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Ever since he became Spider-Man, Peter thought that he had experienced every kind of crisis that a 17 year-old could feel and more.
He had been shot, he had been stabbed, he had been bonked in the head with a crowbar. He got hit by a car, stuck literally between two sinking halves of a ferry, and got into an airplane crash.
But nothing … nothing at all could be compared to that moment.
“A C minus?” Peter rasped as he looked at the printed essay before him and the bright red marking above it.
He had been checking and rechecking the name written on the essay probably a thousand times up until that point, hoping it was a mistake. But there’s no denying it. No matter how many times he blinked, his name was still there at the top of the paper in 12-point Times New Roman.
It was his essay. Apparently, the atrocious score was his, too.
He felt like a soda volcano made of nightmares and broken dreams was about to burst in his chest, leaving panic and heavy disappointment in its wake.
“Hey Pete, what did ya get … oh.”
Ned’s grin was wiped clean off of his face when he saw the blood red letter on his best friend’s paper.
“I-I … I don’t get it.” Peter slowly looked up from the cursed essay up to Ned’s sympathetic face. “I really don’t get it.”
“I don’t mean to freak you out but this essay is like, 50% of our unit’s total score.” Ned said quietly. “It’s …”
“Yeah, I know, Ned.”
Peter burrowed his face into his hands. He had been banking on getting at least an A on the essay. There would be no way MIT would take him into consideration or give him a scholarship with a C- on his report.
Though Ned tried to surreptitiously fold his essay away behind his back, Peter already saw that he got an A-. That’s enough to get him into MIT. And there was no doubt MJ would get a skyhigh score, too, considering how scarily smart she was.
Judging by the excited hustle and bustle in the class, everyone probably got the result they wanted, too. That left Peter as the outlier with a butchered essay in front of him. The C- not only meant he would be missing out on his top favourite school in the whole country … he would also be separated from his friends.
Peter would much rather be shot with an alien rifle again. In fact, he would cheerfully pick it up and shoot himself if that would turn the C- into an A. Gristly and dark? Yes, but Peter was that desperate.
“Crap. Crap. Crap.” Peter ran his hands through his hair, ruffling it up. “This can’t be happening, Ned!”
As Peter wallowed in another round of self-pity and fresh panic, Ned walked around the table and peered at the essay from behind Peter’s slumped shoulders. He narrowed his eyes at the bolded title.
FIRST-GENERATION ARC REACTOR MECHANISM OF ENERGY PRODUCTION — NEUTRON ACTIVATION OF PALLADIUM
“Hey, isn’t this the paper that you wrote with Mr. Stark?” Ned leaned down and whispered frantically into Peter’s ear, which was buzzing loudly.
“Yeah, that’s why I thought I would get a really high score!” He almost yelled at Ned, but managed to tone it down to a whisper. To say that he was upset was an understatement. “I don’t understand how it got a C minus!”
“Dude, you know that Mrs. Simmons basically just gave the Tony Stark a C minus in Physics by extension, right? The same dude with a gazillion PhD and also the one who built the first arc reactor?” Ned clamped both of his hands on Peter’s shoulders and shook, trying his darndest to pull his friend from his solo pity party.
But Peter was dead to the world. The boy was mumbling nonsense under his breath and Ned saw what looked suspiciously like tear stains on the paper, too.
Or was that drool?
No matter, Ned had to do what any best friend must do.
“Mrs. Simmons!” He launched his hand in the air and hollered (a bit too loudly).
The excited bustle of the class as everyone quietened immediately. Everyone’s attention was directed their attention to the boy and his comatosed companion.
“Peter’s got an appeal.”
That did the trick. From basically draping his entire body over the table, Peter launched completely upright as Mrs. Simmons’ harsh glare swept over him.
“Mr. Parker?”
The boy felt like withering underneath the old woman’s stare. Mrs. Simmons was the strictest teacher in the school. But her type of strictness wasn’t the cool I’m-strict-because-I-want-you-to-succeed strictness. Mrs. Simmons felt like she enjoyed every second of pain and annoyance that she got from her students.
Worse, Peter was definitely on her hit list. He didn’t know what he had done to deserve it, but judging by the way she always picked on him to answer the most difficult questions and assigned all of the chores to him during lab work, Mrs. Simmons without a doubt hated his guts.
“I … uh … I don’t understand how my … score is … scored?” Peter mumbled, but in the quiet classroom, he was as good as having shouted it out for everyone to hear.
She leaned forward, hands folded on the table. The petrifying look he sent Peter felt like it could turn him to rock.
“That was simply the worst, under-researched essay I’ve ever read in my 25 years of teaching.”
Peter’s mouth fell open and he felt like his heart just dropped to his feet. Ned’s face paled and, in his peripheral vision, a rare expression of shock flitted across MJ’s face.
“Mrs. Simmons, I swear I worked very hard on it. I double-checked all my sources …”
“You’re not hearing me, Mr. Parker. Open up your papers.” She narrowed her eyes at him. Gingerly, he did and his eyes nearly bulged out of his head.
Red marks were everywhere. Entire paragraphs were crossed out. References were circled with “questionable” next to them. But above all else, Mrs. Simmons even scratched out the (Stark, T., 2019) reference.
That’s his most important source!
“The arc reactor technology is understood by none but Tony Stark himself. And when you actually referenced Stark, your reference section didn’t mention from where he wrote or said it at all. In other words, everything you wrote here is basically useless.”
“And, unless you know Tony Stark himself and got him to tutor you, which I doubt you do, you’re either very bold or very stupid to write that in, Mr. Parker.”
At the back of the class, Peter could hear a few snickers and whispers. Among them was, of course, Flash.
“So from knowing Spider-Man, he switched to Tony Stark now, huh? In his essay, no less. I didn’t expect much from Penis but I didn’t think he’s this desperate for attention.”
“But … but …” He sputtered, words were flying around in his head but he couldn’t catch any to form a proper sentence.
“That is unless …” Mrs. Simmons actually smirked at him. And her smirk was as sharp as a dagger’s blade. “… you got Tony Stark to corroborate the essay for you, a C- is all you’re going to get, Mr. Parker. Be grateful that I don’t give you a straight F.”
There were a few chuckles in the class.
“Hey Peter, didn’t you say you know Spider-Man? You happen to know Tony Stark, too?” Flash’s mocking tone reverberated from behind his back and half the class laughed along with him.
Peter resolutely looked forward and bit down on the frustration that was brewing like a hurricane inside of him. As much as he wanted to snap his head back and verbally eviscerate the wanker, Peter wasn’t going to take Flash’s bait and got into even more trouble than he was currently in.
“That’s enough, Mr. Thompson. Now, if there are no other complaints about the Final, I’m going to go ahead and finish the last chapter.”
Mrs. Simmons stood up from her seat and, throwing Peter one last glare, turned to the board and began to write out the lesson.
Peter’s hands balled into fists as his frustration reached a fever pitch.
The truth was Tony Stark himself did help him with the essay. He even cracked open the glass case that held his rudimentary arc reactor for Peter to dissect. The man himself even gave detailed lessons on every part and every mechanism of the reactor along the way.
But there was no way for him to prove that it was the truth.
Peter would have to waste away in some B-list, no-name school while MJ and Ned went on to MIT and have successful futures. MJ would leave him because he was a loser. He would work in McDonald’s for the rest of his life and eventually would resort to selling drugs or even himself to make end’s meet. And Mr. Stark would laugh at him and kick him out of his internship at SI and tell him to never come back again. And …
In the middle of his mental breakdown, his spidey-sense flared for a brief moment before something hit him lightly on the head.
There was a balled-up piece of paper on his desk.
Straightening it out, Peter found a short message in MJ’s familiar scrawl. Three simple words that sent yet another wave of panic through him, this one even bigger than when he first saw the C- on his paper:
Call Mr. Stark.
When he looked at her from across the aisle, MJ wasn’t even looking at him and was aloof as always, so he looked back down at the paper.
Before, he wouldn’t call Mr. Stark even if he got shot because he was that scared of inconveniencing his mentor. But now …
His leg bounced up and down when he realized it was the only option he got. It was the nuclear option. The last Hail Mary before Peter’s consigned to becoming a McDonald’s manager until he’s 60 and retired.
With shaky hands, Peter slid out of his pocket the prototype StarkPhone that Mr. Stark had quite literally forced into Peter’s hand (“Call it an employee’s benefit … ah ah ah! I don’t want to hear a single word about it. I’m not going to have people thinking I don’t take proper care of my interns.”) He brought up the contact list and stared dumbly at the only number on the speed dial there.
Maybe it’s not too bad being a McDonald’s manager. I mean … they got good health insurance, right?
“Mr. Parker!”
Peter jumped, almost dropping the invaluable phone onto the dirty floor.
“What did I tell you about phones in my class?” Mrs. Simmons sneered. “You know, Mr. Parker, you’ve always been extremely disrespectful in my class. Always showing up late, always not taking the class seriously. You think you’re very smart, aren’t you?”
To say that he was blind-sided by the weirdly personal tirade was an understatement.
So that’s why she hated his guts … but it wasn’t Peter’s fault that the world always needed Spider-Man during school time and that the materials covered in the class were so boring.
“Your results reflect your terrible attitude. Do not test me, Mr. Parker, your score is very close to turning into an F.”
“I’m just … this phone call is very important, I promise!”
Suddenly, a horrible expression crossed her face. Almost as if she had just figured out the next way to turn his life into a worse shamble than it already was at that point.
When she spoke, Peter’s guess was right:
“Well … since you think your phone call to be so important that you must do it in the middle of my class, I guess there isn’t anything that you can’t share with the rest of the class?”
Snickers and gossipy whispers rose all around him.
“Parker’s so dead.”
“She’s going to nail him to the wall.”
“Loooserrrr.”
Peter knew this was completely unfair. That this must’ve broken dozens of different laws on privacy, but he wasn’t exactly in the position to call her out on it right then.
He gave Ned a brief glance, whose face was as white as a sheet of paper. Then, his eyes traveled over to MJ. Surprisingly, he saw anger in her dark eyes and in the way her jaws were set tightly. The girl nodded almost imperceptibly to him.
That was all of the motivation he needed to press the button on the phone. Pressing a few on-screen prompts, the phone projected a holographic panel onto the air. A few people hooted in amazement.
On the panel, the caller ID was shown clearly: SI-SS.
It was all quiet at first.
Then, the ringback tone started.
One ring.
Two rings.
Three rings.
Then it cut off and a chipper, electronic voice filtered in through the phone’s speaker:
“Stark Secure Server. Please declare your authorization code.”
A box showed up on the panel.
Forcing himself to ignore everyone and everything, Peter shakily typed in the password that he had long since memorized and could recite in his sleep onto the phone: “P-E-P-K-6-A-7-E-9-7-5-T-S-7-9-4”.
They merely showed up as stars on the screen, so it wasn’t like anyone could copy it out.
He hit the enter key.
“Processing.”
A few beats of complete silence passed. Not just on the phone, but also the class. Since Peter was resolutely refusing to make eye contact with anyone in the class, the boy wasn’t aware that everyone — including Mrs. Simmons — were leaning forward with various degrees of shock on their face, hanging onto every word the electronic voice was saying.
“Authorization code processed. Welcome back, Peter Parker. Access level: Black, Full-System Access. Please declare your command.”
In the absolute quietness of the class, he could hear a few skipped breaths and gasps.
“Transfer to FRIDAY, please.” He said timidly, keeping his voice as quiet as he could.
“Now transferring to the recipient … FRIDAY.”
Like the hyper-advanced AI that she was, FRIDAY picked up the proverbial phone even before the electronically-generated voice of the secure server managed to finish its sentence.
“Good morning, Peter. Cross-referencing your schedule and your tracker, it seems like you are still at school. Are you in danger?”
“No, FRIDAY, I’m not.” Peter cleared his throat awkwardly. “Is Mr. Stark available?”
The instant he finished the sentence, he knew he had created enough drama to last the school for the next couple of years. The gossipy whispers rose in volume and intensity. Enough that he could barely hear anything through all of the over-excited words blended together:
“No way. This has got to be a trick. No way this loser knows Tony Stark!”
“Parker really knows Tony Stark?”
“Oh my God …”
“I don’t buy a single thing I’m looking and hearing right now.”
Curiously, Peter hadn’t heard a peep from Flash. But no matter, once again, Peter’s got bigger fish to fry.
“I’m sorry Peter,” FRIDAY said and Peter almost fainted right there on the spot: “As you’re probably already aware, Boss is on vacation and said that he shouldn’t be disturbed unless it’s an absolute emergency. Is this an emergency call?”
That one was true. Mr. Stark already texted him that he would be flying off to Bali for some R&R with Mrs. Stark for a week. Their flight took off just the day before. It made Peter feel even worse disturbing him with his teeny-little teenage crisis while he’s de-stressing after literally saving the world.
Peter took a second to think. The thought of being a bother to Mr. Stark was such a terrible one, Peter almost dropped the call here and there. He thought better of it, of course.
His future was at risk and … he needed Mr. Stark now more than ever.
“Yes. Yes FRIDAY, it’s an emergency. Well, it’s not a big, life-threatening emergency. More like a … medium-sized emergency, does that co…”
“Transferring you now.”
Well that was rude.
Peter really should chide her on it the next time he dropped by the lab.
The other end of the line picked up after three straight tones.
“Peter?”
“Mrs. Stark?”
There were several squeals behind him when the melodic, instantly-recognizable voice of the CEO of Stark Industries echoed through the room. Peter could sympathize with them. That was his reaction when he met her for the first time, too.
It’s sort of weird to think that he’s met her so many times, he’s no longer that excited. Peter felt like being on the phone with May rather than the most powerful woman in the corporate world.
Then, the video finally went through and Mrs. Stark appeared in all of her glory with cherry red lips, blushed cheeks, and exquisite eyeliners on the holographic panel. As she did, the ruckus in the class increased dramatically.
“Oh … my … god …”
“It’s Virginia Stark! Noooo wayyyy!”
Peter still paid them no attention, but his eyes were drawn to the blurry background behind Mrs. Stark. Judging by the way she’s dressed, the warm lighting, and the shadows of servers walking back and forth, he could tell she was at a restaurant.
A fancy one.
There could only be a single conclusion as to what he had done: Peter just gatecrashed a date night.
The utter embarrassment and shame coursing through his being were sort of impressive. Peter wasn’t even aware that one could feel such strong and painful mortification.
“FRIDAY said it’s an emergency. What’s going on, honey? Are you okay?” Mrs. Stark spoke in that sweet, motherly voice she had always used on him. She didn’t seem to realize that they were having an audience as Mrs. Stark wasn’t using her “media face” right then. Her steely visage was soft and concern for him was apparent.
Despite the situation, it made him strangely happy.
“Honey? What did she mean by honey?”
A few people picked up on the term of endearment, it seemed.
“Oh no, I’m totally okay, Mrs. Stark! Look, I’m so, so, so sorry for crashing you guys’ date but can I please talk to Mr. Stark? It’s very important. M-my … my college application is on the line.”
Mrs. Stark’s brows furrowed and the concern in her eyes deepened.
“Okay, here’s him.” She nodded.
The scene on the screen shifted wildly for a little bit as the phone changed hands. He — and apparently everyone — could still hear small snippets of the conversation on the other end.
“Is it Peter?”
“Yeah, he said it’s an emergency about his college application.”
“I’ll handle it.”
And then there he was. Like every other time Peter met him, his stomach did a small flip of happiness. To this day, he still didn’t believe that he was Tony Stark’s personal intern.
“Hey Mr. Stark.” He smiled weakly.
“What’s this I’m hearing about a college application in peril? Did you blow up the school lab? Just so you know I’m not paying for a new one. I'll just garnish your wage.”
“No …! And that was one time, and it was like … three weeks ago.” He said exasperatedly, momentarily forgetting about his ordeal.
“Whatever kid, just so you know that one time of yours raised my insurance premium by, like, 50%.”
Peter rolled his eyes. He knew Mr. Stark wasn’t really mad and he didn’t really care, so he didn’t take the teasing to heart.
“Anyway … I didn’t blow anything up. Long story short, remember that essay you and I wrote a while ago?”
Peter snuck a peak up to Mrs. Simmons, whose smugness was completely gone as she stared in complete amazement and … fear at the man projected on the screen. Her face looked like it was a bit green around the edges.
“Yeah? What about it? For a high-school essay, that’s definitely going to get you at least an A on your scorecard.”
He winced.
“Well … here’s the thing. I just got the paper back and … I got a C minus.”
Mr. Stark was completely quiet for a few seconds, his face completely unmoving. If it wasn’t for the blurry shadows of people moving back and forth behind him, Peter would’ve thought that the video froze up somehow.
Then he burst into laughter.
“Mr. Stark!” Peter whined. “This is serious!”
Pure mirth rippled through his face and he shook his hand at the camera a little bit. A few seconds of giggling later, Mr. Stark looked up at something out of frame and sobered almost immediately:
“Okay, okay … sorry. Inappropriate.”
Peter bet it was Mrs. Stark sending him her signature glare.
After calming down a bit (his shoulders were still shaking with ill-suppressed laughter), Mr. Stark cleared his throat:
“So. What’s the problem?”
He took the red-marked essay and held it in front of the camera for him to see.
“I … uh, it’s not very … well-referenced according to my teacher.”
Mr. Stark leaned a little bit closer to the camera and narrowed his eyes a bit as he tried to read the tiny words on his side of the screen.
“How? Last time I checked it was me who built that arc reactor.”
Peter looked up at Mrs. Simmons. The poor woman looked like she was about to faint. She was opening and closing her mouth, trying to come up with words but she couldn’t manage any.
It was at this point that Peter also gathered the courage to look around at the class, too. As expected, every single soul was looking at him with a mixture of shock, awe, and a few (mainly Flash) with jealousy and anger. Ned looked like he was about to pass out from excitement. Meanwhile, MJ wasn’t looking at anyone at all and was staring intensely at Mrs. Simmons all the while sketching in her “People in Crisis” notebook.
Peter swallowed thickly.
“Uh … the thing is that the arc reactor is proprietary and they don’t … believe that I know you so … you know.”
Mr. Stark thought for a bit, shrugged and said: “Are you in class right now?”
“Yeah.”
“Put your teacher on the phone.”
Peter almost pitied the woman when he made eye contact with her. She slowly shuffled forward and stood next to Peter. His hyper-sensitive hearing could pick up the rapid beats of her heart as she did.
You can always count on Tony Stark to inject a healthy dose of primal fear into you.
“H-H … Hello, Mr. Stark.”
He regarded her sharply. Even Peter, who’s sort of used to the powerful man at that point, felt a little bit apprehensive at his stare.
Then, the sharpness dissipated and he visibly relaxed:
“Look, I’m not going to take much of your time or your class and I’ve got a hot date …”
“Tony.” Mrs. Stark’s voice said from somewhere off-screen.
Peter felt his mouth curled up in amusement at the man’s antics. Judging by the few light chuckles in the room, the class was amused, too.
Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like Mrs. Simmons felt the same as her face was still pale and terrified.
“… my point is, I’m going to make this quick. Mr. Parker’s my intern and I personally advised him on that paper. I assure you, Mrs. Teacher, other than me, Peter is the second-best expert on the arc reactor technology. Not only did Peter have access to me, which is more or less all he needed to get an A on the paper …”
“Tony.”
Mr. Stark grunted: “… I also let him dissect the real arc reactor for the paper. That first-gen arc reactor was old tech, so there’s nothing compromising that people could take away from that paper.”
“Y-yes … I understand, Mr. Stark.”
“Since I’m not in the business of harassing high-school teachers, I’m going to ask you very nicely, I’d like you to revise Peter’s score …”
Mr. Stark looked up the ceiling for a little bit, seemingly deep in thought before he looked straight ahead at the camera, the threatening steeliness once again back in his eyes:
“Or else.”
“TONY!” Mrs. Stark squawked and the scene once again blurred as the phone was ripped away. Seconds later, Mrs. Stark once again appeared on the phone:
“I am so sorry for my husband’s behavior. I assure you, he wasn’t serious and will not do anything against you. He’s just … like that.” Mrs. Stark sighed.
“But … but Pep!”
Mr. Stark sputtered off-screen.
Mrs. Stark glowered and temporarily muted the phone, she looked up at her husband and threw him a terrible look. The sort of look that would’ve made Peter run, dig his own grave, and bury himself if it was thrown at him.
He had to bite his lips to hide a laugh when he read her mouth:
“No but! If I hear even a peep from you next, you’re banished to the couch for the rest of the trip, Tony, I swear.”
She un-muted and gave a polite smile to the camera: “But even then, I hope that you would reconsider Peter’s grade. He’s a very talented young man and I’d like to vouch for him that Tony did advise him on the paper. It’s the best reference that he could possibly get, considering the topic of his work.”
Mrs. Simmons nodded frantically, visibly more at ease talking with Mrs. Stark than her husband: “Yes, I understand, Mrs. Stark. I will do that immediately.”
“Well, if there’s nothing else …” Mrs. Stark began, but before she could finish, everyone in the class could hear Mr. Stark’s voice cut in again.
“Wait, Peter!”
In a flash, Mr. Stark’s grinning face appeared over Mrs. Stark’s shoulder. She threw another look at her husband warningly:
“No funny business, Tony.”
“I know, I’m just telling our kid about that phase of the trip.”
A small smile came over Mrs. Stark’s face and Peter felt a little bit less stressed about what his mentor was about to announce. That meant it was a Mrs. Stark-approved idea. And those ideas were usually less dangerous or hare-brained.
“What’s up, Mr. Stark?” Peter piped up timidly.
“You still got your passport, kiddo?”
“Of course, what …”
“Pack your bags. You’re flying out with us. Happy’s going to pick you up after school and you’ll be on a flight to Bali tonight.”
Peter’s mouth promptly fell open. So did the rest of the class (except MJ, who only looked mildly interested).
“But … What about May?”
“Oh I already called your Aunt H … May.” He cleared his throat awkwardly, remembering it wasn’t a very good joke to pull when his wife was sitting next to him.
Mrs. Stark, thanks heaven, wasn’t in on the joke just yet so she just blinked confusedly at him.
“She said yes. So go pack. We’ve had enough adult time already, so it’s time to bring the show down to PG.”
“Tony …”
“Yes, dear. Sorry, dear …” He mumbled, before looking back at Peter. “So, what do you say?”
Peter would be stupid not to take him on the offer, so he just nodded enthusiastically without saying anything. He couldn’t say anything. Peter was buzzing with excitement.
“Good. Oh and, your friends, Ted or whatever and Michelle are invited, too. Just make sure they got parental consent, I don’t want to be on the front page for human trafficking tomorrow.” He gestured vaguely.
Peter glanced at Ned and MJ. The two of them looked back at him. Ned was on the verge of hyperventilating, while MJ was smiling.
Michelle Jones never smiled. She only smirked. It was sort of scary … and nice.
She looked great when she smiled.
Peter thought dreamily before shaking his head, looking back at his mentor on the screen.
“Okay, so we’re done here. Get your flippers on, kids. You’re going to need them.”
Mrs. Stark took the opportunity to cut in:
“Love you, Pete! We’ll see you soon!”
His small smile blossomed brightly.
Mr. Stark didn’t say anything, only grinned at the screen. Peter didn’t need him to say anything. The fond look on his face and the invitation spoke everything unsaid.
“Love you guys, too.” Peter replied shyly.
The call dropped, giving the class back its stunned silence.
“So …” He began quietly as he looked at Mrs. Simmons. She blinked at him owlishly. It didn’t seem like she had fully processed what just happened yet.
“Can I please have this fixed?”
The class promptly erupted into chaos.