**Peter's missed quite a bit of school and now everyone will find out why. I came up with this one while reading some past works, haha! Enjoy!**

After weeks- no, months, Peter was going back to Midtown. It was supposed to be exciting, but the teen didn't feel much but anxiety. He knew the first question everyone would ask would be why he had been gone, and he had no good excuse.

"Peter," FRIDAY said, coming over the speakers in Peter's room. "Boss asked me to tell you breakfast was ready."

"Thanks." The teen flattened his hair, a fruitless attempt to tame some of his curls. Taking a deep breath, he decided he was as ready as he would ever be and headed out to the kitchen.

"Hey, everyone," Peter said, not looking up from the ground. When all he got was a short 'good morning' from Tony, he looked up. The kitchen was entirely empty besides Tony and Bucky.

"Oh. Where is everyone?"

"Wanted to give you some space this morning."

The teen smiled. Leave it to the Avengers to know exactly how he was feeling. Tony set a plate of eggs and toast on the counter, and Peter took a seat. "What should I say when people ask me where I've been?"

Tony shot Bucky a look.

"Whatever you want, Pete." The ex-assassin looked over at the teen sitting to his right. "You get to control your story, just like I control mine. You don't want them to think any differently of you? Lie. Say you went out of town. Want to prove that good people overcome bad things? Tell them the truth."

Peter nodded. "Ned already knows. He was pretty shaken up by the whole thing, but I think he... He was fine with it. He believes I can get past it."

"That's 'cause he knows how strong you are, Underoos," Tony chuckled, the smile in his eyes making Peter smile, too.

"Sir, it's 7:30. Peter must leave now if he wants to get there on time." FRIDAY's voice rang through the kitchen, and Peter blushed faintly.

"Time to go," the curly haired boy said, grabbing his bag off the table and rushing to the elevator.

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Peter faced the front doors of Midtown High, his hands only shaking slightly. He could do this. He could do this.

One foot in front of the other, he thought to himself, taking deep, even breaths.

He had barely made it through the front doors when Ned came shooting out of the crowd to envelop his friend in a hug. "You're here today!"

Peter chuckled. "Yeah, we decided it would be good for me to get back to some normalcy."

Ned nodded, his eyes darting around. He held his arms up, not sure if he was stepping over the line or if Peter was ready for physical touch.

"Come here." The two gave each other a quick hug, Ned beaming as he pulled away.

"Is everything healing up okay?"

Peter nodded, running a hand over his arm subconsciously. "For whatever reason, the scarring is real bad this time, though. Bruce and Helen said it's because the wounds were reopened so many times, but I don't know. They feel weird."

"Do you notice them a lot?"

Peter shrugged. "Sometimes. I don't, like, feel them when I'm laying on my back or anything like that, but I notice them in the mirror or when I take showers. It's kinda weird, I hate the way they look and there's nothing I can do about it. I already know MJ will find them as ugly as I do, so I've been avoiding her a little."

"That's ridiculous," Ned scoffed. "She knows what happened. She won't think you're ugly."

As if she could sense the two boys talking about her, MJ came around the corner. Her eyes lit up when she saw Peter, and she rushed to hug him.

"You're back!"

Peter kissed her cheek. "Hey, babe."

"How are you feeling?"

The curly haired teen shrugged, but Ned shot the girl a look behind Peter's back.

"Scars," he mouthed. MJ nodded.

"Damn, you're so handsome. I don't know how I went a whole 7 weeks without seeing your face and not dying."

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The day was actually going pretty well. No one had asked about Peter's disappearance yet, but the teen couldn't feel like something was coming at any second. Maybe it was the spider-sense, or the weeks of torture, but either way, Peter was uneasy.

There were whispers of course. Peter's hearing picked them up, even from all the way down the hall from other students, but no one had asked him straight out, and that was good.

The bell rang, signally the end of 5th period. Only 1 more to go until Peter would be back home. The teen started to head towards the tech room, but Ned grabbed his hand.

"We had semester shift while you were gone. We have P.E. now."

Peter's face fell. This was literally the worst thing that could have happened today.

The two made their way to the gym, talking in low tones about how Peter could possibly get out of the class.

"Say you forgot gym clothes," Ned suggested. "It probably won't work for long, but you can get Tony to do something tonight and get you out of the class tomorrow."

It was as good a plan as they were going to get right now, so Peter went to the gym teacher's office while everyone else got changed. "Mr. Peterson?"

The old man, who looked like he might have been a background dancer in one of Richard Simmons's workout tapes, looked up. "Parker. Haven't seen you since this term started. Where have you been?"

"Uh, about that, sir," Peter stuttered, dodging the question of where he'd been. "I didn't realize it was a semester shift, so I don't have gym clothes today."

Mr. Peterson jerked back to his desk and scoffed. "Get some from the lost and found, boy, you've missed too much already."

Peter's face fell. "Uh, I'm really not comfortable with-"

"Go get changed, I'll start docking more and more points if you don't."

Peter couldn't afford to have this teacher tank his grade. He needed a P.E. credit to graduate. Instead of argue anymore, he just went over to the lost and found bin and dug around for some shorts and a tee shirt.

"Fucking Parker luck," the teen mumbled to himself. He finally found some shorts that would fit and headed over to Ned.

"What's going on?" the other teen asked. "Why are you changing?"

Peter just jerked his head towards the gym teacher's office.

"What bullshit," Ned said softly, sitting down on the bench in the middle of the row of lockers.

Peter pulled off his jeans, exposing the deep scars on his legs. There weren't many, but there were a few too many for Ned's liking. The shorts covered most of them, though, so that was a bonus.

Peter took a breath, then pulled his sweatshirt over his head.

The entire locker room went silent as Peter's chest and back came into view.

Deep, long, raised scars ran the length of his back, clearly the result of a whip. His shoulders were littered with thin scars and raised bumps. Ned recognized gun shot wounds when he saw them.

But it was his chest that shocked people more than anything. Across his chest were deep words, carved into the boy's pale skin.

PROPERTY OF HYDRA

SP - 1779

Eyes lingered a little too long over the boy's chest for his liking, and his breath hitched. His heart rate skyrocketed. His eyes blurred.

"Hey," Ned said, shocking the other guys in the locker room out of their stares. "What are you all looking at?"

Eyes flitted back to Peter's chest, but then something unexpected happened.

"Parker." Peter brought his gaze up to Flash, who was standing on a bench in the middle of the row he was on. "You're a badass."

The bully nodded down at the other boy's chest. Peter looked down for a second before smiling a little.

"Thanks," he whispered. Flash nodded and headed out to the gym, the rest of the class following behind him.