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“This is humiliating.”
Peter rolled his eyes and shifted in his seat, resting his head against the bus window. “This is my life, Dad. Way to be supportive.”
Beside him, his deaged father – or Tony, as he was now supposed to exclusively call him – sighed and rolled his eyes into the back of his head. He’d been on a mission with the Avengers when he’d been hit with some kind of magic beam that’d deaged him to around sixteen years old. Not really knowing what else to do with him, because he obviously couldn’t carry on as an Avenger, and nobody trusted him to stay at home by himself even when he was an adult, Peter’s Pops had decided that Da– Tony should go to school with Peter so he could keep an eye on him.
Peter... had been excited by the thought at first, but now he was really starting to regret agreeing to this so readily.
“First, I’m kicked off the team. Second, my husband refuses to have sex with me. Third, he put my lunch in a lunch box with my regular face on it –“
“Please, please, never talk to me about your sex life ever again,” Peter grimaced. “And you… you might wanna not mention Pops. Or the fact you like guys at all –“
“What?” Tony frowned. “I’m not gonna hide who I am, kid.”
“I’m not saying hide it,” Peter replied quickly, unsure how to get him to understand. “Just… just don’t mention it, maybe? High school kids can be really cruel about this stuff.”
“I got over what other people thought of me when I was a scrawny eleven-year-old in high school the first time around,” Tony huffed, and then grinned at the girl sat opposite them who shot him a strange look.
“Stop it!” Peter hissed, tugging Tony back when he looked like he was going to lean over and talk to her. “What are you doing?”
“First I can’t mention Steve. Now I can’t talk to people. Am I allowed to do anything?” Tony rolled his eyes again.
“You can keep your head down, not cause trouble, and blend in with the wallpaper until Pops and the others figure out how to turn you back,” Peter told him seriously. “I’m not messing around, Da– Tony.”
He was really going to have to work on the whole name thing.
“You’re no fun, Pete,” Tony sighed as the bus finally came to a stop outside the school, and everyone started getting to their feet. “What’s the worst that could possibly happen?”
“Um, you could get beaten up?” Peter replied immediately, surging to his feet after Tony as he got off the bus. “You could get me beaten up?”
“Nah,” Tony shook his head, a little spring in his step as he followed the other kids towards the entrance. “Wait, who beats you up? Do you need me to talk to them?”
“No!” Peter cried, grabbing him by the back of the collar to stop him getting any further away. “Look, just… please don’t cause trouble? Please?”
Tony assessed him for a moment, and then sighed. “I promise I won’t cause trouble.”
“Thank you,” Peter sighed, feeling something hard and uncomfortable in his chest dislodge a little. “Okay, let’s go over everything one more time. Your name is Tony Carbonell, you transferred from out of state, you’re sixteen, you skipped two grades, and – do you have your timetable?”
“Um…” Tony patted his jacket pockets, and then pulled a crumpled piece of paper from one. “Yes. I have AP Chemistry first.”
“Great,” Peter nodded. “You wanna take a left when you get inside and walk past the lockers; it’s the last door on your right. If you don’t know where any of your classes are today, you’re gonna wanna ask a teacher, not a kid. You probably won’t end up in the right class if you ask a kid.”
“Good to know,” Tony nodded, and then grinned again. “Guess this is where I leave you then, huh, kiddo? You got a kiss for your old man, or –“
“I’ll see you at lunch,” Peter rolled his eyes, and then left his Dad to find his own way.
They were going to eat him alive.
---
Because he got crammed into a locker, Peter didn’t see Tony in the hall during the changeover between morning classes. He did, however, find the baseball hat he had thought he’d lost behind a stack of books he hadn’t moved in almost a month, so at least there was that.
He didn’t start to worry until lunchtime rolled around, however. He’d texted Tony during class directing him to Peter’s usual table (you know the broken table between the cafeteria doors and the trashcan? Yeah, that one) and had gotten a thumbs up emoji in return, which… was odd. His father should not be using emojis.
Tony wasn’t where they had agreed to meet when Peter got to the cafeteria. Thinking his class had maybe just run over by a couple of minutes, Peter got into the lunch line and snagged up two trays, thinking he’d get his Dad lunch to save him queuing, too.
“Hey, Parker!” Flash called from a couple people behind Peter, and he just sighed, bracing himself. “Who’s the other tray for, your boyfriend?”
Peter just ignored him and stepped up to the front of the line, smiling at the lunch lady. “Two mac and cheeses, please.”
The lunch lady looked mightily unimpressed that he was asking for two portions, but in the end it seemed like she just didn’t care enough to make a fuss, and handed them over.
“Hey, Parker, I was talking to you,” came Flash’s voice, closer this time, and Peter braced himself even before he turned to face him.
“Leave me alone, Flash,” he sighed, and then moved away to grab a couple bottles of water. “Not today, okay –“
“Hey, Flash!”
Peter started, surprised, as his Dad appeared from nowhere, a gaggle of other kids around him. In a turn of events that Peter had never expected in a million years, Flash Thompson grinned, of all things, and then stuck his hand out to shake his Dad’s hand.
“Carbonell!” Flash boomed. “How’s it going?”
“Pretty good, pretty good,” Tony replied with a nod. “I see you’re chatting with my guy Pete –“
“Hah, funny,” Flash chuckled. “I was just about to wail on this nerd.”
Peter’s Dad, at least, had the presence of mind to frown. “Who, Peter?”
“I’m surprised you even know his name,” Flash snorted. “Nobody else does. Looks like he got lunch for his boyfriend, too. Look –“
“One of them is for you,” Peter mumbled, looking down at his feet. All of a sudden, he felt embarrassed, and hated the fact that his father, knowingly or not, had had a part in that.
“What?” Flash outright laughed. “Carbonell, you know this nerd?”
“We, um…” For a second, Tony seemed to falter, obviously caught up between his new friendship and the fact Peter was his son. “We met at a summer camp last year. A, uh, math camp.”
“Ew,” Flash grimaced, and then patted Tony on the back. “Well, when you get bored of him, and you will, we have a spare seat at our table for you. Thanks for letting me copy your pop quiz, by the way.”
And then, with nothing more than another grin, Flash wandered off to the bullies’ table at the other side of the cafeteria.
Peter and Tony stood in silence for a few moments, before Peter cleared his throat. “So… you let Flash copy your pop quiz?”
“Um, yeah,” his Dad replied, following him as Peter made his way over to his usual table. “I’m hopefully only here for a couple of weeks maximum, and he was struggling, so I thought what the hell.”
“You know he probably only likes you because of that, right?” Peter replied, probably both a little too quickly and bitterly.
“I dunno,” Tony shrugged as he sat down and pulled a plate of mac and cheese towards him. “He seems a little lost. You ever think he just wants a friend?”
“That is such a dad thing to say,” Peter rolled his eyes. “Did you not hear him call me a nerd? Or do you just not care?”
“Of course I care,” Tony replied, affronted. “And I’ll speak to him about it. Hey, maybe I can break the ice between you two a little, get a dialogue going –“
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Peter shook his head, and then took a sip of his water. “Flash doesn’t have the vocabulary.”
“See, now who’s being mean?” Tony hummed, and then grimaced as he took a bite of his mac and cheese. “Also, remind me to call the school board when we get home, because I never want this trash in your body ever again.”
Peter just sighed and tried to refrain from smacking his head against the surface of the table in front of him.
---
“Peter.”
Peter flinched, but didn’t look up from his work.
“Psst, Pete.”
This time, along with the hissed words, he got a pencil flicked at the back of his head. Sighing, he turned in his seat to the bench behind him where his Dad was grinning sheepishly.
“What?” Peter asked quietly, rubbing the back of his head.
“Can I copy your homework?” Tony asked him pleadingly. “Please?”
“Why didn’t you do it?” Peter asked, exasperated. “We had a full week!”
His Dad had been a teenager for almost two weeks at this point. The first few days had been okay – fun, even – but things had slowly gotten worse and worse for Peter since then. His Dad had somehow managed to win over all of the popular kids, including the bullies, and Peter just didn’t understand. He was just as much of a nerd as Peter; he was currently wearing a Star Wars t-shirt, for god’s sake. If Peter had shown up to school in that, he would have gotten the snot kicked out of him. So why hadn’t his Dad?
“I was gonna do it last night, but then I Skyped Suzie Jenkins instead,” Tony replied, and then momentarily ducked his head as their teacher walked past. “Come on, kiddo.”
Peter growled, annoyed, because he had worked hard on his homework. Then, against his better judgement, he dipped under the table to pull it from his bag, and discreetly handed it back to his Dad.
“Suzie has a crush on you, just so you know,” Peter hummed as he turned back to his work. “You might wanna be careful.”
“I know,” his Dad replied, and then paused. “You got number five wrong, son.”
“Why are you copying my homework if you can work it out faster?” Peter hissed, snapping around to look at him. “Give it back!”
No, no, I’m sorry,” Tony replied, holding a hand up defensively. “Hang on, I’m nearly done, I promise.”
With a last few scribbles, he dropped his pen and then passed the work back to Peter, who discreetly tucked it back into his bag while the teacher was helping another student. Assuming their exchange was done, because it had gotten to the point where he and his Dad didn’t speak a whole lot during classes, Peter turned back to his work and picked his pen up.
“Hey, Pete?”
Sighing, Peter dropped his pen again and turned back to his Dad. “Yeah?”
“I was thinking,” Tony mumbled, sticking his pen into his mouth to chew absent-mindedly, “that maybe I was gonna sit at the popular table today? You can come too, if you want; it’s just that the guys keep asking, and it seems kinda rude to turn them down, don’t you think?”
Peter froze for a moment, completely taken aback. “I… did they actually say I could sit with them?”
“Well, no,” Tony admitted, “but you’re with me, and they like me! They shouldn’t have a problem with it –“
“No thanks,” Peter shook his head, swallowing past a lump that was starting to form in his throat. “You go have fun, but I think I’m gonna stay at my regular table.”
“You sure?” his Dad asked, a confused frown on his face. “I’m sure they’d be okay with –“
“I don’t want to,” Peter replied firmly, and then turned back to his work. “It’s not like we have to be glued at the hip.”
Later, when Peter looked across the cafeteria at his Dad laughing it up at the popular table with all his new friends, he wondered if gluing himself to his father’s side might not be the worst idea in the world, if it meant he didn’t feel so lonely.
---
“- know that kids still go under the bleachers to make out? Didn’t kids in your day make out under the bleachers, Steve? Honestly, it’s kinda sweet in a gross, teenager way –“
While his Dad continued to speak about his day, Peter picked at his dinner and tuned the noise out. He wasn’t particularly hungry; he hadn’t been hungry for what felt like weeks, now. While his Dad had been having the time of his life in high-school, Peter had been getting further and further down the chain of command. He felt abandoned, alone, and all the more so because he knew it was at least partly his Dad’s fault.
“Peter?” his Pops asked softly, drawing him out of his thoughts and back to dinner. “How was your day? You’ve barely touched your potatoes; are you feeling okay?”
Peter took a deep breath and glanced at his Dad, who at least looked a little concerned. Then, shaking his head, he replied, “I’m fine. Just regular school stuff – it’s no biggie.”
“Are you sure?” his Pops enquired, and then shot his Dad a look, too.
“Y’know, Pete,” his Dad started quietly, and then cleared his throat. “You could maybe try a little harder to make some friends, kiddo –“
“Of course you’d say that!” Peter screamed, slamming his fork down on the table as he surged to his feet. “You’re so smooth and charming and cool! How do you do it? You’re smarter than me – why do they like you when they’ve only ever made fun of me for working hard? Why are you so popular when they think I’m such a freak? I thought I could trust you to be my friend when nobody else would, to protect me and help me, but you’re just like them!”
Kicking his chair out of the way, Peter turned and ran from the kitchen, not stopping until he was safely in the elevator heading for the penthouse and the sanctuary of his bedroom. In the confined space of the elevator, he finally let frustrated tears fall and a sob escape his lips.
He felt betrayed.
Stepping out of the elevator, he ran for his room and slammed the door behind him. Collapsing onto his bed, he curled up into a ball around one of his pillows and began to sob in earnest. He didn’t know how long he lay there, but it felt like an eternity before he heard a gentle knock on the door.
“Pete?” came his Dad’s voice from the other side of the door. “Petey?”
Peter ignored his voice, and then scrunched his eyes shut when he heard the door click open and closed again, and felt a dip in his bed as his Dad sat down.
“Y’know… when I was in high-school the first time, I was a lot like you,” his Dad started with a sigh. “I was smart, I wanted to learn, and I didn’t understand why that was wrong. That, along with the fact I was so much younger than the other kids, and… I was an easy target, I guess.
“They tortured me,” he continued quietly. “Made my life hell, no matter what I did. I guess… this time, I guess I just got caught up in the fact that people seemed to actually like me, and that was wrong of me.
“Truth is, they don’t really like me,” he sighed, and Peter finally raised his head to look at him. His Dad gave him a small, apologetic smile, and then lifted his shirt to reveal a smattering of deep bruises along his ribs and chest. “Kids are smart, these days. Don’t punch you where adults will see.”
“Dad…” Peter gasped, sitting up. “You have to tell someone –“
“I’m telling you,” his Dad replied quietly. “Because I love you, and I trust you, and I don’t want you to make the mistake I’ve made twice now.
“You don’t want to be friends with those kids. They’re fucking assholes, and I wish there was something I could do or say to make things better for you, but honestly? I’m still just as in the dark with this stuff as you are.
“I could get Pops to tell the Principle, but that’ll just make the bullying worse, won’t it? We could have you transfer schools, but being the new kid is just as bad as being the smart kid, right? I just… I don’t know how to make things better for you other than to tell you that you have less than a year left, and then you’re free.
“Guys like us might not run the playground, but we sure as hell run the world, kiddo,” his Dad finished, and then gripped Peter’s shoulder tightly. “You’re paying your dues early, sure, but your future’s bright, kid. You’re damn braver than I’ve ever been, too, so I know you can do this.”
“Thanks, Dad,” Peter whispered, and then listed to the side so Tony could wrap his arm around him. “I’m sorry you got beaten up.”
“Eh, could be worse,” his Dad shrugged. “I love you, Peter. I’m sorry I made you doubt that.”
“I love you, too,” Peter whispered.
“I’m sitting with you at lunch tomorrow,” his Dad decided as Peter pulled away. “And let’s hope to god I change back soon, because I can’t take much more shitty cafeteria food.”
Despite everything, Peter found himself laughing.