Chapter Text
All day, Peter hears the same news over and over; from people in his class talking to each other, every other post on every social media that he has downloaded, even to getting a text from his own dad. "Johnny Storm is coming to Midtown High!" Great.
The hyperactive firefly with a cocky attitude and looks that could kill is now going to be in close proximity with Peter, constantly.
Usually when there's a new student, Peter doesn't even notice them. It's not like Midtown High is that big of a school, but everyone just passes by and goes about their days like nothing's out of the ordinary.
Not if the new student is an astronaut from another universe, with blonde hair, big blue eyes, and an ego the size of the sun.
Instead, Peter fears the next few days—scratch that, the rest of his senior year—since all he'll hear about is the new student.
Peter tries blocking out the chatter of his classmates and everyone in the next few rooms around him. He silences his phone, turning it off and setting it upside-down on his desk. Burying his face in his hands, Peter groans and leans against his desk, willing away any noise around him until class starts.
Ned sits down at the desk next to him, like always, and drops his bag on the ground next to him. "Dude," Ned leans in to whisper loudly to Peter. "Did you hear?" he asks, excitedly.
Peter just lets out another muffled groan into his hands, rubbing his palms over his face and pushing his glasses up over them. "What do you think?" He says, dropping his hands with an exaggerated sigh and leaning back.
"You're not excited?"
"Of course not!" Peter hisses at him. He lowers his voice more as he sees another few students file into the room, gossiping with each other. Even without super-hearing he knows what they're saying. "Why would I be happy that now suddenly a bunch of attention is going to be on our school? It's already hard enough to slip out of here if the city's being attacked!"
Ned opens his mouth in an "oh" and nods along. "I mean, yeah," he shrugs, "but also all of the attention will be on him. Nobody's going to care about a nerd with a Star Wars backpack," he rationalizes.
"Well, sure," Peter mutters, "but still! He's annoying enough whenever I run into him on patrol," he adds with an eye roll accompanied by him crossing his arms. "Plus, do you know how mad Tony will be if I act like I'm interested in the guy? And if I don't pay any attention to him then I'll be the only one here who doesn't care, which will still single me out."
The bell rings to start class and Peter grabs his notebook and a loose pencil from his backpack, Ned following suit, and looks to the front where the teacher is writing on the whiteboard. Out of the corner of his eye, Peter sees Ned grab an index card and start writing on it before sliding it over to Peter.
Why would Tony be mad?
Peter subtly moves the card where he can write on it between taking notes.
The Avengers and Fantastic Four have this stupid rivalry thing, idk
They pass the paper back and forth a couple more times.
Rivalry?
Yeah, it's dumb. Tony doesn't like that they just showed up and are new heroes on the scene. I don't think the F.F. even know that the Avengers don't like them
I guess that makes sense. Still weird tho
Peter crumples the paper up and drops it into his open backpack, ending the conversation there. They both follow the slideshow the teacher shows, copying down notes that probably won't even be necessary, but Peter doesn't like to leave anything out 'just in case'.
When the bell finally rings to release them for lunch, Peter and Ned pack up and walk through the halls to the cafeteria. Ned's saying something, but Peter can't hear him; he's too busy focusing on not hearing anything else around them. Only one more class, then he can go home.
They sit down at their usual table, Ned still continuing his thought from before, Peter assumes, when one word cuts through, "decathlon."
"Damn it," Peter complains, dropping his face into his hands again. "I forgot about decathlon practice today," he says.
"You can't miss another one, that would be the third this month," Ned says, biting into his apple. "And this is the third practice this month. You'd be 0-3. I'm sick of sitting next to Flash."
He forgot about Flash. He'll one hundred percent get shit for a superhero attending their school. Peter can already hear Flash going "Do you know this guy too? Are you an intern for Mr. Fantastic?" which doesn't even make sense, by the way, but he just knows that Flash will have something stupid to say.
"I know," Peter answers, dejected. "Even if I wanted to skip, Tony wouldn't let me."
Right, Tony. He should check his phone. Then again, he doesn't really want to. Peter can deal with whatever it is later.
"I hope he's in my math class," Peter hears a girl say across the room.
He feels bad, but he can't help but laugh when he saw who said it. Sorry girl, Johnny Storm is not going to be in a business math class. He'll be in calculus or something—Peter's in calculus. Shit! Johnny's definitely going to be in calculus with him. Probably most, if not all, of Peter's other classes as well.
Ned makes some kind of comment about the fact Peter has been groaning a lot today, but Peter doesn't care.
Decathlon practice.
A.K.A. the one time of the day where he's stuck in a room for two hours with everyone he's told that he's in intern for Stark Industries.
A.K.A. when he has to look at Flash's stupid face the whole time and resist the urge to web him to the wall and leave him there.
Peter walks into the drama room with his backpack slung low over his shoulder and his head down with Ned directly to his left. He's blocked out as much chatter as he can throughout the whole day that it's practically subconscious that his brain skips over any mention of the name Johnny Storm.
He feels Ned stop moving to his left, but he doesn't care. He just keeps going, wanting to be in his seat and be done with this as fast as possible. Maybe he can even convince himself that time will go by faster if he begs it to enough.
Weaving through the desks with his path easily memorized, he stops short at his desk when he realizes someone is sitting there already.
"Hey, um, that's my spot," Peter says, clearly annoyed, but still not naturally confrontational. Everyone in decathlon has their unofficial-official seats, so it had to have been intentional that they're sitting there.
He looks up from his feet when he gets no response after a few seconds and is about to repeat himself when, all at once, he realizes that everyone stopped talking, every pair of eyes in the room was trained on him, and the person sitting in his seat is the one guy he's been trying to avoid all mentions of all day.
Another couple seconds of silence pass as they lock eyes before someone—Peter doesn't look to see who it is—clears their throat and whisper-yells, "Peter."
Johnny Storm looks genuinely surprised that Peter confronted him. Typical spoiled rich kid, Peter thinks.
"Sorry," Johnny says, plastering that stupid, annoying smile onto his face. "Didn't realize there were assigned seats," he shrugs, getting up and gesturing with his arm to present the empty seat to Peter.
Peter pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and sits down in the now vacant seat. "There are no assigned seats, he's just a freak," a voice cuts through the uncomfortable silence. Peter has to refrain from rolling his eyes at the sound of Flash's voice.
"Oh, okay," Johnny shrugs, moving to the chair on Peter's right, "cool."
"That's where Ned sits," Peter says without looking up, catching Johnny right before he fully sits down. He hears a faint, "Dude," coming from where Ned is still frozen at the door.
The blonde immediately stands back up and moves to Peter's left. He has no reason to tell Johnny not to sit there, so he begrudgingly keeps his mouth shut.
"God, Penis, why do you have to be so annoying all the time?" Flash complains. Peter just rolls his eyes and takes out his decathlon supplies. He can hear the smirk in Flash's voice as he adds on, "So, what Avenger is picking you up today?"
Peter's eye twitches and his hand tightens around his pencil so hard it almost breaks—it would've if he didn't catch himself in time. Ned finally sits down on his right and Peter starts doodling to try and ignore the bully's taunts.
"You know the Avengers?" Johnny asks from his left, sounding genuinely curious. Peter ignores him.
"He says his has this internship with Tony Stark, but everyone knows it's bullshit," Flash says. Great, way to include the new guy in on this right from the start.
But of course, Johnny can't just drop it. "How do you know that?"
"Um, because Stark Industries doesn't do internships for high schoolers?" Flash says like it's obvious. "If they did, I would totally have that internship and not that dweeb."
He hops off the table he's sitting on and saunters over to where Peter and Johnny are sitting, hopping up onto Peter's desk and nearly sitting on his notebook. Peter pulls his stuff away with an annoyed glare sent in Flash's direction, which goes unnoticed since the teen is looking at the superhero in front of him.
"Anyway," Flash says, turning to look at Peter, "maybe Thor this time?"
"Hey, come on," Johnny cuts in, "leave him alone."
"He's a loser," Flash defends himself, looking back at the hero. "He's literally lying about being friends with superheroes. What's lamer than that?"
Johnny, in an incredible display of self-control, snaps his mouth shut when Mr. Harrington walks through the door.
"I assume everyone has met our new member?" Mr. Harrington asks, setting his stuff down on the desk.
That answers the question of why Johnny Storm was sitting in his seat.
Flash hops down from Peter's desk and sits down as close as he can to the astronaut. Mr. Harrington picks people at random to go up on the stage and do their practice competition. On one side of the table is Sally, MJ, Ned, and Flash. On the other side is Christine, Desiree, Peter, and, just his luck, Johnny.
Peter settles in his seat on the stage and pushes his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. Johnny sits to his left, so close to him that he could feel heat radiating off of the boy. Briefly, Peter wonders if he naturally runs hot, or if he's doing that on purpose.
For the better part of practice, most of the questions are answered by either MJ, Peter, or Johnny. A couple here and there are answered by other students, but the three of them are definitely the fastest.
At 5:30, Peter can finally leave. He's sure Happy is parked around the side of the school for him and is going to book it to the car as fast as possible. He haphazardly tosses his stuff into his backpack, being one of the last to get his papers together since he was distracted doing homework while he wasn't on the stage.
Peter and Ned are near the back of the crowd as they leave the school, but the spider weaves his way through the small crowd and turns to meet Happy at their usual spot. He was stopped by a familiar voice yelling.
"Hey, kid!" the voice shouts. Peter turns to look and barely catches a motorcycle helmet chucked at him.
"B-" Peter spares a quick glance to his side and sees the whole team gathered around the exit. "James?" he asks.
"Let's go get subs," Bucky says, tossing an extra leather jacket that was draped over the seat of the motorcycle at him.
Peter skips over, tossing his backpack to the Avenger, who drops it in the compartment under the seat, and puts the jacket on. He's about to put the helmet on when a burning heat settles beside him quickly.
"Dude, nice bike!" the ball of flame exclaims, putting himself out as he walks around the bike, admiring it. Peter's smile drops off his face and a scowl quickly replaces it. "What model?" Johnny asks.
Bucky, face hidden behind the motorcycle helmet, turns to look at Peter and then at Johnny. "No clue, sorry," he shrugs. "It's not mine."
"Who's is it?" Johnny asks.
"My boyfriend's," Bucky answers easily.
Johnny nods, still looking at the motorcycle. "Well if you find out, can you let Peter know so he can tell me?"
Peter hears Bucky laugh quietly, amused, and he hides his face by hastily putting the helmet on. "Yeah, sure," he answered. "Delmar's" Bucky asked, turning his attention off of the blonde easily.
Peter nods and Bucky gets on the bike, the kid hopping on the back and wrapping his arms around the soldier. Johnny steps back and Bucky drives off.
They stop at Delmar's, Peter getting his usual—a number five with pickles, squished down real flat, and a weird look for coming in with another super-powered individual—and Bucky copying his order, before taking the subs back to the Avenger's Tower. Bucky parks in the garage and they head up the elevator.
It wasn't until they were upstairs in the Avenger's common room when Bucky goes, "Can I ask?"
Peter gives him a dirty look as he sets his sub on the counter and sits on one of the stools, unwrapping the sandwich. "No-"
"I'm going to ask," he announces anyway. "Are you friends with the Human Torch?"
"No!" Peter defends himself. It's not like he really has to defend himself, but he feels like he does.
"It sounded like you're friends with him," Bucky said, sitting down and taking a bite out of his own sub.
"I think he's just like that," Peter shrugs, stuffing a bite of his sandwich in his face so he can't elaborate further—as if he even wanted to.
Natasha walks in from the hallway and opens the fridge, grabbing the pitcher of tea and setting it on the counter. Bucky says something to her in Russian that Peter can't understand.
"Can you get me a glass?" Peter asks her, seeing her grab one for herself. Natasha picks up a second glass and sets it on the counter in front of her. "Thanks," he says, reaching for it, but she holds it out of his reach.
"Bucky says you have a new friend," she says, eyebrow raised. Bucky laughs at Peter's turmoil, settling evidently on his features.
"I talked to him once!" He half-shouts.
"He came up to me to compliment Steve's motorcycle and asked me to find out what model it was, tell Peter, and then he'd get the answer from him at school," Bucky supplies.
"He clearly thinks you're friends," Natasha said.
"I don't want to be!" Peter complains, pushing at his food.
His glasses frames slip down the bridge of his nose again and he shoves them back up angrily. They slide down again immediately after and he grabs the arm and tosses them onto the countertop, accidentally using too much force and sending them sliding across the smooth surface and falling onto the ground with a clatter. Peter pushes his food away from him and drops his face down onto his arms crossed on the counter.
Peter can't stand the feeling of them both looking at him, so he gets up and wraps the rest of his sandwich up, putting it away in the fridge. He grabs his backpack and stalks off to his room without a word or a glance at either of them.
Dropping down at his desk, Peter yanks his stuff out of his bag, setting his laptop up to his right and taking out his calculus, history, and physics notebooks. Only then does he realize that he left his glasses in the kitchen. Natasha probably picked them up so they wouldn't be stepped on—if they didn't break from him chucking them across the room—but he doesn't want to have to go back out there to get them.
He pushes his chair out and stands up, walking over to his bed and falling down on it. Peter checks his phone and only sees text message notifications from Tony and Ned, which he's pretty sure he already knew what they said, and an Instagram notification that he can't be bothered to check. Shutting off his phone, Peter kicks his shoes off and rolls over in bed, facing the wall.
Johnny watches as Peter and his—at least what he assumes is his—brother ride off before he turns around and goes to the student parking lot, hopping in his car and starting the engine. The music starts with the car and blasts Queen's Don't Stop Me Now as he leaves the parking lot and drives home to the Baxter Building. He pulls up and parks, entering the lobby and making his way to the elevators.
Once he's in the elevator, Johnny forcing the song repeating in his head to stop for a moment so he could rehearse what he'll say to Sue when she asks how his day was.
"There was this boy, he was really cute," Johnny whispers to himself, "he was being bullied though. Did I do anything about it? No. He also doesn't seem to like me very much." He shakes his head, grimacing at the thought of telling his sister about that part.
The elevator doors open and Johnny steps out into the living room, depositing his backpack on the couch and going to the fridge to see if there were any leftovers he wanted. First, he had to stop near the TV to say hi to H.E.R.B.I.E.
"Johnny!" Sue greets him happily.
Johnny peeks his head out of the fridge to return the greeting before going back to rooting through the Tupperware containers. He finds one labeled "Johnny", Ben must've left it for him, and grabs it. They must've had soup for dinner last night while Johnny was out, since that's what was left for him today.
"How was your first day?" his sister asks as he puts the container in the microwave, covering the container with a paper towel.
Johnny sets the microwave timer for a minute and pours himself a glass of orange juice while he answers with a noncommittal shrug, "I was just there for that club you wanted me to join."
"And? I'm asking how it went," Sue responds, leaning against the island. "Did you make any friends?"
He takes a minute to think while sipping his orange juice. "Almost everyone was all over me," he mutters.
Sue gives him a sympathetic smile and he turns away so he's not looking at her, instead watching the timer as it runs out. Johnny takes the container out and stirs the soup with his spoon before putting it back in for another minute and a half.
He feels Sue watching him in silence for a moment as he settles back against the island. "'Almost everyone'?"
Johnny shrugs again. "There was one guy who wanted nothing to do with me."
Sue comes around and stops in front of him, leaning back on the counter behind her. "What do you mean?"
"I don't know what you want me to say," he answers. "He just…" Johnny pauses, trying to find words, "I don't know, didn't care? I don't think he likes me."
"Isn't that a good thing? Maybe you can be friends with him, since you know he's not chasing after you because of your powers."
"I don't mean that he doesn't have any thoughts on me," Johnny stops her. "I genuinely think he hates me. I don't know what I did, but he really doesn't seem to like me, like, at all."
Sue cocks her head and moves to the side as the timer goes off again so Johnny could get his food. He sits at the kitchen island and she leans against the surface across from him. "Why do you say that?"
"Apparently I was sitting in his spot, or whatever," Johnny says, absentmindedly stirring his soup, "and so I moved to the spot next to him, which turned out to be his friend's spot, so I moved again and sat on the other side of him. He didn't say anything when I sat on his other side, but I saw his face."
He taps the bottom of the plastic container with the tip of his metal spoon a few times. "Afterwards we all left and some guy on this super cool motorcycle came to pick him up, so I asked what model it was, but right when I started a conversation with the guy—James, I think he's probably his brother—Peter stared at me with this look on his face like I stank or whatever."
His sister nods along as he speaks, waiting a few seconds after he's done to make sure she wouldn't cut him off. "Do you think he's bullying you?" Sue asks.
"No, I don't think so. But I don't know what his problem is," Johnny says, bringing a spoonful of soup to his mouth. "He's being bullied by this guy on the decathlon team, Flash, so maybe he was just annoyed since it seems that everyone already knows the reason he's being made fun of and now I'm another person he thinks will add onto that."
"Why are they making fun of him?"
Johnny realizes this is exactly what he just told himself a few minutes ago that he wouldn't tell his sister. He glances up at her and back down at his bowl. "Doesn't matter."
Thankfully, Sue leaves it at that. "Reed and I are going out to a movie tonight," she tells him, "so you and Ben are alone for dinner tonight."
Johnny nods and keeps his gaze on his soup that he's still lazily stirring around as she walks out. Once he's left alone, he grabs his phone from his pocket and opens Instagram, the app opening to the Midtown High Decathlon Team account since he was looking at it before their meet today. He clicks on the group photo from their last competition and taps the screen, pulling up the tagged accounts in the post and clicks the name that pops up over Peter's chest.
PeterP_2217
He spends a short while scrolling through Peter's posts, checking out recent ones and some that are a few years old—Peter doesn't post very often, Johnny tells himself, he wasn't stalking that much—when his finger accidentally slips on a picture of Peter and the guy with the motorcycle Johnny saw earlier, his face still covered and the photo taken as a selfie at a red light on the bike, and he likes it.
Hastily, Johnny took away the like he left on the picture from five months ago, but he knew the damage was already done. Peter got a notification the moment he liked it. Johnny was so screwed.