Chapter Text
Frank would really like to just get through his junior year, no funny business, no major (he’s talking bone-breaking, hospital-visiting) fights, and absolutely no weird shit.
Yeah. Wishful thinking.
He slides into his chair two minutes after the bell for homeroom rings like his death knell and raises his chin at the teacher, daring her to call him out for it. She just huffs and looks back at her attendance sheet, ticking off his name. Fuck yeah, five minute grace period for traffic. It’s his lucky day.
It’s also his lucky day because Mikey is already here. His uniform jacket is all rumpled and his beanie is slanted off to one side, like he’d either been in a rush that morning or he had some, uh, urgent business before class.
Frank nudges Mikey with his foot. When he looks up, Frank gestures to his beanie and raises an eyebrow. Mikey responds by not responding at all, which is lame as fuck. He just looks back down at his desk without making a facial expression.
Mikey has his notebook out, which is rare for him, so Frank tries to sneak a glance in case it’s some notes or shit he missed, although it’s unlikely he’ll bother copying them even if they are. But Mikey's notebook doesn’t have his usual scattered, stream-of-consciousness bullet points in it that it usually does. It’s covered margin-to-margin with ink (Mikey only uses pencil), and the handwriting is godawful. Like, Frank isn’t even sure it’s English. Mikey’s handwriting isn’t great on the best of days, but at least Frank can read it. He could be given a hundred years with this fucking essay of chicken scratch, and he wouldn’t be able to crack it.
Mikey flings his arm over the page as soon as he notices Frank trying to peek, and Frank curses his lack of subtlety. Before Frank can push, about the messy uniform or the notebook, the teacher starts talking and Frank is forced to slump back into his chair and at least pretend to be facing the front of the room.
Frank’s not exactly what you’d call a classic prep school student. He’s got a scorpion tattoo on his neck (thanks, Mom, for agreeing to that), and he’s got gauges, and he has a guitar case in his locker that holds his absolute baby – a glimmering six-string named Pansy. He wears stained white converse instead of the wingtips the dress code technically says are mandatory, and he refuses to cut his hair above his ears. His uniform slacks are almost big enough to qualify as honorary skater jeans. He wears them with pride even though he knows he’d eat shit on wheels – none of the prep kids can skateboard either, so they can’t give him shit for it.
Not that they would. Fucking sheep would probably call him gay for thinking of skating anywhere instead of getting driven by his family’s chauffeur. That, you know, he doesn’t have. Obviously. Because he’s not a damn millionaire.
That’s the thing with Hudson Prep – he sticks out like a sore thumb. All the other kids, they’ve got money, or they’re crazy smart, or jocks, or something like that. Even Mikey's family isn’t on the low end of Hudson Prep annual income.
Frank’s not rich, he’s honestly not that smart, and he’s definitely not a jock. He’s here because of a scholarship that he never even wanted, but his mom looked so happy when the acceptance came in the mail, he felt like he had to go.
He spent the next two years picking fights, failing classes, and generally being a huge disappointment. It all came to a head last summer, when his mom sat him down at the kitchen table only a few weeks before school started again.
The kitchen was absolutely Frank’s mom’s domain. She commanded the stovetop and counter space like she was commanding an army, and she never tolerated intrusions. Frank thought it was because she worked as a line cook for so long – after that much time spent in such a crowded kitchen, it made sense she'd get freaked whenever Frank intruded on her space. Didn’t make it any less like defusing a bomb every time he wanted a snack, though.
The kitchen table was a kind of truce space. They could talk about anything at this table, and whatever didn’t get worked out in the moment, they’d table it (ha) for the next meal.
Which is why it wigged him out so fucking bad when his mom called him to the table at 3 p.m., way before she’d even started cooking dinner.
“Frankie,” she said, voice all soft like it never was during these discussions, “come here. Sit.”
Frank sat. And waited.
His mother stared at him with unblinking, expectant eyes, and Frank could not think of what he did wrong.
He took out the trash. He fed the dog. He even picked up his room (well, kinda). But his mom was really looking like she thought he’d forgotten something huge and important, and it was making him squirm.
Thankfully, she showed mercy.
“I just got off the phone with the headmaster of Hudson Prep,” she said, and through the sinking feeling in his stomach, Frank resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
Headmaster. He was the fucking principal. Headmaster sounded so pretentious.
His mom was upset, though, so he held off on the attitude. Instead, he just said, “what was it about?”
“He let me know of your,” and here his mom paused like she was trying to reconfigure the headmaster’s words, “troubles, when it comes to socializing with your peers,” she landed on.
“My fights,” Frank translated.
“Your behavior issues,” his mom shot back like they were haggling at the farmers market.
Frank leaned back, content with the compromise. “Right.”
His mom nodded. “And he let me know that your scholarship might be in jeopardy if it continues.”
That got Frank to sit up. He’d gone to the headmaster’s office a thousand times before, but never once had his scholarship factored into it. It was always academic jeopardy, or detention, or things like that. Mostly because he made sure to never pick fights – he only ended what other shitheads started. But he guessed that even the most lenient of disciplinarians has a limit to the number of black marks they could ignore. He’d just managed to hit the headmaster’s. Great.
His mom was still talking. “So you’ll need to make extra sure you stay out of trouble this year, okay? I know you get bullied at that school-”
“I’m not getting bullied,” Frank spat defensively. Bullied would imply he didn’t fight back.
His mom steamrolled right over him. “-and you don’t like it there very much, but it means a lot to me that you’re going. Your father loved Hudson Prep, Frankie. And I just want you to get a good education. Do something really special with your life.”
Frank wanted to argue that he can do something special with his life, something that involved Pansy getting new strings and him going to basement bars with a drummer and a bassist and a mic, but he’s had that conversation enough times to know it wouldn’t go anywhere. His mother’s thoughts on him dropping out to be in a band were very clear.
And he hated whenever she brought up his dad. The man had walked out when Frank was twelve – right before the letter came from Hudson. It was Frank’s pet theory that the last thing he’d done before vanishing off the face of the planet was set him up at prep school, like some kind of fucked-up apology for abandoning him and Mom, and he didn’t forgive him. It was kinda part of why he lashed out so much at school. He wanted to spit in the face of the Iero legacy at Hudson. Maybe wherever his dad was, he could feel his reputation tarnishing in real time.
“And that means keeping your grades up, too,” his mom finished. “I want you to get at least B’s in all your classes this year. I know you’re capable of it, Frankie. You’re such a bright kid.”
Frank just nodded.
So that’s how it was going to be. Stay out of fights, get good grades, and don’t get kicked out of the school he hated.
Easy.
Mikey tapping him on the shoulder pulls him out of his daydreaming.
“We’re doing partner work now. What did you want to ask me?” he asks.
Frank grins. “Your beanie’s crooked. You sleep late?”
“No,” Mikey says flatly, which Frank can translate just fine. He holds his hand out for fist bump. Mikey returns it with a roll of his eyes.
“Hell yeah, Mikey McMillin.” Frank looks around at the rest of the room, where all the other kids have split off into their predictable pairs and are now giggling over worksheets that they aren’t writing on. “What’s the work?”
“Do you ever pay attention?” Mikey grumbles, but he passes the sheet over anyway. Frank glances at it and his eyes glaze over. It’s just so fucking boring, he can’t help it.
He switches focus. “What’s all the shit in your notebook about?”
Mikey, shockingly, glances away. His face looks more uncomfortable than Frank's ever seen in his two years of knowing the guy (although, admittedly, that just means he’s got a tiny little frown on one corner of his mouth). “Nothing,” he says, quick and quiet.
Frank is so not dropping this. “No, man, now you gotta tell me. Is it fanfiction? Is it freaky?” he asks, pushing into Mikey's personal space to make half-fake swipes for the notebook.
Mikey snaps it shut and tries to hide the cover with his hands, but Frank knows better.
All Mikey's notebooks are bright colors and undecorated. This one has a black cover plastered with cheap-looking stickers, and they’re weird too. Frank can make out the bottom half of a UFO, the top half of a girl in chainmail, and the rightmost edge of a dragon or a snake or something. Mikey, seeing his mistake, tries to stuff the notebook in his desk, but Frank slams his hands over the book before he gets a shot. Mikey looks like Frank has a gun to his head.
Frank looks at him with wonder. “Whose notebook is this?” he asks. “The girl from this morning?”
“What? What girl?” Mikey asks, so genuinely Frank thinks he imagined the whole disheveled-uniform thing. “No, it’s-”
He bites down on the words, which only makes Frank more curious. He tugs on the notebook, mostly just to watch Mikey jump and tighten his grip on it.
“Whose is it, then?”
Mikey looks away and mumbles something Frank doesn’t hear.
“What’d you say?”
Mikey stares straight at him. “It’s my sister’s.”
Frank blinks. Once. twice.
“You have a sister?”