He found the girls in the cafeteria, grabbed food, and spent the rest of the afternoon exactly as he intended, moving between classes, talking with Gwen and Missy, flirting with Missy just enough to produce the specific micro-expression on Gwen's face that she was very dedicated to pretending did not exist.
Mary Jane ate with her usual group across the room and sent occasional glances in his direction that she clearly believed were more subtle than they were.
When school ended and the building emptied he was looking forward to a straightforward walk home when five people appeared in his path with the coordinated energy of a group that had been planning this since lunch.
He looked up.
Four of them were Flash's usual associates. The fifth was Flash.
"PARKER! This time is going to be very different from the last."
Peter sighed and said in a calm, patient tone, like someone explaining something to a child. "Flash. I am trying to get home. I do not have time for whatever you have planned today and I am not accepting your dance invitation. If you want a rematch schedule it for another time. Now if you will excuse me."
He made a polite gesture and moved to step around them.
"Hahahaha! And you think I am just going to let you walk past?!"
Peter looked at the five of them for a moment, reached into his jacket without hurry, took out his phone and headphones, put the headphones on, selected the most appropriate song for the occasion, pocketed the phone, and exhaled once.
Then he moved.
He went to Flash first because Flash was the variable most likely to escalate unpredictably, delivering a precise strike to the trachea with the kind of accuracy that only comes from having studied anatomy and practiced the specific application.
No lasting damage.... Just enough to put Flash on the ground coughing and gasping and completely removed from the immediate situation.
The largest associate was next.
Before the others had finished processing what had happened to Flash, Peter raised his right leg in a controlled upward arc aimed at the jaw line just below the point of impact.
Clean motion, precise force.
The associate's head snapped in the direction of the blow, his balance went, and he hit the ground and stayed there.
Peter returned to a relaxed standing position and felt briefly like Baki after the Ali Jr. sequence, which he chose not to say out loud.
He looked at the remaining three.
"Well, gentlemen," he said pleasantly. "Are we going to stand here all day, or are we going to finish?"
They looked at Flash.
They looked at their unconscious colleague.
They looked back at Peter, who was standing without a mark on him and without having broken any visible sweat.
All three of them left at a pace that was technically walking but communicated every message a sprint would have.
"Weaklings," Peter said, to no one in particular.
Among the watching students he could see Gwen, Missy, and Mary Jane all wearing the identical expression of people who had now witnessed this enough times to find it simultaneously impressive and exhausting.
He winked at all three of them, shrugged once, sent them each a message saying they would talk later, and went home.
-------------
May was in the kitchen with her back to him when he walked in.
He crossed the room quietly, came up behind her, and put his arms around her waist.
She jumped hard enough to nearly drop what she was holding, and before she could say anything he turned her slightly, kissed the corner of her lips, and walked out of the kitchen toward the stairs.
He knew without looking back that she was standing exactly where he had left her.
He spent the evening doing homework, which took less time than it deserved, and used the remaining hours to draft blueprints for the two inventions he was planning to present at Baxter.
He worked through both designs methodically, cross-referenced material requirements against what would realistically be available to him at the point of presentation, and had a solid foundation for both by the time he decided to sleep.
--------------
Tuesday existed primarily as the thing between two more important days. He told May about the fight in the evening, omitting certain details.
She hit his arm and kissed his cheek, which he considered a fair outcome.
Time passed, as it tends to do when one has no particular reason to track it carefully, and then it was Wednesday morning.
The day.
At school that morning he was aware of a shift in the social atmosphere that he had not fully anticipated.
The story of Monday afternoon had moved through the building overnight with the efficiency of information that has the rare quality of being both true and entertaining.
The girls in his vicinity looked at him with an interest that was more direct than it had been before Monday.
The male students looked at him with a combination of respect, wariness, and in certain cases genuine awe.
The nerds, specifically, looked at him the way people look at someone who has done a thing they privately fantasized about and did not think was actually possible.
He found this last category the most satisfying by a comfortable margin.
Missy saw him and launched herself at him and kissed him approximately six times across the face, everywhere except the lips, which was both welcome and extremely disappointing.
Gwen's reaction are beginning to be matched May's exactly, which was a brief arm hit followed by a kiss on the cheek. Mary Jane's was a full hug that she held for slightly longer than the situation strictly required.
When the bus loaded, Gwen was not there, already at Oscorp preparing to receive them.
Missy sat next to Peter on the bus. Mary Jane, from somewhere near the back, conducted a very thorough study of the backs of their heads for the entire journey.
After an hour the bus pulled up in front of Oscorp Industries.
The Oscorp building was exactly what it looked like in the film and exactly what Peter had already known to expect, which meant the genuine amazement he felt upon entering was, in his private assessment, at least thirty percent his own reaction and seventy percent the previous Peter's body responding to something it had always wanted to see close up.
He could feel Missy and Mary laughing quietly at him from both sides as they walked.
Gwen was waiting for them further inside, standing with the composed professional energy of someone who had temporarily set aside the version of herself that ate lunch at their table.