four.
Spending a summer in upstate New York at the Avengers base was easy. He got to spend time with people who had no problem looking after him and were able to keep his abilities and nightmares in check.
The hard part was now returning to Midtown High to go through his Sophomore year. He rejoined band and academic decathlon at the end of last year, and now with MJ as the lead, things were kinda looking up for Peter. He didn't feel like an outcast as much as he did last year.
Except, he saw the way Flash looked at him when he arrived in the sleek black car Mr. Happy drove him in. He saw the way Ned's jaw dropped when he saw Peter's new shoes that cost more than Ned's whole back to school shopping list did.
It reminded Peter of the look on his own face when Tony re-did his suit for him. When he did all that he could to help the focus in his vision once he knew that Peter had troubles focusing on all of the input his brain was receiving at once.
They were the only ones to look at him any differently, which was good. He could handle Flash being a dick, and he could handle Ned being... Ned. He could handle getting shoved into a locker and he could handle getting a sandwich at the newly rebuilt Delmar's after school.
He handled everything a new year had to throw at him... For a couple of weeks anyway. What he didn't handle very well was when some new kids showed up and dialed the bullying up to an 11.
The tripping picked up, as did being thrown into lockers, down stairs and nearly out of a window.
Flash took up the mantle as their leader, and soon there was a whole plethora of kids calling him 'Penis Parker'.
He didn't dare say anything to the school board, and though he knew he could take each and every one of them on in a fight if it came right down to it, he didn't want to hit anyone back either. He knew that if he saw any of his parents and had to explain that he'd been getting in fights at school, he'd be dead. Not just dead, but quadruply dead.
Actually, maybe more dead than that even, considering that Steve might want to kill him three or four times on his own.
There was no hiding it one day when he came home with a busted lip and blackened eye. He hid the black eye with sunglasses, hungover Tony style. In order to get to his room, he had to get past all four parents though, which obviously didn't work.
Bucky noticed the busted lip and saw the bruise out of the corner of Peter's sunglasses. Peter had already made it past him, but not past the others. "Natalia."
Peter came to an abrupt stop when Natasha stepped in front of him. He looked down at the floor and didn't even try to protest when she pulled the sunglasses off of his face. The room went silent. Tony was staring with wide eyes, mentally trying to decide who the hell thought they had rights to put their hands on Peter.
Steve looked shocked, and Bucky's jaw was set, and with the way Natasha was staring, almost emotionless, Peter was sure that he was in for a world of hurt. She reached up to touch his face but he flinched away from her fingertips. That one small action clued in everyone in the room just how bad all these kids really were to Peter.
Bucky looked damn near murderous. Natasha just looked sad for Peter.
"Я убью всех, кто положил руки моему сыну." Peter heard Bucky growl. He didn't know what it meant, but it sounded dangerous. Peter quickly learned that Bucky reverted to Russian when he was angry, but just as easily switched between languages when he was pissed. Like, really pissed off, Bucky will switch between three or four languages in the same sentence. Somehow it comes out making perfect sense to Natasha.
----
After the black eye incident, Peter's parents took to driving him to school. The day Bucky gave Peter a ride was the first time Peter'd been left alone in weeks. Bucky drove him to school on Steve's motorcycle and just 'happened' to be wearing a sleeveless shirt. Bucky was the most threatening looking of all of Peter's parents. Everyone knew Tony was rich, and if they wanted their projects funded they needed to chill the hell out.
Steve looked nice enough, but his biceps were a bit threatening. Peter was pretty sure that one of the girls started to cry because Steve gave them the American Dad Seal of Disapproval™. That's what Ned called that look, and he wasn't exactly wrong.
Natasha was the one who took to talking to the school board, and if she leaned threateningly over the Principal's desk and mentioned beating him the way Peter was being beaten if something didn't change, well, that wasn't anybody's business.
After Natasha came is when it got worse.
"Awe, Penis Parker needs his mommy- oh wait. Oh, isn't she dead, Parker? She is, isn't she Parker?"
Peter stopped dead in his tracks. Ned was sure he'd have broken his neck if he turned around any faster. Now, until this point, it could never be said that Peter Parker had ever mistreated his school books or physically harmed another student. At this moment, however, Peter dropped his books and threw himself forward.
He knew how to throw his weight around, and when his body collided with the other kid's, they went straight to the floor.
Ned had been giving a number to use solely in emergencies like this one, and he wasted no time (well, a little time) in pulling out his phone and making the phone call that none of Peter's parents wanted to receive. "Hi, it's Ned. Peter just started dogging on one of these kids, I think someone should come get him."
Nobody had ever seen Peter Parker get angry. Now they're all wishing they hadn't. See, when he was angry, Peter wasn't the same. He wasn't pulling his punches to avoid causing a serious injury like regular Peter was. No, this Peter didn't care if anybody got hurt. Right now it's what he wanted. He wanted to make this kid hurt for even mentioning his mother to begin with.
Peter only stopped when he reared back to swing, and someone caught his arm. He looked up, expecting one of his parents. What he was met with was a scarred face, hidden by a lowered baseball cap.
"Let him go," was all Wade had to say before Peter was standing.
Peter wasn't even concerned with how Wade was here, or how he escaped. All he was concerned with was picking up his books and getting the hell out of there as fast as humanly possible.
Wade and Ned shared a look, and then he was following Peter out of the building. Peter and Wade both knew that Peter's 'parents' would be having words with them later, and in Wade's case, maybe a few bullets.
All that mattered right now was Peter.