Work Text:
Peter knew he should’ve started working on his essay earlier, but he’d just been so swamped these last two weeks. Last week was midterms, so he wasn’t able to work on it then. Sunday, patrol got extended a little too late, so he didn’t have time if he wanted to get a few hours of sleep, and then on Tuesday, he had his chemistry test and spent his time studying for that on Monday. Tuesday night was spent with pages and pages geometry, and on Wednesday, he got a sensory overload all day. Now, it was Thursday night, the essay was due tomorrow, he just got home from a decathlon meeting that ran way too long-- it was seven thirty now-- and all he had written was his name and the date.
It should’ve been so easy! It was an essay on Captain America, this shouldn’t be a problem! But, they couldn’t use the internet for this project-- they needed hard copy sources. Peter didn’t have any hard copy sources, but... Could he? Mister Stark had given him the numbers of some of the Avengers before, including Captain Rogers’, and it wouldn’t be like there’d be any false facts coming straight from the ice man himself.
Well, was there really any other options right now?
Peter grabbed his phone from on top of his dresser and scrolled through the contact list down to ‘s’, where he found ‘Shmaptain Shmerica’ listed. He was still proud of himself for the joke. The teen tapped on it and then on the little call icon, bringing the ringing phone up to his ear. He’d heard that Cap didn’t like to text, or wasn’t too good at it, so calling would probably be easier. Just as Peter thought it was going to go to voicemail, someone picked up.
“Hello? Steve Rogers speaking.”
“Um, hi, Captain Rogers. It’s Peter. Uh, I was wondering if you could help me with something.” The boy spoke.
“Peter? Is everything alright? Are you hurt?” Steve asked, sounding as though he was about to jump up and run any moment.
“No no,” Pete assured. “I’m okay, I swear. No danger, I haven’t even been out tonight.”
“Oh,” He almost sounded surprised. “That’s good. So, what’d you need, kid?”
“Well, it’s actually a school thing.”
“If it’s math, you should go to Tones or someone else. Things have changed way too much since I was in school.”
“It’s a history thing, actually,” Peter explained, trying his best not to sound like he’s calling the man old or something of the sort. “I have a history paper due tomorrow, and it’s sorta on you. It’s due tomorrow, and I, um, wasn’t exactly able to get the hard copy sources for it, and wondering if maybe you could help me? I-I, uh, understand if you’re busy or something though.”
“I’d love to help you with your paper, Peter,” Steve replied. “So, what do you need? You mentioned needing hard copies, huh?”
“Yeah,” the teen confirmed. “To kinda stick with the time period theme.”
“We definitely didn’t have the internet like you kids do today.”
Peter was starting to understand more and more and more why Mister Stark always made old jokes now.
“Just give me about…. Fifteen to twenty minutes,” Steve asked. “ Is that alright?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Peter confirmed. “Yeah, of course. Take your time. Thank you.”
“Of course. Though, maybe you shouldn’t wait until last minute next time.”
“Right. Yeah.” And then there was the dial tone.
Peter assumed that Captain Rogers was just going to call him back in fifteen minutes, so he started on whatever he could with his essay. His teacher might’ve said hard copy sources only, but thankfully, there was nothing against typing it out. He started out with a little plan, after reviewing the rubric once again. It wasn’t exactly the most typical sort of planning-- hell, part of his planning said ’Para No.3: oof icey freezey no more time’ . No matter, it worked for Pete and he understood what he meant. It might be difficult to explain it to anyone else though. May questioned it the first time, but she now ‘spoke Peter’.
“Peter!” Speak of the devil, and she shall appear.
“Yeah, May?” Peter called back from his room.
“Get your butt over here!”
Peter knew that tone all too well. As of late, it’d been used more towards Mister Stark when he would let the boy stay out a little too late or he got hurt over something stupid.He forgot how scary it was to be at the end of it. So, Pete hurried on out of his room and over where his aunt was by the front door. “Yeah?” He asked once there.
“Mind explaining why the fuck Captain America is knocking on the door?” May asked in a hushed scold.
“Wait, what?” Peter asked, wide-eyed and peeked out the little peep hole on the door. Sure enough, the blonde man stood there holding an old notebook and what looked like either a notepad or sketchbook. “Holy…”
“I asked him to wait a moment,” May spoke. “That’s as long as you got to explain.”
“Crap, um, right. Yeah, well--”
“ Peter. ”
“You know that history paper I have due?” The teen began speaking a mile a minute. “Well, Mister Stark gave me Captain Rogers’ number a while ago, and I thought he might be someone that could help out with it, cause, y’know. I-I called him about it since Mister Stark said that he, uh, he wasn’t the best with texting, but I swear, I really didn’t know he was gonna show up at the door.”
After a beat, May sighed, but content with her nephew’s answer. “Okay, alright. You didn’t know, that’s fine. You really need to start giving me a heads-up when you do know about these things, though. Okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, ‘course. Sorry.”
May turned to the door and opened it up, stepping to side to let Steve inside of the quaint little apartment. “Hi,” She smiled. “Sorry about that. Can I get you something to drink?”
The tall blonde man smiled at her as he stepped inside, carrying a old and beaten up looking notebook along with an equally worn out sketchpad tucked under his arm. “Hello, Misses Parker,” he greeted. “I’m okay, thank you though.”
“Well, if there’s anything I can get you, just say the word,” May smiled. “And thank you for helping Peter with his paper. Hopefully, next time won’t be so last minute.”
“In my defense,” Peter said, stepping in. “I wasn’t really sitting on my butt this whole time. I was busy!”
“I know, baby--”
“May!”
Peter shot the woman a look for using the nickname, which only brought a soft laugh from her and a grinning Mister Rogers.
“I’m just busting your chops, Pete. I know you’re a good kid.”
“So seems to be the rumor on the street,” Rogers commented, turning to Peter. “So, do you want to get to work?”
“Uh, yeah. Yeah, sure,” Peter nodded. He’d gotten use to being around Tony, for the most part, but the anxious fanboy-ness was still very much there with the others, Captain Rogers included. “It’s just on my, um, laptop in my room. I can go get it, if you want?”
“Up to you, son.” He’s been using all his old people jokes on the wrong person, Peter realized. “Whichever is easiest for you.”
“Alright, just, uh, follow me then.” Peter answered. “I don’t have much done,” The teen warned, leading the way. “Just a little planning and the introduction. The conclusion is basically just the intro but worded differently, and neither of those need quotes or anything.”
“Mhm,” Steve nodded, still finding it weird that he could be a school project now. History projects were supposed to be on people like George Washington or Abraham Lincoln-- historical figures. It was just so weird to one of
them
. Yeah, he knew decades passed since the war and barely anyone was still around from them, that he was technically supposed to be in his nineties, but still. “So, how many quotes do you need? I’m sure we can find enough in these two.”
“I need at least five,” Peter answered as they entered his room. Damn, was he glad that it wasn’t a mess today, save for the little corner where he was working on building a computer. Peter made a mental note to start working on it again. “One per each body paragraph. “
Steve seemed to notice the mini project in the corner as well and raised his eyebrows a little. “You really are Stark’s kid,” he thought out loud.
“S-sorry about that mess,” Peter apologized, a little embarrassed frankly.
“Don’t apologize, Peter,” The blonde reassured. “It looks interesting. Is there a store that sells parts for these things?”
“I mean, I’m sure there’s a few, b-but I, um, usually just use parts from what I find lying around, usually on may way home from school.”
“So you’re like a scrapper, eh?” Steve smiled. “You sure you didn’t live in Brooklyn for a bit?”
“Born and raised in Queens, Mister America. Best city in New York.”
“Well--”
“As much as I respect you, sir, nothing will convince me that Brooklyn is better while I’m sane.”
“At least you stick to your beliefs, even if they aren’t factually accurate,” He laughed. “Now let’s get to work.”
Peter pulled up his paper, or what he had of it at least, and put the laptop between him and Steve. They worked for about an hour-hour and a half, taking a fifteen minute break when May brought them some pizza that she’d ordered for dinner and refused to allow Steve to pay her back for it. Soon enough, they had the basic skeleton for Peter’s essay, the only thing missing being some filler sentences to allow it to flow smoothly and give introductions and explanations to the different quotes.
“Alright, I think that’s… good. Good,” Peter commented, closing the laptop lid. “Um, thank you for helping me, Captain Rogers.”
“Steve is alright, you know.”
“I don’t think I could do that, Captain Rogers.”
“Whatever you say, son,” Tony couldn’t get the kid to call him by his first name either, so the possibility of Steve converting Peter to using first names was slim. “And no need to thank me, I enjoyed helping you. Thank you for asking me for help.” He took a piece of paper lying on Peter’s desk along with a pen, wrote something down real quick, folded it, and handed it to Peter. “Here, in case your teacher gives you any trouble about your sources, since they aren’t exactly published works.”
“Right, good idea,” Peter nodded, smiling a little as he took the paper. “I’ll, uh, let you know if there’s an issue. And thanks again.”
“No problem, kiddo.” He took a page out of Tony’s book and ran a hand through Peter’s hair as he stood up, and then followed the teen to an out the apartment’s front door.