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The hall is filled with students today, voices travelling like bees in a hive around the open lecture hall as they find their seats. Days like these don’t come often, not when Tony Stark has been such a recluse ever since That day.
But it’s finally arrived, and when Peter saw the flyer in the ads underneath the picture he’d taken of Spiderman swinging off a building, his heart stuttered. He had kept a mental check on the date, and this morning, when he woke up, his day was rushed with anxiety. He doesn’t know what makes him do it; what force drives his feet forward, why he pauses in front of the lecture hall and simply breathes. Why am I even here? he asks himself, and even the voice inside of his head sounds tired.
When the lecture hall begins to fill with seats, Peter begins to look for his own in the mass of people. Even inside the biggest lecture hall in the state, he struggles, and it’s a few minutes before he grabs a place near the back, where a group of students are excitedly whispering to each other about what they think Stark’s going to talk about today.
Peter tunes them out. Pulls out his laptop instead, in favour of looking like he belongs, when he knows he doesn’t.
You don’t even go here, he thinks viciously. He should leave. This wasn’t—
This wasn’t a good idea.
His hand is already moving towards his bag when it stops. The endless cacophony of voices halt, trailing, before the buzz starts again.
Tony has walked on stage. There’s a five o’clock shadow lining his face, and even from his seat, all the way up in the back, Peter can see the bags under his eyes.
Peter can’t—
“Hey guys. Nice being on the front lines for once.” The voice sounds like Peter’s did. “I know you’re all excited to see the amazing Tony Stark, but please, we’re here to actually learn something today, right?”
There’s a chitter that echoes through the classroom as if people don’t know whether they should be laughing or not. Peter simply frowns and tries not to move.
“Ha…anyway, so. There’s….a lot of you. Wow, I didn’t know I was so appreciated like that—that’s going to make someone jealous.”
Cap, Peter thinks, unbidden. His head tilts.
“So, um, today I’m going to be doing a seminar on electromagnetism…”
Peter sits there, listening, and decides that something is off. There’s a sort of…awkwardness about Tony, one that never showed itself in all the interviews he gave—maybe they cut them out? Peter wonders if he’s nervous, but that image doesn’t coincide with the man he knew.
With the man who doesn’t know him.
So he tries not to let it bother him. Tries not to let the blatant exhaustion that shows on his old-mentor’s face get to him.
(Tries not to scream at the sight).
“So, this? This here is a circle,” is the line that Peter tunes back into. There’s a rock lodging itself in his throat, but all that comes out is a sort of deformed chuckle that makes him cough it away.
The person beside him looks at him weird, and Peter ignores him.
“It sort of reminds me of the time I lost my robot to the elevator,” Tony laughs to himself. “Took ages to find him, but thankfully no one died. Just got covered in mustard .”
Peter remembers that day. All the Avengers were woken up by a blaring siren, courtesy of FRIDAY, only for Tony to come running to say that DUM-E was missing. The whole group had gone on a mass robot-hunt, only for Clint to come back an hour later, covered in mustard with the robot in his arms.
He said he didn’t want to talk about it.
Tony never let him live it down.
I should leave, he thinks.
But his feet stay, ever the traitors. There’s a part of him that leans forward at the desk, fists clenching as Tony mentions more things. More instances that Peter could see in his own mind, clear as if they happened yesterday. References to Cap’s ever-bearing presence; Bruce’s weird quirks when it came to writing science reports where he’d write the credits in the margins; how this was a science lecture, not a report on magic, and no one should go asking about it because wizards were jerks anyway.
Peter laughs again at that one. Tells himself that it's not borderline hysterical.
The end of the lecture begins to draw near, and Peter can feel his heart rate picking up.
He realises, belatedly, that he doesn’t want to leave.
His mind is full of memories, of days he’d spent in the tower, nights he’d wasted away in Tony’s workshop, his mentor’s voice drowning out the worries of all the schoolwork he had to get done that day.
He knows that once he steps out of this room, it’s all going to wash away.
“Well, that’s about all I have for today,” Tony smiles, and it’s the first genuine one Peter sees all day. “Maybe next time, I’ll talk to you about radiology or spiders or something.”
Claps erupt, drowning out his senses completely.
But Peter sits there. Silent. Unmoving.
Or Spiders or something.
The words ring as loud as the clapping and talking.
He runs out. Sprints.
“Mr. Stark,” he cries, yelling out the name he’d refused to speak for such a long time. “Wait!” There’s already a crowd forming, but Peter needs to be sure. There’s a bead of sweat trailing down his forehead by the time he makes it in earshot of the man.
(He can’t remember the last time he was this close to Tony. He tries not to think about memories at all.)
“Mr. Stark!”
He stops. Please, Peter thinks.
“Mr. Stark, I—”
“Please, kid, I don’t have time for this.”
If you would just look at me, then—
Peter doesn’t finish the thought. Doesn’t want to get his hopes up.
Instead he asks, “That thing you said, at the end of your lecture. About the spiders, why…”
He’s grasping at straws, and Tony probably thinks he’s just some crazy fanboy, some know-it-all trying to get a celebrity's attention, but Peter has to know.
“Oh, that?” Tony still hasn’t turned around, still walking with purpose away from the crowd of people trying to reach him—the ones who weren’t as fast as Peter. “Just a joke, really.”
“But—”
“Look, kid.”
Tony turns to him. There’s a moment where something flickers behind his eyes; Peter can see it.
“I don’t know why I say the things I do. I don’t know, it’s probably just a reference to Natasha or something. Don’t take my words to heart.”
He turns around.
Walks away, and Peter lets him, feet stuck.
Maybe it was the reflection of the light. Maybe Peter imagined it. He’d been making references, saying all those things about the Avengers—
He never said anything about me.
The moment the thought hits, Peter almost stumbles. The crowd of people vying for Tony’s attention have finally caught up, and he lets them wash him away.
Lost in the sea of endless faces, voices, and chatter.
Just another kid.
It is, Peter has come to know, all he’ll ever be.