Just A Kid ◇ Peter Parker

8◇ CHANGES GREAT AND SMALL

AFTER SEEING PETER at the park the other day, they both agreed to go back to school and try and get on with their lives, as normal. For Ben.

They had already been at school for about three days. It was going well for the both of them. Well, they weren't as cheerful as they used to be, and people noticed that. They knew what happened. But they still came to school to learn.

They were quieter than usual. And their teachers noticed it. They didn't have their normal glow about them. It showed in the academic decathlon practices as well. But they still got every question right.

They were now both in maths. Riley really couldn't be bothered with it today.  She sat there for the whole lesson, her head on her arms, just silently praying for something interesting to happen.

She couldn't stop thinking about the Spiderman. He hasn't been seen recently. Maybe once or twice. But not a lot. There's been more crime, more robbers. And he hasn't been there to stop the majority of them. Nobody knows why.

It was only last week that she watched a car crash into another, when the Spider-Man would usually stop it, saving everyone inside both vehicles. It was just strange how he wasn't around much any more. Riley just wanted to know more. Who was the masked hero?

She turns her head to watch Peter. The boy is slowly copying down notes off of the board. It was weird, though. He didn't need to write down these notes, he had them all already.

He freezes for a second, quickly noticing that someone is watching him, and looks to the side and catches Riley's eye. She sends him a sweet smile to which he replies with an equally sweet one. He turns back around to copy more notes and Riley sits there, slightly proud of herself.

She just made him happy. She made Peter Parker happy. And that's all that matters. He has barely even smiled once since his Uncles untimely death, and yet here he is, smiling back at Riley Summers in mathematics. It might have just made her day the little more livable.

She looks back at the brown haired boy and she starts to take in his appearance. The luscious brown hair, those gorgeous eyes, the muscly arms, the broad shoulders and toned body.

She stops.

Since when did Peter have that much muscle? Since when did he have those broad shoulders? Since when did he get toned? He never goes to the gym. So how, in the matter of a few weeks or months, did he become this muscly figure?

Even though these questions were swimming inside her head, one thought stood out amongst them: he looked good. Hot, even. Peter Parker had gotten hot. Hotter. And she wasn't arguing with that.

But she needed to know how it happened. He didn't go to the gym. It was unlikely that he worked out at home, what with everything going on in his life. Unless...

No. Peter couldn't be doing drugs. Could he? He didn't seem the kind of guy who would. Unless he had things that he wasn't telling Riley. But surely he wasn't. He couldn't.

Riley needed to know. Her palms were sweating with the mere thought of Peter Parker taking drugs, steroids, to make himself look better. It just couldn't be real.

She decided to ask Peter what's happened to him at the end of the lesson. She was going to confront him. If not, she'll never know. And Riley hates not knowing.

She sits there for the next fifteen minutes with clammy hands, fidgeting, and an extreme nervous feeling. She just needed to know if Peter was okay and that he wasn't doing anything stupid to himself. This was her best friend.

As soon as the bell went, she packed up her things and followed after Peter who left the class first. She hurried past the teacher and past the other students and saw the taller boy waiting for her outside the class.