Chapter Text
At eight years old, Peter Parker had special measures put in place to support his learning. It was his first year attending an actual school after his mother found out that it was apparently against the law to just keep him home, and he was incredibly reluctant to just about everything that school had to offer.
He did not make any friends - in fact, people were generally scared of him, being the new boy and all - and he certainly didn't excel in academics. Any teacher reading through the paperwork his mother had filled out would see that Peter was difficult behaviourally, but ticked all the right boxes to be academically equivalent to his peers. So, when he would refuse to participate in class reading or any written tasks, he would find himself sat in the headmasters office beside his barely-conscious mother being told that his behaviour was out of control.
‘The first kid to ever get kicked out of East Elementary school’ he was told.
His mother didn't care, simply enrolling him in the next closest school which promised to 'look at every child's needs and support them as appropriate'. Peter wouldn't have cared if it wasn't for the extra twenty minutes of walking he now had to do in the morning. Plus, the old school was right next to a bakery that often sold its bread for cheap on Fridays just as he would leave school. Now what was he going to eat over the weekend?
When he was eleven he found out what reading was. Stupid, really, that it took that long, but up until that point he had only heard the word and not actually understood what was being asked of him. When a page with all of those weird symbols that blurred together was placed in front of him and he was told to read it, he just sighed and looked out the window like normal. It wasn't until the the kid next to him raised a hand and asked about something on the page that Peter realised the symbols actually meant something. That same day, he realised that people don't believe you when you say you can't read at age 11. Especially if you have one hell of a behaviour record for 'refusing to work'.
In middle school, his commute jumped up to an hour and twenty minutes after he got kicked out of his local one. As it turns out, not being able to read flies under the radar when every teacher expects you to be a delinquent child anyway. No one bothered questioning why Peter didn't do work, they would just sigh and issue another detention. His mother didn't show up to half of the meetings about his worrisome grades and 'lack of respect', which in hindsight, is probably for the best. If the teachers weren't a big fan of Peter's 'I don't give a shit' attitude, they certainly wouldn't be fond of his mother.
Dating a dead beat drug dealer was pretty much all she was known for. He remembered social services being called when he was about nine but nothing ever came of it. Mark was a great benefit for her since cash and supply were no longer problems, although she was never really into the hard stuff. Peter had learned early on that asking for money got him a harsh slap or completely ignored and that the way to survive in his household was to steal. Unfortunately, he didn't realise until he was sat in a police station that this rule only applies to his house, and does not extend to local supermarkets.
Another mark on his record - Peter Parker was officially a young offender.
So, by the time high school rolled around, the teachers had officially given up on him. No one cared about his 0.0 GPA, or his abysmal attendance. If Peter didn't physically assault someone, the teachers called it a positive step in the right direction. The school, Morewood High, was known for handling delinquent teens, so Peter was surrounded by assholes who were more than happy to try and target him. Peter let them at first, he wasn't much of a fighter and he knew that. In some ways, he was luckier than a lot of the kids at this school.
Plus, the bruises only helped to give him the reputation that he was involved in his step-fathers drug dealing - something Peter knew he could eventually use to get people to leave him alone.
In general, Peter was pretty happy with the way his life had gone. He never really cared about school and he clearly wasn't very smart, so it didn't matter to him. He liked that the teachers expected the worst from him. He liked that no one was trying to figure out why he was the way that he was. He knew from staff and student comments, by now, that being unable to read or write was horrendously embarrassing, so he was happy for everyone to come to their own conclusions for why he was under performing in school.
And then, when he was fifteen, he got bitten by a stupid fucking spider.
--
As it turns out, words are fucking everywhere. When he first realised there's something big that he’s supposed to be able to do but can't, he didn't care all that much. He took it as just another failure, but now? It's like he can suddenly see just how insanely behind this makes him in all aspects of life. Finding out that he apparently needed glasses was also quite a shock considering he could now tell that all the words did look slightly different.
Peter was pretty sure he was born stupid - no doubt that the weed his mother was smoking while carrying him was to blame there - but this was the first time he had really felt it.
And it wasn't because he was suddenly doing worse in school; it was because a little old lady had asked Spider-Man to help her read the small print on a box of cream cheese and he couldn't. And suddenly, he wanted to learn.
Asking his English teacher to teach him had gone about as bad as it could've with a quick but firm "stop messing around, Parker" and that was that.
So, Peter was going to teach himself.
--
And... teaching yourself how to read is fucking impossible. Spider-Man will have to just go without because Peter had never felt as slow as he did when he looked through an old magazine he stole from Mark, trying to see if anything stood out to him.
He knew the symbol for 'start' or 'play', he wasn't sure which, only because that little symbol always came up before a film started on his DVD player.
He didn't own a phone. Even if he did, he couldn't work YouTube because you had to be able to type for that to work. He was utterly screwed.
And then it somehow got worse.
--
Tony stark stood in his bedroom, staring at his DVD collection and not bothering to turn around. “Spider-Man being a delinquent was unexpected, I must say,” he said, catching Peter’s eye. "But a criminal?"
Peter didn't appreciate the surprise visit and frankly, he had no idea how Stark had tracked him down considering he didn't even use technology that often. He watched as Stark reached and picked up the magazine he had failed to read the other day and cringed, silently. "Aren't you a bit young for an x-rated magazine?" Tony raised an eyebrow, flicking through some of the pages with attentive eyes.
Peter didn't exactly get through enough pages to find the pictures, otherwise he would've hidden it better. Honestly, it's his own fault, what did he expect from Mark's magazine collection, anyway?
Tony was staring at him and the way he saw it, he had two options: option one, tell Tony that he stole the magazine off his drug-dealing step father in an attempt to teach himself how to read because his dead-beat mother never bothered. Or option two.
“Wanna see the rest of my collection?” Peter smirked. Tony raised an eyebrow.
“Reputation doesn’t lie then, does it, Mr Parker?”
—
Peter was invited to the tower for regular meetings. Well, 'invited' is the wrong word. Forced is a more honest description of how that conversation went. Tony had 'rules' if Peter wanted to continue being Spider-Man without alerting his mother - something Peter desperately wanted to avoid. Not because he was worried she'd go tell people or that she'd make him stop, but because if she knew he was out there, busting drug-dealers all day, she would definitely try and get him to bring her home a little something.
One of those stupid rules was to actually start attending school - a simple task, really. He wasn’t fond of being home anyway. But, he wasn’t allowed to get in trouble more than once a week - a truly impossible task. His first full week of school in over a year and he ended up with six detention slips for refusing to work in class and three for being rude to staff members (he thought he was being helpful when he told Miss Sanders where she can shove her spelling test).
The other rule was to wear the suit Tony had made for him, including all of the spy gear weaved into it that Peter didn’t know how to turn off. That one was actually more annoying than he expected it to be, but the suit did have a heater built in which turned out to be very helpful when his mother forgot to pay the gas bill.
The third and final rule was to attend weekly meetings in the Avengers compound so that Tony could debrief the week, check on the suit, and keep an eye on him - not exactly Peter’s idea of fun but hey-ho, at least his mother was non-the-wiser about his extracurricular activities.
Peter was sat in a board room at the tower for the first time when Tony slid a pen and a piece of paper in front of him, asking him to read and sign the contract agreeing to the terms. This was the first time Tony really experienced the full force of Peter Parker when he doesn’t want to do something. Peter knew that signing something didn't mean it had to look neat or like proper words, but he also knew that signatures were supposed to match, so if Tony ever asked him to sign something again, he'd be screwed.
It took an hour of back and forth and the addition that Peter was allowed to see the Iron Man suits in Tony's lab before he agreed to sign.
Tony commented on his absolutely shit signature which resembled a slip of the hand more than a name. Peter called him a dick before he left.
—
“Pete, we’re back in the lab today.”
Peter rolled his eyes - a habit he had fallen into every time Tony spoke - but followed behind him in a lazy stride. As it turns out, the lab is a lot of really boring and slow paced stuff that Stark wasn't willing to let him try. Instead, he made Peter observe from a short distance away and take notes. Peter wanted to snort at the notion - he didn't even own a pen.
He slumped himself down on a beaten up sofa in the corner when he finally got there.
”I have a favour to ask-“
”No,” Peter responded, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. His mother and Mark had been partying last night with a bunch of people Peter hadn't seen before, so he didn't exactly have the best night sleep.
Stark sighed, rubbing his fingers on the bridge of his nose. “All I need you to do is read over these-“
”I said no, dude. Consent, much?”
Peter felt Tony staring him down but didn’t relent. He didn't feel guilty when he wound Stark up, in fact, it was kind of like a game to him. So far, the man had been pretty patient with a lot of his back chatting and refusals to work. He felt as Stark walked away, sinking further into the sofa and beginning to plan his dinner in his head. He's pretty sure there's a tin of peaches from four years ago under the kitchen sink, so it'll have to involve that. His mother hadn't bought groceries in three weeks so everything was blackened and out of date otherwise. He'd have to go shopping on his way back.
He heard the papers slam down in front of him before peering through one eye to look.
”Just read over these and I’ll let you go early,” Tony reasoned. Peter raised an eyebrow.
”What makes you think I wanna leave?”
Tony looked slightly taken aback by this. “I don't know, maybe the fact you roll your eyes every time I speak and tell me to fuck off every other sentence?” He said, incredulously.
Peter simply shook his head before closing his eyes again, sighing. “Your couch is comfier than mine.”
Tony looked at him and Peter felt like he could hear his brain thinking. ”I know you think you’re hot shit in school for breaking the rules, but you signed a contract that said you would come here once a week to work with me, so I need you to read through those to make sure they’re correct.”
”I don’t read.”
”Peter, seriously!” Tony shouted. Peter wanted to be surprised that it only took three weeks for Stark to finally break. “You know what, get out. I’ll see you next week.”
Peter hauled himself off the sofa, carrying himself over to the door when Tony stopped him.
”Oh, and if you get another detention then Nat is going to spar you. I’ll tell her not to hold back.”
Peter didn’t let Tony see his smirk as he left. Sparring the Black Widow? Yeah, he would get expelled to make that happen.
—
As it turns out, he actually did get expelled later that week. The phone Tony got him pinged right after it happened - Tony must be listed as a contact in his school or something, there's no way he just figures shit like this out so fast. Peter doesn't bother checking his phone. No point, right?
His mother is a no show for his actual expulsion and he's sent home with a letter informing her of the decision. He bins it before he even leaves the building.
Lucky for him, there's a sleek, black car sat in the parking lot waiting for him when he gets out of school. He hides his mild surprise when he spots Tony behind the wheel - normally it’s a random driver.
They chat during the car ride. Yada yada how could you do this blah blah throwing away your future wah wah wah. It was the same spiel he'd heard a thousand times from headmasters and teachers alike. 'Get your act together' and 'last chance' were words he was deftly familiar with.
When silence finally filled the car, Peter seized the opportunity to change the subject. "So, I saw on the news that STARK Industries is battling it out with OSCORP to be the first company to make regenerative nano-tech?"
Tony looked over, still tense, and sighed before relenting. "Yeah, kid. What do you think I've been doing in the lab this whole time? Did you not read any of the notes I gave you?"
"Reading's not really my thing," Peter smirked. Tony let out a scoff. "Are you using heat? I saw a documentary once about car paint that fixes scratches when it gets hot. Isn't that like the same thing?"
Tony looked over at Peter for a moment, eyebrow raised. He was thinking, and Peter was sure he had just said something incredibly stupid. "Yeah, no, actually that's probably dumb and I'm just-"
"When did you watch a documentary about self-healing polymers?" Tony asked. Peter shrugged, ears going red.
"It was on the discovery channel a few years ago," Peter replied.
"Hmm," Tony hummed. Peter was sure he had just made a massive fool out of himself and that Tony was probably going to kick him out of his lab forever-
"Do you wanna come by the lab and we'll try it out?"