Chapter Text
The perks of going to what Peter Parker lovingly referred to as a ‘nerd school’ were obvious. Great lab, a ton of interesting extracurriculars, and oh, the savior of the freaking sun was going to be his teacher.
Doctor Captain Ryland Grace was, in Peter’s honest opinion, the smartest man on the planet. Not that he would ever say that out loud, Mr. Stark would kill him and Dr. Grace. But he was. Even before he saved the world with the power of science and friendship, he had published enough papers and patents with resources for the cooling planet to be in the history books. And then, as if revolutionizing food science even though it wasn’t even his specialty wasn’t enough, he got shot into space on a suicide mission that ended up not being so suicidal after all. And made first contact. He arrived back on Earth with detailed logs of everything, including Rocky, only months before the first alien/god touched down on their planet.
Peter just knew that SHIELD was dying to recruit him, but apparently the only thing the man wanted to do was go back to the classroom. He had been a teacher before the Astrophage Catastrophe, and had been one of the few people with a doctorate that actually taught because they liked it.
And now Peter was going to be his student.
Holy Heck.
“Hey MJ” He was almost jumping in excitement. “How was your summer?”
“Peter, we saw each other yesterday.” For all she tried to emanate an aura of coolness, she seemed a little nervous too “Hey Ned”
“Guys, can you believe we’re gonna be taught by Doctor Grace? The Doctor Grace?”
“If I think about it too much I’m gonna puke,” Peter admitted. “Did you know he has like, twenty something Doctorates? Most of them were awarded when he came back and some Universities had the chance to review his logs, but he had a couple before the trip, too.”
“We know.” Michelle muttered, eyes not leaving the door for more than a few seconds. “I know it doesn’t look like it, but I’m a bit of a nerd too sometimes.”
“MJ, you are the second nerdiest person I know. Just because you wear boots it doesn’t mean you aren’t a nerd.” Ned said
“Who’s the first?”
“You, Peter. Obviously.”
The door opened. The classroom, which up until that point had been buzzing with energy, fell into a tense silence.
“Hello everyone” Oh, Gosh, it was him. Peter was going to actually puke. “My name is Mr. Grace, I’ll be teaching you Organic Chemistry this year.”
He was taller than Peter expected. On TV, he always seemed smaller. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt with a pun so bad Peter was a little jealous. You matter, you energy. Terrible, he needed it right then and there. His left arm was covered in the scars he had gotten when putting Rocky back into his atmosphere. They looked… angrier in person. It must have been very painful, they even crawled up his neck, into his cheekbone.
“Now, I haven’t taught in… more years than I’d like to admit, and before that I was mostly in Middle School, so you will have to forgive me if I’m a little cringy.”
“You can never be cringe” Only because of his super-hearing could Peter hear Flash’s besotted mutter.
“I thought, since it’s my first day meeting you guys, we could do some icebreakers!” Oh no. “I’ll throw you the beanbag, and you need to tell me your name and a fun fact about yourself!”
He knew that beanbag. Everyone knew that beanbag. That almost made up for the fact that he had to do icebreakers.
“But be careful!” Doctor Grace said with a tone that showed he was used to younger kids. If it had come from anyone else, it would have been annoying, but he pulled off the earnest corniness well. “It’s lava! If you keep it too long, you’ll burn your hands, so be quick! Don’t think about it too much!”
He threw the beanbag at Flash, who almost dropped it “Oh, uh…My name is Flash and I’m…
“It’s lava! Hurry!”
“And I’m in the decathlon!”
“Great, throw it at someone else, quick!”
“Gah!” Ned barely managed to catch it “I’m Ned, and I just finished re-building my 2016 Lego Death Star!”
“Amazing, I love Star Wars!”
“I’m Betty, I’m the anchor for the school news!”
“Underrated job, but very important!”
Oh God, he had the beanbag! What was he going to say?! “I-I’m Peter and I helped Ned with the Death Star!”
“Power of friendship! Yes!”
He threw the ball at MJ
“I’m Michelle and I think this game is lame” She half heartedly threw it at someone else
“Ouch, honesty, always appreciated!”
“MJ, how could you say that to him” Ned whispered as the other students cheered
She shrugged “We’re not kids”
“We kind of are. Besides, it’s fun. You’re having fun, admit it.”
She grumbled, crossing her arms, but the excitement was contagious “Okay, maybe a little.”
“And that’s all, folks!” Doctor Grace caught the beanbag one last time.
“What about you?” Flash asked “You have the beanbag, you have to tell us a fun fact!”
Doctor Grace laughed “You’re right Flash”
“He knows my name” Flash squeezed out, and Peter had to swallow a laugh.
“My name is Grace, and I love to crochet!” Not the kind of fact any of them expected, but it did explain some of the more iconic parts of his wardrobe from the logs. “Now that introductions are over, we can start with the good stuff: Organic Chemistry!”
Mr. Grace (he hated being called Doctor) turned out to be the best teacher Peter ever had.
Even beyond the fact that he was a space hero and an absolute genius, he was also a great educator. He was not only passionate about both his job and the things he taught, but also had an ease of explanation that made even the hardest of concepts seem easy and approachable. Whatever trouble Peter might have had with the subject (which wasn’t much, he was pretty good at chemistry) was gone. Heck, he had even gotten some pretty cool ideas for new formulations of web fluid!
Which led him to the current situation: Him, in a school lab, alone, after hours, when he wasn’t supposed to be there. Usually, when he sneaked in, his Spidey Sense alerted him of anyone coming to the lab with more than enough time to pack up and leave, but apparently it decided that being caught by Mr. Grace wasn’t a problem.
“Hey Peter, what are you doing in here this late?” Mr. Grace looked pretty concerned and not at all angry. “You’re not making any illegal substances, are you?”
“Mr. Grace!” Peter jumped, unused to being startled anymore “I can explain!”
He could practically see the way the scientist was putting the pieces together. Peter, alone, hiding, making something that suspiciously looked like Spider-Man’s webs…
“Are you going to explain?” Mr. Grace prompted after a few seconds of Peter floundering for a semi-believable excuse.
“I- I- I’m a… huge Spider-Man fan. I’m trying to replicate his webs.” Hey, not bad.
“Really?” Shoot, Mr. Grace didn’t believe him. “And is there a reason you couldn’t… I don’t know… do it as your project this semester? Why all the secrecy?”
Double shoot.
“I’m… embarrassed?”
Mr. Grace sighed, sitting down next to him and turning on the stirring plate again. “If you add an acid, the tensile strength will be better”
“But it won’t dissolve as fast.” He said before he could stop himself.
“I think a few more minutes of spiderwebs on a building are worth the added safety for swinging through the air. You can get longer strands, so you’ll get a bigger arc and go faster. Might help you run away if you’re in a pickle.”
Triple shoot. He totally knew.
“You’re… not gonna tell anyone?”
“I’m still thinking about that, okay? You’re a stubborn kid with superpowers, but you’re a kid.” Mr. Grace looked exceptionally sad “Do you have a support system? Any adults who know you do this?”
“My… my aunt.” This was surreal. He must be dreaming. His favorite teacher (Doctor Captain Ryland Grace!!) was sitting next to him in a dark lab, tweaking his formula for web fluid in a way he could tell was going to make them better than Peter could ever hope to achieve. Darn, he really was one of the smartest people in the Universe.
“I’m gonna have to meet her. I need to see if she’s taking care of you or just enabling your more dangerous habits.”
“Dangerous habits?”
Mr. Grace shrugged “I’ve seen you on TV, young man. You take unnecessary risks all the time”
Pot meet kettle, Peter wanted to say. He’d seen the logs of the Hail Mary, Mr. Grace telling anyone not to take risks was as hypocritical as it came.
“Okay. I’ll bring her for a… Parent-Teacher conference, I guess?”
“Thank you” Mr. Grace stirred the mixture one more time before turning off the heater and putting a Watch Glass over the beaker’s opening. “There, let it rest for a few minutes. Try it out next time you go out, which for the record I hope is never, okay?”
Peter chuckled nervously “You can’t tell anyone.”
“I’m not going to until I meet with your aunt. After that, depending how it goes, we’ll see.” He must have seen something in his face, because Mr. Grace softened “Don’t worry, even if I do tell someone, it will be someone absolutely trustworthy who won’t spill your secret to people who might use it to hurt you or your loved ones. I’m concerned, not evil.”
“Oh. Well, thank you.”
Mr. Grace stood up with a groan “I hate lab chairs. Will Thursday after class work for your aunt?”
Peter shrugged, “Probably.”
“Well, in that case, I’ll see you on Thursday. Try to figure out a project for the semester, will you? Most of your classmates already chose something.”
And so Peter was left alone, feeling like he had missed a couple of chapters in a story, and was now floundering to catch up.
Mr. Grace was so weird.
Aunt May had been disappointed to hear he’d been caught, but was more than willing to talk to Mr. Grace. They had rehearsed together what they were going to say, from the way they would say hello to the way they would sit. By the time Thursday came around, Peter was as sure as he could be that they were going to be okay.
And then Aunt May woke up with the flu.
Had she been less sick, she would have gone anyway, just sporting a face mask. Had she been sicker, she would have gone to the doctor, and Peter would be able to show a document that proved that he wasn’t trying to weasel out of the conversation. But no, she was exactly in the middle, sick enough to stay home but not much else.
Gosh, what was he going to do?
“Peter, what’s wrong?” Ned whispered to him during one of the morning classes. Geography, maybe? He wasn’t paying attention. He probably should, he wasn't that good at the subjects that were just a lot of reading.
“Aunt May was supposed to meet with Mr. Grace today about the thing I told you, but she’s sick.”
“Shoot, is she okay?”
“She’ll be fine, but she can’t get out of bed right now”
“Then just reschedule, dude.”
“I don’t want him to think I’m trying to weasel out of it.” Not only could it mean the end of his secret, but he didn’t want to disappoint Mr. Grace. The man really was a great teacher.
“Then find someone else. Like a substitute.”
“That’s a terrible-” Peter finally processed the words “Actually, that might work.”
He took out his phone, hiding it under the desk.
‘Hey, Mr. Stark, one of my teachers found out I’m Spider-Man and he wants to meet with a responsible adult in my life to see if I’m safe, otherwise he’ll tell everyone. Aunt May is sick, can you come?’
Concise, to the point, urgent but not too urgent. He read it one more time before deciding he couldn’t do any better and pressed send.
‘sure. whn?” The reply came almost instantly
‘Today, after class.’
He got a thumbs up in return, and he finally relaxed. Good. That was good. Mr. Grace would meet with Mr. Stark, he would see he could continue being Spider-Man without cause for concern, and everything would be fine.
“Mr. Stark’s coming” He whispered to Ned
“Cool, dude. Mr. Grace has the whole ‘heroic cool nerd’ thing going for him too, they’re gonna get along great”
Oh, Gosh, he hoped so.
The end of class came too soon for Peter. Chemistry was the last subject of the day, so he shot Ned and MJ an anxious look as they left, the pair of them giving him the saddest thumbs-up he had ever seen.
“Oh, Parker’s in trouble!” Flash, of course, had noticed he was staying behind.
“Flash, don’t be mean” Mr. Grace said, ignoring how Flash almost fainted at criticism from his hero “I just have to talk to his aunt about some paperwork that got messed up by the admin office.”
Huh. Mr. Grace was a good liar. Who knew?
Flash huffed, but dropped the matter and left. They were alone. Minutes passed, and it became clear that Mr. Stark was late. Had he forgotten? Did he decide not to bother?
“Mr. Grace, I need to tell you something” He finally said when ten minutes had passed.
“Yeah?”
“My aunt’s not coming, she’s sick. I asked someone else to come, he knows I’m Spider-Man too and he’s an adult, but I guess he couldn’t make it.”
Mr. Grace’s eyebrows furred, before his eyes widened “Oh, Peter, I’m so sorry he didn’t come. It’s okay, we can reschedule. You should have told me before, it’s fine, things happen”
Before Peter could answer (probably with at least a tear or two), there was a knock at the door. Oh, thank God.
“That must be him” Mr. Grace smiled brightly “See, he didn’t stand you up!”
He opened the door
“Hey, Sorry I’m late, I was-
The door slammed shut.
“Mr. Grace!” Peter yelped
“You invited Tony Stark?” Seems even the Savior of the World could get star-struck. Nice to know, actually.
“Well, yeah, he knows, and made most of my suits”
“Are you gonna open the door?” Mr. Stark’s muffled voice came from outside. “Look, I’m sorry I was late, but I was meeting with some of the higher ups at SHIELD”
Mr. Grace rolled his eyes, but opened the door.
“Stark” He spat out.
Oh no. Peter had totally misread the situation. Mr. Grace wasn’t star-struck, he was angry. What reason could he have to hate Tony Stark, of all people?
To make things weirder, Mr. Stark froze when he saw the teacher, before a grin slowly crept over his face.
“Ryland”