Chapter Text
About 13 teenagers were running around his lab like the floor was on fire. The 9 who remain in their seats look less than impressed at their peers' actions.
The 3 musketeers, as he called them, were all wide eyed, hands in the air, like the cops had just busted them for making drugs. Something bad happened and he has no idea what it was.
The first warning should have been the loud pop and Peter hauling ass to the chemical hood with what should have been today's experiment. The beaker was cracked, smoking, and charcoal black. What on earth could these kids have done to what should have been a controlled, safe reaction.
The same black soot that was on the beaker, covered half of MJ’s face, though both Peter and Ned were far less fortunate. The black soot covered Ned’s entire front from the waist up, and Peter's hair stood straight on its end.
He was honestly surprised how the group had managed to do this. He had run this same experiment about 5 times, all with different amounts of chemicals and with any type of combination he could think of. Just to make sure that no matter what his students did, nothing bad would happen.
He didn’t take his time making his way to them, half way running through the lab and skidding to a stop at their table. He looked at the table that was covered in the same black soot with a small circle for where the beaker was. He makes eye contact with all 3 of them and silently wonders how Peter picked up what should have been an extremely hot beaker, without getting burned.
He looked at Peter's hands that should be red at the very least, but saw… nothing? Nope, not today, no theories about his students having super powers.
“Dr. Grace, it was an accident." MJ started, the look on his face must be too loud to read what he’s thinking.
“Uhh-... yeah, yeah. How about you all go see the nurse” He plucked the goggles from each of their heads and sent them on their way.
Once he got everyone settled back down, he cleaned up the scene of the crime and properly disposed of the beaker that had spontaneously combusted just a few minutes earlier. This whole fiasco reminded him of his time in college, random crap happening just because it was mathematically possible.
At UC Berkeley, everyone was a party person, even dear Dr. Grace here. If you didn’t go to at least one party in your time there, you were considered a nun, regardless of gender. Now, there was the occasional journey to another school when the frat houses were closed. If it was within an hour drive, then it was getting overrun with UCB kids.
Then there was the time that the Ac Dec team traveled to Boston for a competition. UCB came in at second place thanks to Grace being just a millisecond faster than his opponent in the last round. After that there was about 2 days of free time before the flight back to California, (for UCB specifically) that the MIT Ac Dec team decided to take full advantage of. Apparently there has always been a friendly type of rivalry between the two schools.
It took some convincing to get Ryland out of the hotel and into the MIT party, not because he didn’t want to go—well, kinda. Just a day earlier he had his ego shattered right in front of his eyes when he was put up against Tony Stark in a head to head. Ryland couldn’t get half way through thinking of an answer before Tony would answer.
Knowing that the perpetrator of Ryland's sour mood would absolutely be there, he was very hesitant. But nevertheless, just a few hours later, he was outside of Tony Stark’s private apartment in a light blue button up and white trousers with two other people from his Ac Dec team.
Enough dwelling in the very awkward past, even if he saw Tony Stark walk through that door right now. Grace looked over his shoulder just to be sure, obviously, no one’s there. But even if he was, Grace is 99% certain that Tony would not recognize him.
—
The end of day bell rings. The kids from his last period scurried out of his class and into the freedom of the hallways. Grace gave it about 5 minutes before leaving his class, the more time he was out of sight from the pick up line, the better. Every parent he has ever had a conversation with, (regardless of marital status) has made a move on him at some point or another.
Sadly, he left the school too soon. There is still a field of parents waiting on their kids, and like a bag of takis in a middle school classroom, he was immediately spotted. Shelby wasn’t a necessarily bad person, despite flirting with another man whilst being married. And how she won’t take “no” for an answer.
“Ryland! Good to see you! It's like you’ve been avoiding me!” She laughs like a hyena and slaps her hand on his shoulder. Her sharp nails digging into his jacket.
“Nope, no- just Grace.” He smiles slightly and shrugs her hand off.
“Oh come on! We're close like that right?” The woman practically throws herself around his shoulders.
“No, Mrs. Lou, I am simply your daughter’s science teacher. Not your friend.” He shrugs her off once more and starts on his way to the metro, not giving her another chance to touch him at all.
Grace has always had a thing about people touching him. The only time he's let a stranger touch him without immediate correction would be that one night back in college with- nope not going there. He has already thought of that night far too many times today.
His walk to the subway was about as quiet as Queens can be, dark clouds rolled in from the North with threats of pouring rain and thunder. It’s weather like this that makes him miss California, Sunny year round with maybe 5 rainy days in total. Luckily, the metro station was in view, he won’t be getting rained on any time soon.
He blends into the 5 o’clock foot traffic like he's done a million times by now. Scan the card, walk through the barricade, put in your earbuds and wait for the next cart. It’s a never ending loop that he's ok with, routine is safe, routine is predictable, routine doesn’t leave him high and dry in an unfamiliar city-. Enough about Stark!
—
A picture of the 2003 1st and 2nd place Ac Dec individual champions sits on the lab wall, right next to the one of him and Peter. A taller blond man with glasses, and a shorter brunette with sunglasses. Both holding their respective awards, the camera caught the exact moment that the brunette turned his head to get a better look at the blonde.
He didn’t even realize that he was staring at the photo until his apprentice snapped him out of it.
“Mr. Stark? Are you ok?” Peter, who had walked in on his mentor staring longingly at a photo that he had never noticed before. Why did the other guy in the photo look almost exactly like Dr. Grace?
“Yeah- yeah kid, how about we fix those web shooters that got jammed yesterday.” He turned towards Peter and picked up whatever snack was closest, he tossed the bag at Peter and pulled up the blueprint for Peter’s web shooters.
Peter caught the bag but set it down before moving to get a better look at the photo Tony was looking at. It’s almost identical to his science teacher, Dr. Grace. Though, the facial expression isn’t anything like what he knew Dr. Grace could form. A tight smile that didn’t look entirely real, his eyes were directed at something behind the camera. He was holding a “second place individual” Ac Dec award, it was a college level competition, but the award was very similar to the one MJ got just last year.
“Mr. Stark, you know this guy?” Peter knew it was a dumb question, but he needed to see how Dr. Grace felt about Mr. Stark before outing him.
“Hm? Oh, yeah that was… an old friend I lost contact with” Tony only looked up for only a moment before going back to looking for the issue in the web shooters.
“Why not try to reach out? Maybe he’ll want to catch up just as much as you do.” Peter set his bag down and sat across from Tony.
“Well, I don’t know if you can tell from that photo, but he wasn’t, and more than likely, still isn’t a big fan of me. I crushed his ego in more ways than one at that competition”
“What do you mean? Like you beat him to the answer every time?”
“That, and something else, I'll explain when you're older. All you need to know for now is that I should probably apologize, if I ever see him again”
At that exact moment, Peter knew what his next mission was. First, find out what Dr. Grace thinks of Mr. Stark. Second, make a set up to get them in the same area. Whether that be a parent teacher conference, or Dr. Grace getting saved by iron man. He’ll let Ned and MJ decide once he tells them about the plan.
Tony could see the gears in the kid’s head turning like no one's business. Every day, when he woke up, he regretted leaving Ryland like that. But wanting to apologize and having the courage to, are two completely different things.
“Don’t try to find him, kid, he won’t forgive me even if I give him the world.”
“Oh you don’t have to worry about me Mr. Stark, I'm not all that good at finding people.” Good thing that Peter didn’t have to look at all. The man he needed stood in front of him for an hour every day.
—
“You’re 100% certain that the guy in this photo is Dr. Grace?” MJ was understandably sceptical. It’s not every day that you hear about your teacher’s crazy college experience with someone who has enough money to buy a country.
“Yeah this seems kinda crazy, even for you Peter.” Ned had the same look on his face as when he found out that Peter was spider-man.
“I’m telling you guy’s, I saw the photo, it was him, I'm sure of it.” Peter wasn’t backing down. They either had to agree with him, or risk this turning into a debate that could last weeks.
The only thing that stopped this from going any further was Dr. Grace himself, standing up to start class. He had a beanbag in his hand, which signaled to the class of what was next to come. About five minutes into his lecture, he lifted the beanbag up and scanned the room.
“Who can tell me what the state of matter is and how many protons are in, Xenon…MJ go!” He tossed the beanbag at her. She caught the bag and answered without a second thought.
“Xenon is a noble gas and has 54 protons. Give me a harder one next time, Dr. Grace.” She throws the beanbag back at him, to which he catches and immediately spouts out another question.
Peter is lucky enough to not get the beanbag thrown at him, he’s not sure that he can say anything to Dr. Grace that doesn’t have anything to do with Tony Stark right now. His chance finally comes when the bell for lunch rings and everyone else quickly leaves to do whatever their bodies need them to. MJ and Ned promise to save his spot after he’s done executing his plan.
Peter makes his way to Dr. Grace’s desk and stops just a few inches away. Dr. Grace speaks first.
“What ails you Mr. Parker?”
“When you were at UCB, you were on the Ac Dec team right?
“...yes I was, but Ac Dec back then was nothing like it is now if that's what you're wondering.”
“Cool, so you remember meeting Tony Stark and getting second place to him.”
The pen Dr. Grace was fidgeting with, drops and clatters against the floor