Chapter Text
One Month Ago
The lecture hall is half-empty. It's a graduate-level Advanced Theoretical Physics course, and most of the students are years older than Peter. Doctoral candidates, researchers with years of experience.
Peter doesn't belong here in more ways than one. He's not enrolled, first off. But he needs to see what he's been missing. What a real education looks like, sure, but more what it feels like to be surrounded by people who understand the things he thinks about when he can't sleep. To be filled with a room of human minds instead of alone with only EV. Even Spiderman can only be alone so long before needing to prevent depression.
He sits in the back row, hood up, practically invisible in a social sense.
Dr. Bruce Banner stands at the front of the room, writing an equation on the board. It's complex-- a quantum gravitational problem he reminds the class they've been working on for weeks.
"Any thoughts?" he asks the room.
Silence.
Peter stares at the board, trying to ignore the way his fingers itch and how he very much knows the answer. He can see it; the way he can see the physics behind his web-slinging, the way he calculates trajectories in his head while falling through the air…
He shouldn't say anything. He can't draw attention to himself.
… He still can't help it.
He's been a know-it-all well before it meant keeping up with Tony Stark.
"You forgot the quantum entanglement variable."
The room goes even more silent somehow. Bruce turns, his eyes scanning the back row until they land on Peter. Peter wonders what he sees. A kid in a faded hoodie, barely old enough to be here, staring at a board he shouldn't understand?
"Excuse me?"
Peter points. "Right there. The equation assumes entanglement doesn't affect the gravitational constant in this state. But it does. You need to factor in the quantum fluctuation. It changes the outcome by about eleven percent."
Bruce stares at the board. Then back at Peter.
Peter recalculates in his head as Bruce looks, frantically re-running his own numbers. Even after rework, he still comes up with eleven percent. Unless science somehow changed since the blip, he's right.
"How did you--" Bruce starts, looking at him with suspicion. "What's your name?"
Peter hesitates, kicking himself for his recklessness and ego. He's been so careful. Invisible. Yet one chance to prove his intellect, one chance to show off to one of his heroes, and he immediately folds.
"Peter," he answers, muttering, sinking a bit lower in his seat. "Peter Parker."
Bruce studies him, eyes searching as if they'll figure out what's going on before Peter can even come up with an excuse.
"Stay after class," Bruce says. "I want to talk to you."
Fuck.
The lecture hall is empty now. Peter stands near the front of the room, his hands fisted and shoved in his pockets, his eyes fixed on the floor. He's terrified, despite this exposure having been his own damn fault, despite him knowing that Bruce Banner is trustworthy…
Bruce sits on the edge of his desk, studying Peter while his arms are folded over his chest. "That equation was a problem this class has been working on for weeks. How did you solve it in five seconds?"
Peter swallows. "I just... saw it."
"Saw it,” Bruce deadpans, tone dry as the desert.
"I mean… yeah." Peter looks up, meeting Bruce's eyes for the first time. He tries to silently communicate that he's not a threat to anyone, tries to communicate that they once knew each other, tries to communicate that they both had once worked in labs with Tony Stark. "I see the physics in my head, like the math is already there and I'm just reading it."
Bruce raises an eyebrow. "How old are you, Peter?"
This is not good. It's really not.
Stupidly, Peter truthfully answers, "Seventeen."
"And you're not enrolled here." It's not a question. Clearly the professor can tell, regardless of not teaching classes for Peter's would-be-freshman year.
Peter feels his face pale, and he shakes his head. "N-no, sir."
"Then what are you doing in my lecture hall?"
Peter opens his mouth. Closes it. He doesn't know how to explain without spilling his entire story-- from Tony to the Avengers to Thanos to Strange’s spell-- and as reckless as he's been, he won't do that.
“I, uh. I live in New York and I've followed your work,” he gives the part-truth, then frantically defends himself from appearing shallow with another half-lie, “Your scientific stuff, I mean. Not the, uh-- not the Avengers stuff.”
The corner of Bruce's lips twitch, but he doesn't let his defenses down fully yet. "Where are your parents?"
Peter's jaw tenses, and he has to look away now so he won't risk seeing sympathy in someone's eyes. "Dead."
"Who's taking care of you?"
"No one." The words come out flat and empty. "I take care of myself."
Bruce doesn't push that at least. Instead he switches to, “Why aren't you attending here? Seventeen year olds who can show up my grad students like you could get a full ride easily, even without the hardship angle.”
As much as Peter wishes he could give the real story-- and maybe in another life he'd risk it-- he gives the lame rehearsed story he plans to give the hospital if ever needed. “I… don't have the documents I need and I-- I don't want to get in trouble for trying to forge them.”
This at least is the full truth. Admitting it without context might imply something else, but he can't control that.
It's still risky. There's one or two Avengers he wouldn't dare imply he's an illegal immigrant to, but out of all the ones he's met, he's heard enough humanitarian stories about Bruce Banner to trust that he won't immediately be turned over to ICE.
"I might be able to help you," Bruce says after a long, long pause that's had Peter's heartbeat in double time.
Peter's head snaps up. "What?"
"I know people,” the professor says cautiously. “I could pull strings if you want and get you enrolled officially, but there would be conditions."
Peter stares at him. "Why? You don't even know me."
"You made my grad students look like freshmen in a matter of thirty minutes, for one,” Bruce points out with his classic dry humor. “But more importantly, I've been where you are. I know what it's like to be an outcast and need a second chance. And for some reason a part of me says I can trust you."
Peter is embarrassed to find his eyes are wet. He blinks rapidly, looking away.
"You maintain a B average, you stay," Bruce repeats. “You fail, there's nothing I can do."
Peter nods. "I won't fail. I promise."
"I know." Bruce says as if it's the most casual and simple fact in the world. After a long pause and inscrutable look, the older man finally says, "There's something about you, kid. I just can't figure out what."
Peter isn't a psychology student who understands the subconscious of people with Dissociative Identity Disorder, but for a second part of him wonders if Bruce Banner wasn't combined with both of his selves if the Hulk would somehow remember that Spiderman is in fact Peter Parker.
He's not sure if he feels grateful or deeply sad to never know.
Bruce Banner doesn't get someone to illicitly forge new documents, but he does call in favors that involve loopholes and lies. While Peter will never know for sure and didn't dare ask, he wonders if Bruce's superhero-lawyer cousin or Congressman Bucky Barnes had been involved.
Either way, Peter becomes registered as a birth in a small town in upstate New York where official county records were destroyed in a fire before having been transcribed electronically.
He's given a clean social security number. His GED is verified through a connected school. And when Bruce Banner uses both his academic, scientific, and Avenger clout to take on Peter Parker as a lab assistant with the university board, he's allowed in.
Peter can't begin to explain how grateful he is. With higher education he'll be able to get better paying jobs to help fund upkeep of EV and his spidersuit, as well as any new technology. Being close to an Avenger will help notify him of any offworld threats. And most importantly, he'll finally have access to a lab.
As long as he doesn't think about all the people who had been in his situation because of the US government, he can almost pretend he isn't unfailingly guilty.