied or drank themselves senseless. Little did they know that there were far worse things to worry about.

"I'm sorry," Peter said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. "I wasn't thinking about my final exams when I left. I was thinking about…how I could help. How I could stop people from getting hurt."

Despite herself, May smiled and reached across the table to squeeze his arm.

"I know. And that's what scares me the most."

He offered to do the dishes, but May insisted he get a move on so he wouldn't be late for school. It aggravated her enough that she had to remind him of that this far into summer vacation. Even as he slung his backpack over a shoulder and kissed her cheek, the sound of the apartment door slamming shut felt anything but normal. To her, it was the firing of a starting pistol, triggering her day-long marathon against her own disquieting imagination. Testing if she could remain level-headed knowing her nephew was a target of things beyond her understanding.

Gripping a soapy sponge in one hand and Peter's dirtied dish in the other, she scrubbed with a determined ferocity until she could see her own reflection in the plate's porcelain face. She never doubted the direction of her nephew's moral compass, never questioned his ability to discern right from wrong. What she did question, however, was his unwavering tendency to self-sacrifice.

Because while he may have promised to stop others from getting hurt, he was terrible at doing the same for himself.

"Penis Parker!" Flash Thompson greeted Peter when he arrived on campus. "Funny seeing you here. Last time I checked, you were still in the running for top ten percent of your class."

"Well good morning to you, too," Peter replied, wondering why on Earth his bothersome classmate was now escorting him to class. He knew well enough Flash hadn't followed him all the way here just to poke fun at him.

"I'm not here for summer school, just so you know. Mr. Harrington is offering me service hours and a strong recommendation letter to Princeton's Academic Honors Program for tutoring you unfortunate lot in AP Chem."

"Princeton, wow," he nodded, trying to dodge Flash's crude comments as he did the other students in the crowded hallway. Was failure a new trend at Midtown? It seemed as though everyone and their mother was stuffed into this single stretch of corridor. "Isn't the admission fee for that like crazy expensive?"

"I have my connections," Flash replied matter-of-factly. When Peter didn't respond, he added, "You missed our end-of-the-year decathlon party. Abe sang 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' on karaoke."

"Shoot, that's right." Peter had signed up to bring the cheese dip. He actually might've eaten most of it the night before. "Sorry about that."

"No worries. It's not like we missed you anyways."

Only half paying attention, he said, "Yeah, I didn't miss me either. Hey, I'll catch you later, okay?"

Ducking into his assigned classroom before Flash could say another word, Peter exhaled through his nose and sat himself down in the third row. He wasn't particularly interested in making friends with the other kids Ms. Higginbotham had failed, but loneliness seemed to follow him more faithfully than his own shadow as more students began filing in with their worn-out backpacks and lifeless expressions. They had been analyzing poems written by old white men who were inherently fascinated by blades of grass, or turnpikes in roads, and every time Peter turned to make a joke about them, there was no one on the receiving end. He wished Ned were here to substantiate his sense of humor.

The only other person who was just as pathetic as he was dragged her chair over to his desk, and Peter wasn't even sure he could consider her a friend.

"Are you regretting playing hooky on your last day of school yet?" Michelle asked by way of greeting. It was the first time she had addressed him in the entire two weeks he had been here. Peter, taken aback that she was actually talking to him, blinked.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Oh, come on. Don't play dumb—you're already in summer school for that. I know you didn't actually contract a stomach bug."

Damn. And he thought that alibi was pretty good. He had forged a doctor's excuse and everything. Michelle continued to stare at him like he was a specimen under a microscope, and it was then when Peter wondered if the reason they weren't better friends was because of her natural talent to make him so utterly uncomfortable. He swallowed.

"Remind me again why you're here?" he asked instead, retrieving a pen from his backpack with one hand and shoving down his suit with the other. "I thought you liked reading."

"Exactly," Michelle replied, taking a long sip of her energy drink. "I liked it so much I didn't feel like leaving."

Peter wanted to point out the fault in her logic, but stopped short when the teacher crossed the threshold of the classroom carrying a stack of colored paper and a Starbucks. Ms. Higginbotham was one of the more interesting people he'd met at Midtown, her waist-length red hair a true testament to her fiery spirit and zest for travel. It made him feel slightly guilty that he had passed all of his other classes except for hers. He certainly would have if several hundred bank accounts weren't at stake.

"Hey guys, welcome," she said, smiling at her students as if they were a part of the Gifted and Talented program and not Midtown's flunking minority. "So here's the deal. I forgot to make copies this morning, and it's not like you guys wanted to annotate 'The Raven' anyways, so I figured we could just make cards instead! Father's Day is this Sunday if you're in need a low-budget gift."

"I don't have a dad," Michelle said before retreating to her own desk. Peter frowned. At least that's one thing we both have in common.

Nevertheless, it didn't mean he couldn't participate. He'd just have to find another greeting. Maybe a 'THANKS FOR PUTTING UP WITH ME' card for Ned. Because while every fiber of his being urged him to sneak out the door and suit up, he knew he couldn't leave, not with his aunt's words from this morning still ringing in his ears. Not to mention the fact that Michelle's eyes were now boring a hole into the back of his skull.

"Peter!" Ms. Higginbotham exclaimed when he approached the spread of cardstock, crayons, and glue she had laid out for them. "Are you here to gather craft supplies or ask me for the hall pass so you can pretend to pee?"

"The first one," he replied, picking a piece of yellow construction paper from the stack. "I actually think I'm going to make a thank-you card for Mr. Stark."

The idea hadn't even occurred to him until the words were out of his mouth. His teacher's face lit up with sheer pride as she leaned forward in her desk chair.

"That's right! You're interning with him over at Stark Tower. How's that going, by the way?"

He thought back to the fiasco that was this entire year: holding together a ferry boat at Staten Island, walking on eggshells around Aunt May. Missing the homecoming dance so he could prevent his date's father from hijacking Mr. Stark's cargo plane, only to be impolitely crushed beneath an ungodly amount of concrete rubble.

"It's been great!" he said, despite all this. "It's very…physically demanding."

"Lots of stairs?"

"Something like that."

It was almost embarrassing how much effort he put into the card. What began as a simple thank-you note had somehow turned into an unintentional Father's Day address, Peter using words like 'role model' and 'appreciation.' He even drew himself and Mr. Stark side-by-side on the front cover, like kindergartners did when asked to illustrate their families. The billion-dollar man in the iron suit was kind of like family to him, after all. Not like he'd ever say that out loud.

He had been so absorbed in choosing the right color blue for his suit that he almost didn't hear the shrill ringing coming from the bottom of his backpack. Murmuring his apologies towards the stares he received from every corner of the room, he pushed aside the cascade of homework assignments and nylon spandex to retrieve his cell phone. One look at the caller ID had him standing up from his desk.

He asked for the hall pass and didn't even hesitate before snatching his backpack and exciting the classroom, keeping his voice low as he answered the call. A small part of him wondered what Michelle would say upon his return. If he returned.

"What took you so long to answer, kid? I've called you twice already," Tony said on the other end. "Isn't your generation in a codependent relationship with their smart phones?"

Peter wanted to point out his codependent relationship with every other piece of technology on the planet, but held his tongue instead. "Sorry, I…I had to get out of class."

"Class? What are you doing in class for? It's summer vacation! You're supposed to be hitting up parties on the Upper East Side, waking up in rooms that aren't your own."

"I'm not really a party person, Mr. Stark," he replied, wincing as his voice reverberated off of the lockers.

"Well, you should be. I can call my buddies at The Copacabana if you want, put you on their V.I.P. list."

He can do that? Peter didn't even know how to drive yet, let alone order a drink at a bar. He'd certainly spent enough New Year's Eves with Aunt May to know that drinking wasn't his thing, and champagne wasn't sweet like he'd imagined it'd be.

"I'm good, thanks."

"And they say I'm a bad influence," Tony said, sounding exasperated. "Anyways, I received a distress call from the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue, and I need you to scope it out."

"What kind of distress signal?" he asked as he pushed open the door to the boy's restroom and dumped the contents of his backpack out onto the floor. Ironically, everything but his suit tumbled out. "Is it like a security breach or something? Is someone destroying the books?"

"Yes Montag, it's all very concerning." A sigh rippled down the line. "It could be anything, okay kid? Someone could've accidentally pulled the fire alarm, or a cat could be stuck in a tree. I don't get a whole lot of distress signals. Just head over there and check it out—people love it when they see their Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. It puts them at ease."

Peter didn't know he had that effect on people. If anything, he hoped to one day have his name strike fear in the hearts of his assailants. But he supposed this was good, too.

"On it, Mr. Stark. I promise I won't let you down."

"Alright, kid. Talk to you later—oh, and one more thing. Change your voicemail. It's infuriating."

Peter felt a smile creep onto his face. "Did you fall for my misleading voicemail, Mr. Stark—?"

"What? No," the man scoffed, as if he were incapable of being pranked. "I just—I'm saying that it's way too long. Takes me forever to leave a message, and I don't have that kind of time. Just change it, okay?"

With almost a billion-dollars' worth in technology, Peter assumed that Tony Stark would have other, more important things to worry about than his answering machine. Nevertheless, he agreed to rerecord one when he got the chance, hung up, and wrestled off his t-shirt with some difficulty. Even after all this time with the suit, the chills he got when putting it on never left him. His heart began beating so fervently that the sound of the restroom door creaking open didn't fully register until the student who had entered cleared their throat.

Peter didn't know what he regretted the most. Forgetting to lock the door on his way in, or not even bothering to enter a stall as he stood there in the open, his bare feet shoved into the pant-legs of his Spider-Man suit. The one thing he had managed to hide so stealthily for the past two semesters.

Because standing there, in the threshold of the boy's restroom with his mouth hanging open, was Flash Thompson.

A/N: Hello! Whether you are a previous reader or a new one, I hope you've enjoyed the first chapter of this new fic! I have a terrible habit of working on several projects at once, but in anticipating the next Avengers movie, I couldn't help myself. This is my first time writing in the MCU and working with this fantastic cast of characters, so please bear with me as I try and find my footing. Reviews are always appreciated, and I hope you have a lovely day!