Dreams of Normalacy

[st_hotflashes]

Ned was excited. He could not believe that he and Peter got into the same university and had some of the same classes together! This was going to be the best and so far on campus neither of them had run into Flash, so he was sort of hoping Flash got into some other university other than MIT and neither of them would have to worry about the bully ever again. Of course, Ned sometimes thought about how if Flash wasn't there to bully them, who would take his place? Like Flash was some sort of Hydra creature and they were two nerdy versions of Hercules... well, Peter was definitely like Hercules. Ned just held the equipment or something.


"Dude, do you think the professor's going to be hard?" Ned slipped into a seat in the big lecture hall. They were early, but it felt safer than being late on your first day to theoretical physics class.

Comments

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Liz could see that Peter was a little fluster and she thought it was kind of cute. There was something that felt so familiar about it, but she couldn't figure out why.

"Molecular biology." She smiled to him. "But I'm thinking of minoring in physics. What about you?"

Ned looked between the two.

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Peter swallows. "Electrical engineering," he answers, feeling nervous for reasons even he doesn't entirely understand.

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"That's really cool." Smiling, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

Ned leaned over "I'm in computer engineering."

She laughed a little. "That's cool too." She paused. "This is my first class. I'm a little nervous and I don't really know why." And even more now, it seemed, sitting next to Peter.

[st_arkintern]

She's so pretty.

"Yeah?" Peter asks, his eyes wide. "It's Ned and I's, too."

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"I brought like five pens, two pencils, three highlighters, and my laptop." All of which Ned pulled out one-by-one though when he realized that he didn't have space for his laptop, he picked up the other writing utensils and handed them to Peter to hold onto with a 'one sec'.

"I have a notebook in my bag, but I'm going to try this technique I read about?" She cracked open the text book. "Some scientists swear by it and I thought I might give it a try. Basically, you write in the textbook itself. I know that means the resale value is basically zero, but if I get a job as a scientist or something, I might need to refer back to these books anyways, right?"

[st_arkintern]

"Yeah?" Peter asks. He planned on reselling his books after the semester ended. His scholarship covered everything except the books themselves, and while he knew that Mr. Stark would buy them for him if he asked, he felt uncomfortable asking him -- even if that money was basically nothing to him. "I'm a lot faster at typing than I am at writing. I'm uh, I'm not as fast as Ned, though."

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"I guess I'm a little old fashioned." She joked, her eyes a little playful. Liz wasn't sure why, but she felt more comfortable writing than she did using a computer, even though she had one in her dorm. She liked the tactile feeling of it, for one, but also it just seemed more her.

When the professor arrived, Ned squirmed next to Peter. The professor was an older Russian woman who looked like she was all business. It turned out, though, that the professor had a good sense of humour and over the hour lecture, there were many notes. Ned was quiet for once as his nervous manifested into note taking he basically had typed out everything verbatim, including random interjections from the class. Liz had taken more precise notes, her expression the entire time being someone who was tuned into the lecture. She even raised her hands a few times to debate the hidden variable theory. At the end of the lecture, neither Ned nor Liz moved to get up quickly unlike about 3/4ths of the class.

"I think I need to take up drinking." Ned looked almost a little stunned.

[st_arkintern]

"It'll be a fun challenge," Peter says encouragingly, though he has to admit, for one of the basic required courses for nearly all majors, the class definitely appears to be more work than Peter thought there would be.

A lot of essay-writing, too.

"Are you living in the dorms, too?" he asks for Liz. "Ned and I are roommates."

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She closed the book, her mind already whirling about essay topics she wanted to explore. Maria always told her she got ahead of herself, but she couldn't help it. Liz liked having lists in her head.

She blinked as if hearing the question on delay. "Oh, um. Yeah. I have a roommate too. She's nice. I'm on the fifth floor of Baker house."

[st_arkintern]

"Yeah?" Peter asks, his smile broadening. "That's where Ned and I live, too." A beat, and then: "You have any classes right now? We can walk back to the dorm together, if you want to."

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For a moment the image of her being Peter's room flashed in her mind and she had no idea why. She looked down to hide most of the soft blush that temporarily graced her cheeks. She managed a nod that way too. "Yeah. That sounds like fun, actually."

Ned put away his laptop. "You'll have to go without me. I have that club meeting with the, uh - those guys." He didn't want to say 'hackers,' but there was an unofficial group and Ned had been invited. It was supposed to be low-key, though he definitely told Peter all about it already.

[st_arkintern]

Oh no.

Going with Ned back to the dorm with Liz was one thing. Going back with just Liz was another. Peter swallows. Hard.

"Oh, yeah," he says, rubbing the back of his neck. "You'll be back for dinner, right?"

[st_hotflashes]

Ned seemed a little oblivious to Peter's panic. "Yeah. I mean, probably?" Ned looked up and made eye contact with his best friend. He didn't read the entire expression correctly, but he got the plead. Ned blinked. "Actually, yeah. 100 percent." He smiled and nodded.

Liz stood and slung her backpack over one shoulder. "It's nice you've found a club to join already. I haven't even thought of which ones I might want to join. Are you in any, Peter?"

[st_arkintern]

"Not yet," Peter answers, standing up. "I'm uh, a little busy with my internship right now." He gives Ned a smile and a wave. "See you!"

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"Internship?" She wondered why that sounded familiar. Liz started to dwell on the feeling, but then told herself lots of people here had internships so it wasn't anything super unique, right?

[st_arkintern]

"Yeah, the, uh, the Stark Internship," he says, feeling embarrassed. He heads towards the door. "I got the internship back when I was in high school and I've been doing it ever since."

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"Wow, that must be - I mean, that sounds like a great opportunity. Mr. Stark seems like he has a big personality." Of course, Liz figured there was more to him, but his public persona was quite big. She wondered if that was all a show or grounded in some truth.

She followed him through the door, falling into step beside him in the hallway. His strides felt weirdly familiar. "That must keep you really busy."

[st_arkintern]

"Yeah," Peter agrees. "I mean, yeah, it's really great. Mr. Stark and I have been working together for a couple of years now, so he's really flexible about my whole class schedule thing. I don't know, he's kind of almost become a father to me."

Peter pushes open the doors out of the building and holds them open for Liz.

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She smiled in thank you as she headed out of the building. It was nice out and for a second she closed her eyes and took in the air before opening them again and kept walking. "He sounds like a nice man." Liz almost agreed that he was a nice man, but that was silly since she had never met him. She also noted that Peter said 'like a father' which probably meant Peter's dad wasn't around.

"What do you do for the internship? I once had a job for a congresswoman... but i mostly answered phones. It wasn't a very hard or exciting job."

[st_arkintern]

"It's kinda secret," Peter says apologetically. "NDA-type stuff, so I can't really talk about it. But when I graduate, I'll hopefully start working for him for real."

Peter's sure that he'd have a job at Stark Industries even before he asked.

[st_hotflashes]

She nodded, accepting his explanation. It felt like she knew that was going to be the answer before she even asked and she didn't know why. Liz gave him a nod and a serious expression. "I'm originally from Roswell, so I get the need for secrets."

She paused, then sent him a playful smile, her eyes sparkling. "Just kidding."

[st_arkintern]

"Really?" Peter says, but he quickly tones down the excitement. "Ned and I -- we're both big into aliens. Not like, the aliens that attacked New York, but... alien-aliens."

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"There's at least two alien museums there, if you're ever around Roswell."

She wondered just how excited Peter and Ned would be to meet the real aliens of Roswell who didn't look like the grey men in movies, but she paused as she thought. For some reason she was pretty sure Peter wouldn't be interested in them.

"Peter?" Liz paused after her eyes surveying the ground before looking back to Peter. "Do you -"

Liz was cut off by a scream. She turned from Peter in the direction of the commotion and her eyes widened. Off in the near distance Longfellow Bridge over the water was an accident. There was a school bus dangling off the side of the bridge and on the other side was a jack-knifed semi-truck. There were cars that had crashed as well, but what exactly was happening up there was hard to tell. Without really thinking about it, Liz began to run toward the problem.

[st_arkintern]

Peter only allows himself a second to watch as Liz runs off; if he hadn't been Spider-Man, he might have followed after her, but he is -- and he's got to find some place to put on the outfit.

And so he does. He scrambles behind a dumpster and strips down quicker than he can ever remember doing so in his life, puts on the suit, and shoots a spray of web-fluid at his backpack, sealing it to the dumpster.

And then without hesitation, he springs towards the danger. "Karen, how many people in the schoolbus?

"28, including the driver."

"Okay, we'll focus on them first."

Peter lands atop one of the cars trapped in the accident and surveys the damage; there's no place for him to pull the bus onto. Instead, he positions himself behind the bus, then sprays his web-fluid to either side of the vehicle, then pulls it up to steady it. It's heavy -- really heavy, and he's not sure how long he can hold it like this, let alone communicate to the people inside that they need to hurry up and get out.

And then he sees her. Liz.

"Hey--" And he almost slips up and calls her by name. "Uh, you!" Peter swallows. "Open the back exit and get everyone out as quickly as possible!"

[st_hotflashes]

Getting there felt like she was slow, but thankfully she had enough experience with life or death situations that she got there and didn't keel over from being out of breath. She was trying to comfort a woman who had a pretty bad head cut when she heard -- Spider-Man? She blinked, but that was the only hesitation because something felt weirdly familiar.

She hurried over to the bus and it took several big pulls to get the door open. There were a lot of young, scared kids inside and the bus driver was in a daze. "Come on, hurry." She helped some of the kids off, but there were definitely some kids who were too scared to move, not that Liz blamed them. Hanging off the side of a bridge was terrifying to an adult. She was able to coax a few more kids out, but there were four stragglers and the bus driver who apparently had something wrong with his seatbelt.

She glanced over to Spider-Man. "One sec." Somehow she trusted him, and not just because he was Spider-Man. It was a very strange feeling, but she didn't have time to dwell. Liz disappeared into the bus.