Forged in fear

Normal Kids Have Friends | 19

Peter and Mr. Stark had come down from the lab, back to the now empty kitchen, where Peter sat at the table while Mr. Stark fiddled, making himself a snack. Peter started thinking about the tests and couldn't get the thought out of his head, so he decided to ask Mr. Stark.

"Mr. Stark?" Peter said as he fiddled with his thumbs in his lap.

"Yeah?" He said turning to face Peter.

"Why did I really need to take those tests?" Peter asked as Mr. Stark crossed his arms, and leaned against the counter.

"Well, for one, we wanted to see how much you know, based off of what HYDRA has taught you, especially since you've never really gotten the chance to go to school. And on that alone, we've found you're incredibly smart and advanced for your age." Mr. Stark complimented as Peter smiled slightly to himself at the man's words. "But for two, I know it seems like a bit of a stretch, but we wanted to know if we needed to teach you anything more before we enroll you into high school." Peter tilted his head a tad and looked at him.

"What do you mean?" Peter asked and Mr. Stark fully stood up going to sit next to Peter.

"Well, we still want you to have a normal life, a chance for you to go to school, be a normal kid. It's really last minute and all, and I worry about throwing you into general society so quickly but we want to also give you a life as soon as possible. I looked up some places and I found a school I think you might like to go to. It's called Midtown, school of science and technology or something like that, but I heard it's a particularly good school for intellectually advanced students, the start of a new school year is already almost here, and we want you to be able to go." Mr. stark said, a bit of resistance in his voice.

"Really?" Peter asked in shock. "But what if something bad happens? What if something bad happens, I'll be all alone." Peter said doubtfully.

"There's no need to worry Peter, that's what we're here for, we're here to protect you no matter what. Nothing bad is going to happen I promise you." Mr. Stark said reassuringly.

"What if they find me?" Peter asked slightly scared.

"We're here to make sure that doesn't happen, you'll be there and out as quick as we can, they won't find you, and even if they do, it is our responsibility to make sure you're ok." Mr. Stark comforted Peter as he nodded along. "We just want you to be normal, the school will teach you and make sure you're able to further your education to become smarter, we want you to make some friends, and have childhood memories that you can look back upon. Normality is all we want for you." Mr. Stark said as Peter nodded looking into his lap.

Everything was happening so quickly but Peter also wanted this, he wanted to be normal, he wanted to feel happy and make them happy and proud of him for being normal, so he nodded along, not wanting to stop it.

Peter went to his room shortly after their conversation, and he sat on his bed thinking about what he was talking about when it came to being normal and going to school and having friends. That was new, never something he's ever done before. Sure he knew what friends were, I mean he was friends with Bucky and the Avengers, but school was a vague concept to him. He knew what it was, but he didn't know what it was like, so he didn't know how to feel, but if everything were to go well and Peter got into that school for science and technology, Peter could advance his skills and potentially get even better at what he does that right now.

He thought of what he could do to make them proud of him, make them feel happy, when suddenly an idea popped into mind. He could build a friend and be normal to make everyone proud.

He jumped up from the bed and knew exactly what he was going to do, he went to his door and peeked his head out a bit, when the coast was clear he snuck his way to the closest elevator and hopped in, pressing the button to go to the floor the labs was on. When Peter got there, he stepped in and fell at ease, like he was home. Sure life was Hell with HYDRA and he was often punished and experimented on in labs like this, but that was different. One was like a punishment lab, but he often worked in a different one, whenever he was working with science, they didn't bother him, they let him focus, and he loved that. He loved being able to be alone and at peace, and those labs reminded him of this one because he knew this was a designated working space, somewhere peaceful.