How the world works
Tony's phone lit up, displaying Peter's message. As if on cue, Peter enters the lab after getting back from school.
"Sorry I was late, Decathlon had extra practice today and had to submit a video for History class." Peter says as he swiftly dropped his bag on the ground and pulled a chair next to Tony. "It's fine, kid. By the way, what's with the video you sent?"
Peter looked at him quizzically, what video? I never sent him a video. Peter shrugged, denying any video being sent to him recently. The confusion only grew when the billionaire showed the notification that shows that Peter sent a video.
He recognized the thumbnail as the video he was supposed to submit to his History teacher.
"Oh, guess I accidentally sent that to both of you. You can just ignore that." The video piqued the mentor's interest. The thumbnail had Peter on his keyboard/piano with a sock puppet on his hand in a room filled with orange lighting and a mess in the background.
"Well, can I watch it? I wanna see what the top student of Midtown did for his History project." He said, smirking.
You can hear Peter's heart drop at the mention of watching his video. Trying desperately to not get his mentor to watch it, he sputters out a bunch of excuses as to why he shouldn't watch it, but it all falls on deaf ears as Tony plays it anyway and Peter leaves, awkwardly while saying he just needs to go to the bathroom.
Tony looked at the door as Peter left, leaving him confused when the sound of piano catches his attention and he turns back to his phone and continues on with the video
"Hey, kids! Today we're going to learn about the world!" He continues to play the piano for a bit, and the. The rest of the music comes in.
"The world that surrounds us is pretty amazing,but how does it work? It must be complicated!"
The song hasn't even reached a minute and Tony was already unironically bopping his head at the catchy tune and Peter can hear it through the walls.
"The secret is the world can only work when everything works together. A bee drinks from a flower, and leaves with its pollen. A squirrel from a tree spreads the seeds that have fallen. Everything works together, the biggest elephant, the littlest fly. The gophers underground, the birds in the sky! And every single cricket, every fish in the sea gives what they can, and gets what they need!"
Although Tony was tapping his foot to the song, he couldn't help but reply to the song, saying how he wished things were that simple.
I know, Tony. Peter thought to himself. That was the whole point of the song.
"That is how the world works, that is how the world works! From A to Zebra to the worms in the dirt. That's how it works."
Peter turned to the other camera. "Hey, everyone. Look who stopped by to say hello!" Peter took out his hand that had a sock on it. "It's Socko!"
Tony snorts at how weird but also catchy the song is. It probably wasn't directed to older people he guessed from the sock puppet but he still found it nice and was impressed at the song.
"Hey!" "Where've you been, Socko?" "I've been where I always am when you're not wearing me on your hand."
"The laundry." Tony muttered.
"In a frightening, liminal space between states of being! Not quite dead, and not quite alive. It's similar to a constant state of sleep paralysis!"
"Oh." Tony could only say. The video takes a dark tone fairly quickly, enough to give a mini whiplash. It's probably just a gag.
Peter cringes as he hears what part of the video the billionaire is now in.
"Socko, we were just talking about the world, and how it works." "Boy, that sounds complicated." "Do you have anything you wanna teach us about the world?" "I wouldn't say anything that you probably haven't already said yourself." "I don't know about that, Socko. Why don't you give it a try?"
"Alright."
Tony smirks and readies as he listens to a more dark verse from the sock puppet.
"The simple narrative taught in every History class is demonstrably false, and pedagogically classist. Don't you know the world is built by blood, and genocide, and exploitation!"
Tony was now uncomfortably doing what he was doing before as the stark shift in contrast caught him off guard.
"The global network of capital essentially functions to separate the worker from the means of production, and the FBI killed Martin Luther King!
Private property's inherently theft, and neoliberal fascists are destroying the left! And, every politician, every cop on the street protects the pedophilic corporate elite!"
"This is a History class project?"
"That is how the world works…" "Really?"
"That is how the world works!" "Genocide the natives say you got to it first. That's how it works."
"Jesus Christ, kid. You better get a good grade on this cuz it's calling out everything here." Tony says, slightly impressed and amused at the kid's confidence to make the song and make it hidden under a child-like song.
"That's pretty intense." "No shit." "What can I do to help?" "Read a book or something, I don't know. Just don't burden me with the responsibility of educating you. It's incredibly exhausting!" "I'm sorry, Socko. I was just trying to become a better person!"
The way the puppet said those words made Tony flinch a bit. Why did that feel like a callout to the man himself? Or maybe it's a callout to the lousy education system the children–not just Peter–has to deal with.
Maybe. But Tony still felt like shit after that line.
"Why do you rich fucking white people insist on seeing every socio-political conflict through the myopic lens of your own self-actualization? This isn't about you! So either get with it, or stop getting in the fucking way!"
Yep. Another callout.
"Watch your mouth, buddy. Remember who's on whose hand here." "But that's what I– have you not been fucking listening?!"
"Ok so this is either a callout to the Ferry incident, the first time he reported about the Vultures, Happy, or Homecoming. Dang I treated him like shit, huh." Tony spoke up, "Indeed you have, Boss." Friday replied with slight sarcasm, to which Tony glared but knew it was true but she really didn't need to rub it in.
Mr. Stark, this wasn't about you. Atleast, not everything.
"We are entrenched in–" "Alright, alright." "Wait wait! No, please! I don't wanna go back… I can't go.. I can't go back… Please, please. I'm sorry…"
"Jesus fucking Christ that's dark, I love it." Tony chuckled slightly while masking his worry and concern from himself knowing damn well Peter wasn't in the room.
"Are you gonna behave yourself?" "Yes." "'Yes.' what?" "Yes, Si–" Look at me."
"..Yes, Sir." "That's better."
"That is how the world works." "That is how the world works!"
"I hope you learned your lesson." "I did and it hurt!" "That's how!"
"It.. Works…"
There was a pause before Peter violently rips Socko out of his hands as Socko screams bloody murder.
Tony sighs as he–tries to–comprehend what the fuck he just saw.
Everything he said was true though. Corporates say that they're all working with them in the trying times when they do jack-shit for them. They're only really pandering to create more brand awareness.
Especially during Pride month, every single fucking corporate chain says they support the LGBTQ+ community when they're only doing it so people won't feel guilty watching The Owl House on Disney or eating at Chick fil-a, because 'They support them and don't murder them on the streets!' when that is the bare fucking minimum. You shouldn't kill anyone regardless of who they are or who they love! It's none of your damn business.
Like, at least show support by donating to people who actually need it (a/n: I'm gonna link a few sources you can donate to if you want to at the notes at the end:])
And when people call them out, they act as if they acknowledge what they're saying but it all goes into one ear and out the other and it pisses them all off. Listening is key and the door to their success is locked
When they say too much, they silence them, like what he did to Socko. Freedom of speech is almost non-existent now and art might as well be dead.
Peter demonstrated it so well in his video.