New day
Peter entered the doors to Midtown after a suffocating care ride with a staff member at St Edmunds, but honestly Peter was just glad it wasn't Matron. He entered the same doors he enters every single day, yet he felt totally different. Maybe due to the exhaustion, he didn't get a wink of sleep. He had never shared a room with that many people and the breathing and shuffling from every direction unnerved him.
Walking through the halls, he could hear chuckles and laughter directed at him. While he wasn't unused to bullying, all the attention was overwhelming.
"Nice outfit Penis, is this the orphan dress code or something?" Flash called out, particularly loudly evoking several jeers from around him.
Peter ducked his head, his checks hearing up. He couldn't bear the stares.
In his stupid fucking prison uniform and hideous haircut, he knew he would catch attention. All he could do was hope people lost interest quickly.
Relief flooded him when he heard a familiar call.
"Hey loser," Mj called with a gentle smile, as she shut her locker and approached him, "Trying out a new aesthetic? Wait, let me guess, prisoner core?"
"Don't you know that this is all the range now. Though you were cool Em."
"Sorry if I think the buzzcut is just a bit out there."
she joked, reaching a hand to his scalp. Peter did the same as a half-assed attempt to cover it. He chuckled lightly, without any real heart in it though.
"Seriously though, are you okay? You don't look great," Mj said, quieting her voice.
Peter's eyes welled up slightly, "errr, I'm- " He cut himself off as he turned away wiping away a few tears he was desperately trying to keep away. Crying in a high school corridor would not exactly be helping the situation.
"I'm okay, it just - just a crazy group home. I shouldn't be there too long though," he stammered, not entirely sure whether he was trying to convince himself or her, "they let me keep coming here though, so there's that."
"You'll be okay, I'm here for you," Mj replied kindly, enveloping him in a hug. This was not commonplace for Mj who typically avoided physical touch so Peter knew this was a heartfelt gesture. He nodded into her shoulder as she whispered reassurances.
"Peter," another familiar voice called out beside him, "What are you wearing? Did you mean to wear that?"
Ahh Ned the master of subtly. Peter let out a wet laugh and pulled away from Mj. There was an obvious nonverbal exchange between Ned and Mj in which he presumed that Ned received a piercing glare and a few reprimanding mouthed words.
"I have a spare jumper, do you want that one?" Ned offered, after a moment of realization.
"You are a life-saver man," Peter said as he let out a sigh of relief. He pulled a blue Midtown jumper over his head, and while his trousers and shoes were still glaringly ugly at least his outfit was a lot less noticeable.
Later at lunch Mj whispered in his ear, covered but the busyness of the cafeteria, "It's a humiliation tactic."
"What?" he replied.
"The hair, the clothes - for the other boys, they do it for uniformity, essentially stripping them of their personality and individuality so they're easier to control. But for you, they could have is have easily let you wear your own clothes to school, but they chose to force you to wear .. that. It's a humiliation tactic. They can't control you here, but they can control what you're wearing," she explained, leaning into him slightly.
"Well, it's working, I'm thoroughly humiliated," he exhaled dropping his head to the table.
"Why? Who cares about those jerks, break the status quo. You know what, tomorrow I'm gonna wear exactly what you're wearing. It's doesn't seem to far of my dad's wardrobe," she laughed easily.
"I love you Em," he exhaled, leaning into her, and she wrapped her hands around his head.
"I love you, but please never wear this - I'd miss your band t-shirts and baggy trousers," he added jokingly.
In response, she hit him on the shoulder and pushed him away. He laughed loudly as he sat up.
"What's going on?" Ned asked as he sat down interrupting their laughter.
"Nothing - just Peter being snarky about my fashion sense," Mj replied nonchalantly.
"Whaaaattt? I totally don't agree..." Ned protested, sitting down at the table. As he unpacked his lunch, he instinctively passed Peter an extra container of leftovers last night. While the food here was okay and Peter was on free school meals, nothing beat Ned's Lola's cooking.
"You guys are lucky I have no other friends," Mj declared, "Don't worry Peter, I have some of your clothes that you have left at my place, I'll start bringing them in for you. You can stash that," while gesturing to his clothes, "in your locker and just change. I can wash them for you as well. Nobody from St Edmunds would realise."
"And I could get you some new stuff. Lola always gives me a ridiculous amount of money when she visits so I'm loaded now - and no offence Peter but you've needed new shoes for a while now," Ned said generously.
Peter was so lucky he had such incredibly friends.
The day passed pretty unspectacularly, but Peter was appreciative of every moment, considering the place he had to return to this evening. He'd always appreciated school but this appreciation had intensified with every move of different homes.
Teacher seemed to be even more nice and generous than usual. Ms Robson ignored his lack of homework, choosing to skip him without any embarrassment. Mrs Matthew his much hated English teacher even offered him a rare smile.
Morris even ushered him into his office concerned about his well-being. Peter's heart warmed when he asked if there was anything he could do, and although he declined, just the offer was enough.
So the day mostly passed pretty unspectacularly, until his last period physics with Mr Harrington. The usual worksheets that were always on their desks were suspiciously absent, and his teacher seemed to be more upbeat than usual.
He put down his bag and waited for everyone to file in. Mr Harrington sprung up out of his chair and cleared his throat, cutting off the chatter and murmurs.
"Exciting news everyone. Stark Industries has just announced an exciting competition. It is open to all high school and college students to create an engineering project. They will then select the best projects and publish them. Also, very excitingly, these winners will gain an internship at Stark Industries in a new program for students."
Excited chatter filled the room. Ned squeezed onto Peter's arm tightly, and made indistinguishable noises of enthusiasm. Mj just rolled her eyes, no doubt thinking about the class inequalities this project proposed with the unequal resources available to different students.
Peter was definitely interested - he knew that as a high schooler he was unlikely to win anything, but he loved engineering projects in any form he can get -
robotics, legos , toasters, whatever he can get his hands on. He hoped that with this opportunity, Midtown would provide him with the time, space and resources to pursue his own project.
There were discussions all around about what random initial ideas, and general squealing (this announcement would be all of the gossip in a school for nerds.)
Mr Harrington interrupted the chatter once more, "oh and projects are due in three weeks - I believe that they want raw projects, ideas and talent rather than perfection."
Three weeks. That's an insane time limit, thought Peter. However, he would write up an extensive well-thought through idea accompanied by a small prototype or something since that would tick all of the boxes. His mind was whirring, brainstorming at such an insane speed even Peter himself couldn't keep up.
Harrington piped up again, "All of your physics lessons this week will be dedicated to this project, and I will also be running a clinics after school ends for an hour. While you cannot so me for advice or input, I will be able to oversee any creations."
Excitement bubbled through Peter, even just spending an extra hour at school would make all the difference.
When he trudged back to the dusty, black car he'd been transported to school in the morning, he had already been waiting for thirty minutes, in the cold, with only the itchy grey jumper to keep him wear. For an institution that was obsessed with their regimented structure, they were very late to pick him up, probably out of spite. The look on the face of the man in the front of the car only helped to confirm this theory. They sat in silence, but Peter was grateful for the time to think up an idea for the Stark competition.
He had randomly remembered a documentary he had watched with Aunt May, or rather May had fallen asleep after a long shift and Peter had sat very still watching this documentary in an attempt not to wake her. It was about spiders and their webs - he though it would be cool if he could create a sort of formula of those webs and then spin it into some kind of synthetic silk. The application of a material that is strong, stretchy, flexible, thin and durable would be incredible. He could even use the school lab to run a sort of experiment, to figure out how to adapt his ideas into an applicable material. In his last study period, he had borrowed Mj's laptop to read the completion guidelines and as Harrington expressed, the whole idea for this competition was raw ideas and the initial stages of a project. This would be perfect for that.
Unfortunately though, his rapid brainstorming came to an end as the car pulled up outside the gates to St Edmunds. The staff driving him wasted no time in switching of the engine and marching into the house, and Peter hastily scurried to keep up.
"Put your stuff in you room," the man grunted, with a finger pointed at the stairs he had taken yesterday.
Peter nodded, before spluttering out a quick, "Yes sir." He hurried up the stairs, eager to get to a safe space - there was an uneasy tension in the air of this place.
As he opened the door, four heads turned inquisitively in his direction. They seemed to be in some sort of conversation, with two boys sitting in the floor leaning against the beds, one that had propped himself up upon Peter’s entrance, clearly lying down on one of the bottom bunks and one hanging his legs off the edge of a top bunk. There was silence though, as Peter had clearly interrupted something.
"Where you been, new kid?" the boy that was lying down questioned, moving to a sitting up position and hooking his elbows around his knees.
"School," Peter replied shortly.
"School?" scoffed the slightly younger boy sitting on the floor.
"I have a scholarship, to errr a science school, so they let me keeping going," Peter continued nervously.
"Wait - you get to leave. Like properly, by yourself," the first kid continued. The others sat up, and leant forwards, looking intrigued at this realisation.
"Yeah, I guess," he replied,
“Can you get a text out?” the kid continued, hope rising in his voice.
“I mean - umm sure, I guess I can borrow my friend’s phone. Write me down the message and the number and I’ll send what ever you’d like,” Peter offered, resulting in a smile that lit up the face of the kid that had asked.
“Are you guys not allowed out, like ever?” Peter asked hesitantly after a beat of silence.
There was a series of scoffs and chuckles.
“Nah dude, I’ve been here six months - haven’t left once. The closest I’ve got to the outside, is the little hole in one of the garden fences,” one of the kids sitting on the floor said, “did they check your bag on the way in? Cause I’ve been craving a bar of chocolate for like forever, and the food here is shit so if you could like sneak something back, I’d literally do anything. I’m Felipe by the way, that’s Miles, Jude and Alex.” He gestured wildly around the room.
“I can get you some chocolate,” Peter said, “they didn’t check my bag or anything.”
Felipe catapulted himself forward, wrapping Peter in the weirdest hug he had ever experienced. Felipe still had an arm slung around Peter’s shoulder when he turned back to rest of the group.
“My man …,” he started before pausing and turning back to Peter, “wait - what’s your name again?”
“Peter.”
“My man Peter - am I glad so fucking glad you’re our roommate!” he exclaimed excitedly.
The exclamation was interrupted by a clearing of the throat. A voice spoke out shortly “can you get cigarettes?”
There was an awkward phase, as Peter’s brain scrambled to come up with an excuse that would not involve any illegal activity.
“Ummm, I don’t think- ” Peter started.
“He goes to a private school for nerds. I think his little friends would rather die that buy you cigarettes,” Jude snapped harshly.
“Whatever, I was just fucking asking,” Alex responded, before swinging his legs back onto his bed on the top bunk and turning away from sight. Jude mirrored him, by climbing up another bunk and settling away from the conversation.
“Ignore them, they’re grumpy gits,” Miles murmured, “Will you really get a message to my girlfriend?”
Peter nodded kindly in response.
“Could you also, maybe, I dunno like get a set of cards or something, it’s just - really boring here,” Miles continued.
“Oh I actually have some already, I know what it’s like to be in these kind of situations,” Peter said, as he rummaged through his bag. Upon pulling out an old set of cards, he collapsed onto the ground beside the two more hospitable boys.
“You are now my favourite person like ever, apologies Miles, but you have been dethroned,” Felipe rambled.
They played a few hands, and what Peter deciphered from Felipe’s constant chatter was that these playing cards were the best thing to happen in months, giving Peter a dreary outlook on the next couple of weeks.
He learnt that the horrible food he had consumed last night was not an exception, and that all of the chores were draining, constant and difficult. He learnt to avoid the Matron at all costs, and when absolutely unavoidable to say nothing but ‘Yes Matron’ but never yes ma’am. He learnt that most of the boys here were transferring out of some kind of prison facility, and one step out of line for three out of the four boys in this room would mean time in jail. He learnt that they woke up at six am, had the same schedule for every day of the week - meaning on weekends Peter would have to drag himself through whatever make-shift school they had put together. He learnt they had no access to the outside world including telephone calls, making him even more thankful for Midtown. He learnt that the temperature was fixed meaning it was insufferably hot in summer and unbearable cold in winter. He learnt that disciple was strict. But most of all, Peter learnt that he was the luckiest one in all of this place, something he never expected considering the childhood he had already experienced would be considered a reasonable villain origin story.
Within this conversation, he was tasked with acquiring a very specific variation of junk food - a dairy milk marvellous creations chocolate bar, the largest packet of Haribo tangfastics, and a packet of peanut M&Ms. Apparently, being deprived of decent food did not make you less picky with candy.
The conversation quickly moved on to arguing over which of their favourite movies was actually superior with Peter leading the campaign for the Star Wars franchise (and also being called a big, fucking nerd but he won’t go into that) and all of a sudden, Peter felt slightly less alone.