strangetrip | [For River Song] In Need of Tudoring

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[For River Song] In Need of Tudoring

Peter Parker adjusts the strap of his backpack over his left shoulder as he stands outside the doors of the business center. It's weird for him to be all worked up about this. It was just a history lesson. Probably something like -- like the War of the Roses, right? And if his teacher here were anything like his teacher back at Midtown, he really didn't have anything to worry about.

Peter takes a breath, then pushes the door open. There's already someone there, though from here he can only see the back of her head.

"Ms. -- Ms. Song?" Peter asks tentatively, closing the door behind him. "I didn't really know what we'd be studying, so I just kinda brought a few history books I found in the library and a notebook."

Peter tugs the notebook out of his bag and holds it up, as if to demonstrate his preparedness.

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That makes sense. It really does. And it should be enough for Peter, but somehow it isn't.

"Right now, I'm just -- I'm just a Neighborhood Friendly Spider-Man. I'm still trying to figure everything out with my powers, because I know that if I don't practice, I'm just gonna cause problems for everyone else."

He swallows, thinking of the fight against half of the Avengers; he'd gotten beaten down to the point where he couldn't do anything except lay sprawled out on the tarmac. And yeah, the other half of the Avengers left him alone after that happened, but that was because at heart, even if they really were wrong like Mr. Stark said, they were still good people. And he's sure that Mr. Stark and the others knew that too.

Peter couldn't always count on the people he fought to be good people. If he got laid out like that in any other combat, he'd probably be dead. And if he wasn't dead, whatever enemy he was combating would probably use him against his allies -- like a hostage.

And Peter didn't want that. If he were dead, he couldn't be of use to anyone. And he didn't want to be used against his allies, either.

"But eventually, I got to think about what I want to do with my powers. After I graduate from high school." A beat. "Or college. And I think about these kind of things a lot, because when you can do the things that I can, but you don't, when bad things happen, they happen because of you."

That's something Peter knows from experience.

"And," he says, taking a breath. "I don't know what bad things I should be stopping, because there's so many bad things happening to so many people every day."

You couldn't even always count on your history teacher to be good people. River certainly wasn't, or hadn't been.

"Bad thing happen regardless of what good men do or don't do every day, you can't take responsibility for all the bad things, just because you might be able to stop them."

She considered how to tell the story she thought he might need to hear, but struggled since it wasn't a story she told.

"I was taken from my parents when I was very young, because some people wanted the perfect weapon against one particular man. He was like you, special, wanting to right the wrongs in the universe. But he learned eventually that you can't save everyone, not even from themselves. And that isn't your fault even if it feels like it is."

It was weird. Hearing this somehow made Peter feel good and bad at the same time. Good, because there were other people out there struggling with this, too; he wasn't alone. But it was also bad, because there were people out there struggling with this, too, and he wouldn't want anyone else to worry about stuff like this the way that he did.

"Were you that weapon?" Peter asks quietly, unsure if he should be prying. "And -- how did the man figure this out for himself? I mean, I'm not sure I'd be able to without anyone helping me."

"I was. I killed him. Twice technically. But he is remarkably difficult to kill so I married him." And she missed him more than she thought possible after their time on Darillium.

"He's lived longer than most of us can dream of living, my murderous history not withstanding, and it took many years, and many battles for him to figure it out. And even then, sometimes there's someone who he just can't let die, for whatever reason." Because he might understand that he couldn't save everyone, but he still wanted to, deep down.

This is the weirdest "how we met" story that Peter's ever heard in his entire life. In reality and in fiction -- which is really saying something, because he and Ned were always watching movies together.

He doesn't ask if she misses him, because Peter can't imagine not missing his wife (if he had one), and there's so many people he misses right now that he's not married to. So instead, he asks another question:

"How do you deal with him not being here?"

"I suppose I'm used to it now." She admitted, and yes she knows its a weird story. "Most of my life, I've spent without him. Even as his wife, I didn't travel with him, not always, and not for long periods of time. He'd pop in and out of my life, and sometimes I'd pop in and out of his."

For some of it she'd been in prison for killing him, which was even odder than how they'd met.

"I miss him, but until just before I came here I wasn't used to having him there every day. Not even most days. I have his picture and I have my memories." Her hand flattened on the diary and when she smiled it went all the way to her eyes so he would know she wasn't lying.

"Most of the time it's enough. And on those rare occasions when it isn't, I usually do something outrageous to take my mind off the missing."

Peter's not really used to not having Aunt May and Ned in his life. Aunt May in particular. She had taken care of him ever since his parents died when he was little.

Peter runs a hand along the back of her neck. "Like, what kind of outrageous things?" he asks.

"Probably nothing I should encourage you to do if you're missing home." That got a laugh, but it was clear she understood. "I studied archeology so sometimes I go on expeditions, I was headed to the biggest library in the universe when I ended up here."

Peter chuckles lightly in response. "Yeah, that obvious, huh?"

It's kind of embarrassing to admit, but it seems that it's something that everyone can relate to, here. And somehow, after this conversation, it feels like something he can talk to Professor River about.

"This is the longest I've ever been away from home," Peter admits. "I'd never even been on a plane until last year. The furthest I've really been away from New York before I went to Germany was Jersey."

This was way farther, though.

"And... well, I miss my Aunt May. A lot. And my best friend Ned, too. And not just because I could talk to them about anything."

Because he could. Even Aunt May knew basically everything about him now that she new about him being Spider-Man.

"I also worry about Aunt May, too. Because my parents are gone, and so is Uncle Ben, so I'm basically all she has left. Or... all she had left."

"Not obviously but maybe just so common I assumed. And it's normal to worry about the people at home," his Aunt May sounded like a survivor, to lose her husband, and take in Peter after he'd lost his parents. Someone who carried on.

"Your Aunt May sounds like a strong woman. She probably misses you like you miss her, but you're not all alone and she isn't either. Your friend Ned probably doesn't let that happen. Or Mr. Stark." If time even moved at home the same way it did here. She isn't so sure about that.

That comforts Peter a little.

"Yeah, she's tough. And I'm sure Ned's looking out for her, just like you said." And he hopes Mr. Stark's looking out for her too, but he really can't be sure. He was pretty busy. Maybe sometimes, though.

"It's weird, though. I think sometimes about what would happen if I did actually get back there," he says. "And I think I'd miss everyone here, too. Especially Liz. Even if somehow we were from the same Earth and both ended up going home, she'd be much older than me if we ever met up again."

"Remind me some day to tell you about the age difference between my husband and I." It was easily in the triple digits. But really once you turned 200, who cared any more. Or maybe in his case once he turned 21 or something.

"But I understand that too," she hadn't really gotten close enough to anyone here to miss them except maybe Kitty. And it was startling to realize that she probably would miss her friend.

But then the only real friends she'd had in her life had been her parents.

"It's hard. Wanting to go home, but also trying to make a home."

Peter gives her a curious look at the mention of the age difference between her and her husband. Was she like, married to a super old man? Peter supposes once you reach a certain age it's probably not that big of a deal.

"Yeah," Peter says. "It is. Um. So, history. We should probably decide what we're going to start with." He glances at the blue book before returning his gaze back to the professor's face. "Did you have something in mind?"

He really was SUPER old. She considered that for a moment, thinking about what he'd said about choices, and good guys and bad guys and missing home.

"How about we look at how civilizations rise and how do they change, or fall as the case may be? We can start with various early agrarian and hunter gatherer societies and work forward in time until we think we can define what it means to be civilized."

She has all sorts of things to say about what civilized might mean, and it would force Peter to think about how middle class white America viewed other cultures.

"Sounds interesting," Peter says, and it does. He can't ever remember taking a history course that went that far back. "Is there -- is there going to be like, a lecture, reading material, quizzes, tests?" Peter wasn't exactly sure how this was going to work, given this wasn't exactly your traditional kind of classroom.

"Does that sound like fun?" It didn't to her, but then if that was what he wanted she could oblige.

"There's not too much by way of texts but I can come up with some reading from what we do have... though most of it will probably have to be lectures of projects. And I suppose if you insist on a test..." She shuddered in mock horror.

"No," Peter says, waving his hands in front of him, as if to dispel the very thought from her mind. "No tests is fine." Though he did well on tests, they also made him nervous. The less tests in his life, the better. Projects were less anxiety-inducing -- so long as they didn't include some sort of oral presentation.

"And yeah," Peter says. "It does sound like fun."

Peter swallows and then looks over at Professor River.

"Professor," he starts, uncertainly. "I just --" He presses his lips together. "I just thought I should thank you for listening to me today. I really didn't expect to come in here and talk about, about my aunt and all, especially with someone I just met, but it just kinda came out."

"You're welcome, but you really don't need to thank me. Good teachers are the ones who are there to listen." At least that was always what she'd thought. Of course they rarely did which was why she'd spent so much time in detention.

"And people are always confiding in me, it's the hair, it looks like it can hold all sorts of secrets."

"Yeah," Peter agrees, smiling. "They are." He's pretty sure at least one or two of the teachers back at Middletown would have been willing to listen, too. It would have just been weird to talk to them about anything.

Peter looks over at Professor River. It wasn't weird talking to the teachers he had here. And he was pretty thankful for that.

[ooc: Wrap up here? I can't wait to do another scene with these two. Peter really, really likes her.]

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[For River Song] In Need of Tudoring

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