Chapter Text
Peter didn't know how much he hated quiet until he'd left New York.
There would always be something to keep him busy; at the start of high school, there was May, band, decathlon, and friends. Then patrolling, Tony, training.
None of that followed him to California.
Peter's free moments are now a kind of peace he'd craved back home whenever he had to swing home with a broken rib and an assignment due two hours ago. Moments of not wanting to leave his bed, just crushed against the mattress by his emotions.
For the first time in a while, Peter just realizes how much he misses Ben. He misses his parents. He misses all his old homes, his old bedrooms, all the distractions that filled his life since he was a kid.
They're catching on, Peter thinks.
Morgan barges into his room a lot more to drag him out to play. Pepper asks him to help her with tasks around the house, takes him out for easy errands. Tony pulls him into the small workshop in the garage, sits him in a chair and puts tools in front of him.
They're trying to keep him happy, or distracted, at least.
It's week something of Operation Nuclear Family.
Everything is kind of alright, all things considered.
Peter's friendly with the people at school, not exactly friends, but that's how he wants it to stay.
His grades are great, no surprise there, considering all the time he gained back not Spider-Manning went into being in his room trying to occupy all his time so he wouldn't think too hard about anything in particular.
Peter stares out the window as Tony drives. He watches as the usual people out walking and jogging go about their daily routines, sees the barely-there signs of frost on the windshield, thinks about how the temperature has probably already dropped in Queens, ignores the sense of detachment he feels from everything in front of him.
"What's the plan for today? Anything interesting gonna happen in school?"
"Uh... no," Peter replies, "Morgie, what about you?"
He's grateful for Morgan's instant chatter, grateful that she's having a better time than he is as she talks about her friends and what she's learning, and grateful that Tony's easy to distract when it comes to her.
(Maybe not as easy as he'd hoped.)
The moment after Tony pulls up into Morgan's school and drops her off, he looks over at Peter expectantly. "Everything okay, kid? Where's all my precious chatter gone?" He drives out of the school, heading towards Peter's.
Peter shakes his head. "Just tired," he mutters, "I stayed up studying for a test."
Tony nods slowly and sighs, turning back to the road. "You're a good kid, Peter," he begins, leaning back in his seat. "You know you can talk to me, though, right? I was your age once, too. I mean, I had a nanny until I was fourteen, and that only stopped 'cause I went to MIT. That's probably how you feel, huh?"
Peter snorts. He doesn't even know what that emotion would be. "Yeah, no, I'm just tired, really."
"Promise just tired, Bambino?"
He nods. "Promise."
Tony sighs again. "Yeah, okay. Fine."
Johnny is alright.
He is so normal and regular, and nothing he's doing is weird in the slightest.
He's got this whole teenager thing down, and even if school is still mostly unbearable, it's become slightly more tolerable thanks to the presence of—
"Ugh, it's so hot!"
Wait. He's supposed to be doing something.
He glances over his shoulder. "It's not that hot, Wyatt. You're just from Oklahoma."
Johnny has a friend now, a real one— Wyatt, that he made in his stupid journalism class. He's new like Johnny, and had moved to California from the Keewazi reservation in Oklahoma. Wyatt is about a head taller than everyone else and absolutely ripped; the span of his shoulders probably as wide as Johnny's femur is long, and had laughed when Johnny asked if everyone in his tribe was also ginormous and hot.
To be fair, though, Wyatt is attractive. He has very sharp, angular features, tan skin, and dark hair that goes down to just past his shoulders.
"It's not hot to you because you can't feel hot! Why do you even want to go out this far?"
Other perks about Wyatt: he also likes cars and motorcycles, he doesn't make Johnny feel stupid, and most importantly, he doesn't give a shit that Johnny's famous. Wyatt's dad is an Olympic athlete or something, so Johnny's just some guy to him.
"I don't wanna be inside," Johnny shrugs, fiddling with the camera they're using to take pictures for the yearbook. They walk past the football field, where some kids are playing soccer and running around the track. A few of them stop and wave at Johnny. Johnny smiles awkwardly and waves back.
"Did you come out here just to stroke your ego?" Wyatt deadpans, looking at Johnny with thinly veiled annoyance.
"No."
He doesn't quite understand it— his years of being badly home-schooled and socialized by Reed are finally catching up to him— but he hasn't been able to get that boy out of his head.
Running theory: Johnny can sense— and is drawn to— the coolest person in the room. School. Whatever. Wyatt's pretty cool, and they were drawn to each other pretty quickly.
This boy seems cool. His outfits are cool, his wired headphones are cool, his— Johnny doesn't have anything else to deem cool. They've only talked once. Well, he spoke to Johnny that one time and Johnny stared back at him like an idiot until he left. That memory haunts him every night before bed.
He knows the kid has photography in the same room after Johnny's journalism period. Johnny guesses he must have P.E. class while Johnny's in journalism because he's always flushed and sweaty around the hairline when they cross paths between bells. Not that Johnny's looking.
"Why do people even live out here?" Wyatt whinges, "it's all desert." He still follows Johnny to the baseball field at the back of the school.
Johnny stops at a short fence, looking over the group of boys playing baseball. They're all dressed in P.E. uniforms, a gray cotton shirt with a black eagle printed on it and gold gym shorts, so Johnny has to lean forward a little to tell them apart. "Uh, 'cause there's more than farms and tornadoes out here,"
Wyatt grabs the camera from him. "Well, we need to take a photo of something so we don't get yelled at."
"I guess."
Johnny's only half-paying attention, eyes immediately drawn to the home plate— that familiar head of messy brown curls stands there, grabbing a bat that's being handed to him by some other kid. He feels uncharacteristically warm, now acutely aware that he can feel his heartbeat pounding in his chest.
Maybe Johnny's having a heatstroke.
Wyatt lifts the camera to his face and peeks into the viewfinder. "Think that'll be a good shot?"
"Yeah, I think.
The boy hits the ball with a loud crack that sends it flying across the field. It hits a pole with speakers on it and ricochets in a different direction.
"I think one of the speakers got—"
"Move!"
Johnny glances towards the field again, where a bunch of guys are waving frantically at him. He frowns for exactly half a second before the baseball hits him straight in the face with enough force to knock him over.
Johnny's gotten hit many times in the face before. Usually, it's a large object coming right at him or someone (Doom) punching him, and usually, he takes it like a champ. Right now that Johnny's lying on the concrete, clutching his face, he's very aware that he's not taking it like a champ. He's not sure if it's the material of the baseball or the speed at which it hit him, but it hurt like a bitch.
His ears are ringing, His head feels like it's being compressed. He can feel someone pushing him down by the shoulders as he tries to get up.
"Don't move, don't move."
The voice is familiar, but not Wyatt's. Where has Johnny heard it before?
"Stay down, okay?"
Johnny peels open his eyes and feels his lungs being vacuum-sealed the moment he lays eyes on the guy one foot from his face. He hopes the audible wheeze he let out can be passed off as due to having gotten a baseball to the skull.
His brain starts cataloguing the guy's face, probably trying to distract himself from the ever-increasing pain ringing through his head. He has a cowlick at the center of his hairline, and the curl there is going in the exact opposite way his hair is pushed towards. His eyebrows are wispy and expressive, a deep frown of concern on his features as he looks at Johnny with possibly the biggest, brownest eyes Johnny has ever seen on a person.
"You're okay," he says, with a confidence that almost makes Johnny want to relax. "What's your name?"
Someone behind him speaks up. "You don't know his name?"
"I'm trying to make sure he's not brain-damaged!"
"Oh, that makes sense. Yeah, tell us your name."
Johnny tries to look literally anywhere else but he keeps moving to meet his gaze. It's insanely flustering him for some reason. He inhales sharply. "Johnny."
Wyatt moves into his line of sight. "Johnny, you okay?"
"I'm fine," Johnny replies, "I can sit up."
Wyatt glances at the kid, as if for permission, and it irritates Johnny. He sits up despite everybody's protests, holding a hand over his face in an attempt to relieve some of the pain. "I'm fine, really."
"I'm so sorry."
Johnny looks over at him, feeling the tips of his ears burning. "I'll be fine, it was an accident."
The P.E. teacher, an old man who looks like he hasn't worked out since his twenties, walks over to them. "Alright, what's going on here?"
Johnny opens his mouth to explain and is cut off by all the boys immediately beginning to speak over each other, so he shuts his mouth and lets them explain. The teacher looks over at Johnny.
"What the heck are you two doing all the way out here?" he asked, annoyed.
"Journalism," Wyatt says meekly.
It's funny how shy he can be around adults despite how huge he is.
"Take your friend to the nurse," he tells Wyatt, "everyone else, go mind your own business."
Peter stares after Johnny as he's walked away by his friend.
That weird kid that's always staring at him finally has a name, and Peter's not quite sure how to feel about it. He doesn't really seem like a threat, but it's annoying having his senses going off at random times because this kid has some kind of one-sided issue with Peter.
"Dude, you just hit Johnny Storm in the face with a baseball."
Peter glances at the guy speaking to him. "Uh…"
Behind them, the speaker shrills loudly as it falls off whatever it's hooked onto, hanging off a wire. There's a dent in the pole from where Peter hit the ball. He really hopes nobody notices.
Great job hiding your identity, Parker. What are you, fourteen again?
"Hell of a swing, Parker," the gym teacher says, as if it didn't hit that Johnny kid directly in the face. "You ever consider joining the baseball team?"
"Um," Peter says, "no."
Johnny's lying down on a cot in the nurse's office, holding a frozen bag of peas over his head as he waits for someone to come pick him up. The lights are off and the door is shut, which is kinda useless because it's made of glass and faces the entrance to the school's main office.
He tries thinking back to the last time he was in a school nurse's office waiting for someone to come for him. Maybe second grade after peeing his pants. Or throwing up. That sounds right.
The polarized office doors open urgently, letting more light in. Johnny can see as Sue goes over to the desk of one of the office ladies, concern clear on her face as she speaks to them. Johnny sits up as they let Sue behind the desks and lead her back towards the nurse's office.
Sue approaches him immediately, taking the bag of peas off his face with a careful hand. "What happened?" Sue asks, wincing slightly as she sees the shiner blooming on Johnny's face. "They called me and told me you got hurt."
The nurse comes back into the room after seeing Sue enter, holding out some kind of incident report to her. "He was walking through the back fields and got hit by a baseball," she replies sympathetically.
Johnny can immediately see the concern dissipate on Sue's face and the smile she's trying to force down.
Of course she thinks it's funny I get hit with a baseball.
Sue clears her throat and nods. "I should take him home," she says, "I'll have my husband look Johnny over and monitor him for the night." She hands the bag of peas to the nurse and picks Johnny's backpack up, gesturing at him to follow her out.
They walk to her car in silence and drive off, the quiet only interrupted by some radio hosts talking about celebrity drama. Johnny slides down in his seat until his knees touch the glove box.
Sue glances over at Johnny when she stops at a red light and loses it. "Turn the other way so I don't crash the car," she tells him, shoulders shaking as she laughs.
"Hey, I'm really in pain," Johnny snaps, "I could be concussed."
"What were you even doing out there? I thought you had P.E. at the beginning of the day."
"I was... taking pictures for the yearbook," Johnny replies.
"Of what?" Sue asks, "sweaty boys or something?"
Johnny feels like ice just got dumped down his spine. He sits straight up despite his head immediately protesting the sharp movement, snapping his face towards Sue. "No!" he yells, "gross, why would you even say that?!"
"I was joking," she retorts.
"I could've died!"
"Don't say that," Sue replies, voice serious.
Johnny watches the amusement leave her face. It makes him feel bad, knowing how sensitive Sue is about death, but not bad enough to apologize. "Fine," he huffs, crossing his arms. "But for the record, it says a lot about you that your brain immediately went to weird shit."
"Hey, buddy, how was school?"
Peter sits back in his seat, closing the car door. "…Fine." He rubs his palms over his thighs.
Tony stares at him for a beat. "You look like someone forced you to kick puppies. What did you do?"
He looks over at Tony. "I accidentally hit a guy with a baseball during gym," Peter murmurs, "and… dented a pole."
Tony quirks a brow as he pulls out of the pick-up lane. "Like, on purpose?"
"No," Peter shook his head, "no, obviously. I mean, I just hit the ball with a bat and then it bounced off a pole and hit a guy in the face. If anything, it was his fault for standing there. And then the gym teacher told me to try out for the baseball team or else he'll give me detention."
Tony snorted, shaking his head. "Only you, kid."
Johnny's been lying down in bed for a while. His head hurts significantly less than it did when he came home, but the right side of his face is swollen and bruised down to his eye. Sue had given him some aspirin and an ice pack earlier, then left him to rest.
He can hear the front door open, then Reed and Sue talking for a moment. She's probably giggling her way through explaining Johnny getting bonked on the dome during school today.
Reed knocks on his door and opens it. "Johnny, are you awake?" he asks, peeking into the dark room. He's still in his white lab coat. Judging from his serious expression, Johnny can at least count on Reed to not laugh about his injury.
Johnny doesn't bother lifting his head. "I'm tired."
"I know, I know," Reed sighs, sitting down on Johnny's bed. "Let me look at your eyes."
"Headache," Johnny complains.
Reed takes a small flashlight out of his front pocket. "I would assume so. However, I'd feel better knowing you're not suffering from a concussion. Let me see, Johnny."
Johnny sits up grudgingly. "Fine." He winces slightly as Reed points the light into his eyes.
"Do you feel dizzy or tired?"
"No."
"Have you thrown up?"
"No."
"Name one animal."
Johnny thinks for a moment. "…Princess?"
Reed smiles. "I suppose Princess is an animal, isn't she? Even with how Ben and Alicia dote on her." He tucks his light back into his pocket, seemingly satisfied with his examination, then looks at Johnny again. "Everything is okay at school, right? Nobody did this to you on purpose?"
Johnny shakes his head, flopping back down onto his side. "Nah."
"That's good," Reed replies. "Listen… I know things have changed a lot since you returned to school. I…" Whatever he wants to say seems to get stuck in his throat.
"Change can be uncomfortable. Goodness knows I'm not a fan of things changing." Reed looks away. "I just want you to know that I'm proud of you. I've always been proud of you, and that is something that won't change, even if everything else does."
"Gee, thanks. Dad."
Reed gives Johnny an odd sort of tight smile. It's clear he doesn't know how to express what's on his mind, but that's normal for Reed— whatever he wants to say will come out eventually. He reaches a hand out and pets Johnny's head gently. "How about you stay home from school tomorrow, to recover?"
"I love you."
Reed smiles. "I know, kid."
Reed exits Johnny's room, closing the door behind him as gently as he can.
Sue is leaning on the wall next to the door, fingers picking at the little charm on her necklace. She glances up at Reed.
Reed shakes his head. "I don't think it'd be a good time to... you know. Bring it up."
Sue exhales, dropping her head against the wall. "Okay," she murmurs, "I just... worry. It's obvious right now and he's missing it, and it's just gonna get more obvious."
Reed reaches out for Sue and pulls her into a hug. "He's still young, I don't think he'd even know what to look for." He kisses the top of her head. "We'll talk to him again, alright? When he's feeling better."