"So, are you excited for the field trip today?" Peter's best friend and loyal companion, Ned, asked on the bus ride to a school trip that Monday morning.
"I suppose," Peter said. "But the science of organisms has never been very interesting to me. I prefer more numbers."
"It'll still be pretty cool," Ned assured him. "Sort of like going to the zoo."
"The zoo," Peter repeated. "A zoo for rare species of animals that scientists hope can revolutionize Healthcare."
Ned patted him on the shoulder. "That's the spirit!" Ned reached into his backpack and pulled on a folder. Opening it, he pulled out a math worksheet with a couple of the questions left unanswered, but with lots of erasing marks left behind. "Speaking of math, I had trouble with last night's work? Did you at least manage to figure it out?"
Peter thought back to the night before, and how his homework session went.
Last night.
"This is ridiculous!" Natasha exclaimed. "What is the point of this again?"
"It's for a grade," Peter shrugged.
"Ask Banner, he's the real genius."
"Uh, well you see, I think you need to carry these numbers over here-"
"That's not how our teacher wants us to do it," Peter said.
Bruce rakes his glasses off in confusion. "How do you mean?"
"I mean there is a certain way our class is expected to solve the problem."
"Does it matter how you solve it as long as it's solved?"
"I guess," Peter said. "If we don't do it right our teacher will deduct points."
Deciding to seek help from another genius, Peter sought out Tony Stark, who was in his lab fiddling with the arm of his suit when Peter walked in.
"Hey, Mr.Stark I was wondering-"
"No!" the older man had said.
"Thank you for your time," Peter said, walking out without further prying.
present-day
"It didn't work out so well," Peter said truthfully.
"Bummer," Ned said. "I was hoping you could help me out. Maybe I should just take some after-school tutoring."
After school tutoring? Peter perked up. That sounded like a pretty decent idea. If nobody back at the tower could help him, he could just seek help from the school so he never has to worry about falling behind.
"That's brilliant, Ned," Peter said, facing his friend.
"Is it?"
"Of course," he clapped Ned on the back. "What would I ever do without you, man."
"Well, you'd probably end up being popular, and have other cool friends without a lego obsession, or-"
"Students!" the screeching voice of the teacher interrupted Ned. "When we depart from this bus, I urge all of you to be on you're best behavior as not to embarrass yourselves, your school, and your parents. Anybody who can't comply with this will receive their just punishments. So stick with the group, and no touching unless otherwise instructed to do so."
She pushed her glasses up with her middle finger. "With that said, let us go and educate ourselves on something."
"Welcome students," petite brunette women in a lab coat, greeted their class as they walked into the entrance of the lab. "I will be your host today, Dr. Linda," she smiled.
"This is so cool," Ned whispered, pulling out his camera and snapping a couple of pictures.
"Yeah, you could say that, "Peter replied.
Suddenly an unfamiliar shoulder bumped into Ned, almost making him drop his camera.
"Hey, doof," a tall girl with curly brown hair said. "Our class is moving on."
She continued walking ahead of them without apologizing, slipping her hands into her pockets.
"Tough nut," Peter muttered.
"That's Michelle," Ned said.
"Who?"
"Michelle Jones. I see her around at some after-school activities, but she likes to be by herself most of the time."
"Is she normally so..." What was the word Peter was looking for.
"Shallow? fiesty?" Ned supplied.
Peter nodded.
Ned shrugged. "I don't know, but in her defense, our class was beginning to move on. I say she was just trying to be helpful."
Peter decided to brush it off, for the time being, seeing as she's never really given him trouble before.
"This is our arachnid, exhibit," Dr.Linda said, leading the group into a wide room filled with little habitats for all the organisms they kept.
"As in spiders?" Flash Thompson asked, shivering a little.
"Does that scare you?" Michelle asked, with a poker face.
Flash stood up straighter and pulled at his jacket. "Of course not," he said, making his voice deeper. "Just asking a simple question, that's all."
"Over here is a spider with the unique ability to detach its limbs at will, and regrow them," Dr, Linda said, leading the party to one of the first habitats. "It helps the spider when it gets into a bit of a tough spot with other spiders or to help trick its prey."
"Cool," Ned whispered in awe.
Dr.Linda moved on to the next one. "Over here, is a spider that secretes a special chemical that scares off any predator around them, sometimes including other spiders."
"Are you sure it's not called the Parker spider?" Flash laughed.
"Most of the arachnids are unnamed, being new species."
Dr. Linda moved on to a much larger habitat with lots more spiders.
"This is were we breed some of our unique species in the hopes to reproduce more, or even a newer more complex spider," Dr. Linda explained. "However. most of the spiders end up being normal, common species which are discarded into this side of the habitats, whilst the unique spiders are put on the other side."
"How do you keep track of them all?" Ned asked.
"No need to be excessive," Dr. Linda smiled. "Our state of the art habitats are impenetrable. Only scientist with clearance can access the habitats to removes spiders, or clean their spaces. Look, here's one now."
The class watched as a scientist opened the habitats from the other side and carefully selected a spider, making sure to close it behind him so none of the creatures could escape."
"They look really cool," Peter said. "The spiders I mean."
"Don't they?" Dr. Linda smiled and led the class on. But for some reason Peter wanted to stay here and look around just a bit longer. He peered into the habitats, watching the unique spiders with fascination, wondering how such species came to be. Looking, he noticed a tiny little gap left behind from when the scientist went to retrieve a spider. Be must not have closed it all the way. Peter watched as a crafty spider slip through the gap and escaped.
"Uh!" Peter stood up. "Hello, one of your spiders escaped!"
But their was nobody around.
Peter sighed and decided to prevent anymore of the spiders from escaping. He closed the door the rest of the way and was prepared to move on to his next class. But what he didn't know was that the crafty spider had actually climbed up his pant leg. making its way up.
Peter began on his way to rejoin the class, not noticing the spider climbing up his torso, down his sleeve and leaping onto his hand. Just when he was about to rejoin the group he felt a sharp pain in his hand, shocking him. Peter cried out in pain and shook his hand. shaking the intruder off. The spider fell. hitting the floor, but before it could scurry away, Peter brought his foot down on it, squishing it under his feet, before observing his hand..
Two little red bite marks were left behind. It didn't hurt that much now, and according to Dr.Linda, the spiders they kept here were supposedly not known to be toxic.
Peter stood next to Ned as Dr.Linda lectured.
"Where were you?" Ned asked.
"I was looking at the spiders a bit longer," Peter said.
He looked back down at his hands, which were starting to throb.
The next day Peter was awoken by his alarm clock blaring. He fumbled along with the white marble dressers in his room to hit snooze. He felt sluggish today. No, not sluggish, awful. His head was pounding, his body was covered in sweat, and he was trembling uncontrollably. But, there was an exam in school today. one he could not afford to miss.
Reluctantly, Peter slid off the bed and walked over to his dresser. When he went to pull open the top drawer, the entire handle broke off into his hand.
Still, in his sleepy state, Peter only stared idly at it before letting it fall to the floor.
He went to go retrieve his backpack from the closet, opening the door and successfully pulling it off a hook. But when he tried to walk away from his closet, his hand wouldn't let go of the doorknob. Clicking his tongue in frustration, Peter pulled harder until he eventually fell flat on his behind, taking a chunk of his closet door down with him.
Peter was suddenly more awake, staring at his hand in wonder until the doorknob finally detached itself and clattered to the floor.
"What's happening up there?" Natasha called up. Her voice echoed through the large corridors of Stark Tower.
"Uh, nothing!" Peter yelled. "everything is fine, Nat, I'll be down in a second."
Peter quickly slipped his pants on and went to stand in the mirror whilst he put on his shirt, but something was off. His shirt wasn't quite fitting right. Peter stared into the mirror he and he could apparently see why. His entire body was rippled with muscles that hadn't been there yesterday. He touched the beggining of an eight pack and cringed. Was he becoming delirious or something?
He touched the mirror but remembered about the closet fiasco a little too late. The mirror stuck to his fingers and he tried hopelessly to detach himself, breaking the mirrorr in the process as he swung his arm around trying to free himself. This caused a loud shattering sound to make its way through the mid-levels of the tower.
Natasha, fearing another break-in, even though he knew thet it was was impractical, began walking up the stairs from the mess hall, where she had been sipping some orange juice while reading over some old criminal files.
"Pete!"
"I'm fine, Nat!" Peter called back.
"Peter!"
"I'll be down in a second, don't come up!"
Ignoring him. Natasha pushed her way up the stairs, and opened his door, fearing the worse, only to find Peter completely dressed in his school clothing, backpack, and shoes on smiling patiently.
"You're wearing Steves's shirt?" she pointed out.
"Oh, well, mine wasn't fitting me so well anymore," Peter replied. "I'm a growing boy."
"Your closet?"
"I was sleepy," Peter answered "Tripped and fell like an idiot breaking a piece of the door, tell Mr.Stark that I'm sorry about that."
Peter began to walk past her, whilst she stared into the room. Natasha wasn't an idiot, and she could sense when something was up.
"Nat," Peter called.
She whirled around.
"Come on, let's have breakfast."
