Spider-Son & Iron Dad two shots

Stay In School, Spider-Kid

Spooktober 24: Broken Glass

He can hear the clock ticking in the back of the room. His second to last period, and Peter is bored out of his mind. While the Mrs. Warren droned on about... something, Peter wasn't really paying much attention—He slowly opens up his laptop and slinks his chin down to his arm resting on the table, keeping the top screen just low enough for him to see.

The YouTube home page was a familiar place on his internet explorer browser (don't tell Mr. Stark about internet explorer, because the face he made when Peter did was something of such repulsion and distaste that you'd think that Peter kicked Dum-E and spat on his baby, or something) and Peter intended to spend the rest of class looking at dumb videos instead of the tail end of a very bland lecture on oscillatory motion.

Scrolling down the page, he saw a few videos on Spider-Man— silly things, like compilations of him helping old people carry groceries or slowed-down edits of him slamming into streetposts at Mach speeds. One was titled simply, "Queens hero falls into a trash can for one hour", and Peter has to roll his eyes at that because, come on.

The trending page really wasn't much diffe—

Wait.

Peter clicks on the video at the top, a live news feed of something going down in Brooklyn, where apparently Mr. Stark was doing some kind of press event. He hides a mischievous grin behind his sweater sleeve.

A few months ago, Peter would say that he didn't watch any of the live events Tony did, because he thought it wasn't worth watching what he could ask the man himself in-person. Given the opportunity, and Peter for some struck of luck was, who wouldn't rather pick the real deal superhero over a video that everyone else had access to?

Now, these kinds of videos were perfect to watch, for the main reason being: Blackmail.

Mr. Stark says a lot of ridiculous things. Now that Peter could say that the two of them were sort of kind of actually close, it was simply his moral duty to scour the internet for any clip, any footage, any quote, anything at all, and send it to Mr. Stark at random times just for the fun of it.

He puts live captions on for the video and tries to discern the half-correct words into full sentences, and so far he could gather that the event was for just a general screening of something or other that Stark Industries had been developing.

Mr. Stark was answering questions given to him by reporters, and he was wearing a grey pinstripe suit and a very expensive looking blue tie, as well as the signature Stark glasses. He was doing that smile, the kind he forced for the camera that didn't make his eyes soften the same way, and his lips looked almost pursed.

Simply put, he was grimacing. Pepper at his side was giving him looks every few seconds, which Peter also notices, and he snorts at the third one she gives him in a row.

"Peter." Mrs. Warren's voice is crisp from the front of the room, knocking Peter from the screen he was invested in. "Is something funny?"

He quickly lifts his chin up. "Hm? Uh... no. I just thought of a joke."

"Care to share with the class?" Mrs. Warren tilts her head, narrowing her eyes as if she knew that she caught him in a lie.

"What's a superhero's favourite joke?" He blurts, the joke rattling off the top of his head. "The punchline."

There's a painful silence following for a few seconds afterwards, and then people begin to snicker around him. It's quiet, but it's less awkward than a cough, and Mrs. Warren leaves him alone after she's done rolling her eyes, so he counts it as a win.