Usually, waking up was a negotiation with pain. Peter would catalog the aches, a bruised rib here, a strained deltoid there and spend the first ten minutes of his day constructing the physical lie he would live for the next twelve hours.
He would practice the slouch, the slight limp that could be explained away as a clumsy trip on the stairs, the mask of the fragile honor student.
Today, Peter didn't catalog anything. He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling, listening to the rhythmic thrum of the city outside.
His knuckles were swollen, the skin split and discolored from where he had shattered the mugger's jaw the night before.
He flexed his hand, watching the tendons shift under the bruised skin. The pain was sharp, immediate, and grounding.
For the first time, he didn't feel the urge to ice it or hide it under a long sleeve. It was a consequence of action, not a mark of victimhood.
He rolled out of bed, his feet hitting the floorboards with a solid thud. The exhaustion that usually clung to him like a second skin was gone, replaced by a cold, clear energy.
It was the feeling of a machine finally running at full capacity after years of being throttled down.
"Peter? You're up early," Aunt May's voice drifted from the kitchen, accompanied by the smell of burnt toast.
"Yeah, couldn't sleep," Peter called back. He pulled on a t-shirt, not bothering to check if it was inside out.
He stopped in front of the mirror attached to his closet door. The boy staring back looked the same, messy brown hair, tired eyes but the set of the shoulders was different.
The perpetual hunch, the subconscious attempt to make himself smaller, had evaporated. He looked….. occupied. Like a house where the lights had finally been turned on.
Breakfast was a quiet affair. May watched him over the rim of her coffee mug, her brow furrowed in that specific way that meant she sensed something amiss.
"You're not limping," she noted, almost accusingly, as he grabbed an apple.
"Feeling better," Peter said simply. He didn't offer a clumsy excuse about a miraculous recovery.
He just took a bite of the apple, the crunch echoing in the small kitchen.
"I'm going to be late, don't wait up."
The walk to Midtown High felt different. The sidewalk was crowded, a river of pedestrians flowing toward the subway. Usually, Peter navigated this river like a leaf, drifting around obstacles, apologizing when someone bumped into him but today he walked without care.
First period was AP Chemistry and Gwen was already at their shared lab bench, setting up a complex array of beakers and titration tubes.
She looked up as he approached, her blue eyes scanning his face with the same intensity she had shown yesterday. She was smart, terrifyingly so.
If anyone was going to figure out that the tectonic plates of Peter Parker's personality had shifted, it would be her.
"You're here," she said, sounding relieved. "I thought you might skip after yesterday. You seemed….. different."
"Just needed to recalibrate," Peter said, sliding onto the stool next to her. He didn't pull his chair away to create the polite, terrified distance he usually maintained.
His knee brushed against hers under the table but didn't pull back. Gwen flinched slightly, surprised by the contact, but she didn't move away either.
"We're doing the iodine clock reaction today," Gwen said, handing him a protective goggle. "Mr. Warren wants us to calculate the activation energy. It's tedious."
"It's only tedious if you do it the long way," Peter murmured, taking the goggles.
Flash Thompson was at the table behind them, loud and boisterous as always. He was recounting a story about a party over the weekend, his voice booming to ensure the entire class knew he was the center of the universe.
Occasionally, a crumpled ball of paper would hit the back of Peter's head. Yesterday, Peter would have ignored it, hunched lower, and let Flash have his fun.
Today, Peter didn't even turn around. He reached out, his hand moving with a casual, fluid grace, and adjusted the Bunsen burner flame.
"Hey, Parker!" Flash's voice cut through the hum of the class. "I heard you were staring people down in the cafeteria yesterday. You think you're tough now?"
Gwen stiffened, her hand freezing over a pipette. She looked at Peter, waiting for the stutter, the deflection.
Peter ignored him. He looked at the solution Gwen was preparing. "You're going to use too much peroxide. The concentration is off."
"What?" Gwen blinked, looking at her notes. "No, the manual says....."
"The manual assumes the stock solution is fresh," Peter interrupted, his voice calm, devoid of arrogance but filled with absolute certainty.
He reached over, his hand encompassing hers to guide the pipette. His skin was warm, his grip steady.
Gwen's breath hitched in her throat at the sudden intimacy, the way he effectively took control of her workspace.
"Smell it. The degradation rate is higher in this humidity. You need to reduce the volume by three percent, or the reaction will trigger too early."
Gwen inhaled sharply, catching the faint, acrid scent of the degrading chemical. He was right. How did he know that just by looking? She looked up at him, seeing the focus in his eyes.
It wasn't the look of a student hoping for a good grade; it was the look of someone who understood the fundamental architecture of the world and was bored by it.
"Parker!" Flash shouted, annoyed by the lack of attention. A heavy eraser flew right through the air, aimed directly at the back of Peter's skull.
Peter didn't look and didn't turn. He simply raised his left hand, snatching the eraser out of the air inches before impact without looking up from the beaker.
Slowly, Peter turned on his stool and held the eraser between two fingers, rotating it idly. He looked at Flash, who was staring with his mouth slightly agape.
"You have terrible aim, Flash," Peter said. The classroom was quiet now, the other students sensing the shift in the air. "And you interrupt the people who are actually going to have a future. Sit down and play with your chemicals before you hurt yourself."
Flash stood up, his face reddening.
"You want to say that to my face?"
"I just did," Peter replied, his voice bored. "But if you need me to use smaller words, I can try."
Mr. Warren cleared his throat from the front of the room, looking over his glasses. "Mr. Thompson, sit down. Mr. Parker, turn around."
Peter turned back to the desk, tossing the eraser over his shoulder. It landed perfectly in the center of Flash's desk with a dull thud.
Gwen was staring at him.
She had forgotten the titration and was looking at his hands, bruised, steady and capable. "Peter," she whispered, "what is going on with you?"
Peter looked at her, really seeing her. He saw the intelligence, the curiosity, and the underlying attraction she usually kept buried under layers of academic rivalry.
He realized he was tired of waiting for her to notice him, he was tired of the slow dance.
"I told you," Peter said softly, leaning in close enough that she could feel the heat radiating off him. "I stopped hiding."
He picked up the beaker, swirling the liquid with a hypnotic rhythm. "I'm going to the roof after school, the view of the bridge is perfect right now. I want you to come with me."
Gwen swallowed hard, her heart pounding hard, this wasn't the Peter she knew.
"Okay," she breathed, the word slipping out before she could second-guess it.
"Good," Peter said, pouring the solution. The liquid turned a brilliant, sudden blue, the reaction instantaneous and perfect.
"Don't be late."
Authors Note:-
Peter is On the roll.
How about it so far.
Just enjoy and support with power stones.