"Mr. Parker, are you paying attention?"
Peter snapped out of his thoughts. Mr. Miller was staring right at him from the front of the class. His classmates turned towards him as the teacher shook his head in disapproval.
"I'm sorry if my class is not entertaining enough for you. Or do you simply already understand everything, as the little know-it-all you are?"
Peter's throat was dry. He couldn't piece together an answer. Usually he had no problem coming up with a witty response, but Mr. Miller's presence made him shrink in on himself.
Somehow the teacher had it out for him from the first time he entered the classroom at the beginning of the year. Since then he seemed to come up with a reason to pull Peter up in front of the class and torture him in every other lesson. With this treatment Peter's confidence had begun to shrink over the course of the year. Now he just tried to blend in and not draw any attention when he was around the teacher.
Maybe it was his own fault. Maybe he was a terrible know-it-all. It wasn't the first time someone had told him so.
"What do you have to say for yourself, Mr. Parker?" The teacher came closer, stopping right in front of him. Peter had to crane his neck as Mr. Miller was only inches from his desk, peering down at him. It felt as if the teacher had suddenly driven him into a corner, like a small animal, unable to escape the wolf.
With a loud thud the teacher dropped a heavy school book onto the desk. Peter flinched as his advanced hearing elevated the noise.
"Nothing from you. Not that I would have expected anything different. You are lazy. I really don't know how you are supposed to succeed in my class." Mr. Miller looked him over for another moment. He seemed to have decided to have enough for today. "You will leave my class immediately, Mr. Parker. And I'll write you up for detention for the rest of the week."
Peter's face had turned red and his whole body seemed to brim with shame. Silently he threw his equipment into the backpack and hurried out of the classroom. He stumbled through the hallway, tears forming in the corners of his eyes, leaving him blind to his surroundings.
He crashed through the door into the rest rooms. It was quiet and all the stalls were empty. He opened up the faucet. Cold water ran over his shivering hands. Peter splashed some into his face, washing away the tears. The boy in the mirror looked back at him with red eyes, water dripping from his nose.
Rock music enveloped him as Peter stepped through the laboratory doors. Coffee mug in one hand, Tony stood in front of a vast hologram displaying several lines of code. His foot tapped in sync with the music as he studied the program.
"What took you so long, underoos? You rescue a stray cat from a tree on your way over?" Tony kept his eyes trained on the faint image hovering in front of him. It took him a few moments until he recognized the silence. No joke. No sarcastic comment. Not a word from the usually mouthy teenager. Puzzled, Tony turned around and looked at Peter. The kid was dripping wet, his light grey hoodie turning dark from the water stains.
"What happened to you? You know we invented umbrellas, right?"
Peter didn't react. His gaze seemed to be fixed on a point a million miles away.
"Hello? Spiderboy? Underoos?", Tony coaxed.
The kid finally snapped out of his stupor. "What? Oh, sorry Mr. Stark… What did you say?"
"Why are you soaking wet, kid?"
"Oh well,I stayed a bit longer at school today, because… I was studying with friends. But then it was raining and I missed the bus so…" His voice grew quiet as he trailed off.
"You could've just called. Happy would've picked you up."
Peter's head dropped and he stared at his foot. "No, that's alright. I didn't mean to be a burden", he mumbled. The last part was drowned out by the whirring noise of a robot.
Tony turned towards a nearby display, set the cup of coffee down and started typing. "Well, do as you please, but at least get out of these wet clothes. I'll catch a cold just looking at you." He dismissed Peter with a wave of his hand.
For a moment the teen remained standing in the doorway, shivering. Tony was already typing away and seemed to be completely engrossed with his current work. The cold of his wet clothes was seeping into his body, draining him of warmth. Yet he remained standing in the doorway for another moment. Waiting, wishing his mentor might turn towards him again. Realising the painful truth he accidentally disclosed a moment before. Tony didn't look up.
The lab doors opened silently. Peter had found some dry clothes within the spare pack, which he kept at the tower. Tony was hunched over, studying one of his projects. He looked up as Peter came closer.
"Took you long enough. Come on, I have work for you."
Peter followed him through the lab as Tony set a box of equipment on another table and explained the task at hand.
"Any questions?"
Peter gasped. He must have zoned out for a second. "Umm no."
"Then I will leave you to it." He checked his watch. "I have a meeting upstairs. It will probably take a while. So don't do anything stupid while I'm gone." With that he quickly grabbed his mug and left.
Peter stared at the lab table before him, dumbfounded. He shook his head trying to get rid of the dark cloud drowning his thoughts. The room was mostly silent, except for the low hum of the electric equipment. Usually Mr. Stark's bustling and occasional swearing made the lab feel alive. But today it was dead quiet. The robot had gone into sleep mode and the lights had dimmed for the main part of the laboratory. Only Peter's desk was a pillar of light among the darkness in each corner.
Peter ran a hand through his hair. He felt tired. Usually this was the part of the day he was looking forward to, but today he really just wished to be home, huddling underneath his blanket and drowning out his thoughts with the latest episode of his favourite series. With a sigh he took the tablet in front of him and managed to pull up the right document. He took up an electric gauge and started his task.
A beeping noise somewhere behind Peter. He looked up. An hour had passed without his notice. The noise reminded him that he was supposed to look after an especially important project including a small machine placed in one corner of the lab. Peter knew enough about the machine to open the hatch and extract some empty vials. He was supposed to exchange the empty ones with fresh vials from the freezer.
Peter made sure to dispose of the empty vials just as instructed. He probably wasn't the most organized person regarding his own room, but he took great care to keep Mr. Stark's working area clean. After all, he needed to make a good impression. He couldn't mess this up as well.
He made his way back across the lab, vials in one hand, eyes trained on a tablet in his other hand. He didn't see the wires strewn behind a metal cabinet before his foot got caught.
The vials slipped from his grip, glass shattering on the floor. He stumbled, trying to catch his fall with outstretched hands. As he fell to his knees, he could feel the shards digging into his skin. The sound of breaking glass rang in his ears. He shut his eyes as several pieces sliced through the fabric of his jeans.
As the noise subsided, Peter opened his eyes to the chaos around was sitting amid the center of broken glass and spilled liquid. The tablet screen was broken. Panting, he stared at the shattered remains of the experiment. The clear liquids mixed with dripping blood from his hands.
Mr. Stark would be so mad about this. The experiment destroyed, his laboratory a mess. He had to clean this up.
Peter raised his hands in front of his eyes in order to inspect them. A low moan escaped his lips as he saw the cuts. Fresh red blood smeared his hands, several small pieces of glass dug into his flesh.
He blinked away the tears, which threatened to spill over and made his way to the sink. Carefully he ran a stream of warm water over his hands. With shaking fingers he picked the glass shards from his skin. The water turned red.
His left hand seemed mostly fine, but his right hand had caught the brunt of the fall. Peter managed to extract the glass shards as far as he could see and wrapped a few paper towels around the wounds. Hoping it would be enough to stop the bleeding for now. At least until he had a chance to clean up and explain to Mr. Stark. Explain why he had been so careless. So useless. Peter hoped the meeting would continue long enough for him to bring the room back in order. A whimper caught in his throat as he picked up a broom and started to clear away the shards.
As he crouched down to gather the remains of the experiment, he heard the familiar sound of the lab doors opening. Peter's stomach dropped. Could the meeting be over so soon? He had hoped for more time.
"Peter? Where are you?" The voice of Tony Stark echoed through the lab.
For a second Peter thought of crawling under his desk to hide. He didn't want to see the disappointment on his mentor's face. Not another person to tell him what a failure he was. Didn't want to see the disappointment eventually turn into anger.
"I'm … here," he stuttered. Peter got up, leaning on the desk as his head started spinning. He screwed his eyes close as the room started to blur. The lights in the laboratory had turned up at Tony's entrance. He blinked through the blinding light and realized that Mr. Stark was already in front of him. The engineer looked around, one eyebrow raised skeptically. "Didn't I tell you not to do anything stu… ." Tony stopped dead in his tracks. "Peter, what happened?"
"It was an accident," the teen stuttered.. "I swear it was an accident. I didn't mean to break the experiment. And I'll clean it up right now." The broom was taken from his hands and Peter noticed the red stains he had left on the handle.
"What do you think you're doing, kid?" Tony stepped closer as Peter looked up at him with wide, dark eyes.
For a moment Peter was back in the classroom. Frozen in front of Mr. Miller. Unable to move or speak while blood dripped from his fingers.
"Peter, it's ok. I need you to take a deep breath, alright?" Tony grasped his shoulders as the teen flinched under the touch. Carefully Tony looped his arm around the teenager's back guiding him beyond the wreckage. Peter was trembling underneath his mentor's grip. He stumbled and the grip around his shoulder strengthened.
"Come on, take a seat." Peter slumped into a chair and looked down at his jeans which were torn at the knees. Aunt May would be mad at him too. They simply didn't have the money to replace this pair. He closed his eyes, unable to look at the chaos he had produced any longer.
"Peter? Do you need to lie down?" Tony's voice was gentle. He had grabbed a med kit and was sitting in a chair facing the teen.
Peter took a shaky breath and shook his head. "I'm fine," he whispered.
"We'll see about that. Can I take a look?" Tony had placed the open med kid on the table and gestured towards him. Reluctantly Peter extended his hands. He tried to subdue the tremors, but it was to no avail.
Tony wrapped his fingers gently around his hands, turning them so his palms were facing upwards. Carefully he removed the last shreds of soaked paper towel and carelessly dropped them on the floor. Underneath the skin was cut-open, palms covered in fresh blood. Peter bit his lip at the picture of his torn skin.
Holding one of Peter's hands in his own, Tony inspected the wounds. With a pair of tweezers he removed any remaining shards of glass. Peter sucked in a sharp breath as Tony pulled out a piece which had dug itself underneath the skin.
"I'm sorry, but it's necessary, kid."
"That's ok."
Tony threw him a skeptic glance, but continued. "You should have called me right away."
"I didn't want to interrupt your meeting," the teen mumbled.
"The meeting doesn't matter. I want to know when you're bleeding out in my lab." Tony's expression softened as he looked up at Peter. "Promise me to call next time."
Peter averted his eyes. "I will, I promise. I just thought… I didn't want you to get mad."
"Why would I be mad?"
"I messed up your experiment."
The engineer looked up and winked at him. "To be honest, I think that batch was a miss anyways."
Peter was leaning on the bathroom sink. After several minutes of arguing and promising not to pass out in the bathroom, he had managed to convince the older man to let him clean up his wounded knees by himself. Peter had to admit that Mr. Stark had done a good job patching him up, but he wasn't about to take his pants off in front of the man.
Peter held his ruined pair of jeans in front of him. The fabric was stained and threads had come loose around the cut open knees. Maybe he could wash out the blood and bring back the torn up jeans fashion. Peter sighted. He wasn't really the fashionable type so his chances of starting a trend were slim.
Gingerly he pulled the pants over his bandaged knees and stepped outside the bathroom. He was surprised to see Mr. Stark leaning against the opposing wall, swiping through his phone. He looked up as the door swung open.
"All cleaned up?"
Peter simply nodded and handed him the med kit. "Did you wait out here the whole time?"
"In fact I did. Can't have you passing out in my bathroom. Officially, of course, this never happened. 'Tony Stark waiting outside bathroom for teenage employee' is not a headline I want to see on the news."
Peter felt heat creep up his cheeks. He felt slightly embarrassed, but at the same time he probably hadn't felt this appreciated all week.
"Are you ready to go home?. And by going I mean driving. Happy is already waiting for you in the lobby." They made their way over to the elevator. As the doors opened Tony pressed the button for him then gestured him inside, while he remained standing outside. "One more thing. I made a doctor's appointment for you to check up on those wounds. I'll send you the detail."
"That's really not necessary, Mr. Stark."
"Yes, it is. Don't be late or I will drag you there myself, understood?"
Peter nodded and Tony pulled his foot from the doorframe so the elevator doors would close. "Go home and rest, kid. I'll see you soon."
"Thank you, Mr. Stark." Tony had already turned around and walked down the hallway. Without turning around he raised a hand and waved goodbye. The elevator doors closed.