Chapter Ten | Peter Parker
Alaina
She couldn't remember the last time she had to wake up at 6 a.m. for a job, excluding the army where she had to be awake pretty much 24/7. She had an hour to get ready and mentally prepare herself, thirty minutes on the bus ride to the school, and then she had to go to the meeting where she would basically be briefed for her first day.
And she was shitting herself.
Alaina had to tutor a group of 15-year-olds. The last time she had spoken to a 15-year-old was when she was a 15-year-old who fought and hated everyone, especially other 15-year-olds. Maybe she wouldn't start a fight with one as a grown woman, though.
She was wearing a simple pair of ankle boots, slim trousers and a red blouse which was pinched at the waist. No makeup, as usual, and a pair of silver studs which matched the buckle on her boots.
Yes, this was the most consideration she had put into an outfit in over 10 years.
Yesterday, Alaina decided to leave without telling the trio. She texted Clint saying that Sam called her and wasn't feeling too good - he probably didn't believe her being a super spy and all, but he didn't call her up on it. She nearly told Sam about Frank Castle calling her when saw that he was, in fact, awake, laying on her couch watching To Kill A Mockingbird, but decided it was just a one-off. The curtains were drawn so the room was shrouded in darkness, Sam's face peeking above the blankets wrapped around his body. It was her Avengers duvet, she noted with embarrassment, the same one her father got her when she first moved in. He thought it would be funny since it was targeted for kids, but she actually liked it. She rarely dragged it out from under her bed and it didn't even have Sam, Clint or Natasha on it. It was just Iron Man, Captain America, the Hulk and Thor.
Maybe her new students would like her if they knew that she was friends with the Avengers?
Okay, just breathe, Alaina. You can do this.
The school itself was three floors high and close to 200 feet wide, with crumbling bricks and dirtied windows that were arranged in straight rows. It looked pretty dingy but hey, it would beat working as a waitress and constantly smelling of spilt coffee. She hoped the teachers were better than her previously colleagues.
As she approached the front entrance - the front was completely void of students since classes didn't start in an hour - she saw a woman standing in front of the large doors, checking her watch and glancing around the courtyard. Al froze for a moment, the nervousness seeping back in when the woman noticed her. She lit up, giving a small but frantic wave which Al reluctantly returned.
"Hi there!" the woman smiled brightly as Alaina reached her. The woman looked a bit younger than Al, pale skin, small and slim with dirty blonde hair that reached her shoulders in loose waves and blue eyes that were far too happy to be real. "You must be the new teacher. Miss..." she glanced down to the clipboard in her hand which Al didn't even notice she had, "Alaina Gunley. I'm Astrid Berry, one of the other tutors here. Please follow me." She spun on her toe before Al could even get a word in, stepping through the front entrance. Her heels clicked against smooth floorboards.
Astrid Berry sounded like a character from a YA novel, the name and parts of the personality. Al wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing.
Turns out, it wasn't a great thing. Astrid was nice and had good intentions, but Alaina could barely keep up with her both physically and verbally. Al liked to think of herself as stronger than the average Joe since she was in the army for close to a decade and was the best in her division, but Jesus, Astrid walked like she had a literal rocket stuck up her ass. The only words Al spoke was when the 20-minute tour was over - since when did a school tour last 20 minutes? - was, 'it was good meeting you, too."
The classroom was pretty bland, with plain cream walls and panel lights lining the ceiling. There were about 25 single desks settled in front of the projector at the front, next to where Alaina's desk was. A computer, keyboard, mouse, a few pens and a few sheets of paper stapled together... Al picked up the paper and saw it was an overview of what she would be doing. It was pretty simple and most of it was just common sense; like intervene when students fight and make sure to mark everyone who is present. There was some additional information about being the school's counsellor, which were just the basics of what Al learned at University.
Looked like she wouldn't be going to that meeting they said they were having, though she couldn't complain. Interactions with new colleagues were always awkward.
Al looked at the clock on the wall at the back and saw it was only 8:40. Still got 20 minutes to spare.
She started rummaging through the file cabinets, finding stacks upon stacks of plain and lined paper, a bunch of pens and pencils, some leaflets which were going to be relevant to the counselling aspect of the job, and a wall stapler.
Her mind wandered to the call. It had been years since her and Frank Castle last saw each other, and since then they didn't talk at all. Al remembered Frank calling her after they left the army when he moved to Boston and Al moved in with Sam in New York, saying that he wanted her to meet his wife and kids.
Thinking back on it now, it felt almost like a test to see if she was fit to be Frank's friend. Maria, Frank's wife, asked a lot of questions, especially about Al's time in the army, but she wasn't pushy. She was a sweet woman who kept Frank grounded, giving him scolding looks if he acted too caveman-esque - he learned how to chew loudly and sloppily from his fellow soldiers, which is something Alaina found as equally disgusting as Maria did. Frank Jr was quiet and didn't speak to Al much, but it was easy to see that he was a good kid. He resembled Frank a lot, too, with dark hair and the same hazel eyes. Liz, the older sibling, was much more boisterous and even started calling Alaina auntie which filled her heart in a way it had never been filled before.
So why did he call Alaina instead of Maria? If it was army-related she would have likely gotten a call from Curtis, or hell, even Billy.
When she thought about Frank's wife, for some reason Natasha drifted into her mind.
Did Al want to go on a date with the badass Russian spy assassin? Um, yes. Obviously. But was she too scared to grow some balls and ask her in fear that she would be rejected? Most definitely.
Al wouldn't necessarily call what she had a crush on the woman. It was more physical attraction than anything since she hardly knew her.
So get to know her, Sam would say.
Fuck off, she would reply.
But could Al do that? If Natasha was even interested - if what Clint said yesterday was true - then... well, maybe there was a possibility? But what if it didn't work out. It would just make it awkward for Sam being on the team with Natasha. And Al... She liked the team. For whatever reason, Clint was trying his best to make her feel a part of the group and he was trying to be her friend. Tony got her this job for goodness sake, even if the last time they saw each other was on pretty uncomfortable terms, but she didn't regret it. Tiberius Stone, from the stories and what Sam had told her, was a grade-A asshole, and from the looks of it, there would be no kind of suffering of consequences for her.
Al's shut the cabinet drawers and stood up from her crouched position, feeling her knees crack with the awkward movement. She smoothed the creases of her trousers and took a deep breath, glancing at the clock to see that 10 minutes had already passed.
Still got another 10 minutes left to question her life decisions.
Natasha
"So," Clint panted, wiping down his sweat with a white towel, "about Alaina..."
Natasha huffed, shaking her head. "You bring her up every few hours, Clint," she said, pulling on a clean shirt. "Unless you want to spar again, I'm not talking about it."
Clint whined like a child whose parent refused to give him candy. "C'mon, Tash," he said. "She's clearly into you. Why don't you just ask her out? I'm sure she would but she's too... you know." Too awkward, Natasha thought. It was cute. "We're not part of S.H.I.E.L.D. anymore. They can't decide who we date anymore. Technically, it's Tony who decides."
"God, don't remind me," Natasha muttered, slinging her dirty shirt over her shoulder. She was considerably less of a hot mess than Clint though, since he was too distracted asking about Natasha's love life rather than concentrating on the fight. "The team have at least mentioned her every day since we saw her. Tony's saying he'll rent out a cinema for us, I'm pretty sure Sam is doing the exact same thing to Alaina that you're doing to me, right?" Clint shrugged. "Even Steve is getting on my case about it and he's usually the most respectable out of all of you."
"Really?" Clint grinned as they walked out of the gym. "What did he say?"
"Something about wasting time on wondering rather than doing," she explained. "He brought up Peggy. And Bucky. Said that he wished he had the courage to do what he wanted."
"Still got no clue where he is?" Clint asked, chewing his lip. The teasing was now gone.
"Last time we saw him was in Bucharest," Natasha stated. That was when they found him holed up in some dingy apartment when T'Challa helped The Avengers find him the first time. "He could be anywhere by now. Like Steve said, when he wants to go missing, he'll go off the radar completely."
"Where do you think he is?" Clint asked when they reached the elevator. "Hiding under our noses or on the other side of the world?"
Natasha shrugged a shoulder, wiping the damp hair from her face. "I wish I knew him as well as you think I do, Clint," she said. "But I don't."
"If you were in his shoes," he tried again, "what would you do?"
Natasha thought for a moment. "I'd hide in plain sight," she answered.
Alaina
Tutor went better than she was expecting. All Alaina had to do was introduce herself, go through the PowerPoint about events taking place, and then talk to each student individually. She set up appointments with each of them over the week, knowing that making them stand outside and wait until she was finished would be draining. The students were nice, too - she wasn't a big fan of Flash Thompson who said that his dream career was to be a pimp in their one-to-one, but she couldn't deny that he was funny - and none of them threw rubbers at her head like she thought they would.
It was close to 10:30 when Alaina finished her appointment with MJ who decided to stay an extra half hour just talking to her new tutor - Al took it as a good sign - and five minutes later, she would have... she checked the list...
"You have Peter next?" MJ snorted, raking her eyes over the paper.
"You can read upside-down?" Al retorted, impressed despite herself.
"It's one of my many hidden talents," MJ replied dryly. Al really liked the girl, she decided. "But a pre-warning - Peter's a loser. He doesn't know how to talk to people, least of all people that are cooler than him."
"I take that as a compliment." Alaina laughed softly. "But thank you, MJ. If you see him, tell him to walk right in."
The girl raised an eyebrow. "Are you covertly kicking me out?"
"Didn't realise I was being covert about it." Al raised her own eyebrow. "But seriously, scram. Go find someone else to harass."
"I should report you to the Principle," she said but got up nevertheless. "See ya tomorrow, teach." She gave a peace sign before walking out, leaving the door open behind her.
Al heard MJ talking to someone outside, presumably Peter Parker as she told him that teach is about to give you detention, good luck man.
Alaina moved the picture MJ had drawn her to the side next to her computer - look how much better I made you, she had said. It was a damn good drawing. Al needed to find somewhere to put it.
A kid with blonde scruffy hair, a backpack slung over his shoulder and a nervous smile on his face walked in. "Uh... hi?"
"Peter," Al greeted, giving a small grin with her hands clasped over her stomach. "Take a seat."
Author's Note: OOoOOoOooooOooOoO Peter Parker is in the building guys, as well as the other SMH cast. I kind of imagined MJ to be like Rosa Diaz from B99, which is basically what she's like in Homecoming but still.
So Clint is still playing cupid, Steve is now encouraging Nat to go for it... When will it happen? I wonder, hmmmm...
I feel so bad for leaving you all hanging but the comments thirsting over Nalaina makes me cackle. I'm evil.
Hope you enjoyed!
Editied: 29.08.18.