On The Run

Reunion

Chapter 16: Reunion

Having gone to public schools his entire life, Peter Parker was used to seeing a lot of strange things. Earlier in the year he'd had to stand outside for nearly an hour because someone had set a trash can on fire-and there were kids in a few of his classes who did stranger things than that. Mostly he just kept his head down and tried to stay out of all the gossip and the drama synonymous with schools of any kind; he was a mostly good student, with especially high grades in math and computer science and a low grade in history (in the first place because history was boring and secondly because he was pretty sure his history teacher hated him). He kept his nose to the grindstone, worked hard, and didn't do much to put himself out there. He had some friends, but not a posse-and he was just fine with that. It was easier than having to lie to a bunch of people about where he went at night-it certainly wasn't the library, as he would have them believe.

"Mr. Parker," his English teacher, Ms. Gardner, said, hanging up on a phone call from the office. "Please go down to the office. There's someone waiting who wants to talk to you."

Automatically, Peter's mind began to scroll through the list of people who could be bothering him the middle of the school day. Unless it was an emergency it wouldn't be Aunt May-if something was going on, she'd wait until after he got home from school to tell her about it. Which meant he had zero other he found himself packing up his books and pencils, swinging his backpack almost carelessly over one shoulder, and leaving anyway.

He happened to glance outside at the school's small parking lot and immediately everything made sense. It took all the self control and maturity he had not to run the rest of the way to the office. He hadn't heard from Tony Stark in nearly a month; he'd taken that to mean he hadn't been impressive enough in Germany. He'd been upset at first, of course; fighting alongside other superheroes, especially the ones he'd read so much about, filled him with a kind of frenzied joy he'd never felt before. But as it became increasingly clearer and clearer his involvement had just been a one time thing, he realized that he didn't really mind having a couple more years of normal either. Of course, that didn't mean he still didn't regret losing such a dream job. But if Stark was here now...

The school's secretary handed him a pass and said, "Your aunt called. Apparently you have a last minute doctor's appointment?"

"Yup. Doctor's office-completely forgot. See you tomorrow," He gave her one last smile and took off running out the front door and down the steps-completely ignoring the security guard who yelled at him to slow down-jumping the last five to the pavement and racing over to the fancy red car that definitely didn't look like it belonged in Queens.

The same car he'd seen parked in front of his apartment building a few weeks ago, before his already strange life became extraordinary.

"Good to see you again, Peter," Tony said as Peter slid into the passenger's seat after unceremoniously depositing his backpack in the backseat. "How's school been treating you?"

"Fine, I guess. None of my teachers were really happy that I just flew to Germany with no advanced warning, but when I told them what you told me to say-you know, that I was going to apply for a really competitive scholarship they instantly changed their minds."

Stark smirked as he gunned the gas pedal and they roared into traffic. He drove fast, with almost a controlled recklessness; Peter found himself enjoying the ride immensely but at the same time worried they would crash. "I would think that most teachers would."

"Does Aunt May really know I'm here?"

"Nope. Does that bother you?"

"No-anything to get me out of History. But the secretary said that she called-"