Frostbite

Of What Follows

"So, when do I get to meet your mom?"

Peter closed his locker and jiggled the lock before adjusting his backpack straps. It had been a week since school started back up in the new year and it was like the world glowed a little bit brighter. He'd gotten bonus pay from Mr. Weasel for this super bulk order, his mom came over for New Year's because apparently them and May re-connected, and he beat his record of how long he could last in the ring against Wade by a whole twenty-two seconds!

"Anytime you want. She's off Mondays and Tuesdays and her job's only open to the public Friday to Sunday."

"Can she show me her cool alien powers?"

"Ned!" Peter shushed as he looked around the half-empty hallway and to the other students who didn't pay them any mind. "Dude, c'mon."

"Okay, yeah, but can she?"

"... Yeah, and it's pretty awesome."

Ned, in some burst of common sense, leaned forward and whispered. "Can she turn me into an armadillo?"

"If she really wanted to? Probably."

"Yes."

"But you can't just ask her to do magic tricks like she's a birthday party magician—"

"Magicians can get paid an average of three hundred per party. Do it as a regular daily, they can make fifteen hundred a week." Peter spun on his heel and Ned latched onto his arm just as MJ appeared out of nowhere—nowhere—with the book of the week in her arms and her intense stare boring into the both of them. "Then again, their equipment can range from five to ten thousand, up to twenty-five for the bigger shows."

"... Neat." Ned's heartbeat got back to a normal tempo. "Like, three hundred dollars for the whole day?"

"For an hour performance."

"That's a rip-off!"

"Try explaining the exploitation of children's wonderment to my niece who says my argument has 'too many big words' and is therefore 'uber wrong.'" MJ straightened one of the straps on her backpack. "So why are you losers talking about magic?"

A panicked look passed between Peter and Ned and, when the next few seconds passed of no one speaking up, Ned very-so extra-subtly elbowed his best friend in the ribs.

"Oh, uh, so it's like this." Peter cleared his throat. "I've got a friend who, uh, who's into magic and Ned's got a dream of... getting turned into an... armadillo?"

MJ nodded along. "Yeah. Okay." She huffed a short laugh and threw up a lazy wave. "Don't be late to practice, weirdoes."

"Oh yeah, totally! You know we're never late to practice because, you know, it would look bad on our school and our team and we definitely have to keep up this on-time attendance thing because we're defending our title and..." Ned trails off just as she turns the corner and whipped towards his friend. "Dude! You can't just tell girls about the armadillo thing!!"

"And we can't just be talking about aliens in the hallway!" He scoffed. "You didn't even pick a cool animal."

"Peter Benjamin Parker how dare you slander their good name—"

::

He didn't have a shift today so he took to pacing his room with a dash of ease knowing he had nowhere to be, but also a smidge of guilt at the fact that he was even in this position in the first place.

Both the StarkSuit and the PeterSuit 3000 were laid out on his bed, glaring up at him from messy blue sheets. He really, really, really likes the new suit and it's been the one he'd been taking with him to the Hellhouse every time there was work—folded up and stuffed at the bottom of his backpack right under school binders and extra bullets—but he hadn't gotten the chance to actually use it. The StarkSuit was still the daytime patrol suit and, if he was honest, it was the easiest to explain. He stayed off the radar, Happy and Mr. Stark didn't get suspicious.