Peter had been sick at the tower for a week. With his Aunt May picking up double shifts at the hospital and Tony’s scoff at the thought of the sick boy being left home alone and suffering, both May and Tony thought it would be the best option for Peter to stay at the tower until he was feeling better.
Once he was feeling better, of course, he had to go back to school. That meant catching up on everything that he had missed while he was gone. In a suboptimal fashion, his Advanced Algebra II teacher, Mrs. Clegg had taught a new mathematical concept regarding polynomials.
Realistically, Peter knew that he should be able to teach himself about the new concept with no problem whatsoever. However, he was entirely too anxious to learn the new concept on his own out of fear of teaching himself wrong.
So, naturally, his next step was to ask Mrs. Clegg if she wouldn’t mind teaching it to him at whatever time worked best for her schedule. Once he had gotten to the tower after school, he opened his laptop and went straight to his email.
———
Hi Mrs. Clegg, I hope you’re doing well!
I was wondering if you would be alright with me coming in sometime soon to take a look at polynomials. Lunch or after school is alright with me, anything that works with your schedule!
Thanks so much,
Peter Parker
———
He quickly hit send on the email, and closed his laptop. He went about his business for the rest of the evening, eating dinner, catching up on missing work, and eventually having some lab time with Tony.
“How’s the catching up going, kid?” Tony asked, fiddling with one of his gadgets on the lab’s work table.
“It's okay. I knocked out a bunch of stuff, but I'm still behind in math,” Peter rambled.
“Gotcha. Everything okay? You don’t usually need help with math,” Tony replied, setting his tools down to cross his arms and put his attention to the kid.
“Oh, I’m fine. I asked my teacher to help me out. Just don’t wanna teach myself how to do it and do it wrong, y’know?” Peter replied, noticing how Tony was looking at him.
Tony nodded, “I can respect that.”
“Thanks, Mr. Stark-”
“Tony.”
Peter chuckled, “right.”
———
It was 7:00 AM the following morning when Peter checked his email. He found an email from Mrs. Clegg, sent at 10:03 PM the previous night.
———
Hi, Peter, I’m glad you’re feeling better.
Tomorrow works just fine.
See you then,
Mrs. Clegg
———
Peter read the email again, searching for a specific time. When he didn’t find a specific time that Mrs. Clegg wanted him to come in, he replied promptly.
———
Good to hear! Just for clarification, when should I come in today?
———
Peter hit send and sent the email off. On his way to get breakfast, he found Tony brushing his teeth in the bathroom of the penthouse.
“Oh, hey, would someone maybe be able to pick me up after school? It’s fine if not, I don’t even know if I’ll need it-”
“It’s fine, Pete. I’ll come get you if you need it,” Tony replied, promptly spitting his toothpaste into the sink below him.
“Thanks, Mr. Stark!”
“Call me Tony, or you’re walking home!”
Peter chuckled as he skipped down the stairs, holding his backpack straps as the backpack bumped along with his steps.
He worked through his day, never once getting a response from Mrs. Clegg. It was a little bit worrying that she hadn’t replied yet, considering Peter’s anxiety about punctuality and falling behind. He checked his email anxiously all day, waiting for a response.
She taught his final class of the day, so if he didn’t get a response, he figured he could just follow up with her then. After all, Tony had said he would have a ride home. Peter tried his best to relax, even if it wasn’t incredibly effective.
Once his sixth period rolled around, he found Ned sitting in the desk next to his, like usual. Ned waved and smiled cheesily and Peter returned the gesture.
“Dude! You were gone for, like, a week! How sick were you?” Ned asked, watching as Peter set his stuff down.
“Uh, I don’t know, May said I had RSV or something,” Peter replied.
“What is that?” Ned asked, furrowing his eyebrows.
Peter chuckled, “it’s a respiratory infection. I was coughing up phlegm for, like, three days.”
Ned scrunched his nose, “gross. I didn’t even know you could get sick, man.”
“Apparently.”
Peter furrowed his eyebrows and raised his right hand to scratch at the back of his neck. He looked around the room, trying to figure out what his senses could possibly be alerting him to in math class.
Once his eyes landed on Mrs. Clegg, however, Peter had his answer. Her expression presented as nothing but angry as she looked at him in the eyes, shaking her head. She stood up and placed her left hand on her hip and her right hand on her black standing desk. The bell rang and the class fell quiet.
“Peter, I kind of feel like you stood me up at lunch today. Do you feel that way?”
Peter looked at Ned briefly before turning his attention back to Mrs. Clegg.
Peter took an anxious breath in, “oh, I’m sorry, I emailed you and asked when you wanted me to come in and you didn’t reply.”
“No, I said that you could come up for tutoring today, and that would be fine.”
Tears began to well in Peter’s eyes and his leg started to bounce. He thought that he’d gone about this the right way. It was his fault, anyway. He shouldn’t have even asked her.
Ned watched as Mrs. Clegg read the email over again. She scoffed and shut her laptop and looked over to Peter and Ned before speaking. She must’ve realized her mistake, because Ned noticed how flustered she looked.
“Y’know, I kind of feel like I’m talking to my husband, because he never listens to me.”
Ned scoffed, looking over to Peter. He saw how upset Peter was and placed a hand on his knee. He tried to keep it subtle, considering the fact that everyone was looking at him.
“I’m really sorry, Mrs. Clegg. I emailed you-”
She sighed, shaking her head, “I have a class to teach, Peter. We’ll talk later.”
Without any warning, Peter picked up his backpack and stormed out of the classroom, which was incredibly out of character for him, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. He walked to the lobby in the front office and threw his stuff down, crossing his arms as he sat in one of their plastic chairs.
Suddenly, one of the office ladies perked up, “you have to go back to class unless you have a note.”
Mrs. Clegg had embarrassed him in front of the entire class over him asking her for help, the last thing he cared about was a goddamned note.
“I’m just gonna wait here, thanks,” Peter replied.
Peter had never been the type to talk down to an adult. He’s practically lived with Tony Stark for the past two years and he still refers to the man as ‘Mr. Stark’. However, he was so incredibly pissed off that he figured he could let this one slide.
“I’m going to have to call your guardian. What’s your name?” She asked, not bothering to make eye contact as she put on her glasses and started up her computer monitor.
“Peter Parker.”
She begrudgingly typed his name into the system, and shook her head with a scoff, “nice try, kid.”
“What?” Peter sighed.
“There is no way your primary contact is Tony Stark.”
“I mean, he is, so… I don’t know what to tell you,” Peter spat.
“You have no right to be disrespectful to me, young man.”
“Faculties have no right to be disrespectful to students, either, but here we are,” Peter grumbled under his breath.
“What was that?”
“Nothing that concerns you.”
“Right. We’re just going to give Mr. Stark a call now and see who really shows up.”
Peter rolled his eyes with a sigh, “yeah, because I lied about my guardianship status on a legal form.”
Granted, Peter knew that he was overreacting just a little bit to begin with, but it made him angry that the office lady didn’t believe that Tony was, in fact, one of his legal guardians. Eventually, the office lady called Tony.
”Yes, Mr. Stark, your son is here, he’s refusing to go back to class.”
A pause.
“No, I’m not sure why… No, sir, I didn’t ask.”
Another prolonged pause.
“We’ll see you then.”
She sighed, not saying a word to Peter as they sat there.
A few minutes later, the ending bell rang through the building. Soon, Peter saw Mrs. Clegg descend from the staircase that came from her classroom. They made eye contact through the window of the front office, and Peter sunk into his chair.
Mrs. Clegg entered the office lobby, making eye contact with Peter and shook her head with a demeanor that was beyond frustrated. Unbeknownst to Peter, Tony had also made his way to the office lobby.
“Peter, you cannot just get up and leave my class. It is not my fault that you were gone, and it is especially not my fault that you couldn’t make an inference that either time worked when reading my email,” Mrs. Clegg fumed, her arms resting disapprovingly across her chest.
Just then, a furiously protective Tony Stark put himself in between Mrs. Clegg and his frightened kid.
“Hey!” Tony barked, “you have no right to speak to a child that way, much less my child.”
Mrs. Clegg and the office lady were dumbfounded by Tony’s presence, much to Peter’s satisfaction.
“I don’t care what he did or didn’t infer about your email. He’s fifteen and your student. He asked you for help. This morning, he asked me if he could get a ride after school, but he wasn’t sure if he would need it, because he was trying to make this as convenient for you as possible.”
“Mr. Stark-”
Tony snapped his fingers, “nope. I wanna hear it from Peter first. What happened, kiddo?”
Tony found himself turning around to face his kid, squatting down to meet his high-level. Peter refraining from making eye contact, fiddling with his hoodie strings. Tony took notice of this, because that was something Peter often did as a nervous habit. Peter’s left leg rapidly bouncing only added to Tony’s suspicions.
Peter ducked his head, heat rushing to his cheeks as Tony spoke. He wasn’t used to anyone standing up for him like this. Not like that, not like it mattered.
“Hey,” Tony tapped Peter’s knee, “you’re okay, Roo. Wanna tell me what happened?”
Peter nodded, “she embarrassed me in front of everyone.”
Tony suppressed his anger before softly urging Peter to continue, “yeah? Do you know why she did that?”
Peter nodded again, “I told her I could do anytime during lunch or after school, whatever worked best for her. She said tomorrow, well, today, was fine, but she never said when today. So I asked her, but I never got a reply. I figured we could just follow up in sixth period, like, an hour ago, but then she compared me to her husband because I ‘don’t listen’ and that embarrassed me, so… I left.”
Tony sighed, “thanks, Pete. Do you think you could show me the email?”
Peter reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out his phone. He unlocked it, opened the email chain, and handed it to Tony, who read the emails over.
“Here’s your problem. Sure, he could have inferred that either time worked. That’s not your issue, though. The issue is you embarrassing Peter in front of the entire class over a misunderstanding.”
“It’s the principle of the matter. He made the mistake and stormed out of my classroom after the fact.”
“Let me be crystal clear,” Tony said, his voice low and firm, “Peter is a good kid. He’s responsible, he’s considerate, and he genuinely wants to do well in your class. But you just taught him that asking for help is a mistake. You think that’s what a teacher should be doing?”
“And then you followed him here to keep scolding him when he was already upset?” Tony scoffed, shaking his head, “and you think that’s okay?”
Mrs. Clegg swallowed hard, looking thoroughly uncomfortable, “I didn’t make fun of him.”
Tony raised an eyebrow. “Comparing a fifteen-year-old to your husband because he ‘doesn’t listen’ sure sounds like making fun of him.”
“I didn’t mean-”
“Like I said. The issue here is you. C’mon, Roo.”
Tony picked Peter’s backpack off of the ground and slung it over his shoulder. He helped Peter out of the chair and put a protective arm around him.
“Mr. Stark!” Tony turned around with a sigh.
“You can’t excuse how he was disrespectful to not only Mrs. Clegg, but to me,” the office lady perked up once more.
“Hmm. Something tells me I don’t care. Let’s go, Pete.”
Tony walked Peter out of the school and to his white Audi R8 in the parking lot. He tossed the kid’s backpack into the backseat and opened the passenger side door for him. It was a quiet drive back to the tower, with Tony offering quiet reassurance and solace as they drove through the busy streets of Manhattan.
Once they reached the tower, Tony scanned his Stark Industries to give him elevator access to the penthouse. Tony and Peter entered after the elevator doors opened, Tony setting Peter’s backpack down next to the elevator doors. Peter still. hadn’t said a word since the two had left the office. Tony could tell that the entire situation had not only caught the kid off guard, but was messing with his head. After a few minutes of more or less comfortable silence, Peter spoke up.
“I have some homework to get done, if that’s okay.”
“‘Course, kid. I’ll make dinner in an hour or two.”
“Okay. Thanks for… y’know, everything.”
“Don’t mention it. Let me know if you need anything.”
Peter nodded, packing up his backpack and making his way to his room in the tower. He immediately went for his math folder and opened his laptop, finding three PDFs with assignments regarding multiplying polynomials. He could figure this out, right?
Question 1:
Divide a polynomial by a monomial.
(30x6 -30x5+25x-10) ÷ 5x
Peter tried every formula that he knew how. The quadratic, x= -b/2a, even b2-4ac. He wound up with a lot of crazy decimals, and not a fraction with an exponent on the numerator like he was supposed to. He could try dividing the entire question by 5x, but then wouldn’t the exponent on the quotient of negative ten and 5x become negative? He definitely wasn’t supposed to get that. He tried simplifying the equation. All of the numbers within the parentheses were divisible by five, right? That was what the entire thing was supposed to be divided by anyway, so that had to be it.
Spoiler alert, it didn’t help at all. All that ended up doing was giving him more fractions than the one he was supposed to end up with, and decimals.
‘Yeah. This is not working.’
He moved on to another problem. Maybe starting with division was his issue, and he should’ve worked his way up from adding polynomials or something.
Addition was not any easier. He had no idea where to even begin. Peter was usually great at math, and it bothered him that he was struggling to add x’s together. The only thing that was tripping him up was what form his answers could be in. He knew that he should be getting fractions, but was it entirely unreasonable for him to get decimals? Or even whole numbers?
‘God, I’m losing it.’
Peter slammed his notebook closed, his laptop lid soon following, albeit softer than his poor notebook. He was upset, confused, and exhausted. It had been a long, anxious day, and the debacle in the front office had only made it worse. Not to mention Mrs. Clegg embarrassing him in front of the whole class, including Flash.
God, he hadn't even thought about that. Considering Flash’s recent aspirations in becoming an influencer, and his tendency to pick on Peter, he could only imagine what Flash had posted about it online in the past three hours. Much to Peter’s own dismay, he probably needed to check up on that.
Oh, what a mistake that was.
Flash’s Instagram account, idiotically named ‘PartyFlash101’, had a few hundred followers. At the top of his profile grid was a video with Mrs. Clegg on the cover, wearing the same blouse and cardigan that she had worn hours earlier. This could not be good.
He clicked on the video, to find it being Mrs. Clegg talking down to him on the left side of his screen, and Flash’s face on the right. Peter read the caption of the video with a scoff.
‘penis parker getting told off by miss clegg for needing tutoring was NOT on this year’s bingo card’
Peter bit his nails on his right hand, a nervous habit of his, as he scrolled through the couple dozen comments with his left.
——
livia_marie62: dude, storming out of class is crazy work, as if it’s not bro’s fault he got yelled at?? LMFAOOO
——
jackcakes29: there’s gotta be more to the story though?? he’s usually a cool guy
partyflash101: nah, just a loser LMAO
——
urone2talk: she’s such an opp though, i don’t blame him for walking out
——
2soon4play: bro she was about to fuckin deck him in the office, the bitch is crazy
partyflash101: i wish she would’ve
——
scott4thawin: LMFAOOOO he’s so mad and for what
——
abbies_crabbies: such a nepobaby, no wonder he got tony fucking stark to come deal with it
partyflash101: WHATTT??
——
Fuck. This wasn’t good. Not at all. He threw his phone face down on the bed, letting the video play over and over. He curled his knees into his chest, exhaling heavily when he heard his shaky voice play through the speakers of his phone.
“It is especially not my fault that you couldn’t make an inference that either time worked when reading my email.”
Mrs. Clegg was right. He should’ve inferred that either time worked. He shouldn’t have expected so much of her. It wasn’t fair of him to assume that she’d even want to help him. She wasn’t obligated to and he knew it. He should’ve just tried to teach himself from the beginning.
“GODDAMNIT!” Peter yelled, throwing his head towards his lap and holding it with his hands. He scrunched his brown curls in between his fingers and pulled at them as he dug himself into a deep, self detrimental hole. Peter wasn’t sure of how long he’d been sitting there pulling at his hair before Tony came in.
Tony had been making dinner, pork chops and mashed potatoes, when he heard Peter yell. He was definitely in distress, which caught Tony’s attention. He turned off the stove and placed the lid on top of the pot which held the steaming potatoes before making his way to Peter’s room. When he knocked, and was met not with permission to come in, but Peter’s erratic breathing, on the other side of the door, Tony took the initiative to go in himself.
He found Peter sitting there, his eyes screwed shut and tear tracks on his cheeks. Peter’s hands were in his hair, harshly tugging at the brown locks. Tony took a tentative seat in front of the boy, gently taking Peter’s hands out of his hair and into his own hands.
“Hey, hey, you’re alright. I’ve got you, you’re safe. Let's get you breathing, yeah?”
Peter sucked in a breath, shaky and uneven. His fingers twitched in Tony’s grip, like he wasn’t sure whether to squeeze tighter or pull away. His whole body trembled, his breaths coming in fast, shallow gasps that weren’t giving him nearly enough air.
“I- I don’t… everyone saw.”
Tony sighed. He finally realized that Peter’s phone was playing a video while it laid face down on the bed. Tony picked it up, discovering that it was a video of what happened in Mrs. Clegg’s class. Tony shut the phone off, opting to pull the trembling boy towards him.
“Can you breathe with me, Pete? Deep breath in,” Tony breathed in dramatically, allowing Peter to follow, “and deep breath out.”
Peter’s hands curled into Tony’s Black Sabbath t-shirt as if the Iron Man would disappear if he didn't hold on tight enough. Tony held Peter tightly, reciprocating the hug until the boy chose to let go.
“You’re going great, Roo. Just keep breathing. I’m right here, I’m not leaving you. You’re safe.”
Eventually, Peter’s breathing evened out, as did his emotional state. Peter didn’t feel obligated to say anything as he laid his forehead on Tony’s shoulder, breathing smoothly in, and out. After a few minutes of comfortable silence, though, Peter chose to speak up.
“It was Flash. He posted a video of it on his Instagram and… and everyone was so… mean,” Peter explained in a hushed whisper, letting go of Tony so he could curl into himself.
Tony knew that the young boy was actively trying to make himself smaller, to protect himself. He knew the feeling all too well. He hated to say that Peter was just like him. At such a young age, he was just like him.
“Hey, hey. I know how you feel, Roo. I know this is hard for you. Everything’s gonna be okay,” Tony whispered, putting his hand on Peter’s knee and rubbing his thumb up and down on it.
“You wanna know something? That kid, Flash? This is all he has, Pete. That video is the most important thing in his life right now. But you? You’re a kind, brave, genius kid that goes and lays his life on the line everyday for strangers in New York. You’re one thousand times better than that guy.”
“You’re the only one that knows that.”
Tony considered that for a moment. Sure, he’d gone a few weeks after Afghanistan without anyone knowing he was Iron Man. But, even then, he was still Tony Stark. He was a billionaire and the CEO of the most successful weapons manufacturing company in the world, even when he rebranded to arc reactor technology.
However, to everyone else, Peter was just Peter Parker. Of course, he was so, so much more than that, even if Tony was the only one that knew it.
“I hope you know it, too, buddy. Flash might not know it, but you can’t let his bullshit break you down.”
“It’s not just him, Mr. Stark,” Tony chose to not to comment on the formal title, “a bunch of kids, they… they commented on it. Said a bunch of stuff about me.”
“I know, kiddo, I know. But you can’t let any of that get you down.”
Peter sighed, “it’s hard not to.”
“I get that. Let’s start with this. How about you show me that math you’re working on, yeah? We can figure it out together.”
Peter nodded, handing both his laptop and his notebook to Tony. Tony looked over the assignment, furrowing his eyebrows before a look of realization eventually struck his features.
“I don’t know when they possibly want you to use this in the real world, but it’s just long division,” Tony explained.
“WHAT? I haven’t done that since, like, fourth grade!”
Tony chuckled, “I can help you, buddy.”
Over the next ten minutes or so, Tony reminded Peter of how to do long division, and watched proudly as Peter flew through the ten problems like long division was second nature.
“See, Pete? You’re worth so much more than you think you are. Don’t let that dumbass bring you down.”
“Thanks, Tony,” Peter replied.
Tony smiled, “oh my god, finally. You were making me feel so old with the ‘Mr. Stark’ get up.”
Peter laughed, smiling when Tony took him into his arms, landing a couple of fatherly pats on his back.
Yeah, things weren’t so bad.