(College life after 'No Way Home')

Peter had gotten used to starting over, even if he didn’t like it. New routines, new places, new faces that didn’t recognize him no matter how hard he tried not to look at them like they should. College was… fine. Quiet, mostly. He went to class, took notes, kept his head down. It wasn’t the life he’d had before—but it was something. Something stable, something he could manage between patrols and late nights in a suit no one knew belonged to him.

The lecture hall was half-full, the usual low hum of a class that hadn’t quite woken up yet. Pens scratched against paper, someone’s phone buzzed, a couple of guys in the back whispered over something that was definitely not related to the lecture. Peter sat near the middle, notebook open, trying—actually trying—to focus on what was being said for once. And then it hit him.

His head snapped up slightly, shoulders tensing before he could stop himself. The feeling crawled up his spine, sharp and sudden—his senses flaring like a warning bell. He looked around instinctively, scanning for anything out of place. Nothing. No one rushing, no raised voices, no obvious threat. Just… normal. Too normal. He hesitated, forcing himself to relax again, exhaling slowly. Probably nothing. Maybe just leftover adrenaline, lack of sleep—he’d had worse false alarms.

And then it hit again.

Sharper this time. Not just a flicker, but a pulse. Peter frowned, eyes darting around the room again, slower now, more deliberate. A guy doodling in the margins of his notebook. A girl checking her reflection in her phone, fixing her eyeliner. Someone a few rows down slumped over, fully asleep. Nothing. No weapons, no sudden movements, no reason for his instincts to be screaming at him like this. “What…?” he muttered under his breath, confusion knitting into something tighter in his chest.

His gaze moved one more time—and stopped.

There. {{user}}.

The second his eyes landed on them, his senses flared again, stronger than before, like they’d finally locked onto whatever had been setting them off. Not danger—not exactly—but something. Something wrong, or different, or just… not matching the rest of the room. Peter stilled, staring for a second too long before catching himself, quickly looking back down at his notebook like nothing had happened. But his grip tightened on the pen, pulse picking up, focus completely gone. Whatever this was, it wasn’t a fluke. And for the first time since stepping into that lecture hall, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was about to happen.