Chapter Text
“Have you heard about the new Spanish teacher?”
“I heard he’s blind.”
“I heard he’s like super hot.”
“I heard he’s got freakishly good hearing.”
Peter sat at lunch with Ned and MJ on his first day back to school, listening to all the mindless gossip that was spread throughout the cafeteria. Compared to normal, most of the chattering was actually focused around one subject: the new Spanish and law teacher.
Considering how many conversations he could hear (thanks to his enhanced hearing), the amount of chatter about this new teacher was unusual. Normally there would be people talking about 50 different subjects all at once around the room, so why was this one thing being talked about by so many different people? What made it even more unusual was the fact that this teacher would only be teaching a small portion of students. After all, Midtown was a science school first and foremost, and was significantly less interested in languages, let alone social studies. So why was everyone so interested?
Peter began running through all the possibilities in his head as to why this new teacher could be causing such interest.
Luckily, before Peter’s thoughts could spiral into everything that could be wrong with this new teacher, MJ snapped him out of his thoughts.
“Hey, loser. You with us?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I am. …What were you saying again?”
MJ leveled him with an unimpressed look but still recounted the conversation her and Ned had been having, allowing Peter to forget about his anxieties about his new class.
*
He remembered all his anxieties again when he got to the door of his Spanish class.
He stepped into the classroom for his next period, and his spider-sense immediately becoming a low buzzing in his head. He looked around for any small sign of danger (normally the source was Flash, throwing a bit of paper at his head or giving him a smug grin), and made eye contact with his new Spanish teacher. Well what he thought was eye contact, it was kind of hard to tell with the dark red sunglasses covering his eyes. The teacher smiled at him, causing Peter’s spider-sense to increase a little more, as he stared at the teacher.
“Welcome, everyone. Please, take a seat.”
Breaking out of his stupor, Peter cautiously maneuvered towards a free seat near the back of the class, where MJ was already sat. His spider-sense didn’t stop, making Peter watch this new teacher out of the corner of his eye as he took a seat.
MJ seemed uninterested in Peter’s growing anxiety, as she continued reading her book without even raising her eyes to look at him.
It took a few minutes for everyone to get in the classroom, as Peter sat there hoping that his head would stop buzzing with anticipation.
It did not.
“Hello class, my name is Mr. Murdock, and I’m your new Spanish teacher. This is my first day teaching, unless you count group study at college, so go easy on me if I make any mistakes.”
He finished his introduction with a wide smile, which only made Peter feel more tense. He just couldn't understand why his brain was insisting that such a seemingly nice person was making his brain shout at him that he was dangerous.
“I’m also blind, though it shouldn’t affect my teaching or your learning in any way, otherwise the school wouldn’t have hired me, but it’s still an important thing for you all to know.”
Great. Now Peter’s head was screaming about a blind man being dangerous.
Actually, was that a stereotype? MJ would probably tell him off for thinking like that.
The fact remained that something was seriously off with this guy, because his spider-sense had never let him down before. Though everyone else in the room seemed to think otherwise, as they all started to take out their notebooks and talk in hushed whispers.
It was fine. All Peter had to do was sit through one lesson.
He barely made it through the lesson, his constant anxiety making him even twitchier than normal, jumping when someone would drop their pencil or sneeze behind him.
As Peter and MJ stepped out of the class, his spider-sense dulled down almost as quickly as it had appeared an hour ago, allowing him to finally relax and see if he was the only person feeling like this.
“Don’t you think that there was something off about that teacher?”
MJ turned to him with a blank stare (though that was how she looked most of the time, so did it really matter?)
“Really? I thought he was great.”
“I don’t know. It’s just… I get this bad vibe from him.”
“Well maybe your bad-vibe-meter is wrong, because I’m pretty sure you’re the only person in class who thought that.”
“I’m being serious! It’s like my brain is telling me that he’s dangerous somehow, but I can’t see any reason why.”
“I doubt he would’ve been hired if he was going to hurt any of us. I think you’re just being paranoid Parker.” MJ said, lightly nudging him. “I’ve got to go see a teacher, so I’ll leave you to deal with your anxiety alone.”
“Yeah, um, bye MJ.”
He watched MJ walk away and figured maybe she was right, and he was just being paranoid.