As Tony and Natasha sat in the Avengers base’s lounge, Peter Parker stumbled in. Natasha barely glanced up as she greeted the boy, but it was enough time to take in the bags under his eyes, the messy hair, and the oversized hoodie, as well as the way he stumbled to the nearest couch, which he promptly collapsed into.
“I’m gonna die,” Peter said, trying, but not quite succeeding at emphasising every word.
“Bad guys?” Tony’s eyes flashed up at a speed that would put even Thor’s lightning to shame, despite the fact that all the avengers had learned by this point to to make rash conclusions around the kid. At least not until he explained.
Peter shook his head as fast as he could at the look in Mr. Stark’s eyes. “Finals.”
In all honesty, Peter might prefer it was bad guys.
Peter’s housing group couldn’t tell if he even existed or not. One of the boys was sure he did, because the mail would disappear from his mailbox occasionally.
It wasn’t enough to completely convince the rest of the group, due to the fact no one ever saw him. At all. At least, save for the R.A., who swore up and down he’d meet Peter at freshman orientation.
One of the more interesting rumors surrounding the resident mystery kid actually came from the residence hall across the street. One girl claimed they’d seen someone climbing in through a window. Weird enough by itself, but upon further interrogation, they’d found the room in question to be Peter’s.
It had spawned over a weeks worth of debates.
The sound of metals crashing into metals followed by muffled swearing awoke the kid in the room next to Peter’s late one night. Somehow or other, the near non-existent kid had become the hall’s biggest source of gossip, so he had tried to tell the others.
Though no one had disbelieved him, no one had believed him either. No one save the resident stoner, but his support didn’t stand to help much. It might have helped more at a different point in time, but currently, he held the claim to least believable story about Peter Parker.
The story went:
He’d been sitting in his room with the door propped open, when he thought he saw Tony-friggin-Stark walk past. So naturally, he’d been a wee bit curious. Leading him to poke his head out to do some polite spying.
Stark had supposedly walked right up, in his business fresh suit, to Peter’s door and knocked.
When that had failed, he’d leaned on the door, one arm supporting his head and said something along the lines of, “Kid, it’s me, open the door.”
At which point a kid with messy light brown hair and dead eyes with an oversized sweater had opened the door and greeted the older man with an excited and somewhat, okay, very, high pitched voice.
No one had taken him seriously on that point, even though he insisted it was true.
But, in all reality, there was almost certainly no story in existence that would surprise that hall of students about Peter Parker.
Peter’s night had been spent out and about. Had he been partying it up like a stereotypical college kid? Nope. He had been crime fighting.
He’d managed to end two robberies, put a stop to several cases of petty theft, and just help people in general.
So, when, at four am, and after such a long night, he stumbled into his room through the window, only to lay eyes on his still left open planner to see he had an eight am lecture that morning, he hadn’t quite managed to restrain his groan, before falling over onto his bed, hoping to catch an hour or two of sleep.
Brriiinnng-Brriiinnng-Brriiinnng!
Peter slammed the off button on his alarm, wincing. He didn’t really have the cash to replace that. He stared at the ceiling, wondering if it was worth it. Did he reeaally have to be a functioning member of society? He could always be a stripper. He had a decent body, he supposed, and at least he wouldn’t have to wake up for eight am lectures. Was it really worth it?
Then he remembered that, between Aunt May and Mr. Stark, he probably wouldn’t survive it if he dropped out, so he rolled out of bed. He dragged himself off the ground where he landed and headed off to class.
He garnered quite a bit of attention walking in class one morning. This was because in one hand he held a tray with three coffees he’d snagged heading on the way to class. Resting on said tray was a pen he’d spotted on the trip. He had no clue if it had any ink, and it had no cap, but hey, now he had a pen.
In the other hand, he held a pack of Red Bull he grabbed from his fridge.
His classmates never knew what to make of the boy. Some were in awe, some were annoyed, and several were concerned.
One boy leaned over to whisper to a friend, “Uh, did that kid just down a pack of Red Bull like shots?”
The friend stared at Peter for a few seconds. “Same.”
They shared a laugh at that.
Peter’s month had been filled with patrols. To the point where he’d missed almost every class that wasn’t a test. So he didn’t think he was gonna do great on the test they’d taken a few days ago.
The professor was passing back just that test, and no one seemed all that disappointed. His test landed on his desk with no more sound than a simple light thud. He looked at the corner where his score was written.
The ballerinas dancing through his stomach dissipated. He had a near perfect score. The kid seated behind him leaned forward to look at it, whistling lightly, but looking kinda annoyed. “That’s really good dude.”
He leaned back to whisper to his friend. His friend didn’t even bother hiding his annoyance.
There had been abnormally high crime rates that week, leaving Spider-Man incapable of catching a break.
One of the many downsides: A toooootally unrelated kid by the name of Peter Parker was running low on sleep.
Which was the reason he stumbled into a class that looked somewhat like his, wearing Thor pj pants and a Lipton tea shirt. His hair was the messist known to mankind. He was trembling, and didn’t want to consider the size of the bags under his eyes. At least he wasn’t too late. Something didn’t seem right.
“Is this Advanced Chemistry?”
The kid he had asked looked very confused. “...Ancient History.”
“Close enough.” Peter threw his bag down and sat, pulling out his books. Since he was here, he might as well get the notes.
This was his third year at this school. Did that keep him from going to the Freshman Fair? Never.
He couldn’t even pretend he was a volunteer, or even planning to be helpful in any way. Nope. His plan was to show up, and take the snacks. As well as all the free things he things he could find. He had robbed all the stalls already.
That was why MJ, who had come to visit, found him in the corner, pockets overflowing with pens, pencils, bags of chips, and mini-notebooks. He had already eaten six of the chip bags, and was working on another.
“You know, I still draw people in crisis, if you ever feel like modeling.”
It was three in the morning, and Peter had yet to put on civies, since he’d just got back to his dorm. He was busy heating potstickers and leftover pizza he’d bought on discount.
“Hey Karen, how long can I live on potstickers and pizza before I die?”
“Peter, I have several concerns. Should I alert Mr. Stark?”
“No, Karen, that’s really not necessary.”
Peter had attempted responsibility for once! He had been studying when he maybe should have been asleep, but it had fortunately led to him being awake for Ned’s call about a job for Spider-Man.
At that point, he figured it’d be better if he stayed on patrol till morning. He had an early class after that, and between the exhaustion and the time, he ended up pulling off the mask, and snagging a pencil, but otherwise completely in suit with nothing for class. Thankfully, no one put two and two together.