Chapter Text
“Mister Parker, since this is the,” his gym teacher looked down at the slip in his hand, “fifth time you’ve gotten detention this semester, I’ll have to call home.” Peter just nodded and stared resignedly at the desk he sat at. Most of the plastic wood surface was carved away or sharpied over, but enough of the gloss remained for the gloomy artificial light to glare off of it into his eyes. This coupled with the low hum of the fluorescent bulbs and absolutely bull reason he was in detention in the first place was starting to give him a headache.
It had been a little over a month since a handful of his classmates took a trip to Stark Tower, which ended up confirming to all of them that his internship was real. Oh, and that he was currently living at the Tower. Of course, they were all absolutely buried in NDA’s about the whole thing and Flash, well, Flash was not taking it well.
He didn’t have a ton of credibility outside his friend group in the first place, but after everyone who was on the trip stopped paying attention to him, it caused a ripple effect through the school. No one was entirely sure what happened on the trip, but whatever it was, it evidently turned the smart ass bully into a minor nuisance. His snide remarks held no more weight, his words had no power, and Flash was turning downright ornery because of it.
Peter, on the other hand, had never felt more free. He came back a week after the trip, fully expecting to be swamped with uncomfortable attention, but was pleasantly surprised with just, nothing. Apart from a few of his classmates being a whole lot nicer to him, and Flash keeping an arm’s distance, barely any of his school life had changed. No media leaks, fake friends, stalkers, nothing. Those NDA’s must have been straight up terrifying.
At first he thought Flash leaving him alone was the best part of the whole thing. He didn’t have to dodge shoves in the hallway, or turn his cheek at cruel comments in every other class. It was practically heaven. Until he learned that, just as he feared, Flash had sunk to a new low, using younger students to take out his rage boner on. Which Peter told him, right after calling him a ‘complete dickwad’, and just in time for Principal Morita to walk by and drag Peter into his office.
Principal Morita wasn’t that bad, though, and after Peter explained the situation, or what he could, the man promised to speak to Flash about his behavior. However, he also said that he couldn’t just let Peter get away with cursing out another student in the hallway, and gave him the surprisingly light sentence of one hour after school detention. Which happened to be the fifth one that semester. Fantastic.
Not that he would probably get in much trouble from a phone call, though. The only two contacts the school had for him were his Aunt May and Tony Stark (a.k.a Anthony Stank). May would be disappointed in his choice of words, but she’d understand his motives. No issue there. Mister Stark, being himself, would probably congratulate him (quietly, so May and Pepper didn’t hear) and then go absolutely ballistic on Flash. And as much as Peter did not like Flash, he also didn’t want him expelled with his entire life ruined. So May was probably the better option, not that he had a say in the matter.
Coach Wilson looked up from the hefty stack of papers he had been working on, grabbing the sheet of paper with Peter’s emergency contacts on it and his cell phone.
“I’m gonna step out and make this call. You two gonna be fine in here?” He grumbled, looking slowly between Peter and Mj, who was also present. Peter nodded and Mj did not respond, which seemed to be good enough for the coach, so he stood plodded out into the hall.
“Now that is a sad man.” Mj spoke up from the desk beside him. Peter turned to look at her, raising a questioning eyebrow.
“I thought you said he was in crisis?”
“I did, but he has obviously crossed the boundary into just plain sad.” She stated, flipping to a new page in her sketchbook,”Mister Harrington, on the other hand, is unquestionably in crisis.”
“Makes sense.” Peter agreed, glancing over at the door Coach had disappeared into, ”Wait, you’re still allowed to be in here?” Mj gave him a tiny grin, spinning her sketchbook around to show what had to be her hundredth drawing of Coach Wilson.
“Yeah, after coach complained about it to him, Morita said it was cool so long as I wasn’t disruptive, or talking to the people actually in detention.” Mj explained.
“Well you’re talking to me, ” Peter snarked, earning an eye roll from his friend.
“Are you complaining?” He shook his head as she smirked at him,”that’s what I thought.”
Meanwhile, Coach Wilson was getting progressively more frustrated. The first phone number went to voicemail, and the second was still ringing after, what, three whole minutes? He had half a mind to just hang up, but these were the only two numbers listed, and if he let one kid get away with no phone call, soon all the other ones would expect to. Just as he was becoming certain the sound of the ringer would be ingrained in his nightmares for the rest of his life, the line picked up and a distantly familiar voice answered.
“Who is this?” it said calmly, though the underlying demand was evident.
“Uh, Coach Wilson from Midtown High, is this,” Wilson squinted at the name penned besides the number “Anthony Stank?” a muffled cough from the other side.
“I am, uh answering for him, yes.” The voice was fairly deep, so it was a man, from what Wilson could tell, anyway. A pause.
“Is this about Peter, Peter Parker?”
“As far as I know, no other students from your residence attend this school, so yes.” Coach sighed, very ready to get this over with.
“Is it alright that I am speaking to you, or should I call back later, Mister…?” the man seemed to hesitate, and some scattered muttering came from the other end. Wilson wondered to himself how well Peter was doing in a home where at least one resident didn’t know their own name.
“Steve...enson!” The man finally managed to stammer out. Wilson clicked his pen, beginning to write it next to Anthony Stank and the phone number.
“With a ‘v’ or a ‘ph’?” He asked, pressing his phone between his neck and ear as he wrote. He wasn’t prepared for the shouted answer that nearly made him drop it.
“A ‘v’, I mean, ‘ph’!”
“Alright, alright, calm down.”
“I’m sorry, I’m just not used to… answering...phones?” The man, Stephenson muttered.
“I can tell.” Coach replied, well aware he should not be mouthing off to a parent or guardian or whatever but too tired to really care.
“Okay, can you please tell me why you’re calling this number? Is Peter alright?”
“Uhuh, he’s fine, but he got detention and it’s school policy to call home after the fifth detention in a semester.” Wilson read off the sheet. The line was dead silent, and he wondered for a moment if he got hung up on.
“Oh, did he now?” Stephenson sounded scarily calm, “How, may I ask, did this happen?”
“Says here he called some kid a ‘dickwad’, I can send the full report home with him if you’d like.” Wilson said, hoping he wouldn’t be asked to read all the information off the page.
“Fascinating. Yes, if you could give it to him that would be great,” the man replied, the same eerie calmness to his voice, “Thank you for bringing this to my attention, have a wonderful afternoon,Coach.”
“You too, Mister, uh, Stephenson.” Wilson responded, just as the line cut off.
Well, that was over with. He walked back into the room, catching the tail end of a conversation between the room’s two occupants, before they quickly shut up and pretended to have never met. Not that he would do anything about it, but at least they had the decency to pretend he would. He dropped the detention explanation sheet on Peter’s desk, before dragging the rolling tray and TV to the front of the room. Time to space out and let Mister America do all the work for him.
Peter was halfway through telling Mj a long and complicated knock-knock joke when the door swung open, signalling Coach Wilson’s return. He bit back his next word and swiftly pretended to doodle on the desk, while Mj returned to actually doodling. The papers detailing exactly how he ended up there landed in front of him. He must have called May, she liked to know exactly what happened from both sides.
He looked up as Coach pulled the TV stand to the front of the room with effort. He’d offer to help, but he doubted the guy would appreciate ‘the least athletic kid in school’ upstaging him. He looked miserable enough already. That, and Peter didn’t really want to accelerate what was coming. With any luck, Coach would struggle with the TV for the next forty five minutes, and Peter wouldn’t have to watch the video he’d seen a hundred times already.
But it was not to be, Coach managed to get the stand to the front, plug it in, find the right input and insert the VHS in under five minutes. He flicked the lights off, plunging the room into semi- darkness, and sunk into his seat with a tired groan. The fluorescent buzzing was replaced by the hum of the old TV, but while Peter’s ears were still suffering, at least the light of the TV was less harsh on his eyes.
The video flashed to life, the hallway and backwards chair all-too-familiar to every high school student in north america appearing with some cheesy theme song. As soon as it ended, the star-spangled man with a plan himself strode into frame, swinging his leg over the chair and letting his arms rest on the back. Peter could feel his gaze boring into his own.
“So you got detention.” Cap said, his smile far too cheery for the soul sucking cinder block room, ”You screwed up.” Peter let out a loud groan and let his head fall forward onto the graffitied desk with a thump.
“No sleeping, Parker.” Coach sighed, sounding like he’d rather be anywhere else and a little muffled. Peter looked up to see that he also had his head down. He turned to Mj, who looked way too smug for someone currently drawing her gym teacher for the umpteenth time.
“You know what you did was wrong, the question is, how are you gonna make it right?” The Captain’s voice was the only sound in the room, apart from the occasional snore from Coach Wilson, or scrape of an eraser from Mj. He was fairly certain that he would never leave. Actually, he was certain he had never left, and every space of time between detentions was a wild hallucination his eternally bored mind had created. There was no Spider-Man, no May, no Tony Stark, no Ned, no New York. Just him, Mj, Coach Wilson, and the ever-present, ever-peppy voice of Captain America.
“Maybe you were trying to be cool, take it from a guy who’s been frozen for sixty five years, the only way to really be cool, is to follow the rules.” A crash followed by a scream from the neighboring science lab reminded Peter that maybe he wasn’t alone in the universe after all, and he would eventually be able to leave. Or maybe that was just another hallucination.
“We all know what’s right, and we all know what’s wrong. Next time those turkeys try to convince you of something you know is wrong, just think to yourself, what would Captain America do?”
Peter spent the remaining thirty four minutes in and out of awareness, staring at weird patterns in the ceiling tiles and trying to ignore his headache while the Coach snoozed and Cap droned on and on. He had to admit it was an experience, occasionally he’d snap back to hear odd chunks of sentences, like ‘Hormones can cause you to feel things’.
“Remember kids, violence is never the option!’ The Captain grinned, saluting before he stared dead into the camera, stone faced, “Unless they’re Nazis.” The video cut out pretty quickly after that, and finally, finally , it was over. The VHS ejected, the TV switched to very loud static that woke Coach Wilson with a grunt, who very slowly stood up to turn off the TV and switch the lights back on.
“Alright, time’s up, please collect your things and proceed to leave the school in an orderly fashion.” Wilson grumbled, as Peter shoved the papers in his bag and Mj snapped her book shut. Mj darted out before him, but before Peter could leave Coach grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to the side.
“Parker, are you doing alright at home?” He asked, looking surprisingly more concerned than tired.
“Uh, yeah, everything’s fine.” Peter replied, hoping he wasn’t looking suspicious or anything. Coach looked him up and down before releasing his arm.
“Alright, but just remember that you can always come talk to me, or any of the other teachers here if something isn’t all good.” Peter nodded, thanking the man before jogging out of the room and down the hall to Mj.
“What was that all about?” She asked.
“Literally no idea.” Peter sighed, and together they burst through the front doors and out into the school yard.
“Ah, freedom,” Peter beamed, taking a deep breath of the fresh fall air, “I never thought I’d see the outside world again.” Mj laughed and bumped him with her shoulder as they walked down the stairs.
“That’s a little over dramatic.” She snorted, hopping the last step to avoid his returning shove.
“Admit it, you’re pretty sure we’re stuck in a simulation or mass hallucination too, right?” He teased, taking a few bigger steps to catch up to her.
“See you tomorrow, loser.” Mj replied, walking off in the direction of her apartment. She gave him a little wave before she turned the corner, then disappeared among the city traffic. Peter waved back before hopping into the backseat of a black SUV, the only car left parked by the sidewalk.