Work Text:
Oh, he is so fucked. Peter is so screwed when Mr. Stark finds him this time.
Dully, Peter realizes that hmm, maybe there’s a small, teeny tiny possibility Mr. Stark won’t filet him alive because this was totally a genuine accident, but it matters little and does even less to comfort the teenage boy. For fuck’s sake, he just ruined a teacher’s property. His favorite teacher too, no less!
He knows Mr. Grace won’t say anything about it (in the context that he won’t be mad, or at least show it, that is), if anything the older man is most likely to attempt to placate Peter and reassure him that it’s fine and that he can always get a new bike. But Peter also vividly remembers Mr. Grace raving to the class about the bike being a gift from his twin brother, Colt. And Peter reckons that even if it was truly fine and he could always get a new one, the bold red headline of “Stark Industries’ Youngest Intern Mutilates Gift From Renowned Stuntman Colt Seavers To His Twin!” won’t exactly be good PR.
Okay, maybe that part about the New York news is a bit exaggerated and most likely won’t happen, but there’s no telling the more minor papers. Like the Daily Bugle. And he could do for a while without being plastered on the front page of the Daily Bugle after his other recent fiasco.
Gosh, Tony is going to kill him.
The bell decides then that it’s a great, fantastic idea to ring and start dismissing students for the day. Many excited teenagers quickly flock the lawns, hurriedly discussing upcoming weekend plans for Spring Break. No one questions why Peter Parker, who was called to be “picked up” twenty minutes ago, is near hovering one of the school’s bike rack and panicking around a random beat-up bike with a science pun sticker on its side.
He wonders for a moment if Mr. Grace will be staying in late or going home on time today. Pretty creepy thing to think about your AP Chemistry teacher without the proper context, but, well, is context really that important right now? Context surely isn’t needed for why Peter’s crowding the bike racks, being jostled by other students shooting him dirty (and occasionally sympathetic) looks before going back to being blissfully ignored. This is a situation where he would love to have Ned here, but unfortunately his best friend is going out of state for a little while for break. MJ’s also pretty busy right now, so he’s on his own for this one.
Not for long though!
…When his teacher shows up and sees him looking very guilty next to his bike…
Ryland Grace prides himself on being a very practical man. Organized? God no. Neat? Even less. But he’s practical. Doesn’t do unnecessary things—at least not on purpose anyways, whatever he rambles about when he’s stressed or nervous, though, is none of his business—, gets things done and does it efficiently. Who’s to really blame when his efficiency ends up in a few knocked over things or unclosed doors?
So really, he doesn’t mind that Peter broke his bike. The kid’s a kind one—extremely smart and talented for his age too—, and he knows it wasn’t done with malicious intent. And although Peter’s mumbled excuse is a bit incomprehensible and hard to understand, he accepts it nonetheless, along with the countless apologies.
The only thing that really vexes him about this situation, really, is how the bike got broken. Well, to be frank…it looks quite like it got mangled. Some parts are bent in ways he never knew could bend, some parts are missing altogether, some parts have some sort of sticky-ish coating that look like they’ve been—very obviously—scrapped off in a hurry, it’s all very peculiar. During Peter’s ramble, he had mentioned something along the lines of “prank”, “roped in”, “glue”, and “accident”, as well as a few scattered scientific terms he couldn’t exactly make out the full words to know what it’s fully about. It’s clear that Peter feels very bad about it though, and, well, he can’t exactly blame teenagers for messing around, can he? God knows him and Colt were even worse and seriously damaged way more expensive properties than some bike.
So, it was all in good fun, and he forgave Peter, and tossed the bike into the trash, and took the subway home. That was that. He’d have a new one as soon as tomorrow, and even though Colt will sulk and pout and complain about Ryland being too careless with his gift, he will move on and might even get Ryland a new one before he can buy it himself.
What is not good fun, however, is when Ryland wakes up the next morning to not one, not two, not three, but four brand new, fancy-looking, grade-A bikes from two people he thought he’d left in his (rather complicated) past ages ago.
One bike is from Tom Ryder, the—begrudgingly amusing—bane of his twin’s existence, and the person who’s been shamelessly flirting with him on and off set for ages now (and who he hooked up once, once, after downing like five vodka cranberries seven years ago and has been aggressively avoiding ever since then).
And the other three are from Tony friggin’ Stark. His grad school ex boyfriend, and one of the few unfortunate people to witness his UNESCO conference in Denmark go down in person. Oh, there’s something else too. There’s also a bouquet of Lego flowers wrapped expertly in soft looking silk (no doubt imported from like Egypt or something), with a note attached, written in a familiar, lazy, half-print half-cursive sprawl.
“I know you’re allergic to actual flowers, especially with spring coming up, so I figured this would be a nice compromise. I also didn’t know what kind of bike you originally had, since the model was so messed up after Peter tampered with it, so hopefully one of these is an adequate replacement. Tony.”
God, he was so done for. Colt was absolutely going to flip it once he found out about this.
(And Tony remembered his allergy to flowers? Ryland has only brought that up once, when he was complaining about the fact that MIT had such beautiful but pollinated gardens. Don’t ask why he remembers that exact moment almost immediately upon reading the note. It’s not like Tony had called his sneezes adorable and bought out half a clinic, yes, an actual clinic, worth of allergy meds to help. Totally.)
“Really, Peter, you expect me to believe that your boss happens to also be your…legal guardian? What about the woman from the past, your Aunt May?” Mr. Grace asks, clearly extremely skeptical and regarding Peter with a tone he can’t precisely read over the phone line, but doesn’t take a genius to figure that it’s unamused and slightly fed-up. He’s never felt as much guilt as he does right now.
“I don’t know what else to tell you, Mr. Grace. Mr. Sta—Tony, has been an…old friend of my aunt for ages and he also kind of adopted me a while back..? It’s a complicated story, but he’s my legit secondary guardian, I swear!” God, was there any way for him to contact Strange and have him erase the past five minutes of this conversation?
Peter may be an idiot, but he’s at least socially aware enough to know that Mr. Grace is calling bullshit.
“Alright…say he is then. You expect me to believe Tony Stark personally took time out of his day to arrange his assistants to gift me three very high quality, very expensive bikes?”
”You’d be surprised at how efficient Fri—his employees are, Sir.” This was definitely not helping Peter’s case.
Mr. Grace heaves a giant sigh tiredly and Peter feels another wave of guilt wash over him. Gosh darn it Mr. Stark, why did he have to go and flaunt his wealth all over the place again? That was a sentence Peter never thought he’d catch himself thinking, but in his defense, this seemed like a pretty good reason to. Also, three bikes? Really? No matter how rich someone is, he can’t help but agree with Mr. Grace in this aspect. That’s total overkill.
Before Mr. Grace can start talking again, Peter quickly cuts in. “Okay, okay, I’m really sorry about this, Sir. How about you keep one of the bikes and I’ll send the others back to HQ and, well, Parent-Teacher Conferences are coming up, right? After break? I’ll be sure to bring Mr—Tony this time and have him thoroughly apologize and I’m sure we can work something out then.” Peter was fully aware that he was rambling at this point, but dammit, he was not about to have his favorite mentor ruin his beautifully curated relationship with his other favorite mentor!
Hearing dead silence from Mr. Grace’s end right now, though, he wasn’t so sure this was an amazing plan anymore…it doesn’t matter! It’s the only plan he’s got, other than spilling everything to this random innocent civilian about his vigilante life, and he’s gotta seal this before he panics and overthinks things again.
“Well, I hate to cut this short, but I have to go now Mr. Grace. I’ll see you when school starts after break, and again, I’m so, so sorry about all of this. I’d hate to hassle you and take up even more of your time, so have a great day and rest of break. Bye!” The line clicks dead and Peter mentally prepares himself for the conversation he’s about to have with Mr. Stark.
“Hey, Mr. Stark, remember the bike of my chemistry teacher that I told you about? The one that got caught up in the fight with that random goon that showed up outside school and that I used as a temporary shield? Well, when I asked you to help me replace it, I didn’t expect you’d send triple the amount needed! So now Mr. Grace is actually kinda furious with me and I need you to forge some papers and pretend to be my secondary legal guardian and show up for one of my Parent-Teacher Conferences and apologize to my favorite teacher or else I’ll cry and my relationship with him will forever be damaged. Yes, this is extremely important and will absolutely interfere with my work as Spider-Man. No, I’m not joking. Thanks!”
Jesus. He wishes MJ and Ned were with him right now. Although, there’s a high chance they’ll also laugh in his face and mock him for his newest stellar fuckup. But even their teasing would be nice at the moment, and that’s how Peter knows he’s thoroughly cooked if he’s craving MJ and Ned making fun of him out of all things.
The last time Tony Stark ever heard the name Ryland Grace was when he was plastered all over the science department’s gossip chat after his UNESCO Conference. That was when he and Ryland were going through the roughest possible patch on their on-and-off situationship, and Tony was still struggling to fix things. Unfortunately, Ryland could be extremely petty and avoidant when he retreats back to his hobbit and shuts everyone out. It was, at the time, both parts equally frustrating and attractive. However, when he broke down at the Conference for his controversial yet insanely well-constructed paper and screamed (as well as cursed) his head off at the lead, Tony knew that this time wasn’t like the others. That was when the topic of their relationship was closed off for good and it didn’t take Einstein to figure out that they were broken up. Permanently.
Good thing Tony’s not Einstein.
Alright, he’ll admit it, he wants Ryland back. So. Bad. Something about the way the whole predicament was left so unresolved itched at his skin and has been itching at his skin for over a decade now. A barely-qualified “relationship” at 25, now rekindled at his big age of 38. He wonders how Ryland’s been doing.
To be honest, he wasn’t exactly proud of the way he reacted when Peter—God bless that boy—came to him and viciously dug up a person he’s been desperately trying to forget and simultaneously bring back for the past 14 years. Jesus, that makes him sound like a grieving widow.
Aside from that though, Tony had completely frozen up—something that Tony Stark simply just doesn’t do—and immediately stormed out of the lab to go to his personal office and do a total in-depth background check of Ryland Grace for the past decade and a half, which brought up some very interesting things.
First, him being kicked out of his field and shamed by multiple big-shots in the community, which worsened after his decision to resign from academia all together, with countless claims of him being a “coward” thrown everywhere.
Then, a few years later, his rumored “close relationship” with Eva Stratt, a Dutch woman sent by multiple global governments to solve the Astrophage problem. The name struck him with staggering familiarity. She had found out the majority of the Avengers’ identities and had basically forced their hand into helping with the crisis, which they dismantled quickly. Apparently, she had gone to Ryland first, and asked for his assistance. With even more digging (even into some government documents), Tony found out that Ryland had a major role in the project and had been the one to coin the term “Astrophage”. However, he had personally requested that his involvement in the Petrova Task Force be extremely hush-hush, basically to make it seem like he wasn’t involved at all. This was the biggest shock to Tony.
There were lots of accounts from the rest of the people on the project, even some from the astronauts that were supposed to be sent on the suicide mission—what were their names again? Yao, Ilyukhina, and DuBois?—that Ryland was practically Stratt’s personal advisor during the whole process. He was her second-in-command for, well, everything (although there are lots of reports of him looking “perplexed” and even surprised when his fact was brought to him, some even saying he outright denied it at first), and there were also a lot of conjecture surrounding his and Stratt’s apparent sexual relationship!?
…Anywho, after that was done and over with, he relocated to New York, leaving behind his prior career with teaching middle school science in San Francisco. Now, this was even more of a shock to Tony. He knew Ryland loved San Francisco. Even though he joked and complained about the citizens sometimes, that was his city. San Francisco was Ryland’s home, and he adored it. It made no sense for him to suddenly move halfway across the country to New York of all places. Alas, he then quickly restarted his teaching career, but this time as a high school teacher for various AP courses, such as AP Chemistry (his current subject), AP Biochem, AP Biology, AP Physics, even AP Calculus for a little bit. In the six years he’s been in New York, he had bounced around five subjects until landing—and maybe staying—on AP Chem. Finally putting that doctorate to good use.
There were many, many gaps in this story that had Tony scratching his head. Not to mention that listed under “Personal Relationships”, he apparently had a twin brother he never bothered telling Tony about in the two years they had been together, even while in their “on” status of the relationship. (Granted, it did say that his relationship with his brother had worsened astronomically in high school and college, and they had only started getting on good terms again when Ryland started teaching middle school.)
He was also orphaned and he and his brother jumped around foster care a lot as children, especially in middle school, until they were adults and decided to both pull out and go their separate ways. After the Conference though, they had gotten much closer. Colt “Seavers”, the brother, who was apparently going by a stage name, was also involved in some pretty sketchy stuff with actor Tom Ryder. There had been a brutal accident, a murder scheme, framing for crimes, faking deaths, the whole package deal. It was also coinciding with the whole Petrova Task Force thing with Ryland, and while that set them back ages, the brothers managed to rebuild themselves and now lead peaceful lives.
Holy shit, that was…a lot. Tony even got whiplash a couple times looking through the report—he tastefully decided to ignore Tom Ryder being listed as a “possible person of love interest”—, and Tony Stark rarely ever got whiplash.
But even after his slightly maniacal deep-dive into his ex-boyfriend’s past, the only thoughts Tony had in his mind were two things.
One, what the fuck has Ryland been getting up to these past years?
And two, what was Tony going to do about it now that he knew, and would be meeting said man face-to-face in a week and a half?
The first thing Rocky does after Ryland finishes his story is to burst out cackling. Like, full on, hunched over, clutching-his-stomach-struggling-to-breathe kind of laughing. It’s both extremely humbling and well-deserved.
Ryland buries his face into his hands and groans. “Oh gosh, shut up, please. I know. I know, Rock, it’s so stupid. It’s so insanely stupid and absurd, I know.”
”I digress. This is fucking gold. Your crazy ex-boyfriend from college and the guy that framed your brother for murder? Jesus, man, you seem to attract the worst kinda attention. I’m sensing a pattern here, Grace. Somethin’ you’re not telling your best Buddy?” Rocky cackles, again, doubling over in a fit of giggles (at his grown age!). He’s obviously enjoying this whole ordeal. Ryland is not.
Scowling at his best friend of six years, he moves on to whine, “Geez, how is Colt gonna react to all of this? For fudge’s sake,”—“Dude, I told you, you can start cursing now, you teach 17 year-olds, not kindergarteners”—“he thinks nothing ever happened with me and Ryder! He thinks it was all one-sided!”
Ryland realizes his mistake the moment the words leave his mouth. Slowly, Rocky straightens and fixes another crap-eating grin at his face.
”Are you…implying that it wasn’t one-sided?” Rocky gasped. “Ryland!”
”Oh shut your trap, you know well what I meant. Aside from the…momentary lapse of judgement…yes, it was one-sided. He framed my brother for murder! Of course it’s one-sided, Rocky. I thought he forgot about me!”
”Clearly not if he sent you a six thousand dollar e-bike on a whim. How did he even know it was broken?” Rocky questions, raising an eyebrow as he sips his tea.
”To heck if I know. He probably overheard Colt complaining over the phone, I did call while he was on set after all,” Ryland grumbles, crossing his arms and pouting at his cup of coffee like it owes him money.
Rocky hums, something he does a lot when he’s deep in thought, or bored, or anything really. “I’m still surprised they let him get back to his job after only serving so little time in jail.”
“Well, to be fair, it was only second degree murder and Gail was mostly behind the whole thing,” Ryland muses. “Mostly,” he adds under his breath. He still hasn’t forgotten about that, by the way!
Sighing, he leans back and turns to fully face Rocky again. “But enough about me and my problems. I’ll deal with it when I see him on Wednesday. How’re things with you, friend?”
At the mention of his personal life, Rocky immediately perks up—not that he wasn’t before, but this was another special sort of excitement reserved only for his partner, Adrian. He immediately goes in-depth about his current home life, his qualms about what to get Adrian for their upcoming birthday, and the newest updates on their kid. Ryland was so happy and excited for Rocky when his friend broke the news he had started crying. He was also incredibly honored when Rocky revealed that Ryland would be the Godfather of the baby, and that no matter the gender of the baby, its middle name would be Ryland. The man himself had started full-on ugly sobbing when Rocky told him about that specific part, and it took quite a while for him to calm down again. It was a joyous day for everyone.
As he listens to Rocky talk about the checkups and Adrian’s recent craving for fruit roll ups wrapped around coconut ice cream(?), Ryland let his mind wander for a bit. He was meeting with Tony Stark, the Tony Stark, in only, what, five days? Four? And he was doing everything he could to not impulsively call in sick for the day. He knew deep down that he could and would never, not one to abandon his duties and job for personal reasons. There were other kids, and other parents he had to meet and talk with. This wasn’t just a Peter-him-Tony thing, this was literally school-wide, and it would be selfish of him to put himself first before all those other kids. No matter how much of a coward he may be, he would never play around with his job teaching. They might not be San Francisco middle schoolers, but these were children anyways and he’s be darned if he just up and left.
”Hello? Is there anything in that brain of yours? I was just about to go in detail about Adrian’s renewed energy spike in bed!—”
”God, Rocky, we’re in public! Have some shame, would you? Can you please at least lower your voice!?” Ryland whisper-shouts.
The looks other customers shot their way made Ryland want to sink further into his seat and never resurface again.
Peter can hardly contain his nervousness. When school started up again, he had explained the situation to MJ and Ned, who had both, predictably, laughed in his face.
Actually, their exact words were, respectively: “Holy shit Peter, I can’t believe you actually said that to Tony Stark’s face” (from MJ) and “You seriously just webbed a random bike and it happened to be Mr. Grace’s? You seriously need better spacial awareness during fights, dude” (from Ned). It had been a fun conversation.
But if there was one thing they all agreed on, though, was that Mr. Stark definitely went total overboard with the three bikes thing. Peter gets the whole “having to keep up his reputation” stuff, but did he seriously absolutely need to send three bikes? All of which not only costed thousands of dollars each, but were all sent back by Mr. Grace, claiming that he had already gotten his hands on a new bike before Mr. Stark had those sent. (Which Peter was almost 100% sure was a lie, considering they were delivered at sunrise exactly and he hadn’t seen Mr. Grace enter a bike shop on his way home. He even said he had taken the subway, so there was no possible time for him to procure a bike!)
Anyways, cut to today, where he’s standing at the front gates of the school at 5pm, half an hour before the designated time when doors opened for family to start coming in—the extra measures were absolutely necessary for the one and only, after all—, and spots a sleek, expensive looking black car pull up. Yup, there’s Mr. Stark.
The moment the man of the hour steps out the car, Peter hurries him inside before the rest of the parents show up, even though he knows they’re not even gonna be allowed in for another half-hour.
”Woah, kid, what’s the hurry?” Mr. Stark asks, easy-going and calm as ever. Peter resists the urge to scowl at him.
”Don’t you always say caution is the best negotiator or something like that? Anyways, I want this over as soon as possible so please Mr. Stark, make a bit more haste.”
When Peter looks back, Tony has a twinkle in his eyes almost akin to fondness, but he brushes that aside for the time being. They had much more important business to attend to. Like kneeling down to grovel and beg Mr. Grace for forgiveness.
They stop in front of his classroom and Peter takes a deep breath to prepare himself for the next half-hour, and knocks on the door. “Come in,” Mr. Grace’s voice comes from inside, a bit muffled through the door. Peter shoots what he hopes to be a warning glance to Mr. Stark and opens the door. Here goes nothing.
He smiles at Mr. Grace, and his teacher returns the gesture, but he can’t help but feel the man’s gaze drift to Mr. Stark next to him. Did he just gulp? Well, Peter doesn’t exactly blame him, anyone would be intimidated when in presented in front of Mr. Stark.
The next words that come out of his mouth, however, is what truly knocks the nail into the coffin for Peter.
”Hello Peter, good evening to you and your guardian. It’s nice to meet—”
”C’mon, Ryland, baby, don’t say you don’t remember me?”
What?!?!