Parker And Jones Are Big Bois

Chapter 5 - Ambivalent AcaDec

Hey, I know that Academic Decathlon is only for high schoolers, but I was too lazy to look up something similar which is for college students, so please just roll with this.

There were only four days left until Christmas Eve, and Peter was still at College. Most of the students have already left, going back to their families for the Holidays to finally relieve from all the stress of the semester and the finals. Ned was also one of them, leaving Peter as the only occupant of their dorm room for two days. It was nice to have the whole place only to himself, but he already missed his friend. It was weird, being there without him. Originally, Peter was to leave with him and go back to New York together, but then MJ happened.

So, now Peter was running towards building L in the snow, with his big blue jacket around his body, having no regrets at all. First; because the college's old buildings were beautiful in the snow that had just fallen the last night, and second; because he was running to his very first Academic Decathlon practice, where he was invited to by MJ. The girl just casually asked him after one class they took together, and he would have to be crazy to say no to that invitation. So he took a test, passed it, and the next thing he knew, he was running towards their first, (very off-schedule) practice session. Well, technically it was the last one that year, but the first one for him. And yes, he was running. Spider-Man was needed before and so now he was already three minutes late.

About two weeks had passed since the night when they watched The Mandalorian with MJ, and things were going pretty well between them. Well, don't think about something huge, but he didn't screw up anything either, and that was considered "pretty well" by him. They've met on the classes of their common course and even on one of Peter's lectures – MJ felt like reading there instead of in her room with her annoying roommate – where they sat next to each other and had some awkward, but ultimately still really nice conversations. Peter also visited her in the library a couple of times – where at first, he tried to pretend once again that he was just there because of some other reason than her, but then realized that he was dumb and she was very smart so eventually dropped the act.

Peter entered the building, ran up to the first floor, and practically jumped into room 1138. He spotted MJ first since the girl was sitting opposite to the door. Peter was afraid she was going to be furious at him for being late, but to his surprise, she just shook her head in an all-too-familiar way and he already knew that she wasn't actually mad at him. He grinned at her apologetically and as a response she sighed and lifted up her science book in front of her face.

"Welcome, Mr. Parker," came the team's lead instructor, Mr. Harrington's voice from a podium and Peter just realized that he wasn't all alone in the room with MJ. About a dozen other students were sitting around, on top of desks, or laying back to walls – wow, this AcaDec thing was way less strict than he imagined – and oh shit, they were all looking at him.

He had to say something.

"Um, hi! Sorry, I'm late."

"Oh, never mind that five minutes," waved Mr. Harrington. Peter met the guy once before when he took the test to get accepted into the team. He seemed to be nice and weird. But most likely everyone was a bit weird here, including him. Which was good. He liked weird. "We're glad that you are joining us." Peter just nodded and when the instructor saw that he won't say anything else, he continued: "Um... We won't really take this session that seriously... Since Christmas is so close. I know y'all just wanna be home with your families already. I would want the same if my wife didn't leave me for that guy in her hiking group," he said jokingly to the team, but nobody laughed, so he just chuckled, a bit nervously. "So anyway, today we're just casually studying. No exercises or taking turns. You can do it alone, in pairs or in a group, it's your decision," he told Peter and gulped. It looked like Harrington was about to cry, so Peter just quickly nodded at him again, and headed towards MJ.