A Sick Spider-Man

Discovery and Denial

CHAPTER 2

Peter woke up to the sound of his alarm ringing in his ears. He groaned and rolled over to hit the snooze button. How could he still be so tired after sleeping for so long? And, what was worse, he still had a headache and his throat had started to hurt. He wasn't sick though, he told himself. He didn't get sick. Ever since he had been bitten by that spider his immune system had been improved and he hadn't been sick since. 

His alarm rang again and he sighed as he pressed the stop button. He got out of his bed and turned on his phone. He didn't have any texts or missed calls so he sent a quick get better text to Ned and turned his phone off. He glanced at his alarm clock and realized it he didn't start getting ready, he was going to be late for school. He threw on a t-shirt and some jeans and ran down the stairs. 

He's wasn't surprised to see that nobody was in the kitchen. Tony and Thor liked to sleep in and everybody else was up early doing various things. Bruce liked to work on science early in the mornings, Steve and Natasha went on runs, and who knew what Clint did. Usually the silence made him uncomfortable, but today he was glad for it. His head was throbbing and he needed a little space.

After he had eaten breakfast quickly he grabbed something for his headache and was about to go when he felt something cold and stringy hitting his back. He turned around to see Clint holding a bottle of silly string in one hand and a glass of water in the other. He had a casual smirk on his face and his eyes shone with victory. Peter groaned. He didn't have time for this. Now he had to change his shirt and he was going to be late. 

 "Hey spidy, aren't you supposed to be able to tell when something like that's about to happen?" Clint asked with a sky smirk on his face. Clint was right. His spidy sense usually alerted him of threats. With his headache though, it must not be working. 

 "I guess that you aren't a threat." Peter said simply. He could see the concerned look on Clint's face, even through his smirk. Peter didn't want him to worry, but he was too tired to come up with a better excuse, so he said he was going to be late to school, and left. In his hurry to get out, Peter forgot to get a new shirt. He whiped it off as much as he could and put his ear buds in his ears, heading out to school. A couple of minutes later he felt a warm hand brush against his back, scaring him a little. Once Peter was able to breathe steadily again, he saw MJ looking at him with a concerned face. 

 "You okay?" She asked him. 

 "Oh yeah," Peter stated. "I'm fine." MJ still didn't look convinced, but Peter couldn't understand why. She didn't know that his spidy sense was going haywire, she didn't know he was Spider-Man at all, right? After a few seconds she looked more convinced and she knodded. 

"Sorry I scared you" she said . "You had some silly string on your back but I didn't mean for you to freak out."

"No," Peter said. "Its really okay. I'm fine." She seemed to agree with him and they continued to walk to school, MJ complaining about the school's biology teacher the whole way. She was in the middle of a sentence when it happened. Peter felt a familiar tickle in his nose. He tried to stop the inevitable, but it wasn't going to go his way this time. He held up his pointer finger in a pause signal and turned his head towards his elbow. 

 "ATSHOO" Peter sneezed. Oh no. No no no. He wasn't getting sick. He couldn't be getting sick. His immune system was too strong for that, right? 

"Bless you" MJ said. "Are you okay? You look a little freaked out." A little freaked out? Peter was in full blown panic mode! If the Avengers found out he was sick, they wouldn't let him do hero stuff. And if he couldn't do hero stuff, who knew what would happen?No. He couldn't go there. He wasn't getting sick. He was fine. He was just in his head. It was just one sneeze, right? He just inhaled dust or something. Yeah. He was good.