Hair Dye

There's a Fine, Fine Line

Hey guys! It's been a while, hasn't it? The last Marvel fic I posted was almost exactly a year ago (my Endgame fix-it, lol). I've missed you guys! I hope you're all doing well during this stressful time of corona-craziness. You better all be washing your hands.

Now, I'm not going to say this fic marks my permanent return to Marvel. The point of this fic collection is to get me back into the flow of writing whenever my writer's block acts up, which is why it's updated sporadically and I might write based on request(s) I've been sent or I might not. It all depends on what I need to get un-stuck with writing.

(That said, I still adore Iron Dad and Spider Son, and you can pry their father-son relationship from my cold, dead hands.)

This story started as a field trip request. Then I re-watched Spider-Man: Far From Home with my sister and it became a full-blown Flash Thompson introspection. (What can I say? I'm a sucker for a kid with neglectful parents, it seems.) Don't worry, though - Tony and Peter's relationship is integral to this story, which is why I'm including it as a part of this collection (though I might post it separately, too. we'll see). There is definitely gratuitous use of my personal headcanons about Flash and his family in this fic, so brace yourselves for that. All in all, I'm pretty proud of this. My writing style has definitely evolved over the past year(s) and I think that evolution better reflects the story I wanted to tell here. I hope you enjoy!

Prompt (from Jakob Silverheart on FFN): Maybe you can take the "Peter's class goes on a field trip to SI and Tony catches Flash in the act of deprecating Peter, so he steps in" prompt, and put your own special twist on it eventually.

Prompt (from Guest on FFN): can you please do a one shot about peters school trip to stark industry's and tony embarrassing him. Or really anything to do with flash finding out about Peter and tony like actually knowing each other. also I love ned so add him too

WARNING: There is increased use of expletives in this fic as well as a brief description of a panic attack. There is also one use of the r-slur; please read with caution if you are sensitive to such.

xXxXxXx

Flash Thompson hated Peter Parker. He knew it, Parker knew it, all of Midtown High knew it. Worse, Flash also knew that his hatred of Parker was completely unjustified. The kid was so kind and forgiving it was insufferable. He couldn't stand it. Couldn't stand him.

It pissed him off to no end that Parker had everything. Sure, Parker's life wasn't perfect - Flash wasn't an idiot, he knew Parker's aunt had been having financial troubles for a long time - but that didn't change the fact that Parker still had everything and somehow he managed to take it all for granted.

Flash would have given anything to be Peter Parker.

Anything.

xXxXxXx

Everyone liked Parker. It was hard not to. Sure, he could be flighty and he had a bad habit of disappearing at the most inconvenient of times, but his apologies were so soft and so sincere that people couldn't help but forgive him.

It was the most irritating thing in the world.

"Peter, practice started an hour ago!" Liz said, exasperation evident in her voice as she confronted Peter when he entered the library. She crossed her arms over her chest. "You'd better have a real reason to be late this time."

"I know, I know, and I'm so sorry," Peter apologized, his hair noticeably messier than usual and a small cut blooming underneath his right eye. "There was an emergency with the Stark internship. I know that's hardly an excuse, but I promise to try harder for next time."