Chapter Text
Ryland walked with his head down, gripping his bike's handlebar with a firm hand, the soles of his shoes scraping against the wet asphalt. What had possessed him to leave school so late? And what extraordinary luck that today, of all days, his bike tire had decided to give out on him?
Seriously, he didn't think he was a bad person. So why did fate seem determined to make his life difficult lately? First, the water heater had given up the ghost, condemning him to an ice-cold shower first thing in the morning. Then a clumsy student had knocked his hot chocolate all over his favorite shirt. After that, his chemistry colleague had chosen today of all days to try flirting with him, despite the fairly unambiguous signals he'd been sending her way. And to top it all off: the flat tire. What higher power had he managed to anger this time?
A shiver ran down his spine. The cold November wind was cutting violently through his yellow raincoat, and he silently cursed the decision that had brought him to New York. He missed California's warmth terribly, but of course he'd had to follow Colt to the other side of the country, incapable of living so far from his brother.
What a stupid idea.
He tightened his grip on the handlebar and automatically checked that his bag was still against his right hip. The sooner he got home, the sooner he could have a hot shower –assuming the water heater had deigned to start working again– and collapse into bed. The weight of the week was pressing down on his shoulders like lead.
Fortunately, he'd spotted this shortcut a few weeks earlier, shortly after he'd started teaching at Midtown High. A narrow passage between two apartment buildings, not particularly inviting at first glance, but one that saved him precious time before rejoining a main avenue. That kind of place had never really bothered Ryland. He just had to walk a little faster for a few minutes.
He was so deeply lost in his thoughts that he didn't hear the footsteps approaching behind him until it was too late.
He turned around, an apology already on his lips, certain he was blocking someone's way, when a violent blow slammed into his stomach. The air was knocked out of him in an instant. His knees gave way and he hit the ground before he'd even understood what was happening, his palms scraping against the asphalt. A second blow, this time to his face, sent stars dancing across his vision. His bike fell with a metallic crash that echoed between the brick walls.
Ryland blinked, desperately trying to collect his thoughts. Two pairs of dirty shoes were in his field of vision. He slowly raised his head, still dazed from the blows.
Two men towered over him, and one of them was holding a knife.
Oh boy.
His breathing instantly quickened. The blade was short, only a few inches, but in the dim light of the alley it caught just enough light to be perfectly visible. Perfectly real.
He swallowed and tried to keep his voice reasonably steady.
"Look, I'm a teacher." He hated the tremor that crept through despite his best efforts. "I can assure you it doesn't pay nearly enough to make this worthwhile"
The taller of the two didn't look convinced, and made an impatient nod toward the bag.
Ryland didn't hesitate long. Say what you want about him, but he valued his life, thank you very much, and that instinct for fighting had always belonged more to his brothers than to him. He held out the bag with a trembling hand, praying the two men wouldn't get too angry when they discovered it contained practically nothing, aside from about thirty papers he still had left to grade.
While the first man emptied the bag, the second, who had broader shoulders and darker hair, grabbed Ryland by the collar and slammed him against the brick wall with a force that knocked the breath out of him again. The cold of the wall cut through his raincoat immediately.
Can't wait for this day to be over.
"Fuck, there's literally nothing in here!" the first man growled.
"That's exactly what I was trying to tell you." Ryland's voice came out more strangled than he would have liked.
The man threw the bag to the ground and stepped closer, the knife dangerously near Ryland's face now. Too close.
"Alright. If we can't put a little cash in our pockets, the least we can do is have some fun with what we've got in front of us. What do you think, Sam?"
Sam smiled. It was exactly the kind of smile a villain in a bad action movie would wear right before doing something terrible. And apparently, today that something would be Ryland. Great.
Ryland closed his eyes. He knew that showing his fear would only encourage the two men, and there was no way he was giving them that satisfaction. But the truth was, he was mostly just too exhausted to panic.
The blows, the fear, the adrenaline coursing through his veins… All of it was far too familiar, and he hated that feeling with everything he had, doing his best not to let his thoughts drift back to the past.
He waited.
What came wasn't the blade against his cheek, as he'd expected, but a dull, brief sound somewhere above him, as if something had just landed on the brick wall. Then another sound, stranger, a kind of hiss, and the man holding him let go so abruptly that Ryland nearly fell.
He opened his eyes.
His two attackers were now pinned against the opposite wall, immobilized by threads of a white material he didn't immediately recognize. Then he looked up. What the heck?
Spider-Man was perched at the top of the wall, watching them with that slightly laid-back calm that seemed to be his trademark.
"It'd be a good idea to avoid dark alleys at this hour," he said, addressing Ryland as though they were discussing the weather. "Especially in November."
He jumped to the ground with a disconcerting ease, took a quick glance to make sure the two men weren't going anywhere, then turned toward Ryland and crouched down to gather the scattered contents of his bag and hand it back to him. He moved more slowly as he approached, as though trying to get close to a wounded animal that might bolt at any sudden movement.
"Are you hurt, Mr. Grace?"
Ryland blinked.
"I… no. Nothing serious."
Spider-Man nodded, visibly relieved, his shoulders relaxing imperceptibly.
"Be more careful next time. It's rough around here, trust me."
Then, once he'd made sure the blond was no longer in any danger, he stepped back into the alley and, with the same casualness with which he had appeared, shot a web toward the rooftops and vanished into the night.
Ryland stood still for a moment, his bag at his feet, his bike lying on its side, the two men still stuck to the wall across from him.
His thoughts were a genuine whirlwind, and though the panic he'd felt was finally beginning to subside, one thought remained more present than all the others.
Spider-Man knew his name.
He slowly picked up his bag and righted his bike with a hand that still trembled slightly. Mr. Grace. Not sir, not hey you. His name. Which meant Spider-Man knew him, somehow.
And that voice. That voice that had felt familiar from the very first syllable. He must have heard it somewhere, on TV, maybe, or in the street. New York was a big city, and Spider-Man certainly had an ordinary life outside his extremely dangerous superhero activities.
Yes. That was surely it.
He started walking again, quickening his pace, the collar of his raincoat turned up against the wind.
Once home, he didn't bother turning on the lights. He made his way to the bathroom by feel, and undressed in record time. Once free of his grimy clothes, he glanced up at the mirror across from him and immediately regretted it. He looked exhausted, far more than he'd realized.
Two bruises were beginning to turn blue along his ribs, his right cheek was taking on a purplish hue, and his palms were streaked with small cuts where the asphalt had scraped them. After a long breath –one he didn't remember having held for so long– Ryland looked away.
It wasn't the first time he'd seen his body covered in bruises. He'd survive.
He took the fastest shower of his life –cold again, the water heater clearly having no intention of making things easier for him– pulled on his pajamas, and didn't bother eating anything before collapsing under the covers.
There, in the silent and comforting darkness of his bedroom, he wasn't thinking about his catastrophic day, or his ungraded papers, or even the dull ache throbbing in his ribs.
He was thinking about a voice.
A voice he knew. He was sure of it.
It was on that thought that sleep finally pulled him under, and Ryland Grace drifted off hoping, without really believing it, that tomorrow would be a better day.
⚝✧⚝✧⚝✧⚝✧
Peter was finally heading back from patrol, his mind still fixed on the image of his favorite science teacher pinned against a brick wall with a knife at his face.
What if he hadn't heard the altercation while passing over the alley?
What if he'd decided to take the other side of the city tonight?
What if he'd arrived thirty seconds later?
He should have stayed longer. Made sure Mr. Grace got home safe, not just given him a nod and disappeared into the night like nothing had happened.
No, Pete.
He'd clearly seen the spark in his teacher's eyes the moment he'd spoken. That small, dangerous glimmer that said plainly: I know that voice.
It wasn't for lack of begging Mr. Stark to integrate a voice modulator into the suit, but of course he'd refused, with that half-smile that meant he found the argument weak but wouldn't deign to explain why. The teen voice, according to him, was perfect for reassuring the people he saved. Peter could live with that. But it also had a talent for making criminals take him far less seriously, and apparently, it now risked getting him recognized by a high school teacher, which was clearly not in the top ten of ideal situations.
Reaching the Tower, he shot one last web and landed silently on his bedroom windowsill, which was, as always, slightly open. Thanks, Friday and Karen.
He changed at top speed and didn't even need to look for where to go, the smell of tomato sauce and roasted garlic was already guiding him toward the kitchen. He recognized it before he'd even set foot in the hallway.
Tony had made his favorite pasta.
He found him standing at the stove, wearing the ridiculous apron Peter had given him for his birthday –the one with "Don't touch my stuff" printed in big letters across the middle– which had somehow, against all odds, become his favorite.
Peter settled onto a stool and started in on his plate before Tony had even had time to sit down, rattling through topics with the energy characteristic of someone who'd just spent three hours running across the rooftops of New York.
The new Lego set he and Ned had started. His latest geography grade, which honestly wasn't that bad if you took the context into account. And then, inevitably, his new biology teacher who was absolutely incredible, and not just according to him; even Flash seemed to enjoy his classes, which was about as rare as a solar eclipse.
"He's probably the smartest person I've ever met."
He swallowed a bite of pasta –genuinely excellent– before looking up.
Tony had gone quiet.
He wore an expression Peter knew all too well: eyebrows slightly raised, jaw just a little tight, gaze hovering somewhere between pure betrayal and deep personal offense. The look of someone who'd just learned their favorite dog had found a new owner.
"Kid." Tony's voice was almost surgically calm. "You've met me."
Peter opened and closed his mouth several times. He probably looked like a fish out of water.
"I mean, yeah, but-"
"You've. Met. Me. This teacher of yours is nothing next to me."
Peter wisely decided to take another bite of pasta rather than continue down that road.
Tony, for his part, had resumed his usual expression, relaxed and mildly amused, but something in his eyes remained attentive in a way he was visibly trying to conceal. Peter didn't notice. He was already off again.
"Apparently he has a doctorate in molecular biology. I don't really get why he's teaching high school, he could be doing research anywhere in the country. He deserves to be a real scientist, you know? Like, an actual one."
Tony was half-listening, absently twirling his fork in his pasta. He made a point of mentally noting all the information Peter was giving him, just in case the kid asked whether he'd been paying attention: molecular biology professor, doctorate from MIT, new at Midtown since the start of the school year. Got it.
"He's kind of sarcastic too. Not mean-sarcastic, just… funny. The kind of jokes that are terrible but you laugh anyway because of the way he says them."
Something stilled, imperceptibly, somewhere in Tony's chest.
Peter didn't notice. He kept going.
"Oh, and he's not that old either. Like, way younger than most of our teachers. Mr. Morita said he just moved to New York this year, apparently he was in California before."
Tony set down his fork.
California. Young. MIT. Molecular biology. Terrible jokes delivered with perfect timing.
Peter took a big bite of pasta and continued, completely unaware that the room had just gotten smaller.
"He kinda reminds me of you, actually. Like, the way he explains things, you know? He makes everything seem obvious, even when it's not. And he never makes you feel stupid for not knowing something. Oh, and he wrote this amazing thesis in college, but apparently his theories weren't very popular, so some scientists made fun of him."
Tony was fairly certain he knew the thesis Peter was referring to, because he'd spent two full nights rereading the draft before the defense, fueled by cold coffee and affectionate insults scrawled in the margins. The doubt formed in his chest, gripping tightly. He needed confirmation.
"What's his name?"
Peter stopped, slightly surprised. He hadn't expected Mr. Stark to cut him off. Usually he pretended to listen out of politeness.
"Ryland Grace. Why?"
Tony didn't answer immediately.
Ryland.
The name cut through something in him with the precision of a scalpel. Not a surprise, no, it was far worse than that. It was the confirmation of what he'd been piecing together ten seconds ago, detail by detail, like pieces of a puzzle he'd spent twenty years trying not to reassemble.
Ryland.
The only boy he had ever truly loved. His accomplice, his partner, the one with whom he had built a coilgun in their college dorm at two in the morning when they were supposed to be studying for a physics exam happening just a few hours later.
Tony had never forgotten. He simply had never known what to do with those memories.
Ryland Grace was teaching biology at Midtown. Ryland Grace had moved to New York. Ryland Grace was teaching Peter –his Peter– and showing him how to think in exactly the same way he had once taught Tony himself. It had to be said, before meeting that blond kid with the glasses, Tony had never really been drawn to molecular biology.
Tony pulled his eyes away from his plate and stared somewhere past the window, past the lights of the city.
"Mr. Stark? Is everything okay?"
"Hm? Oh, yeah." He picked up his fork. His voice was perfectly normal. "Go on, kid."
Peter watched him for a second too long, with that sharp look he'd developed these past few months that was starting to become a serious problem.
Tony said nothing more.
He ate his pasta, listened to Peter talk, nodded at the right moments. And all the while, something he had carefully buried for twenty years had just risen back to the surface, intact, as though time had had no hold on it at all.
Ryland Grace was in New York.