[For River Song] In Need of Tudoring

[st_arkintern]

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.

Comments

[st_everybodylives]

"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.

[st_arkintern]

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."

[st_everybodylives]

"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."

[st_arkintern]

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?"

[st_everybodylives]

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.

[st_arkintern]

"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.

[st_everybodylives]

"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.

[st_arkintern]

"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."

[st_everybodylives]

"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."

[st_arkintern]

"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.]