Chapter Text
Three Days Later
Peter glanced around the crowd of students being herded into the Cafeteria. All of them looked confused, even a little scared, and he definitely picked on a couple wondering aloud if they were finally just going to kill them all. Finally he spotted Ned and Mj, already sitting near the middle of the room, saving a spot between them just big enough for him to squeeze in.
“Hey guys, what’s up with all this?” He asked, squirming to get comfortable on the metal lunch table bench. Mj shrugged, slipping her finger between the pages as she closed her novel.
“Beats me, man,” Ned grinned, clearly glad to be out of class, “Maybe we’re gonna learn about using our Street Smarts?”
“I hope you brought your notepad, then.” Peter snorted.
“Silver money clip. Engraved, question mark?” Mj deadpanned, miming writing on the cover of her book. The trio chuckled to themselves until the feedback of a microphone screeched, drawing a groan from the crowd before it plunged into uneasy silence. Principal Morita walked on stage, looking a bit more excited than usual, and did the check, check one two into the microphone, to the mass annoyance of the crowd.
“Good morning, everyone,” a few similar greetings echoed back,”I know we did not plan for an assembly today, but our guest speaker insisted on doing this as soon as possible, and as you will soon see, we just had to indulge him.” this stirred the crowd a bit, guest speakers were usually a treat, especially if they were pathetic. Peter, on the other hand, was beginning to feel a little sick to his stomach.
Morita grinned, before gesturing dramatically to the side of the stage.
“Here today, to give us a fantastic talk about respecting your peers, is the man himself, Captain America!” The room burst into noise, very clearly torn between wild cheers and pained groans. It quieted very quickly, however, when Captain Rogers strode onto the stage, not in his typical cheesy get-up, but in full battle armor, complete with the iconic shield strapped to his back. He stood at the podium, standing at attention and surveying the room until it was dead silent.He took a breath, placed his hands on the lectern, and grinned warmly at the students.
“Not many people think about this, but I’ve dealt with bullies my whole life,” He began, his authoritative voice drawing in even the most bored of the students, “before Captain America, I was just some poor, shrimpy kid from Brooklyn, and a lot of people didn’t really like it when I mouthed off to them. That’s a nice way of putting it. The realistic way is that I frequently had more bruises and black eyes than dollars in my pocket.” He caught Peter’s eye and winked, very unsubtly.
The teen groaned and sunk down farther into the bench. Mj was reading, and Ned was absolutely enraptured with the super-soldier’s speech. This was going to be a long assembly.
Assembly only lasted about thirty minutes, but to Peter it felt like a lifetime. Luckily, Cap didn’t wink at him again, or explicitly call him out, but near the middle he got rather passionate, and kept staring somewhere to the right of Peter. Considering the ashen look on Flash’s face afterwards, Peter figured that’s where he had been sitting.
Waving his friends on, Peter hung around afterwards, as students milled about taking pictures and talking to the Captain. As soon as they had all left, he jogged up to Steve, tucking his hands into his sweatshirt pocket.
“As much as I want to be mad about that, it was a pretty good speech.” Peter laughed, rolling his eyes as Steve exhaled in relief.
“You think? I completely forgot to write one after I set this up, so I was just winging it.”
“You can just, like, do that?” Peter asked, before shaking his head, “No, that’s not the point. I just wanted to give you a very begrudging thank you, and beg you to never do that again.” Steve smiled and pulled him into a side hug, mussing up the teen’s hair with one hand, to his annoyance.
“Anytime, son. I try not to be overbearing, but I gotta say the look on that Flash kid’s face when I glared at him was priceless.” Peter couldn’t help but bark out a laugh.
“From what I saw afterwards, his soul left his body sometime between that and when you talked about identifying bullying in your school.” He chuckled.
“Alright, as much as I’d love to stick around, I’m pretty sure you still have class to go to,” Steve smiled,”so I should probably head out. See you later?”
“Sure thing, Captain America.” Peter grinned, saluting the Captain before hopping off the stage. As he made his way to his next class, he saw Coach Wilson squinting oddly at him. He shrugged, and jogged away, just hoping Miss Carlson wouldn’t count him tardy again.