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Peter winced as the voices in the classroom rose in volume. He didn’t know what was going on, but it was almost as if they were all talking through a megaphone and yelling through it, as it was held next to his ear. He didn’t think anything was different this time around, but that didn’t mean that all of the sudden the noise was so much more than he was used to hearing.
The sound of chalk on the board didn’t help either, for some reason it was sounding even sharper than it had been before. He could hear every scratch, every little piece of chalk falling off and every movement on the board which was added to the already loud noise of the classroom.
His new Spanish Teacher’s voice didn’t help there either. She had started at the beginning of the month and made it clear that she didn’t tolerate nonsense. What said nonsense was wasn’t all that clear to anyone. She seemed to not want to be there, for starters, and didn’t believe in people getting special treatment for any reason. No one liked her, Peter included, but today she was being too much. There was this high pitches quality to it that didn’t help him right now. Every word she uttered sounded like screeching next to his ear, vibrating through his head and echoing there in a way he hadn’t had happen before.
This morning had been fine, he didn’t even notice something. He’d gotten to school in time too, able to get everything in order before he was expected in his home room when the bell rang. Nothing pointed into the direction of having a day like this.
But after second period, it was like his senses were dialed up to eleven all of the sudden. No real cause, no warning as to what was happening. Shaking his head a few times at the start of Spanish Class, he had already reached for his noise canceling headphones, but had been told to put them away by Ms. Garcia, the new Spanish Teacher. Despite being quite young, she didn’t seem to believe in special treatment and as he didn’t want to get on her bad side, Peter listened. Even if each and every noise was making him wince.
Ned reached over as soon as he noticed the look on his face, worry very evident in his voice, “Dude, are you OK? You don’t look so good…”
Whining lowly, Peter shook his head. He couldn’t say anything more, couldn’t explain what was going on without giving away that he was Spider-Man. Everything was already too much and he knew he would be saying things he wouldn’t be able to take back now.
There was no one who would believe him, leaving him to have to sit this one out as much as possible. May wasn’t available either, being on a double shift at the hospital since last night. Tony and Pepper might be an option, but no one would believe him there either. He had spend the night at the tower, knew both of them were listed as his emergency contact, but he also knew from experience no one would believe him if he asked for them.
Ever since coming back he had found that things had changed between all of them. Finding out that Mr. Stark invented time travel to get him back was bad enough. He still didn’t know how to handle it all. But he and May had a support system to fall back on now that their whole life had been uprooted from coming back. No one knew how to go about doing this, so they had to take it one day at a time. He knew this wasn’t an easy time for anyone, but Ms. Garcia seemed to not want to do any effort in dealing with this either.
His watch kept lighting up, no doubt reading on his biosignals and wanting to do something about it. In the end he took it off and put it in his bag as to not disturb the others. He had seen people looking back at him and had seen the glare Ms. Garcia had given him at the beeps the watch kept on making.
Coming back from the blip had a lot of consequences, but one of the worst had to be that no one knew what Peter had done. He was still healing from it all when they had forced him back to school, no one knew about him grasping Tony’s hand when he went to snap and subsequently made others do the same. They shared the power of the stones so while there were some burns and shot nerves, no one died from saving the world.
Peter hadn’t really been harmed, but his arms did feel heavy at times. It was almost as if the stones still had a lasting impact and maybe they had. None of them knew what the Stones could do outside of what they had been shown to do. But the way they influenced those that wielded them was a mystery. Mr. Stark was trying to figure that out, just to make sure none of those helping safe the universe would pull on the short end of a stick.
On top of getting used to the world around him once more, coming back and finding out five years had passed, as well as the notion that a lot of people were suddenly brought back from wherever they had been and needed to adjust to that once more, Peter also had episodes from his time on Titan, being in Space and whatever had happened in that space they had been in those five years. He couldn’t talk about that either and maybe this too had a way of influencing what he was experiencing right now.
PTSD was a real thing, even for a teenager who had been there at the end of the fight. He would attend weekly meeting at the Compound or the Tower with the others to deal with them. But kept those silent, again, as he didn’t want to answer questions he didn’t know how to answer.
“Ms. Garcia, something is wrong with Peter”, he heard Ned exclaim next to him. Which had the attention of the whole class on him, making him wince.
High heeled shoes came to a stop next to his desk, “What seems to be the problem, Mr. Parker”, Ms. Garcia asked in a snooty tone. She often did that when she didn’t believe people weren’t feeling well. For one reason or another, she either didn’t like teaching or she had absolutely no trust in their generation.
Opening and closing his mouth, he shook his head. His head hurt and speaking would only make the words echo in his head making all of this even worse then it already was.
Ms. Garcia huffed, “Nothing wrong, then, I’d appreciate it, Mr. Leeds, if you stopped interrupting my class from now on.” She turned around and made her way to the front of the class, but no one chuckled at that, no one spoke up, all of them were still staring at Peter. Was he looking that bad, then?
Wincing at another spike of pain went through his head as Ms. Garcia wrote something on the chalk board, Peter wanted to hide away. He wanted to just be done with this, but he had no idea how to go about this right now. The pain was bad enough that he became non-verbal, wincing now and again and ignoring the phone in his pocket which hadn’t stopped vibrating since the attack started. He’d even put his smart watch (which also acted as the new casing for the Iron Spider and Karen) away as it kept on lighting up.
Having a double Spanish period didn’t help either, he had to sit through this for one more hour when the bell rang. Lunch would be after, but with how he was feeling right now, he didn’t know if he’d manage to make it that far.
He doesn’t remember much of the next half hour, trying to keep conscious while he can still feel eyes on him. No doubt because he looks just as bad as he feels. Wondering why Ms. Garcia isn’t doing anything about it. Peter can’t say anything about it, he doesn’t know how. So when the door to their classroom opens and he hears a familiar voice speak up he sighs in relief.
“I know this is unlikely, but I haven’t heard anything and I worry”, Tony Start states as he steps into the room. The whole class looks on in shock, eyes wide, as Tony Stark steps up towards Peter’s desk. His eyes looking at Ms. Garcia, “Your teacher can tell me why there is someone obviously unwell in her classroom and she doesn’t do anything about it.”
MJ pipes up, “Ned pointed it out, but I think Peter’s non-verbal now and instead of speaking up he couldn’t. Ms. Garcia took that as her cue to keep teaching she didn’t let him take out his noise canceling headphones either when he asked for it at the start of class. She’s been like this since she started at the start of the month.” Then, in true MJ fashion, she looks at the office worker that is with Mr. Stark, “I don’t think she likes to teach, to be honest, I’ve only ever heard complaints about her.”
Ms. Garcia looks like she swallowed a lemon, trying to placate Mr. Stark with Peter not saying anything so she assumed everything was alright.
Mr. Stark rolled his eyes, “Yeah, I can see what you’re saying, MJ. The fact that someone like this should be looking over teenagers but can’t even see that someone is obviously not well doesn’t speak well for her.”
Crouching down next to Peter, his eyes are soft as he pushed up his glasses, “Pete?”
Never before had Peter been happy that Clint taught him sign language, as he’s flying through gestures as he mentions it came up all of the sudden about two hours ago. He’s been non-verbal ever since and he didn’t look at his phone or watch as it just hurt his eyes.
Without anymore prompting, Tony pushes his glasses onto Peter’s nose with a soft, “FRIDAY, protocol soft kitty, Underoos isn’t feeling well.”
As soon as he said that, nanites reform the glasses on his nose to become headphones and glasses in one. Covering his ears to mute the sound around him as well as darken the glasses to keep the light out better. Sighing in relief, he leans against Tony’s side as he does so. The noise around him finally stops and he’s able to just breath without everything hurting.
Dozing off, he’s certain that Tony is chewing out Ms. Garcia but he doesn’t see or hear anything about that. All he does notice is someone picking him up and taking out of the classroom. The smell of coconut and motor oil making it clear Tony is carrying him making Peter fall asleep for real at the notion that he’s safe and doesn’t have to worry as his hero is keeping his safe.