A/N: I stuck to the canon facts as much as I could, although I know that Newt is a year younger than Hermann. This fic takes place in Hermann's birthplace of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, and has no specific time period, though I imagined it to be present-day when writing it. I swear, I have never done research this extensively, even for school. Newt and Hermann's dialogue is a bit mature for their age, but I did that purposefully because I imagine their maturity levels to be higher than those of actual fifth graders, though their maturity levels falter at times because they are, after all, fifth grade boys.
oOo
"Time to line up for lunch, kids!" Mrs. Tendo announced to her fifth-grade class of Shätterdomen Secondary School as the lunch bell rang, "Grab your lunch boxes and line up at the door." The sounds of chairs squeaking against the floor and the footsteps of eighteen fifth graders followed her announcement. As per usual, the students created a traffic jam near the cubbies, pushing and nudging each other, one or two telling the others to move out of the way so they could get their own lunchbox.
A girl with shoulder-length bleach-blonde hair who went by the name of Sasha pulled out a lunchbox and opened it up, "Gross, ham and cheese? Mom knows I hate ham and cheese!" She scowled, "Oh. This isn't mine, that's why." She put the still open lunchbox back in the cubby and took out the lunchbox from the cubby next to it, looked inside, and smiled at what was inside, pleased that her mom had packed her something that she liked.
After a minute of the ruckus and the students went to line up at the door, the last student, a skinny boy with short brown hair named Hermann quietly stood from his seat and went to his cubby to fetch his lunchbox.
"Are we all in line now? Let's go!" Mrs. Tendo said cheerfully, and led the class out of the room.
"W-wait, Mrs. Tendo, I'm still-" Hermann called out, but his teacher was already out of the room, as was half of the class. He pulled his lunchbox out of his cubby and ran to catch up with his class – only to find that his lunchbox was open and his food was covering the floor of the space between the door and cubbies.
"Awwh," he whined as his shoulders slumped and looked out the door to see that his class was halfway down the hallway. He sighed and knelt down on the floor, picking his lunch up and putting it back in his lunchbox. His sandwich container had opened up and his ham and cheese sandwich had scattered on the floor, so he collected the pieces and threw them in the trashcan. Thankfully his pudding hadn't opened up and spilled; that would have been a mess to clean up. Closing his lunchbox properly, he walked out the classroom door and down the hallway to the cafeteria. As he was walking, he passed one of the seventh grade classes. He stopped just after he passed it; they were learning about negative numbers in their math class.
"Negative numbers? I already know negative numbers. Mother taught them to me in the beginning of the year." Hermann, thought to himself. He smiled smugly, "I know something those seventh graders don't." He listened in for a few more moments until he heard his stomach growl, reminding him of his earlier objective.
When he reached the cafeteria, he got in line behind the other fifth grade class to get the small cartons of milk for their lunch. Hermann craned his neck to see above the other students heads; he wanted to get chocolate milk before it ran out. He hopped from one foot to the other, trying to make the line go faster.
When it was finally his turn, he was happy to see that there was one carton of chocolate milk left. He took it and grabbed a straw, then looked around for a place to sit.
Hermann didn't have many friends. Actually, there was no one in the school that he would consider a friend. Except maybe the nurse; he had seen her a lot throughout his years here. He made his way past the tables of students, wincing as a group of girls laughed in high-pitched squeals as he walked past, giggling and commenting on something one of the girls had said about something Hermann didn't care about. Walking by a trashcan, he felt something that felt like a squid hit his left arm.
"Oh, sorry." A boy who he recognized as Raleigh Becket from the fourth grade class sitting at the closest table said to him, "I was aiming for the trashcan, not you."
"It's alright," Hermann said to him as he bent down and picked up the banana peel that had hit him.
"Could you throw that away for me? Thanks." The boy said to him as Hermann tossed it in the trashcan.
He walked to and empty table at the far end of the cafeteria and sat down. He shook his milk carton and opened it up and stuck the straw in the opening, blowing bubbles in it to stir up the chocolate that had sunk to the bottom. Hermann sat at the table in silence, eating his carrots that his mother had packed and sipping his chocolate milk. Setting the empty baggie of carrots to the side, he took out a spoon and his container of pudding, happy now that he could finally eat it. His mother didn't buy pudding very often, so he thought of it as a special treat when he found it in his lunchbox.
"Well, well, well. If it isn't Hermann the Worm." Came an all-too-familiar voice from behind him. He felt someone pull on the tops of his suspenders and snap them back. He froze. "You know it's not polite to ignore someone, Hermy. Come on, show some respect to your elders."
Hermann groaned quietly and muttered, "Hello Chuck." He still had his pudding in his hand, and he slowly lowered it onto his lap, hoping that Chuck wouldn't see it.
"What was that? I couldn't hear you."
Hermann turned in his seat and glared up at a sixth grade boy with a pointed nose and chin and a second sixth grade boy with a long face and bleach-blond hair, "I said hello, Chuck."
"That's better. Now, what do you have for me today, Pencil?" he leaned over Hermann to look into his lunchbox. "What, nothing good? Just a stupid apple and… a cheese stick?" Chuck swatted Hermann's arm with the back of his hand, "That's what I'm gonna call you from now on. Cheese Stick." He laughed.
"Hah, good one, Chuck." The second boy, Aleksis, told him.
"Yeah, I know, that's why I said it, doofus. Oh, what's this?" Chuck reached into Hermann's lap and grabbed his pudding cup. "It's chocolate pudding! Tryin'a hide this from me, were ya?" he ruffled Hermann's hair.
"Give that back! My mom gave it to me as a special treat." Hermann said as forcefully as he could, reaching for his pudding cup.
"Well, tell your mommy that I say thank you. It was very nice of her to pack me such a special treat."
"Come on, give it back!" Chuck was holding it above his head, and Hermann kept jumping to reach it.
"How about no?" Chuck said, pushing Hermann away and into the table, making it move a bit. Hermann grabbed his plastic spoon that he was to use with his pudding cup and threw it at Chuck, hitting him in the stomach. Chuck didn't flinch; he only watched, and glared down at Hermann. He turned to Aleksis, "I think we need to teach this little punk a lesson."
"Yeah, let's teach him a lesson." Aleksis replied, just as menacingly.
"Oh – um – I – I'm sorry Chuck – I just – I'm sorry, please don't hit me, I won't do it again, I promise!" Hermann babbled, walking backwards two steps until he bumped the table, holding his hands up defensively.
"Yeah, you sure won't." Chuck growled, cracking his knuckles and grabbing a fistful of Hermann's shirt with one hand, lifting him off of the ground, and raising a fist with the other. Hermann turned his head away and squeezed his eyes shut, bracing himself for what he knew was coming.
"Hey, why don't you pick on someone your own size, you big bully!" came an unfamiliar voice to Hermann's right followed by the sound of a baseball hitting a plastic bucket full of water. He opened his eyes when he was dropped, Chuck holding one of his hands against his head, glaring at a brown-haired boy.
"You little twerp, you're gonna pay for that." He shouted.
The boy held up his fists, "Yeah? Come at me, then. I'm not afraid of a stupid bully like you!"
Chuck huffed and grabbed Hermann's carton of chocolate milk, stepping over to the other brown-haired boy, whose eyes widened a bit as Chuck approached him, but his stance didn't falter.
Chuck lifted the carton of milk over the boy's head and tipped it, pouring the contents onto him, ruffling the boy's hair as he did so to more fully fill his hair with chocolate milk. When the carton was empty, he dropped it onto the boy's head before it fell to the floor. Chuck turned to Hermann and wiped the milk off of his hand with Hermann's shirt. Chuck and Aleksis laughed, shoving Hermann into the table and the other boy onto the floor, knocking his glasses off, and walked out of the cafeteria.
"Yeah, and you stay out!" the boy called after them, groping the floor for his glasses.
"Um, thanks for that." Hermann told the boy, picking up his glasses and handing them to him, offering his hand to help him up once he had them back on.
"You looked like you were in trouble, so I did what any smart person would do. You're welcome." The boy smiled, "Why were they picking on you?"
"Chuck's underdeveloped brain thinks it's still entertaining to harm others."
"What did you do to set him off like that?"
"I threw a plastic spoon at him."
The boy stared at him with his mouth open a bit, then started laughing, "Oh – oh my God – that's hilarious I can't – he got upset because of a – a – a spoon?" his voice rose a few octaves at the end of the sentence. Hermann couldn't help but giggle at him.
"Yes, it's funny now that it's over. Did you throw something at him?"
The boy smirked, "Yeah, I threw an apple. Hit him square on the head."
"You have impeccable aim. What's your name, anyway?"
"I'm Newton Geiszler. Call me Newt; only my mother calls me Newton."
"Newt? As in the aquatic amphibian of the family Salamandridae?"
"Uhh… Sure. What's your name?"
"I'm Hermann Gottlieb." He held out his hand for Newt to shake, and Newt gave it a low-five.
"You're in the other fifth grade class, aren't you?"
"Yes, Mrs. Tendo. You have Mrs. Chau, then?"
"Sure do. She's pretty cool, so I like her. I guess I gotta go to the nurse now. I don't want to get all sticky-feeling from the milk."
"I'll come with you." Hermann said, eager to leave the cafeteria in case Chuck showed up again, and began packing up his lunchbox. Chuck had left it on the table when he was harassing Hermann and it hadn't opened, so he put it back in his lunchbox and closed it up.
The two walked out of the cafeteria, Hermann eyeing Newt the whole time.
Hermann found Newt interesting. He had ruffled brown hair (it was ruffled before being covered in milk, too) and green eyes and glasses with thick black frames. He was roughly Hermann's height, if not one or two inches shorter. His white shirt was rolled up to his elbows and he had pictures of dinosaurs and anime faces drawn on the exposed skin of his arms. He had seen Newt before and knew of him, but he hadn't known his name until a few minutes before. Newt had a fair share of friends, but his closest friends were the boys who were very interested in manga and monster movies and YuGiOh and Magic the Gathering.
"You shouldn't let him pick on you like that." Newt said.
Hermann shrugged, "I can't do anything it, Newton. He's done it since last year, and –"
"Last year? Have you told anyone about it, like, I don't know, the principal?" he asked incredulously.
"I – ah, well, no. I haven't told anyone. Except for my mother, of course. But I told her not to worry, that it wasn't anything that I couldn't handle."
"Yeah, looks like you were handling it really well earlier."
Hermann rolled his eyes and said nothing.
They walked the rest of the way to the nurse in silence, Newt casting sideways glances at Hermann the whole time, no doubt trying to figure him out as well.
"Oh my goodness, what happened?" the nurse, Nurse Mako, exclaimed as the two boys entered the nurse's office.
"Chuck Hansen and Aleksis Kaidanovsky poured milk on me because I made Chuck not punch Hermann in the face." Newt said quickly before Hermann could come up with an excuse.
"Newton! Why did you tell her?" Hermann hissed.
"Someone's gotta do something about it." He hissed back.
"Are either of you hurt?"
"I'm not, but Hermann's probably got a bruise or two."
"I'm fine, really." Hermann assured Nurse Mako, "He didn't leave any damage."
"Well you can be sure that Chuck and Aleksis won't be fine, I'm going to have to tell Principal Pentecost and their parents about this. Come here, let's get you cleaned up. I'm going to have to give you a new shirt to wear, please bring it back tomorrow."
Nurse Mako took Newt to the bathroom to wash the milk from his hair. He had always felt safe in the nurse's office and he had come to know what different medical supplies Nurse Mako had stored where and what the different things were used for. Hermann made himself comfortable in one of the chairs in the nurse's office and ate his pudding, thankful that he had snagged a plastic spoon from the cafeteria as they were leaving.
oOo
"Hermann! Hey, Hermann!"
Hermann turned around at the sound of his name being called, and saw Newt running toward him.
"Which street do you live on?"
"Mohrenplatz … Why?"
"Wanna walk home together?" Newt said before noting Hermann's questioning look and adding, "I live around there."
"Oh… I think that would be alright. But it looks like it might rain. Don't you normally take the bus?"
"A little rain never hurt anyone. Besides, it's no fun to walk home alone in the rain."
"I suppose that's true." If he had Newt with him, maybe Chuck and Aleksis wouldn't follow him home and make him "pay" for what had happened at lunch.
The two boys walked away from the school towards Hermann's house, talking about school and their hobbies and how Nurse Mako had given him one of the extra gym shirts to wear. "It was too big and scratchy so I took it off at the end of the day and gave it back to her." He had said.
"Okay, so what if aliens come back and like live in the ocean and we don't know it – because you know there's like this much ocean," Newt made an approximate measure of how much ocean there was with his hands, "And only this much of the ocean has been explored by humans." He used two of his fingers to signify it, "And they capture different sea animals and turn them into huge monsters that destroy the earth? Like the Kaiju in the Japanese monster films!"
"That's highly illogical, Newton. How would they live? Where would they live? In an alcove under the sea or an underwater cave?"
"Well, Spock, they would do just that! Or, or you know what's even better? If they lived on their own planet but had a portal or an interdimensional rift that opened up in the ocean!"
"And how, exactly, would we defeat these… Kaiju?" he asked, humoring Newt.
"Build giant robots to take them down, of course." He said as if it was the most logical answer, "We could call them… Um… What would we call them?"
"How should I know? You're the one that thought of it."
"Come on, Hermann! Be creative. Help a friend out with his fantasies." Newt attempted to persuade Hermann with puppy-dog eyes, but that's not what accomplished it.
What persuaded Hermann was Newt's use of the word "friend." They had only just met a few hours prior, and Newt already considered them to be friends. Hermann didn't know what to think or how to feel about that. He hadn't had any real friends before, save for those few false senses of friendship between him and the children whose parents had collaborated with his mother to have scheduled "playdates" every few weeks. Hermann tested the waters.
"How… How about 'jager'? It means 'hunter.'"
Newt thought for a minute. Hermann fidgeted, wondering if he had made a mistake.
Newt smiled, "That's brilliant! How did I not think of that?"
Hermann's shoulders relaxed and he let out a breath he didn't know he was holding in, "Your brain is so muddled with Kaiju that you couldn't stop thinking about them for one moment to think of something else, Newt." Newt laughed, and Hermann joined him.
"Hey, you finally called me Newt!"
Hermann smirked, then changed the topic, "Do you think about these things a log?"
"Yeah. I'm big on manga and monster movies and stuff."
"So I've heard."
"You've heard about me?" Newt asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Of course I've heard about you. The girls in my class mention your name quite often. I think a table of them was talking about you at lunch today, although I couldn't hear them very well over their squeals and giggles."
Newt straightened his shoulders and puffed out his chest the slightest bit, his face wearing a proud smile, "What do they say?"
"I don't pay attention to what they say, but I can only assume that they talk about your sense of humor and eccentricity… Your tousled hair and brilliant green eyes." Hermann trailed off.
"Brilliant green eyes, eh? You sure you're not one of my many admirers?" Newt nudged him with his elbow and waggled his eyebrows.
"Hardly. You and I are as opposite as two human beings can be."
"Hardly still means that you are!"
"Oh, shut up you're such a child!"
Newt stuck his tongue out at Hermann and took off in a run. "Last one to the corner's a rotten egg!" he shouted over his shoulder.
Hermann took off in a run after him, catching up and staying just a few feet behind him. Newt stopped as soon as he reached the corner and fell flat onto the ground as Hermann ran into him and fell on top of him with a pronounced "Oof!"
"Give me some warning next time, would you?" Hermann scolded.
"It was implied that we were stopping at the corner." Came Newt's muffled voice, "Would you please get off of me? You plus two backpacks is heavy."
"Oh, my apologies." Hermann said as he removed himself from Newt's back and extended his hand to help him up for the second time that day.
"Thanks." Newt said as Hermann helped him up. "Hey, did you feel that?"
"Feel what?"
"Raindrops."
"N-" Hermann twitched at something that landed on his cheek just then, "Yes, I did."
"Awesome! I love the rain!"
"Of course you do. Let's get home before we get soaked."
Newt was about to protest, but decided against it. "Which way to your house?"
"Just a couple of blocks more. We should be there in about ten minutes. Seven if we walk quickly."
Newt nodded and he and Herman walked (at a normal pace) to Hermann's house. As they walked, Newt's eyes widened as each house seemed to get bigger and fancier as they walked past.
"So you like science?" Hermann asked, attempting a casual conversation.
"Yeah, I love science. I can't wait until we get into grade eight so we can finally dissect stuff."
"I'm looking forward to that, too, but not with as much enthusiasm as you seem to have. I prefer math and numbers."
"Math and numbers are okay, but I don't really get them a whole lot. My knowledge of monsters and stuff pretty much fuels my appreciation for stuff like dissecting. I love getting my hands dirty." He made a hand mition that was presumably supposed to resemble getting his hands dirty.
"If you're not the best with numbers, I can tutor you." He paused then added, "That is, if you'd like. My mother taught me negative numbers in the beginning of the year, and I discovered today that the seventh graders are just now beginning to learn them."
The rain fell more and more so it was a steady stream, but the boys continued to talk about math and science and walk at a slow pace until Hermann said that they had reached his house.
"Hot diggity dog, this is your house?" Hermann said in awe as he looked up at the three-story stone house with a wrap-around porch.
"Yes, what of it?"
"It's huge!"
"Yes, well, I have three siblings and two parents. We need a bigger home than most."
"I've just got my parents and me in a split-level."
"Oh. Okay." Hermann shifted awkwardly from foot to foot, unsure what to say next. He was about to ask Newt to come inside, but Newt cut him off.
"Well, I guess I'd better get going. Looks like the rain's only gonna get heavier and I gotta get my homework done. See you tomorrow, Hermann!" Newt waved goodbye and walked back in the direction they came from.
"Bye, Newt. And thanks."
Newt turned and smiled at him, "No problem."
Hermann walked up the driveway and into his house, intent on telling his mother of the day's events.
oOo
Newt made it home an hour later.
"Newton, you're soaked!" his mother exclaimed as he walked in the front door. Newt was dripping wet and soaked to the bone. The rain had picked up and turned into a downpour as he was walking home, and that was half an hour ago. "Did you walk home?"
"Yeah." Newt nodded and set his backpack down on the ground and slid off his shoes.
"And what's that stain on your shirt? Let's get you out of those clothes and into something warmer and cleaner. I just finished a load of laundry, so I've got some nice and toasty clothes for you to put on."
Newt slid off his shoes and followed his mother to the laundry room, stripping away layer after layer, leaving a trail of clothing behind him. His mother opened up the dryer and pulled out one of Newt's father's shirts and a pair of Newt's own Avengers-themed boxers. Newt pulled them on, keeping his arms tucked into the too-big shirt for warmth, and his mother dried his hair off with a towel.
"Mom?" Newt asked as he cleaned his glasses off.
"Yes, Newt?"
"Can I have some milk and cookies?"
Newt's mother smiled warmly at him, "Just this once. It's close to dinner time."
Newt smiled back at his mother and sat down at a stool at the island in the kitchen.
His mother set down a class of milk and a napkin with cookies on it, and then went to collect the wet clothes that were strewn across the kitchen floor and toss them into the dryer.
"So I helped this kid who was being bullied today."
"That's my boy. What was going on?"
"Remember Chuck Hansen?"
"I know the name."
"Well he was picking on this kid on my grade named Hermann Gottlieb. Chuck was about to punch Hermann, but I threw an apple at his head before he could. It sounded like a baseball hitting a bucket full of water when it hit him." He giggled at the memory, and his mother tried to conceal a proud smile. "He didn't hit Hermann, which is good. Instead he poured chocolate milk on my head and pushed me to the ground." He took a bite out of a cookie that was soaking in his milk and quickly added, "But he didn't hurt me. Or break my glasses."
His mother seemed to relax a bit when he added the last part. "So that explains the stain on your shirt. But it doesn't explain why you're home late and soaking wet."
"I wanted Hermann home. I've seen Chuck and his buddy Aleksis Kaidanovsky following him home and bullying him. So I figured that I'd, you know, protect him if they followed him home. Or that if I was with him they wouldn't follow him home."
"And did they?"
"Nope." Newt smiled proudly at his mom, who smiled just as proudly back at him and ruffled his hair.
"Where does your friend live?"
"Mohrenplatz."
His mother gasped, "That's an hour's walk from here!"
"Yeah… But I thought, hey, why not. He doesn't have any friends at school and kids tease him behind his back. I wanna learn how to stand up to and for other people."
"That's a very mature thing, Newton. I'm proud of you."
oOo
That night, Hermann lay awake in his bed, his hands folded on his chest and a stuffed rabbit in the crook of his arm, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars and planets on his ceiling. ("It's very important that the planets are in correct alignment, or else I'll never be able to sleep!" he had said when they were being put on his ceiling.) He thought about the events that had transpired earlier that day.
He was sure that Chuck was going to punch him. Chuck had punched him in the arm plenty of times and tripped him in the hallways, but he seldom punched him in the face. He was thankful that Newt had intervened in time; it would have been very difficult to explain to his mother why he had a black eye the second time that year. The first time Chuck had given him a black eye, Hermann had told his mother that he tripped and hit his face on a desk, and promised his mother that he would be more careful. The second time he was given a black eye, that time from Aleksis, he had used the same excuse. She was sure to become skeptical if he had used the same excuse a third time.
He thought about how Newt had thrown an apple at Chuck's head. It was probably an apple that Newt had in his own lunchbox, and he gave it up to prevent harm from coming to Hermann. It was a silly thing to be grateful for, but he was glad for it all the same.
Newt had included him in his (albeit ridiculous) fantasy that he seemed to have given much thought to, and had let him name the hero of said fantasy. He enjoyed the feeling of being included in something so personal.
He smiled to himself and thought, for the first time in his life, "I have a friend."