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Being stuck in the Avengers Tower was not something Peter could complain about. He knew full well that he was incredibly lucky to have someone like Tony willing to take him in during a global pandemic.
May wasn’t sure about Peter staying away from home at first, but once the ventilators got waiting lists, she agreed it was the best, at least until things calmed down.
Moving into the Tower wasn’t as startling a transition as he anticipated.
It forced Peter to realize that he had been spending more time there than he’d thought. It was already a second home to him. The biggest difference was that now it was temporarily his only home.
He had his own room and bathroom, and a huge bed that felt like clouds, so he definitely wasn’t complaining. But any room started getting small if you sat in it staring at Zoom calls for long enough.
The itch to do something that came with the shrinking room was not unfamiliar. It wasn’t something he could ignore. Literally, the longer he let it fester, the more explosive the consequence seemed to be.
He’d quickly learned ways to redirect his energy when the itch came on.
For his first trick, he would change locations.
He chose the living room for the morning. Most of the Tower residents were still asleep at 8:52 AM, or already at work, leaving the room empty.
Or so it was supposed to.
This may have been a miscalculation on his part.
“Put the repulsor away,” Tony drawled as he passed by the couch and caught Peter messing around with a familiar piece of tech. “Pay attention to your teacher.”
Peter didn’t look up from the wires he was trying to see past in his hands.
He had his laptop balanced on top of his knees, so his face was in frame to record his attendance for class, even if he wasn’t looking at the slide deck Mr. Harrington was sharing with the class. The position allowed him to keep his hands above his keyboard and below the camera.
His not paying attention in class was a battle his teachers tended to learn was one they were never going to win around week three, if not day one.
“It’s fine, he can’t tell I’m working on it.”
“You have to start building good study habits if you want to be ready for MIT.”
“Not this again,” Peter groaned. “I could ace this class doing back flips while someone quizzed me—in Russian.”
“It’s the principle of it, Pete.”
Peter didn’t need to be looking up to know the man’s sigh came with his Am I Really Having This Argument Right Now? Face (patent pending).
“That’s not even impressive,” Tony remarked. “Your Russian is unreasonably good—why you decided to start—”
“To debate the—”
“‘The finer liquors’ you’ll never drink, yeah, yeah—Nat said the same thing,” he said. “And backflips pose as much of a challenge to you as hopscotch.”
Peter shrugged—Tony wasn’t wrong.
“Whatever,” he said. “You can’t make me.”
“That’s how it’s going to be, then?” Tony asked, amused. “I’ll just call Pepper and—”
“Dad, wait! No—” Peter set the tech on the couch cushion beside him. “There. You can fix your own stupid suit—oh, shit.”
“What?”
Peter ignored him. His question didn’t matter.
Not when it was over. Him. His life. His life as Peter Parker was over.
He thought he actually saw his life flash before his eyes as he realized he wasn’t actually muted, and his whole chemistry class was staring at him with their jaws resting on their keyboards.
Mr. Harrington was no help. “Russian and back flips, huh?”
Peter could tell the question was asked in good humor, but such rationale didn’t beat the part of him panicking at the idea of insulting one of the teachers he actually liked.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Harrington! It’s not that your class is boring or easy.”
Yeah, and you didn’t just say exactly that.
As Peter’s brain shorted out with the stress, he blurted, “I got a head start on the material over the summer?”
That sounded like a question.
“With Mr. Stark?” Cindy asked.
“Actually, Bruce helps me with chemistry stuff.”
Peter would like the jury to review his chemistry scores and pending patents instead of what he just said out loud on his own volition when considering his intelligence.
“Bruce Banner?” shouted at least three people, but thankfully two of them were muted.
Peter looked at his excited classmates on his screen and gulped.
“But I’m here now and ready to learn,” he said. “Go ahead, Mr. Harrington.”
And he’d never know if Mr. Harrington was going to take this cue or not because Betty spoke up before he could.
“Did you just call Tony Stark ‘Dad’?”
A hole to swallow him up. That would be good right about now.
“No? Yes. Maybe,” Peter stammered. “My dad died—not that Tony would ever replace my dad! Or Uncle Ben. It’s just when you work closely with someone—I mean, he’s a mentor and… Ned? Any help?”
Ned maintained his neutral expression as he turned on his mic, giving Peter no warning for the bomb he was about to drop.
“Peter lives with the Avengers.”
His. Class. Simply. Erupted.