"So you're what... Dating him?" Paul half whispered, half spoke to Peter who was sitting next to him on the plane.
"Yeah, basically." Peter responded. He wasn't entirely sure why they were whispering as it wasn't like the people in the seats nearby knew who they were talking about, but still. It felt right. It felt like Peter's relationship was dark and untouchable, something that should be whispered about.
"How? Why?... When?" Paul leaned back in his seat a bit and gripped his fist around the champagne glass of orange juice that sat on his tray table.
"Months ago. Some shit happened and he was there for me, and, I don't know Paul it just happened and I couldn't exactly tell you how or why." Peter shrugged and leaned against the window frame, gazing down at the top of clouds.
"Does anyone else know?"
"Scott, Dr. Strange, Tony's assistant, maybe Tony's driver? And you now."
"And you guys were planning to keep this a secret... Forever?" Paul questioned, looking inquisitively over at Peter who was trying to sink into his plush seat.
They'd been in the air for over two hours, would probably be landing anytime now, and Paul decided that it was a perfect time to bring up Tony. The day that they'd been caught had been weirdly anticlimactic. Wanda had walked in soon after and told Paul that a cab was waiting for the two of them. Peter had made Paul promise he wouldn't tell anyone... And then they hadn't seen each other for two more days until suddenly they had to board a plane together and sit right next to one another.
A little uncomfortable.
"Just for like another couple months I guess. So I can turn graduate and then give it a little buffer time so that the general public doesn't think Tony was dating me before I graduated. But its not like we're going to announce to the world 'hey look we're boning,' we'll just be less cautious when we go out and such." Peter explained, nodding along wit his own words as if he was explaining it to himself for the first time out loud, making sense of everything.
"That sounds real shitty, sorry Pete." Paul quirked his lips to the side.
"What? Dating an older guy?"
"Yeah, I mean I've basically been in your boat. I met Wanda in Serbia, age of consent across the country there is like 15 so we never had an issue, but it was weird when she moved here last year. I mean consent in a lot of states is like 17, but there's also a shit ton of them with 18 which is just confusing. And to top it off, most people look down on people over 18 dating people under 18. Even if I'm 18 now, it was still a weird purgatory we were in. Definitely not as bad as you guys, because men totally get a worse rap for dating down, but still... You know what I'm saying." Paul rambled off and Peter nodded along with him.
"No I totally do. What Tony and I did in New York is totally legal, but if we did the same thing in Virginia, he could technically be put in jail. But in the court of public opinion it's totally different. I honestly think that no matter what, with an age gap more than ten years, Tony's going to get dragged. It's just bizarre that some states say that students over eighteen can date teachers just fine, and others say it's totally illegal until they're graduated" Peter sighed slightly and took a sip of his water.
"And people are going to think he's your super sugar daddy who forged your credentials to get into MIT." Paul pointed out.
Peter groaned. "Yeah, that too. Thanks." He grumbled and Paul playfully checked his shoulder.
The plane began its descent within the next few minutes as flight attendants came by to collect any trash they may have and were told to put their trays up.
"You wanna stop and grab a bite before we go all the way back?" Paul asked as they grabbed their carry-ons and headed out of the plane. Neither of them had brought a suitcase and they found their way to Peter's car pretty easily. Parking it in the airport lot for a week had cost a small fortune, but Tony had insisted on paying for it.
Things had been... Slightly strained since Paul had walked in one them. Tony was putting up a valiant false front, but Pete could tell that he was upset and that things were getting to him.
"I totally do." Pete had responded so they tore out of the parking lot as Paul gave him directions to a restaurant he'd never been to before.
When they arrived Pete was slightly surprised, it didn't really look like the place to be eating lunch on a Sunday afternoon. More of like a nice dinner place, but Paul seemed set on going in.
When they walked in, the entire soccer team was inside, all standing around and drinking what looked to be champagne.
"Pete!" They all chorused as he walked in, Thor clapped him on the back so hard that he just about thought he'd lose a lung.
"Hey guys, what's going on?" He asked, slightly dazed and confused by the sudden turn of events.
"Look at the banner! Made it myself." Quill exclaimed and Pete looked up at it.
"'Welcome home, sorry we went through your mail'?" Pete questioned, reading off of the rather crudely made sign. The second half was very scrunched up as he had visibly run out of room to write.
Steve held out an envelope, the seal open and contents looked like they'd been shoved back in. "Again, sorry, but we couldn't resist." He exclaimed and Pete took the letter from them.
There was a pristine white label on the front that read Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Admissions Department, and surely enough, the seal on the back of the letter had been broken open.
It was his acceptance letter and Pete beamed down at it as he read, clenching it in his fists. Of course, it had been pretty clear that he was going to get in, but having the physical proof in front of him was just a whole other level of amazing. He looked back up at everyone, they all looked very hopeful that they he wouldn't be mad they'd gone through his mail, he wasn't.
They'd played three of ten of their qualifying games for state in the next few weeks. They only needed to win eight to make it, and so far they were three for three, which Peter was feeling pretty good about. He'd been apprehensive about Thanos at first, but he'd seemed to redeem himself after a few games and Peter wasn't going to leave him out for one weird move. He scored them a lot of goals anyway, so Peter usually have TC in for the first half, and then subbed Thanos in for the second, if they were ahead enough on points.
Peter didn't want to rely on Thanos, he just also didn't want to completely exclude him. Coulson would get on his case if he thought that Peter was just keeping people out of the game for personal preference, so Pete made sure to keep everything even, and he made sure that everyone knew that as well. Loki had gotten over his earlier pettiness about no longer playing full games (Peter'd had to make a deal with him that he was always in the second half, though that was a small price to pay for Loki's cooperation.)
Currently, Peter was laying on his bed, sketching a field diagram of everyone with updated positions and starting players. Scott was on a bean bag next to him, staring blankly at some book he was supposed to be reading for Barton's class, but he looked like he was staring through the pages instead of actually reading. Paul had taken up Peter's desk with his laptop and looked like he had switched from doing math homework to instead watching a Youtube video called: '10 Coolest Goals Ever Scored in Soccer'. Things were as they should be.
"Hey, so how's the boyfriend Pete? I suppose I never asked you after you got back." Scott finally brought up, keeping it vague since he didn't know that Paul knew about Tony.
"Tony's cool I guess. We've been texting a bit." Peter shrugged and scratched his head with his pen, surely leaving a dark blob on his scalp. He highlighted Bucky's name on the field in pink, then circled Steve's in the same color. "Paul knows by the way." He said offhandedly then drew an arrow between Bucky's little circle and the goal. Bucky scored the occasional goal, as did Steve. He'd color coded each of the players on how likely they were to score a goal during the game. Peter was going a little crazy with his drive to win state recently, this was maybe the third draft of a diagram he'd made, each one having an increasingly complex color code that no one else understood.
"Wanda texted me to say that he seemed really sad directly after you left." Paul said, not pausing his video to answer. Tony had immediately given Wanda a higher level internship after she saw them, though they'd both profusely apologized about walking in on them and swore not to tell anyone, Tony just had to make sure.
"I miss him." Peter moped and sighed at his diagram, setting it on the bed next to him and pulling out his phone to see if there were any new messages from Tony, there weren't.
"We should drive to New York right now." Scott mused and turned a page in his book, though Peter was certain it was just to maintain the image that he was actually reading.
"Long distance relationships suck. I wish he was here. At least you can go fuck Shuri anytime you want, all I can do is text Tony." Peter pulled open their text conversations. The last thing sent had been a picture of Peter that Scott had taken on the field where he was covered in dirt and smiling after a goal. Tony had told him that he was beautiful and wished he'd seen the game. And nothing since then.
Scott scoffed at him. "You think i'm doing the fucking? Shuri is too much woman for me to handle." He bemoaned and dramatically laid the open book on his face, leaning back in the bean bag.
Peter suddenly, inexplicably found tears in his eyes. Paul noticed them immediately and softened his features. "Come on Pete, you could call him? Ask him to come down for one of our games!" He suggested and Scott sat back upright as Peter sniffled.
He didn't cry all that often, but he was just so upset about being away from Tony and it was kind of all flooding out at once. They'd had the perfect romance, got to see each other every single day, texted all the time, were overly affectionate with one another. Since Tony had left though, he just felt like they had less things to talk about other then their day, which Peter could only hear about so many board meeting before he thought his head would explode, and could only receive so many weird and drunk one in the morning pick up lines before he really started to miss Tony.
"Oh no, we have a level ten emergency, Pete is gonna cry." Scott stood up with a start. "What do we need? Ice cream? A fat blunt? Some sit-com reruns? Some of my moms coke?" He asked, overly theatrical as always, and then diving into the bed next to Pete, uncomfortably close. "Wanna do some blow and forget all our problems?"
Pete pushed him off the bed in a topple of limbs. "Shut up." He complained, but cracked just the smallest of smiles. "Though some ice cream wouldn't hurt."
"Sadly, we live in this hellish dictatorship of a school, and have no access to ice cream at this hour." Scott said from the floor, smiling up at Peter.
Pete rolled his eyes and sent Tony a text that simply read: 'no icecream in this damn school'.
"Or, we could talk about our mutual hatred for Thanos and everything that he does." Scott offered, climbing back into the bean bag chair and sinking down into it, his book forgotten on the ground, some of the pages probably crumpled. At that, Paul shut his laptop screen and swiveled the chair to face them.
"Oh come on, he's not that bad." Peter said, getting so he was sitting cross legged on the bed. "He's actually a pretty good player."
"I am hurt. I am betrayed. I am flabbergasted." Scott put his hand over his heart and twisted his face up in mock disgust.
"You like him now Pete? Come on, he's totally slimy." Paul argued.
"Okay, sure, he makes some weird plays, but I don't think we have any reason to actually hate him." Peter explained. He didn't want any tensions on his team right now, and a lot of tension rose from players not liking one another. He already got that enough from the occasional Quill/Steve spat, and then Bucky and Sam's weird on again off again friendship. Oh, and then there was Loki of course, who didn't like anyone and made that abundantly clear, then got offended when anyone made it seem like they didn't like him. Pete didn't need another civil war on his hands right now. He rubbed at his eyes and realized that he had stopped crying, gotten over that fairly fast.
"Weird plays!" Scott wheezed out. "Dude I wish I could explain to you the entire Beautiful Mind type connections that I'm making in my head between him and like a million conspiracy theories."
"These are, soccer conspiracy theories?"
"Well, a few other ones too. Hear me out though, Thanos was sent here by a rival team for... sabotage." Scott whispered the last word and Paul nodded along with his words. Pete was left very confused that both of these smart guys were apparently playing into this bizarre theory.
"Oh yeah, so Thanos transferred high school as the behest of his coach, simply so that he could infiltrate our team, gain our trust, and then completely ruin our chances for state?" Peter clarified, raising one eyebrow at the two of them. They both nodded in unison once again.
"We know it sounds crazy-" Paul tried to reason.
"Wait, you guys have actually discussed this? You're not just taking the piss?" He raised both of his eyebrows now. So this is why Scott doesn't do any of his fucking homework...
"Maybe once or twice, we might have stalked his facebook page and found out everything about him, and then we just kind of came to the simplest possible conclusion." Scott shrugged nonchalant, like this was a completely normal thing to be saying.
"Oh, of course. And his public facebook page, where I happen to be friends with him, just explained this whole plan in depth?"
"Okay, you see, this is where we had to do some real digging." Paul took over for Scott. Peter really had to give it to Paul, he thought that the man was at least a little smarter than Scott, but seemed like Pete was the only sane one left in the friend group. "Nowhere on his page does it explicitly state that he is planning to ruin our careers, however, he is from the rival school, and Quill's girlfriend's ex boyfriend. So, we have the motivation."
"The motivation?! What is this, a murder trial?"
"Not yet!" Scott interjected.
"And then we found out that he was the captain of the team last year, and this year he had a mysterious demotion." Paul wiggled his fingers in the air as if to imply that this new 'evidence' was spooky in some way.
"You know who else had a mysterious demotion? Quill." Peter rolled his eyes at them and tried to find something else to do besides listen to this utter load of garbage.
"Hey Pete, if we had our own ghost hunting show? You'd be the party pooper!"
"I'll have you know that the skeptic is often the funnier one."
"Okay, okay, whatever. We'll stop talking about our rock solid theory. Just know, that once this all comes out, you don't get any of the thanks for cracking the case."
It was incredibly wet ouside and hard to maintain traction on the field. Luckily it was a sunny day and was no longer raining, so they didn't have to deal with that as well. Already, everyone seemed to be slipping all over the field and there were constant interruptions in gameplay by the ref stopping everything to make sure people were okay after crashing into one another, so far there hadn't been a serious injury.
They were in the fourth quarter of the game and Pete had made a bit of a gamble in players. Currently, they were tied with the other team 1-1 and barely had any time left to score the advantage unless they wanted to go into overtime. TC hadn't been feeling well all day, and so Pete had put Thanos in the second half, even though he would have felt way better having TC in there, he just wasn't playing at full strength today.
So far Thanos hadn't done anything over the top, he'd been pretty tame in the game, and the one goal they had was scored by Steve pretty early on in the game. They hadn't been able to get the ball to their side for quite a while and Peter felt kind of useless just running back and forth and not really able to get into the action very much. He was just waiting for Scott or Drax to finally get the ball to them, but it didn't seem likely that it was going to happen in the last few minutes of the game. Loki was vigorous on the goal though, and Pete didn't think the other team was going to be able to score on them without some really fancy footwork.
Finally Scott got in a good pass and since it was a home game, basically everyone in the stands cheered for them. Peter made a mad dash to get to the other side of the field as Steve caught the pass. Bucky was in the right place at the right time as Steve noticed him with no other players guarding him, so Steve passed to Bucky.
It seemed like a straight shot for Buck to made the goal, but at the last second, Thanos tried to dive in for his usual goal-stealing move, but it was too slow and he simply rammed into Bucky, toppling him over and landing on top of him.
Peter sprinted to Bucky's location in the middle of the field as the ref called a brief time out. Peter slid to kneel next to Bucky, feeling his knees get torn up on the grass as he did so. Bucky looked pretty out of it, but his face was contorted in extreme pain. When Pete looked over Bucky's body, he noticed that something was visibly wrong with his leg. It wasn't bent backwards or anything, but there was a huge lump in his calf that made Peter's stomach heave at the sight.
"We need a doctor!" Peter basically screamed from his spot next to Bucky. He wasn't entirely sure what to do in the moments waiting, so he grabbed on to Bucky's hand and pushed his hair out of his face.
Peter looked around the field frantically for Steve and noticed him just in time to see him brutally tackle Thanos to the ground.
"You fucking asshole!" Steve shouted and Thanos threw Steve off of him. Thanos was quite a bit larger than Steve and looked to be positively irate, so he squeezed Bucky's hand as he thought Thanos was about to attack Steve. "You're a fucking cunt!" Steve shouted, making Thanos' whole body tense up and Peter almost wanted to close his eyes so that he wouldn't have to see what was going to happen. Thanos landed one punch, but it only grazed the side of Steve's cheek and would probably leave no more than a bruise. Thankfully, Coulson pulled Steve off the ground before Thanos could land another punch, and then a few more staff were surrounding the two of them.
Strange appeared on the field after what felt like ages. Bucky still hadn't spoken, was just gritting his teeth and squeezing his eyes closed. Most of their team and the opposing team seemed to be surrounding them at this point and Strange tossed his phone to Peter. "Call and ambulance." He instructed.
Pete followed orders with shaking fingers and an upset stomach, his fingers left pools of water on the screen from all the sweat he was dripping. Strange was doing something to Bucky's leg, but not too much, obviously not feeling confident to work on him in this setting, but also confident that the leg wasn't too much of an emergency. Peter quickly rattled off where they were at the the operator and the ambulance was en route in just a few minutes.
He dropped the phone on the grass next to them and then Steve was on Peter's other side, petting at Bucky's arm and taking his hand from Peter's grip. "God, Bucky, baby, you're gonna be fine." Steve said to him, caressing one side of his face with a hand. Bucky just winced.
"Pete, put your hand here, maintain pressure." Strange pointed to the spot right above Bucky's knee and Peter hesitated for a moment before doing as Strange instructed. Bucky groaned in pain but Strange gave him a warning glance so Peter maintained pressure on that spot as Strange took a survey of all of Bucky's other vitals, as best he could on the middle of a field. Steve continued a steady stream of reassurances to Bucky.
When Bucky broke his arm last year it had nowhere near as bad as this. For one, Bucky had still been able to stand and had been trying to crack jokes to get over the pain even as Steve had mother-henned around him, and waiting for the ambulance hadn't been as much of a torture as it currently was. This injury looked phenomenally worse, and in the bottom of Peter's stomach he realized that Bucky was probably never going to get to play soccer again.
"Everyone non-essential off the field!" He heard Coulson's voice tearing through everyone, quieting a lot of the chatter. Peter realized that a lot of people from the stands had migrated down here, and the rest of the teachers tried to coral viewers, the other team, and most of their own team off of the field to give Bucky some space. Peter categorized himself as essential, and stayed kneeling.
Eventually the ambulance arrived and Steve was able to ride in the back with him. Strange followed them by the stretcher to the ambulance waiting at the edge of the field, and then Bucky and Steve were gone in the back of it.
Peter stood in the middle of the field with Coulson, feeling shaken and sick to his stomach. They walked together back to the bench where Peter immediately threw up into one of the trashcans nearby. It seemed as if everyone else had already gone back to the showers and to get changed into regular clothes. Coulson put an awkward hand on Peter's back as he threw up again, but he was fine after that and simply wiped his mouth on the bottom of his shirt.
"You good to talk?" Coulson asked, taking a seat on the bench.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm good." Peter nodded, but basically collapsed on the bench next to him.
Coulson eyed him for a moment but decided to continue anyway. "Bucky obviously isn't coming back for the season." Coulson said, nodding through his own words. "But I'm going to have to cut Thanos and Steve from the team."
"What?! Why Steve?" Peter immediately questioned, his heart dropping even further than it already had been.
"He attacked Thanos."
"But Thanos broke Bucky's leg!" Peter stood up off the bench. It was too hot, everything was too hot, he needed to go for a run.
"No, he didn't. They ran into each other on the field, it happens all the time Pete, just bad luck." Coulson explained. Pete had his back to him.
Pete spun around on his heel. "You saw it! You saw that he intercepted Bucky at a stupid time! He was just trying to steal a fucking goal like he always does. Like all he does."
Coulson raised an eyebrow at Peter and shook his head. "Pete, I... I can't say whether or not he did that. I can say that cutting Steve will cause the least amount of external conflict."
Peter stared at Coulson for a long time, taking deep breaths as he leveled with the man, then he realized that his anger wasn't going to go away, so he simply started to jog around the track.