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Growing Pains
There are moments in every person’s life where they, or at least their worldview, are profoundly, irreversibly, changed.
Sometimes, it’s a car wreck. Or a medical diagnosis.
Sometimes, it’s walking in on your Significant Other being someone else’s Significant Other.
Sometimes, it’s a robbery gone wrong.
Sometimes it’s being abducted and tortured and ransomed to your own company — before discovering that your godfather is the person behind it for something as ridiculous as money.
And sometimes, it’s watching someone else learn the exact same lesson.
For Peter Parker, his most recent Moment was the direct result of the last item. He’d been down in the primary Mechanics lab, talking with Heidi Bossun, his supervisor when he worked in that lab, when he noticed the newest intern and started to panic.
The reason for said panic was because it was clear from a good twelve feet away that she was not following the correct safety protocols for the experiment she was running, a failure that was guaranteed to generate a small explosion — which was not what was supposed to happen — and, like the superhero he was, he immediately headed in that direction.
Well, he tried to. The unexpected pressure against his throat from where Heidi was firmly holding his shirt collar was enough to slow him down in pure confusion, and she took instant advantage of it.
“Leave her be,” she murmured, eyes fixed on the rookie — as were those of several other people, Peter noticed with more than a little surprise. But not a single one of them stepped forward to stop the intern or offer help. They all just . . . stood there . . . waiting.
Kind of like the nominees at an awards show, only with less grandstanding, clothes that covered more of their body, and better music.
It took a great deal of control for Peter to ignore his screaming instincts and instead watch helplessly as about two minutes later, the expected small explosion was immediately followed by the unmistakable whir of one of the lab’s several dozen whirly/clicky machines turning on. A second later, the intern let out a hoarse cry of pain and grabbed her now-bleeding arm and Peter twitched so hard, he nearly broke Heidi’s fingers in his attempt to get free and help the girl.
However, either the explosion or the blood had been some kind of silent signal, because all three Head Interns converged on the girl and took quick charge, getting her bandaged up and putting the now-ruined experiment in stasis.
Oh, and making a very brutal point.
“Wow,” Marc Ennis said to nobody in particular as he mopped blood off the lab table. “It’s like that wouldn’t have happened if the blade’s safeguard had been activated.”
The rookie flinched hard, but there wasn’t an ounce of sympathy to be found in the room. In fact, Jessica Polland verbally grabbed a salt shaker and upended it on the still-bleeding wound. “Really?” she asked with faux surprise. “There wouldn’t have been an explosion if the pre-check numbers had been consulted.”
“Yeah,” Heidi drawled from behind Peter, fingers still digging into his shoulder. “One would think there are safety protocols for these things. Oh, wait.”
The young woman flinched again, looking hunted and ashamed, but she didn’t say anything and the others finally took a little mercy on her; no more was said as she was escorted to the Medbay for treatment. Heidi didn’t let go of Peter until the small group hit the elevator, but he didn’t have the chance to do or say anything before his arm was grabbed and he was firmly shoved into her office.
And even then, he had no chance to speak.
It was really annoying.
“The reason we let that happen is because it’s the fourth time in the last month that she’s ignored basic safety protocols and procedures,” Heidi told him without preamble, sinking into her chair with a gravitas that was unusual for her. But her words were so unexpected, they stopped Peter — and his objection — in their tracks, an experience she didn’t waste. “The last three times, we stepped in before anything happened and told her — well, Marc lectured — about safety and precautions and the proper procedures. And three times, she ignored us and kept taking shortcuts and ignoring her own safety — and ours. So Jessica said, ‘if she isn’t going to listen to us, then let her hurt herself. That might be the only way she learns. And if she doesn’t, she doesn’t need to be in this lab’.”
Peter knew he was doing a fantastic impression of a goldfish, but he couldn’t help it: he was genuinely dumbfounded.
Heidi politely pretended not to notice.
“Marc agreed and so did the other interns and as much as I detest allowing something like that to happen in my lab, I couldn’t disagree with their reasoning. You see, Peter, Monica was taught from a young age, very likely starting in her junior high labs if not from her parents, that shortcuts are perfectly fine if they work, and I suspect that she learned nothing substantial about safety protocols either. So stopping her before something bad happened was actually enabling the behavior, because there were no consequences to her.”
Now Peter looked like a guppy and he couldn’t even muster up the requisite embarrassment; he was too busy mentally (and physically, though FRIDAY wouldn’t laugh at him about it for several weeks) flailing in shocked disbelief.
This earned him a gentle smile, one full of understanding.
“Some people learn from observation or instruction, like you,” she told him. He couldn’t help but squirm (thankfully, that one was just mentally) at that, memories of all the times he’d made his web fluid under the desk flashing through his mind. And all the failures he’d suffered in the process. “Some people apply common sense. And some people learn by doing — and failing. In Monica’s case, it was patently obvious after the third incident that she was not going to learn anything unless and until she screwed her own experiment up or actually hurt herself. She isn’t stupid by any means, but she’s stubborn and she learned a lot of bad habits that won’t be fixed or corrected by write-ups or having it explained to her. She’s one of those people who has to learn from experience. Hopefully, this will finally get through to her, because she’s a very promising intern. But we can’t keep holding her hand and watching her like a hawk over something as basic as safety protocols.”
Peter . . . could not find a single objection to that logic. It went against every fiber of his ‘must help people’ being, but Heidi wasn’t wrong. He sighed heavily and gave her a reluctant nod of understanding, which she acknowledged with a simple smile. He wouldn’t kick up a fuss or tell Tony, because despite his laissez-faire attitude regarding his own well-being, he was militant about Peter’s safety. Hell, he’d probably find this solution hilarious and he would definitely think it was fitting.
“I know you’re a junior, so be sure to watch your fellow classmates,” she added suddenly, startling him a little. “Bad habits, just like good ones, are learned early and through consistent use.”
And with that piece of unexpected advice, Peter found himself gently but firmly shooed out of her office and before he knew it, he was on the subway heading home. Embarassingly, he missed his stop because he was thinking so hard about what he’d just seen, but also because he could not stop picturing the four specific people (one guess as to who one of them was) in his various science classes who were notorious for not following basic safety procedures, but never got anything more than half-hearted scolding from the teachers and boiling frustration from their lab partners (if they had one).
Nothing else of major note happened over the next month, so he found himself a little surprised one day when he rushed into Heidi’s lab a few minutes late and nearly ran over Monica. It took him a minute to recognize her, she looked so different: her hair was pulled back in a tightly-braided ponytail, there was a thick scar on her forearm, her lab coat fit properly when she put it on . . . and she meticulously double-checked every single safety protocol Stark Industries had, whether it applied to her situation or not.
. . . well, damn.
It had worked.
Not all at once, of course. Peter found himself paying a lot more attention to Monica than he did his own work sometimes (as did everyone else; her incident had been memorable) and it was kinda neat to watch. Some days, she’d come in and jump right in, only to forcibly stop herself very quickly and go back, review and implement the safety checks, and start over. Other times, she’d do it correctly from the beginning. But over the course of about three or so months, he noticed something else: the times where she skipped or skimped on safety gradually but steadily decreased, until she went a full two weeks without a single hiccup.
. . . well, damn.
See, two days before that milestone, Midtown had announced their annual ‘we’re the BOSS in science’ field trip and naturally, it was to Stark Industries.
This annoyed Peter, but only because he’d been forced to bring one of SI’s lawyers, the head of HR, and Heidi with him to a meeting with Midtown’s entire staff so he could prove that he wasn’t lying about his internship.
At the time, it had been hilarious to see the various expressions of rage, anger, humiliation, ‘I’ve just eaten a basket of rotten lemons’, embarrassment, and plain old shock painted across everyone’s faces. Getting to smile victoriously while the lawyer had . . . strongly encouraged . . . everyone there to give him an individual apology had been enjoyable as well, but also only at the time.
Because yeah, the staff had stopped giving him grief about his internship, but they hated him for making them look bad and embarrassing them — because naturally, it was his sole fault and responsibility. It wasn’t like they had actively disbelieved him and the evidence proving him correct after refusing to check, and of course, they weren’t the ones running their mouths to other people about it, thus causing the fake rumor to spread.
They couldn’t overtly punish him because now they knew he had resources, but they could, and did, make him suffer in subtle ways. Anything less than perfection on a lab or project cost him an entire grade, as did a single typo on a report (everyone had been outraged over the 89 handed out for a single ‘teh’ on a 5-page essay, but short of Pepper going down there herself, there wasn’t a way he could protest and win. And if Pepper or Tony did go to bat for him, it would only make things worse).
Knowing he currently had no recourse, Peter just sighed and lived with it. It was annoying and petty and so fucking childish, but it also brought him up to another level, especially since he had Tony for everything but English and the Arts, Pepper was a goddess when it came to English Lit and the Arts knowledge, and nobody could outdo Happy when it came to editing and proofreading. And so it was that, due to Midtown’s own double standards when it came to him, he was now officially at a second-year college level and Tony had informed May in no uncertain terms that he was going to get Peter an early graduation at the end of the academic year and finally get him in with people he could learn from instead of teach.
May didn’t like it, but Happy of all people (which was something none of them wanted to think about, so the Iron Fam (damn Rhodes for that moniker) experienced their first collective memory repression) had finally gotten through to her and earned her agreement and permission, however reluctantly it was given.
Anyway.
Field trip to SI.
Yay for everyone else, meh for Peter. Then again, even Warren and Harrington would have to treat him with respect today — and they knew it. So it was going to be entertaining if only to watch them squirm and behave themselves, something that both Ned and MJ were also cackling about.
Flash . . . well, that was a different story. He started with ‘Penis Parker’ before they got on the bus and kept it up until they got to SI’s front doors. He was going to jeer about Peter not getting a badge until he and Ned walked straight through Security and talked to the guards while everyone else was getting situated. That earned him a hateful look from both teachers, but they couldn’t say anything and Ned made sure to keep himself between Peter and the adults, while MJ formed an impenetrable barrier against Flash.
In a twist on the usual tour itinerary, they went to one of the main intern labs first, where experiments were laid out and waiting — as was Heidi, Peter saw with delight. He greeted her with a nod and then made his way to his preferred place — back corner of the group — only to be redirected to the center middle. Heidi gave his disgruntled expression an equally smug smile and he huffed in response, but didn’t try to argue. He just listened patiently to make sure nothing had changed for this experiment before hanging back to observe everyone else instead of starting his own.
After all, he’d done this exact same thing six times now, so he had no need to brush up on his technique at this point — and he had gotten into the habit of scanning the other people in the lab with him, checking for potential problems. So it came as no surprise when he saw that Flash and Stewart had reverted to form and were already skipping steps and ignoring basic safety precautions. But because he knew this experiment so well, and also because he’d seen exactly how effective it had been on Monica, who had been much like the two boys (only, you know, not a douche), he decided to just let them be. He wouldn’t say anything and he wasn’t going to throw himself in front of them so they wouldn’t get hurt in the resultant mini-explosion.
For the first time since he’d become Spiderman, Peter Parker made the conscious decision to let someone actively suffer the consequences of their actions.
Because sometime in the last few months, he’d finally allowed himself to understand and accept what throwing himself between Flash and danger had done — to both of them. The pain he suffered from injuries Flash never had to feel and was never grateful for. The lectures from the teachers about interfering, while in the same breath praising Flash for keeping his composure and not making things worse. The hit Peter’s grade usually took, since he was unable to complete his project or experiment first.
He’d been sick of it for a long time, but his self-esteem was non-existent, so it all seemed a suitable punishment.
But watching in real-time and with a front row seat as Monica learned from her mistakes and became better and more responsible finally kickstarted a growing pain that had been choked down for too many years to count.
Heidi saw the same thing he did, and so did Marc and Monica, but they also saw him firmly but subtly shake his head before giving Monica a nod that thankfully managed to convey ‘they’re like she was’, because they all stopped and waited, watching the two boys like hawks — or an Irish version of Molly Weasley, in Monica’s case. Unexpectedly, though, Stewart actually stopped several minutes in, frowned at the bubbling mixture that was supposed to be gently frothing, and took a step back to re-read the instructions. A dull red flush climbed up his neck, but he gamely killed the unsafe mess he’d created through carelessness and started from scratch, obeying every directive this time, and Peter’s jaw dropped (as did Ned’s, though they couldn’t see each other, since Ned had been given Peter’s preferred spot).
He couldn’t recall a single time in the two years he’d shared classes with Stewart where the other boy had ever acknowledged that he’d skipped something important or done something wrong.
There was a reason he and Flash (and Warren and Clarence, though they weren’t on this trip) were the Science Bully equivalent of bosom buddies.
Flash saw none of this, as he was on the other end of the row and a few seats to the left and front of Peter, who felt his attention sharpening and honing in while a silent, invisible timer started counting down in his mind.
He ended up being two seconds ahead, which was mildly disconcerting, but the moderately-loud BOOM!!! that shook the lab successfully distracted him from his inadequate human stopwatch debut, and he watched with arched eyebrows as Flash staggered back, wailing like a banshee and his hands obviously burned, and fell flat on his ass while his classmates and teachers gawped at him in open-mouth astonishment.
Except for Ned, that is. His open-mouthed astonishment was aimed at Peter . . . which was fair. Peter hadn’t had a chance to explain the lessons he’d learned from Heidi and Monica in detail yet, so Ned had no way of knowing that ‘self-sacrificial to the point of stupidity’ Peter Parker had finally grown up, at least a little.
It helped that it had been Flash instead of, say, Betty or Abe, but still: The Saga of Monica Selleck, Rookie Intern (ugh. That sounded like a really bad spaghetti western movie) had done what Tony, Pepper, Happy, Rhodes, several dozen criminals, Ned, MJ, Hope, Jessica, Luke, Matt, Wade, Foggy, and Dr. Phil had utterly failed at.
She had taught Peter the value of not just his life and well-being, but the truly priceless lesson that if no one ever suffered pain or embarrassment or anything negative as a direct result of their own actions, they would never learn not to do stupid shit.
(when Tony and Pepper finally learned the full story, they gave Heidi a month of extra vacation and a bonus so big she was able to buy her first car in cash. Tony also dipped Heidi so low that a romance novel clinch cover tried to sue him for theft and kissed her soundly in wordless thanks and even deeper gratitude that she’d finally helped Peter see and understand that his life was valuable, too.
Pepper did not begrudge her this, though Tony got a very narrow-eyed look when he finally set the other woman back on her feet. Being Tony, he just grinned)
What surprised Peter was what came next. Because as he was being helped off the floor — with a marked lack of sympathy or concern, which had Warren frowning with vague disquiet — Flash decided that throwing Peter under the bus would somehow mitigate his own idiocy.
In his defense, this frequently worked at Midtown.
But this was Stark Industries.
The company that every single staff member at Midtown knew Peter interned with, and had for months. The company where enough people knew who he was, even if that acknowledgement was limited to nods, grins, and one serious eye-roll when the other intern realized Peter was on a field trip to his own company with his own high school class.
And yet, Flash had missed/ignored/dismissed all of that. He’d even managed to explain away both teachers bleating at him to keep his mouth shut after his usual ‘Penis’ had come perilously close to catching the tour guide’s attention.
“I can’t believe you, Pe—Parker. You saw that coming and let me get hurt just so you wouldn’t lose to me?” the fool jeered, trying and failing to look imposing while he swayed between two interns who were holding his burned, bloody hands both apart and above his heart and Marc stood directly behind him to make sure he didn’t hit the ground too hard when he invariably overbalanced.
Not that anyone would push him; they didn’t need to.
But Peter was generally well-liked in this lab and his peers took exception to Flash’s words.
The situation was not helped when both teachers also looked at Peter with expressions that managed to be disapproving, expectant, and disappointed.
Steve Rogers would have been impressed.
Or jealous, since theirs outdid his by a mile.
Anyway.
Peter carefully (and with great effort) ignored the looks both he and Flash were getting and just cocked his head, putting on his best ‘say whaaaaaaaat’ face, before drawling in a tone so insolent, Happy cried in agony and Tony wept for joy when they heard it, “Why do you think I was watching you, Flash? I was working on my own experiment and since one of the first safety rules is ‘never look away unless something else is literally on fire and also out of the allowed parameters for fire safety’, I was paying attention to what I was doing.”
MJ snickered loudly in the stilted silence that followed, which prompted first Cindy, then Brad, then Ned, to laugh, which quickly spread to the entire room.
Barring three obvious individuals.
Still ignoring the fulminating looks, Peter gave all three of them Tony Stark’s Insolent Shrug #4 and added, “Also, why is stopping you from being a dumbass my job? Since you’re a junior at an excellent STEM school, I had assumed you could read and follow the directions stapled right in front of your face. Or if you can’t read well enough, Marc also went over the safety procedures and protocols with us. He asked every one of us if we understood them before he let us start. The fact that you ignored Steps 2 and 3, and also skipped 7, is completely on you. And Warren and Harrington, of course. You know, the teachers who are chaperoning this tour and are legally and fiscally obligated to not only make sure you're learning what they're teaching, but also to pay attention to their students and keep them from causing a completely preventable lawsuit.”
Silence never had a chance to fall, because Monica finally lost it and started cackling like a hyena. Peter took no offense and he was pretty sure none of the other lab workers did, either, because if anyone could justify finding Flash’s predicament hilarious, it was Monica Selleck.
While she was lost in hysterics and everyone else allowed her the honor, Flash was hauled to the Medbay with a complete lack of gentleness, sympathy, or consideration for his injuries or his no-longer-blindingly-white Gucci sneakers (which were his biggest concern, because FLASH). Harrington followed, looking exactly like a man being led to the gallows, while Warren failed utterly at not looking as mortified and embarrassed as he was and every one of his students were enjoying the hell out of Flash’s comeuppance and their teachers’ humiliation, both of which were at least a decade overdue.
Peter said nothing else. He calmly cleaned up his experiment, calmly made his way to Ned, calmly reorganized his backpack, and calmly vibrated with joy when he saw the three pictures Ned snapped of the trio’s faces after hearing Peter’s blistering, inarguable, also long-overdue dressing down. When MJ arrived a minute later, she offered Ned $100 for all three copies so she could do a full-sized pencil drawing collage and Ned was so giddy, he didn’t even stutter or try to refuse.
Heidi, being the Boss that she was, also said nothing. She simply gave Warren a look that made him swallow and scuttle back in a vain attempt to find a student to hide behind, nodded respectfully to Peter, and headed to her office so she could start the paperwork.
It was a quiet, subdued ride back to the school. Flash was kept up front with the teachers, who did a stellar job of pretending a group of high-schoolers wasn’t laughing at them in the rearview mirror, and not a word was spoken when they got off the bus. Then Warren and Harrington hustled Flash through the front doors, where Morita was waiting and looking positively thunderstruck.
(or maybe constipated; it was Mexican taco day)
The specifics were never made clear to the kids, but Flash, Warren, and Harrington were gone for the next ten schooldays. A couple of Flash’s cronies tried to play it off as ‘healing from his traumatic injuries’, but when Alice Wonder (yes, her parents hated her. They were also late-decade hippies) shouldered past him and, with no help whatsoever, opened her combination lock before swapping out her books . . . with both of her hands in casts due to an incident involving Mandy Bassett and the towel dispenser in the girls’ bathroom . . . they wisely shut up and let Flash’s reputation sink to the bottom of the unflushed toilet.
His reputation stayed in that toilet even after he came back and since he so clearly hadn't learned a damn thing from the experience, he wasn’t allowed to work on any projects or experiments without adult supervision until April of his senior year.
He was no longer at Midtown by then, but his reputation preceded him, stayed with him, and birthed a dynasty after he was gone.
Warren and Harrington were also not allowed to run experiments or projects without responsible adult supervision, which tickled the SI interns to death because Pepper, in a fit of pure, vindictive spite, offered Morita their services with a smile that made him bleed and a contract he couldn’t refuse or break with Thor’s hammer.
Peter . . . well, once he saw not just how effective actually suffering the consequences of their own actions could be (Monica), but also how damaging it was to constantly save people from themselves (the four moronic kids at Midtown, plus 97.99999% of the criminals he went after), both for them and for him, his life changed drastically. Monica learned from her mistakes; Flash didn’t. But Peter finally figured out that Flash and his ilk weren’t going to learn regardless, so throwing himself between them and the explosion/bullet/laser beam/knife/shooting star/stiletto heel/whatever item was . . . well, not to put too fine a point on it, but Jessica nailed it with her blunt declaration that it was ‘one of most dumbfuck things a person can do, you dipshit. So thank you for finally growing the fuck up’.
This sentiment was echoed by everyone who loved Peter, or at least didn’t hate him, albeit in more polite terms and with way less alcohol.
Remembering it, Peter just smiled. Growing pains sucked, but he had to admit: they were necessary. Sometimes, they even had style.
(this was mostly thanks to Tony’s influence, but still)
Then a frightened scream echoed through the alleys of Queens and he came to his feet, took a deep, centering breath . . .
. . . and flung himself off the side of a skyscraper, whooping in pure delight and heading directly for the danger that was now literally screaming his name.
Well, he couldn’t grow up too fast, could he?
~~~
fin