“Stupid, stupid,” Peter mutters, “Stupid, ugly, idiot ball of failed chicken ovulation. We throw you into a pot of water and heat it until the water begins to turn into a gas, and then we what? We consume you? Terrible.”
And then he proceeds to poke the hardboiled egg with his bright pink nail (courtesy of Betty Brant).
“That’s…” Michelle mulls over her words carefully, “Certainly one of the ways to describe a hardboiled egg.”
“He has a point,” Ned says, “It’s dumb. Eggs are so gross.”
Betty blinks, owlishly, “Are you all high on nail polish fumes?”
“No,” Ned argues, “They’re gross. Go eat an egg right now, and spend the whole time reminding yourself that you’re eating an egg. Come back here and tell me how enjoyable it is.”
Abe says, “I do the same thing when I eat chicken. Like, it’s cool and fine, and then all of the sudden it’s chicken. What the fuck?”
There’s a murmur of agreement from the group. “Stop eating chicken, then,” Michelle says, like it’s the obvious answer (it is). “We have work to be doing.” She proceeds to pass out three pages to each student.
“What the fuck are these?” Flash demands, turning the stapled papers one by one.
Roger doesn’t even bother correcting his language, anymore.
“Study guides,” Michelle tells him.
Abe slams his fist on his bell, “I refuse.”
Michelle places a packet in front of him, regardless.
“We should totally have a study hang out!” Cindy exclaims.
Charles makes a face, “We already do.”
Roger thinks it’s so weird to picture these kids in each other’s lives, in each other’s homes. He doesn’t dwell on it for very long.
He also doesn’t dwell on the fact that most of these kids are well aware that Spider-Man is in the room with them.
Sally hums noncommittally, throwing her feet onto Cindy’s lap. “It’d be fun,” she muses, “We could get popcorn and stuff together. Whose house would it be at?”
“Peter!” Betty exclaims.
“What?” Peter glances up from his intense staring contest with the egg.
“You could show us your new home,” Betty practically pleads. “It’d be so cool.”
“Yeah, nerd,” Flash pipes up. “I want to see the theatre room.”
“There’s no theatre room,” Peter stresses.
Flash rolls his eyes, “Dude, yes there is. I saw it on War Machine’s Twitter. Unless you're saying you don't hang out at Stark Tower.”
And Roger wants to ask, doesn't Flash, like, know?
“That was the Malibu mansion, you moldy sponge,” Abe corrects. “Do you not read captions?”
Flash shrugs. “I can’t read.”
“Everything makes so much more sense, now,” Michelle says. She stands in front of the whole group, arms folded over her chest. “No going to Peter’s house.”
“What about your house?” Betty asks.
“Yeah, Michelle,” Charles says.
“Aren’t you going into the army?” Michelle asks him.
He pauses, “The National Guard. What does that have to do—”
“I’m invoking the third amendment.”
Charles squawks. “Hey!”
“Study buddies, now,” Michelle snaps. “Unless you want me to drag Mr. Harrington away from his desk to manage you gremlins?”
Mr. Harrington, himself, does not want to do that.
Roger shouldn’t be used to seeing Tony Stark’s face in the flesh. In his humble opinion, Tony Stark isn’t the type of man you should be used to seeing.
Yet, every Wednesday and Friday without fail, Tony Stark arrives at their afterschool practices for academic decathlon. He shows up on Saturday’s, too, but those aren’t after school.
He waits patiently in the parking lot next to whatever ostentatious vehicle he’s brought this time. Sometimes, there’s other Avengers or associates, sometimes he takes multiple kids in his car (Roger isn’t sure if it’s planned or if they all just race into his car before he can stop them).
Sometimes, he’s banged up, sporting a black eye or his arm in a sling, and sometimes, he’s dressed like he’s come straight from a gala.
Today, he’s leaning against a hotrod red convertible—a Maserati—and wearing a watch the Roger is pretty sure he’s seen turn into the Iron Man gauntlet on the news.
Captain fucking America is on the other side of the car—a first for him, at least. Roger has seen War Machine, Pepper Potts, The Vision, and even Hawkeye, but never Captain America.
The Captain waves his hand at the crowd of students and shouts, “Peter!”
Tony Stark proceeds to roll his eyes.
“My ride’s here,” Peter tells the group, despite all of them seeing it.
“Take me with you,” Flash begs.
“You drove yourself,” Michelle points out, but she’s going home with Peter, Roger’s fairly certain.
“Can I come?” Ned asks.
“I already said you could,” Peter points out. “You said you had to take driver’s ed tonight.”
“I do,” Ned tells him, “But that’s lame.”
“I’ll leave my car here,” Flash tells Peter, “I swear to God, penis, take me with you.”
“Look, piss baby, you’re not coming with us,” Michelle says, stern and unmoving.
Roger feels like he should step in. “Let’s keep the nicknames school appropriate.”
“Piss baby is appropriate,” Michelle says, “Babies piss.”
She’s, technically, correct.
Roger watches her slide into the seat behind Tony Stark while Peter takes the seat behind Captain America.
“You wish that were you, huh?” Charles asks Flash.
“Yeah, I fucking do.”
It’s Sunday and all Roger wants is a coffee.
He’s at Starbucks, because capitalism has a hold on him (even though the vaguely communist history teacher, James Short, would be so disappointed).
And there, at the very front of the restaurant, is Peter Parker and Michelle Jones.
Michelle is sipping on, what Roger assumes to be, black coffee (because Michelle seems like the type of person to hate themselves enough to drink black coffee and also become simultaneously convinced that they’re superior due to it).
Peter has a Frappuccino of some kind in his hand and at least three cake pops in the other. He’s swinging his arms, animatedly, while Michelle gazes at him with the softest stare ever. Roger doesn’t think he’s ever seen her have an emotion other than disgust, apathy, or disapproval.
“—Mr. Stark was all, ‘Peter, are you stupid?’”
“The answer was yes,” Michelle tells him. “You said, ‘of course, Tony, I’m an idiot’, right?”
Peter rolls his eyes. “No, MJ, I’m a genius. You just don’t understand—” and then he stops, halfway through his sentence. “Someone’s listening,” he continues, in the same tone of voice as he was speaking in.
“They’re probably eavesdropping because you’re loud as fuck,” Michelle says, and Roger can tell that it’s an attempt to soothe whatever anxiety Peter has. Roger supposes in his line of work, someone listening to you is usually a bad thing.
Roger wishes hew knew how Peter knew he was listening.
“MJ,” Peter says, still in that conversational tone. It’s eerie, how quickly the teen went into battle mode while still attempting to maintain appearances. He’s doing a shit job, because everyone can still hear Peter speaking, but it’s almost impressive how he’s able to keep his voice from wavering. “I—what if…oh my God, MJ,” he takes a shuddering breath.
Roger figures it’s probably best to alert them of his presence. He gets out of line and approaches their table.
As soon as he takes a step forward, Peter’s head snaps towards him, eyes narrowed to assess the potential threat. His body is tight like a coil, ready to spring into action at a moments notice.
And Roger can only think: what the fuck happened to you?
He relaxes as soon as he identifies Roger, melting back into his chair like he was never ready to attack in the first place. “Oh, hey, Mr. Harrington.”
“Hey,” Roger raises his hand in greeting.
“Hey,” Michelle greets, nodding her head. Her grin, however small, is now gone.
Another thing Roger worries about the origin of. Why is Michelle so protected?
He’ll psychoanalyze his students later.
“How’s, uh,” Roger pauses. He almost said how’s school, but he knows damn well how school is. Every other day, they’re telling him shit about their other classes. “How’s May?” he settles on.
“She’s doing way better,” Peter says. He seems hesitant, but continues onward, “Mr. Stark is paying for her physical therapy, and he’s getting to test a bunch of new medical stuff out, so him and Dr. Banner are having a field day. I mean, he’s already been going feral over Mister—uh, Sergeant Barnes’ arm, but, yeah.”
“Sergeant…Barnes?” Roger asks.
“Oh, yeah! Didn’t you see the news?”
Of course, Roger saw the news, which is how he also knows that James Buchanan Barnes worked for HYDRA. He knows the Winter Soldier’s kill count—he read through the reports.
“I just…isn’t he, uh, dangerous?”
Michelle snorts.
“I can catch his arm. If he’s hurting anyone, it’s not me.” Peter whispers. He resumes speaking normally, “Mr. Barnes is super cool. I’m trying to teach him TikTok dances, right now, but he hasn’t quite got it down.”
“I would pay good money to see that man dance to Doja Cat,” Michelle says.
Peter nods, “I’ll get it to happen, I promise.”
“I’ll leave you two to your, uh,” does he says date? Is it a date? It doesn’t have the same energy as a date. Just because you’re dating someone, does that make every hangout a date? “…thing.”
“Bye, Mr. Harrington!” Peter calls.
Michelle nods.
Roger Harrington knows that Peter Parker is Spider-Man.
He knows. He’s seen the kid in action.
But seeing the masked vigilante (and knowing it’s Peter) and seeing Peter Parker stick to walls or the ceiling is a different story.
Roger usually uses the staff bathroom. It’s cleaner, it’s quieter, and he doesn’t have to worry about his students.
It starts in second period. It’s Roger’s planning period, so he sometimes is asked to help other teachers. It’s fine, it’s no biggie, he asks others for help, too.
Today, Miss Liu’s art and design class is working with balsa wood. Roger was brought in to manage the woodcutters and make sure no one commits murder.
Somehow, in the process, he became covered in various glues and sawdust.
Little known fact: Roger Harrington has terrible sensory issues.
So, he races to the nearest bathroom as soon as he can to scrub his hands clean. It’s not like he can’t get to his chemistry classroom’s sinks, or even the staff bathroom, it’s that he hates the feeling of sawdust and glue and would rather die than live with the feeling for another minute.
He pushes the door open and—
There’s a loud clang and something drops from the ceiling to the floor—a phone.
A StarkPhone. A brand new model, by the looks of it. In fact, it looks so brand new, it doesn’t even look like it’s out yet.
Roger’s eyes trail upward to the ceiling, praying to God his suspicion isn’t true.
And, yep, there’s Peter Parker, hunched on the ceiling like he has committed a crime. He might’ve. Roger doesn’t know his life story.
The first thing Roger does is get to a sink.
The second thing he does is say, “Peter, please get down.”
“Sorry,” Peter says, unsticking his fingers and dropping to the floor. “Sorry. I was on the phone with Mr. Stark.”
“In a public restroom?” Roger turns the sink off. “Peter, what do the words secret identity mean to you?”
“It was internship stuff!” he defends.
He winces.
“Okay, the internship is actually just a cover, but still. There’s no one listening. I know that sort of thing.”
“Like in the Starbucks?” Roger guesses. “Were you trained to notice that stuff?”
Peter rubs the back of his neck. “Well, no, I actually have a sixth sense.”
“A sixth sense,” Roger says, voice amazingly calm for the bullshit he’s handling.
“I call it my Spidey-Sense.”
“Of course.”
Peter sighs, “That’s not important. Mr. Harrington, do you think you can cover for me for an hour?”
Roger is about to fired, he just knows it.
But do you really snitch on Spider-Man just to save your job?
“What do you need me to do, Peter?”
Peter nods and smiles, softly. “I’m going to have Ned turn off the security cameras outside and leave through this window, okay? I’m needed downtown for some search-and-rescue.”
“Downtown?”
“Manhattan,” he corrects. “There was a building collapse.”
“—The one on Park Avenue, I heard,” Rogers says. “Go. Save people. I’ll tell everyone I have you doing AcaDec stuff.”
Peter nods. “You’re the best!” he pulls his mask on and says, “Ned?”
And in five seconds tops, he’s got the spider suit over his school clothes and is out of the window.
Roger races to his third period.