The next day at school Calvin is still questioning Peter about what happened on the bridge, though this time he's less harsh about him falling into the river.

"So the police didn't even get him?" he asks.

"Nope," Peter sighs, putting in the number for his locker.

"Damn. And you have no idea what he was doing?" Peter shakes his head.

"The police think he was collecting material for a weapon or something. Other than that we have no idea," he replies. He starts closing his locker door when his spider-sense goes off. He quickly whips his hands backwards just in time to avoid getting them crushed in the door. The door clangs shut, making Calvin and the few people near them jump. Peter peers behind the door which has slowly bounced back open and sees Ned standing behind it, covering his mouth in shock.

"Sorry, Pete," he squeaks. "I wasn't meant to push it that hard."

"Hey, no worries. No one got hurt," Peter says, patting him on the shoulder. Ned smiles at him.

"Yeah. Lucky you were able to move out of the way so quickly. It's almost like you could sense it coming or something," he says. Peter feels his shoulders tense and his breathing stop as Ned speaks. He wonders if Ned may have guessed his secret, in which case, he'd have to protect him as well as Calvin. He only calms down when he feels Calvin's hand gently squeeze his shoulder to reassure him that it's okay.

"Yeah. Hanging around with Tony Stark at the internship must be paying off," Calvin jokes, making Ned laugh.

"Speaking of Stark," MJ says, seemingly appearing out of nowhere. "Did you guys see what happened to Spider-Man last night?" Ned's eyes light up with enthusiasm.

"I watched it all on the news! I can't believe he really fought Doc Oc! And when he tried to throw him over the bridge but got pulled in too and everyone thought he drowned but he actually survived?! It was so awesome!" he rants, his arms flailing around making gestures to help him describe the scene. Peter smiles and pretends to be really excited about what happened too, but he feels a little bad for not telling Ned that in reality, he was Spider-Man, not some cool guy Ned envisions.

"What I'm wondering is why Octavius wanted to take down the bridge," MJ says.

"I don't think he was trying to destroy the bridge entirely. Maybe he was just getting something from it to make a weapon of some sort," Calvin replies, earning him a light jab in the ribs and a glare from Peter. MJ crosses her arms and looks at them both suspiciously.

"Where did you get that idea from, Cal?" she asks, eyeing him up and down slightly. Now Calvin becomes anxious and starts shifting around nervously.

"I, er-"

"- Calvin keeps up to date on a lot of Spider-Man's work," Peter butts in quickly. "Yeah, he knows a lot about stuff he does that the media doesn't really talk about. Maybe he got it from there?" He turns back to Calvin and raises his eyebrows at him as if to say "You'd better go along with this". Calvin seems to get what he's saying because he starts nodding enthusiastically.

"Yeah, that's right. I, um, know a few people in the media who keep tabs on him," he says. MJ doesn't seem convinced but she drops it anyway.

"You guys are nerds. See you later," she says, walking away and dragging her bag along after her.

"We better head off to our lessons," Ned says, picking up his bag too. He turns to Calvin. "I'm counting on you to give me those media contacts later," he says jokingly. Calvin laughs.

"Will do," he replies. Ned nods then wanders off down the corridor to his class. Peter smiles as he leaves but instantly changes it to a frown as he grabs Calvin by the wrist and drags him to a nearby empty classroom.

"Dude!" Peter hisses, giving Calvin a shove small enough not to hurt him, but hard enough to make him take a few steps back so his legs hit the table.

"What?!" Calvin replies, putting his hands up in a surrender gesture.

"You almost exposed me with that 'He's making a weapon' bullshit!" he says. Calvin shrugs.

"They didn't think anything of it. You saw MJ, she dropped it." Peter groans in response.

"Still! You can't just bring up stuff that no one else knows; they'll suspect something." There are a few seconds of silence before Calvin speaks again.

"I'm sorry," he says.

"It's alright," Peter sighs. "Just please don't talk about it anymore." Calvin nods.

" I won't."

"Cool."

"Cool." There's more silence before they both start giggling.

"We really should be getting to our lessons," Calvin says.

"Yeah, I guess," Peter replies.

Peter holds the door open for Calvin and lets him walk through before following. As they leave the classroom, Peter notices Flash standing near them, leaning against the lockers. He gives Peter a strange look, well, stranger than usual, as he walks past. He doesn't make any remarks about him or Calvin as they walk away, which again is weird. Peter says goodbye to Calvin and enters his class, spotting an empty chair at the back which he remembers is Flash's. As he sits down in his seat, he can't help but wonder what Flash was doing outside of that room, especially since he was meant to be in class with him.