Chapter Text
7.00 AM. May 7th, 2021.
“Mr. Brightside” by The Killers started playing. The phone was vibrating. Peter awoke with a groan. He rolled over and grabbed his phone. He turned off the alarm. The song stopped playing.
Peter saw a text from Ned come in:
it is friday my dudes
Peter laughed and typed out his response:
see you at school :)
It was in fact Friday. Which was the precursor to the weekend. Peter was excited. He was going to come home from school, spend all night in the lab with Mr. Stark, and then see a movie with Ned on Saturday afternoon.
But first, school.
Peter threw off his blankets and walked to the bathroom. He took a quick shower and tried to get his hair to not stick to his head so much. He threw on some clean clothes and walked out to the living room.
There he saw Mr. Stark, dozing over a cup of black coffee and a few slices of toast. He had slept over last night so he wouldn’t need to grab anything from May’s house tonight.
“Good morning, Mr. Stark!” Peter greeted cheerily. Peter’s greeting seemed to snap Tony awake.
“Morning, kiddo. You know, I’ll give you $10 if you can call me Tony today. Even once,” Tony proposed.
“No, thank you,” Peter said. He grabbed a piece of toast off Tony’s plate and shoved it in his mouth. “Gotta get to school,” he said around his toast. Tony shook his head.
“Have a good day,” he said with a small wave.
Peter climbed down the stairs and met Happy outside.
“Hiya, Happy!” Peter said cheerfully.
“Heya, kid,” Happy replied. “How do you have so much energy in the morning…” he muttered under his breath.
The two of them got in the car and began their journey to Midtown. There wasn’t much traffic as it was 7:20 in the morning when they left, so they arrived quickly.
“Thanks, Happy!” Peter said, exiting the car.
“No problem. See you after school,” Happy reminded Peter.
“See you!”
Peter caught sight of Ned at the top of the steps and walked over to him.
“Hey dude!” Ned greeted.
“Hey!” Peter replied.
“I’m so excited for the movie tomorrow,” Ned said.
“I know, me too. Maybe if I use the puppy eyes I can convince Mr. Stark to come with us,” Peter mused.
“Oh my god that would be amazing!”
“I know!”
Ned and Peter chatted until the bell rang. They split, Ned going to English and Peter going to physics.
Physics was pretty uneventful, except for when Mr. Wyatt knocked over his coffee, and his mug with a Newton’s Cradle shattered.
“Oh, I loved that mug…” he had said. A girl, Lucy, in the first row offered to clean it up for him.
Next was history class. To be honest, Peter was not a huge fan of history. Unless it was interesting. Which, the way Ms. Smith taught it? It was not interesting at all. Luckily, today was just a few worksheets. Nothing Peter had to use his brain for.
After history, Peter had a short break, which he used to eat a protein bar from his lunch, and also to find Ned again. Once spotted, Peter waved at Ned. But Ned didn’t wave back. He had a look of terror on his face. And suddenly, Peter figured out why.
He had grown accustomed to ignoring his Spidey-sense, especially at school since he got knocked around and tripped over his own shoelaces quite often. So when Flash clapped Peter on the shoulder, it wasn’t as surprising as it could have been.
“So, Parker. How’ve you been?” Flash asked in a mocking tone of voice. Peter tensed on instinct.
“Flash,” Peter said. “What do you want?”
“Oh, nothing. I was just checking up on you. You know, because keeping up that huge lie must take a lot out of you,” Flash said.
“Shut up,” Peter muttered.
“What did you say?” Flash put his hand up to his ear, as if he did not hear Peter.
“Nothing.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Luckily (but rather unfortunately), Peter and Ned were used to Flash trying to ruin their day, so they brushed him off rather easily.
The bell rang again, and now Peter was in math class. Peter had always been good at math, so he didn’t feel the need to pay attention. Which was probably not always a great idea.
“Mr. Parker!” Ms. Jackson said loudly. Peter snapped out of his stupor.
“Huh? What’s going on?” He asked.
“What’s going on is that we’re all taking notes, and you are not. Could you please at least pretend to be taking notes?” Ms. Jackson asked.
Peter scrambled to get out his notebook and a pencil and started taking notes.
“Peter! I saved you a seat.” Ned patted the chair next to him in Ms. Kim’s English class. Peter sat down and got out his computer. Their essays were due today and Peter knew his was subpar. But he wasn’t about to say so. Then he would be forced to put in the effort.
“Good morning, everyone. I know you all turned in your essays last night or this morning so I’ll let you guys off easy today. Please complete this grammar worksheet and then the rest of the class will be a study hall.” Ms. Kim handed out the worksheet on capitalization.
“Oh, man, I really need a study hall today,” Ned said.
“Why? Do you have a project or something?” Peter started to zone out.
“No, I just want to get online.”
“Mood.”
After English, Peter and Ned headed to lunch. They both stood in the lunch line, saw Flash eye them from the side of the cafeteria, and spotted MJ in the back. They joined her.
“Hey, MJ,” Peter greeted her.
“Hey losers.” MJ didn’t glance up from her notebook. Peter glanced over her shoulder. Original poetry. Nice.
“MJ, are you sure you don’t want to come see the movie with us tomorrow?” Ned asked her.
“I told you no already. I’ll let you know if I’m magically free tomorrow. That sound good?” MJ asked.
“Yeah, yeah. That sounds good.”
Lucky for the trio, Flash did not elect to bother them any more today. It was Friday, after all.
After lunch, Peter had Spanish class, in which they had a test lasting the entire period. Peter thought he did pretty well, considering he had forgotten about the test entirely until he walked in that afternoon.
Then, finally, his last “class” of the day: Academic Decathlon. They didn’t actually ever do anything during this period, though, because they all preferred to play as a whole team, but some took it after school instead because they could not fit it into their schedules.
Peter and Ned sat shoulder to shoulder next to Ned’s laptop. They both crafted an update post for their Tony Stark blog, and Peter watched as Ned scrolled through the New York Times website and then YouTube.
“Hey, look at that!” Ned started circling a video with his cursor titled “Spiderman being a dork for 1:36 straight”
“A Spiderman fancam?” Peter said to no one in particular.
“Yeah, dude! Your first fancam!” Ned exclaimed.
“Not so loud.” Peter looked around. “Okay, put it on.”
Spidey Fancam #3
[cut]
“Mr. Man,” A reporter caught Spiderman’s attention as he was making his way down the street.
“Are you talking to me?” Spiderman asked.
“Yes, I am,” The reporter said.
“Please, call me Spider. Mr. Man was my father,” Spiderman said.
[cut]
The cameraman was on the ground, while Spiderman was on a lamppost.
“Hey, Spiderman!” The cameraman yelled.
“What’s up, my man?” Spiderman asked.
“Do a flip!”
“Really? That’s all you could come up with?”
“Uh…”
“Here, I’ll do a flip.”
Spiderman did a flip. He landed perfectly on his feet.
“Next time I think you should be more creative with your request,” Spiderman said.
[cut]
Spiderman jumped into the frame holding a small orange cat.
“And here is Mr. Noodle,” he said as he handed the cat to the camera operator.
“Thank you, Spiderman!” the camera operator said.
“It’s nothing, really. Do you want a picture?” Spiderman asked.
“Sure!”
The camera became very shaky as it switched hands. The view changed from the back camera to the front camera, and it showed Spiderman next to a young girl no older than 10.
“Oh, this is a video,” Spiderman said.
[cut]
The bell rang to signify the end of school, startling Peter and Ned. A few moments later, the other Academic Decathlon students came into the gym.
“Ok, losers, let’s get this show on the road!” MJ yelled.
After Academic Decathlon practice, Peter walked to the front of the school with Ned and MJ to meet Happy.
“See you Saturday!” Peter said.
“See you!” Ned waved as Peter climbed into the car.
The ride back to the tower was not as short as the ride to school, seeing as rush hour was setting in.
“So, are you ready for the weekend?” Happy asked.
“You bet,” Peter said.
They finally arrived back at the tower after what felt like a Very. Long. Drive. Peter thanked Happy and ran inside the tower.
“Welcome back, Peter,” FRIDAY greeted once Peter was alone in the elevator.
“Hi, FRIDAY,” Peter said. “Is Tony in the lab?”
“Yes, he is. Would you like me to alert him of your arrival?”
“You can if you want to.”
The elevator doors opened to Tony’s Penthouse. Peter dropped his things next to the outside elevator doors and quickly climbed the stairs down to a special sub level where Tony’s personal lab was.
Tony looked up when Peter walked in.
“Heya Kiddo! How was school?” Tony asked.
“It was fine. Nothing special happened today. Well, Ned and I did watch a Spiderman fancam. It was just clips of me. Of Spiderman.” Peter explained.
“A Spiderman fancam. Wow.” Tony wasn’t quite sure what to say about that.
“I know. Anyway, how was your day, Mr. Stark?”
“You know you can take me up on that bet from earlier. And, it was fine. I didn’t have anything to do so I’ve been down here waiting for you, mostly.”
Peter smiled and joined Tony at the table. He watched Tony work for a few minutes before deciding that his own project would be more interesting to work on.
Peter’s project was a small one that wasn’t very practical at all. It was a small competition robot, which Peter had named “Le Scooper” because of its scooping ability. The purpose of this robot was solely to flip other robots over, and to be able to function even if it got flipped on its head.
Peter and Tony worked on their respective projects in a comfortable silence until FRIDAY spoke up.
“Boss, it’s 7:30 and you haven't eaten since before noon. Might I suggest eating dinner?” FRIDAY asked.
“Oh, crap, yeah,” Tony said, abandoning his project. “Usually Pepper is here to remind me of these things…”
“Where is she?” Peter asked.
“On a business trip. She’ll be back in a few days.” Tony held the door open for Peter and they both walked up the stairs.
Peter walked quickly into the kitchen and opened the fridge. He was disappointed to find that there was not much in there as he was quite hungry.
“I guess I forgot to go shopping…” Tony mused.
“What can we make from some shredded mozzarella....an orange...and a half-empty bottle of sprite?” Peter asked sarcastically.
“Let’s just order in. How about a pizza?” Tony asked, whipping out his phone.
“Yeah, pizza sounds good.”
They ordered one cheese pizza and one half-pepperoni-half-black-olives pizza. While waiting for the pizza to arrive, the two of them sat down to watch some Netflix.
“What are you thinking? A movie maybe?” Tony asked.
“No, actually, I was thinking I’d show you an episode of a show I’ve been watching. If that’s okay?” Peter said with trepidation.
“What? Peter Parker making a definitive decision? Wow.” Tony said in a mocking tone. Peter shoved him.
“Mr. Stark, come on! He complained.
“Ok, ok. Yeah, go ahead. I’d love to see the show.” Tony motioned for Peter to put on the show.
The show was Supernatural. The episode was “Mystery Spot”.
“Oh, it’s just like ‘Groundhog Day’,” Tony noticed.
“Yeah, it is!” Peter agreed.
The pizza arrived in the middle of the episode, but they didn’t stop watching. They finished the equivalent of one whole pizza by the time the episode was over.
“That’s kinda mean and unsatisfying,” Peter said.
“I agree. I like the ending of ‘Groundhog Day’ better,” Tony agreed. Peter nodded.
After watching “Mystery Spot” it was only 8:20 so Peter and Tony decided to play some video games together.
“If you throw another blue shell at me I will never let you sit in my Audi again!” Tony threatened.
“No! You can’t mean that!” Peter yelled.
It was truly a neck and neck race. But Peter won.
“Ha ha!” he shouted with glee.
“Come on! This is like the third time in a row!” Tony complained.
“You just can’t beat the best,” Peter told him.
Tony and Peter played a few more rounds of Mario Kart. Eventually, though, they got bored. There wasn’t really anything left to do, so they just layed around. And then, eventually, on each other.
Suddenly, Peter dropped his phone on his face. He just flinched and sighed really loud.
“You good?” Tony said, clearly amused. Peter picked his phone up off his face.
“Yes,” he said.
The moon rose higher and higher in the sky as the night went on. Peter and Tony had not moved--they were quite comfortable. Peter began to doze a bit, and Tony started running his hands through Peter’s hair. It was quiet. It was nice.
But, of course, moments like these always seem to get ruined. Through the thick haze of sleep, Peter heard Tony mutter something under his breath. And then he sneezed.
Peter was brought abruptly back to consciousness.
“Bless you,” he offered.
“Thanks,” Tony said. “Sorry, you were just getting to sleep.”
“It’s fine,” Peter told him. He nuzzled back into Tony’s chest and closed his eyes.
A little while later, Tony got a phone call. Peter just barely registered this as he was so close to the edge of sleep.
“Hello?” he heard Tony say. Peter could just make out the response over the phone.
“Tony? It’s Stephen. Strange.” the voice said.
“Strange?” Tony asked. “Oh, wait. I remember. The wizard.”
“I’m not--that’s not important. I called to tell you that I detected a crono-anomaly near-”
“I’m coming out of my cage and I’ve been doing just fine...”