"This is the third time he's had to come to the infirmary, and classes just started," said an irritated Claire when reviewing Peter's medical record. "Do you have anything to say, Stark?"
"What? This was from that Thompson kid, don't look at me!" Tony crossed his arms defensively. He was without his armor on. "Besides, it's not like he's the only one who took it on the chin today."
"The girl just had a few cuts and bruises, I already healed her and sent her back to class. As for the boy, because of his exhaustion from training, I can't use my Quirk," she said, not believing Tony's words.
However she knew that the boy was more worthy of her attention now, "But I did the basics by bandaging him and putting him in the serum, he should improve overnight."
"Sure, whatever works..." replied the hero. He watched the unconscious boy in one of the infirmary's hospital beds.
"It's him, right? The kid Daredevil mentioned from the summer. He's your pupil, right?" Asked Claire, already throwing out what she knew.
"Yeah... he-" Tony stopped himself. "Wait, how do you know!?"
"Pepper's husband doesn't pay much attention to her, so she invited me to lunch last week," she said with a smug smile, making it clear that she was referring to him.
"Ok, ok, I got the message!" He raised his hands in surrender. "But can you keep your voice down? Most of the staff already know about my condition, but only a few people know about the truth about the boy's Quirk."
"Yeah I get it, it's not my secret anyway," the nurse said with a shrug. "Now get out of here, unlike some people, I have work to do." She shoo'd the hero Number 1 Hero from the infirmary and shuts the door.
"Always nice to talking to ya, Claire," Tony called through the door dryly. He looked around to making sure there was no one and heads toward the teachers' room.
Shortly after Mr. Stark left, Peter woke up and found himself in a white environment. Once his eyes adjust to the light, he looks around and noticed a few things. He was still in his costume, at least what was left of it after the fight against Flash. His mask was probably the only part undamaged and sat on the bedside table.
He felt the bandage on his back and looked to the side, noticing the serum connected to his arm. Peter looked at the clock hanging high on the wall in front of him. "Is it late afternoon?" He asked himself, still a bit groggy.
"Are we awake?" Peter jumped slightly and turned to see Night Nurse at his side. "I've done all I can today, so for now go home and rest. But come back tomorrow for a check-up, ok?"
Peter nodded and was soon released. He had missed his afternoon classes, but he hoped he could get any notes he needed from Wanda or Danny. Peter had learned not to pick up Gwen's notebook to copy anything: the amount of drawings and doodles, in addition to the confusing organization might make sense to the girl, but not to the rest of the world.
After the fight, the boy didn't expect what would happen to him when he opened the door.
"Hey, Parker's back!" Amadeus called to his classmates when the boy entered.
A small group of students approached him and start talking to the boy as if he were someone popular or something. "Dude, we have no idea what you said during the fight," the Asian boy continued. "But it was amazing! So totally awesome!!"
"It was really amazing, watching you fight Flash, who wanting or not, was first place in the admission test," said the serene voice of the Korean with two-colored hair.
"You fought super well!" Added Kamala.
"The way you acted in the first match, the rest of the us felt pushed to do our best," finished Luke, nodding in approval.
"I wouldn't say it was that impressive..." Sam sulked. He was without his helmet and his dark hair stood on end.
"Are you kidding? His reaction time was amazing!" Kamala argued, jumping around excitedly.
"Um, thanks?" It was all Peter's brain was able to formulate at that moment, never had so many people come to praise him at the same time, especially other classmates.
"My name is Amadeus Cho," the Asian boy introduced himself. He acknowledges the group, "We were all reviewing the training from earlier when you walked in."
"My name is Seol, Seol Hee," said the girl with black and white hair, smiling cutely.
"I'm Samuel Alexander, call me Sam," added the boy without his helmet.
"I'm Kamala Khan!" The energetic girl jumps in front of Sam, again interrupting him.
"I'm Gwendolyn Poole, you can just call me Gwen," the girl in question showed up in the middle of the group. "But you already knew that..."
"Carl Lucas, call me Luke," the tall boy thumbed to himself cooly.
"I'm Kei Kawade!" The tiny boy with the ability to invoke his drawings says jumping in the space that was between Peter and the group, startling both parties.
"Where did you come from?" Peter asked, leaving his stupor. Everyone starts talking about different things at the same time: the training, the pairs, the uniforms, but not everyone seemed interested in a lot of conversation.
"Too noisy..." commented Tyrone, the teleporting boy sitting on one of the desks while watching the group talking to Peter.
"Spoken as if you were always been the mysterious type!" Joked his friend Tandy, the blonde who invoked light knives, nudging his shoulder slightly.
"Mr. Johnson!" Azari's voice was heard, and he quickly get close to where Tyrone was. "That desk is not a chair, please remove yourself from it at once!"
"Dude, chill, it's just a desk," said Nico, the girl with the staff.
"You're too stressed..." Tyrone added.
"Forgive me, but I cannot give in to disrespect for the desks that great men and women have sat in!" Azari exclaimed with extraordinary conviction. This made the whole conversation stop just for the appreciation of the boy's inability to thrown in the towel.
Soon after, two more students entered through the second door at the back of the room. The thin boy with platinum hair and the girl with a red bow. Both carried stacks of books, probably for the entire class.
"Mom wants to go out today, did she ask what you want?" Pietro asked his sister.
"Hmmm how about we go to- Oh, Peter!" The girl saw her partner who'd stayed in the infirmary after she left. Wanda went towards him, leaving her brother behind. He smiled cheekily when he saw his sister acting like that.
"Were you able to heal all the injuries?" She asked worriedly.
"Hi Wanda! Night Nurse said I didn't have enough physical strength left to put up with her Quirk. But I'll be ok by tomorrow," Peter shrugged. "What about you? I heard you were pretty beat up yourself."
"Oh, I-I'm fine, I just needed to rest for a bit. Azari's powers are no joke..." She said, blushing and scratching her head nervously.
"Well, I'm glad you're all right," the boy smiled at his friend, his flushed cheeks match the girls'. And for a moment, neither of the two seemed to notice the group of classmates nearby.
Peter looked around the room quickly until he comes across his yellow backpack on his desk, and nobody at the one in front of his. "Wait, where's Flash?"
Running down the stairs and corridors of the main building of M.A, regardless of his physical exhaustion or his bandaged arms, Peter moved as fast as he could. He wanted to catch up with his classmate, there was something about the fight he needed to talk about.
"We all tried to stop him..." was Wanda's reply. "But he just left without saying anything."
Arriving at the final path that led to the exit, even breathless and tired, Peter watches the blonde, back in uniform, with his backpack slung over his shoulder and walking towards the exit.
"Hey Flash!!!" He hurried up to get closer. "Wait up!" The boy stops, seeming to have heard him. Flash simply turns his head back, looking irritated by Peter's presence while trying to have a moment of peace.
"What the hell happened during that fight?" Peter asked. "I get you're intense, and I know you don't like me, but it felt like you were trying to kill me back there."
Flash stared back at him with wide eyes, quickly turning away with a bitter expression, "Get lost, Wall-Crawler. Don't think you beat me just because you got lucky today..."
"Hey, I'm serious!" Peter got closer, irritation spreading on his own face. "You don't get to pull what you did without getting an earful from me. I know you. Yeah, you take things far sometimes, but you never went that far! Was it something I said? I was just trying to put you off your game, not-"
The boy whirled back, "It wasn't you! It was my Quirk, alright!?"
Peter's face became an expression of confusion, "Your Quirk?"
Flash glared at him, "Just forget it, alright? I'm going home."
"Look you can talk to me," Peter persisted. "I told you how I got my Quirk, on the very day it happened."
"Hmph, and I still don't buy it," Flash grunted.
"My point is, I told you my secret and you didn't say a word," Peter went on. "And you showed up to my Uncle's funeral, don't think I forgot what you said to me there."
"Call it an obligation" the sullen boy replied. "As a kid, your Uncle looked after me more than my old man..."
"Whatever, you still showed up and that meant a lot. Flash, you can trust me," Peter almost pleaded. "Tell me what's going on, please..."
Flash looked at his former childhood friend, as if searching for cracks in a facade. But Peter's face showed genuine concern for someone who, by all accounts, he should hate right now.
The boy sighed, "Fine. But you'd better not say a damn word to anyone, or I'll kick your ass worse than earlier!"
Peter nodded hesitantly over that last retort.
"It's been going on ever since that thing with Carnage..." he began. "My Quirk has always been connected to my emotions, but I was always able to rein it it when it counted."
He glared at the boy, "I'm not some mindless rage-monster!" Peter looked away and whistled innocently, trying not to comment on that.
"But ever since then, when something pisses me off enough, it's like I hear this voice in my head," Flash elaborated. "It feeds off my anger, it wants to take control."
"But you're always angry..." Peter noted.
"Why do you think that is, dumbass!?" Flash snapped, making the boy cringe slightly. "If I keep angry, it stays fed and it leaves me the hell alone."
"Jeez," Peter was at a loss. "Does anyone else know about this? A doctor? O-or your dad?"
"Of course he knows!" Flash said angrily. "But he doesn't give a damn, just tells me to deal with it. That it's 'not on him to coddle me'."
The boy spat off to the side as if to illustrate a point. Peter knew how bad Flash's father could be, and decided not to pursue that avenue further.
"Well, why did it start?" Peter asked. "Does it have have something to do with Carnage himself? Your Quirk and his work pretty similarly. Maybe yours is adapting some of his characteristics after you almost became his host. Or maybe this is part of some evolution of your Quirk on its own. This could have several implications-"
"I don't give a shit!!" Flash roared, cutting off Peter's rambling. "This is just something I've gotta get under control, like you and your damn webs. Once that happens, nothing's gonna stand in my way of taking the Number 1 Hero spot! Not you, not Iron Man, I'm going straight to the top!! You're just a stepping stone on my road to greatness. So just keep your mouth shut, and focus on yourself, nerd!!!"
He turned and headed back towards the exit, leaving Peter to ponder what he'd just learned.
From within the building, still on the First Year class floor, three girls watched the events unfolding. They couldn't hear what was going on due to the distance, but they recognized the actors in the drama.
"What's going on down there?" Kamala asked her two classmates, who were watching closely from the window. Wanda's eyes narrowed and Gwen eats from a bucket of popcorn.
"It's the start of a war between rivals," Wanda replied, knowing a little more than the others.
"This will be good to read in the next few chapters," said Gwen, filling her mouth with popcorn.
"What?" Kamala asked, not understanding what the blonde was saying.
"What?" Gwen replied, pretending not to notice.
"That kid's got a hard time letting people help, doesn't he?" Said a voice. Peter froze in his tracks as Iron Man hovers down to the ground.
"H-How long were you there?" The boy was understandably unnerved, given he was just told a big secret.
"Long enough to get the gist of what Young Mr. Thompson is going through," he replied. "I get wanting to keep this quiet. But if his Quirk's acting up, then it might be a good idea for him to be examined by a specialist."
"Well he clearly won't listen to anything I say," Peter replied. "And if you come up to him, he'll think I spoke to you and get pissed at me again. Personally, with his got anger issues, I'd rather not provoke them."
"I get it, 'let sleeping Hulks lie'. Damn, it's hard being a teacher..." Tony mostly said that last part to himself. "He wants to try and get it under control himself, I can respect that. But if it becomes a recurring issue, I will step in. I don't care who gets angry."
"Sure, that's fair..." Peter said, before returning to his own thoughts. If he can't control it though, then I'll have to be good enough to keep up with him. He watched his rival walk away from the school grounds. I can't afford to slack off, I have to get stronger.
.
.
.
Barber's Chair
• So, Flash is having trouble with his Quirk. Foreshadowing?
• Since Peter already told Flash about his powers, there's less tension over him beating his rival. More so that he wasn't fully in his right mind as the fight went on.
• Surprisingly, Flash is willing to, if begrudgingly, confide in Peter about his issue. The guy may be a jerk, but he's not without depth, and a chance to grow little by little. I take my characterization from the Spectacular Spider-Man series, where he starts as a bully, but deep down is a decent guy.
