Wrong number :/~~Spider-Man

Dedication

"I uh.. family business" he finally muttered; after Mr Burley had given him the 'cut the bullshit' stare.

This seemed to ease him up a bit.

"Wanna talk about it?".

That made it clear that Mr Burley already knew the whole news fiasco.

Peter looked down. He did want to. He wanted to say something—anything. Any scrap of information that might hint to Skip being discovered. Mr Burley had kept him out of burning water twice that day. Peter wanted to go off and pop the cork, get out of there as soon as he could.

When the tears started actually flowing, Mr Burley realized he might've dug himself into a bit of a deeper hole than he'd expected.

"I just—" Peter tried formulating a convincing enough sentence. "It's been a lot lately. I think.." he gasped for air, "I just want it to be over with".

Well, there's one way not to lie, it seemed.

Wordlessly, he was engulfed in a hug.

It was a lot more enjoyable than he thought it'd be, considering his uncomfort with pretty much everyone he knew lately.

"I wish I could tell you I understand" Peter could feel the vibrations from Mr Burley as he spoke, "I've only ever been on the receiving end of that though".

"What?" Peter asked quietly, muffled by the shirt. He had no idea what 'receiving end' meant, and wether or not he needed to do some midnight vigilante work without telling Tony.

"My daughter—" his voice cut out, as if he was trying to hold something it, "a few years ago. She uh.. killer herself" he backed off from the hug, wiping one of his eyes.

Oh.

Oh.

Mr Burley thought Peter meant that type of  'over'.

Oh he'd fucked up.

Big time.

"I just want to say, no matter what you think, no one is gonna get over it. You might imagine that they'd move on or something, but they don't. Sure, eventually it'll be easier to forget about it, they'll be able to think of happy memories of you.. but all it takes is a simple reminder and you could—" he sniffed, pausing for a moment, "I mean just look at me". Peter found it impressive that the guy could muster a laugh mid-tears.

Worlds greatest screw up accidentally made his teacher associate him with his deceased daughter. Peter felt more guilt than he could muster. He couldn't just.. back out now. He felt sick to his stomach lying about something so serious.

He just nodded, not looking up from the floor.

"I'll see you tomorrow, yeah?" The large man patted Peter's shoulder firmly, "if you don't want to go to that guy's class tomorrow, I can pull you out of your first period and write you a pass" he offered.

Peter almost wanted to say yes. Just.. catching a break and all.

He thought back to Mr Lanks though. Before he did anything, he'd have to figure out what happened to him.

"I'll uh.. maybe next week" he fiddled with his fingers.

Mr Burley nodded. They stood there for a moment, composing themselves. Yeah, this wasn't really a subject teachers were supposed to bring up to their students, but Mr Burley had already pulled aside a few students and given them a similar talk. Almost every single one of them liked to spend lunch with him now, popping back up every day.

Mr Burley hoped Peter would be no different, at least on showing up every day.

"Look at us" he shrugged, "two dudes crying in a hallway. What could be better?"

"Two dudes getting a million bucks" Peter said tiredly.

He always got tired after crying, so his filter was a bit wonky.

The booming laugher was contagious, and soon the hallway of tears was more like a hallway of psychopaths laughing over completely different morbid things.

It was tragic, in the long run, but neither could care. It was harder to do so when both had a close enough connection to the non-existing joke.

They talked for a little hole longer. Mostly about the day, how Peter's now home was like (it was bound to come up), what shit-flavored gourmet meal they were gonna serve the next day. The occasional swearing went unmentioned, along with what had started the whole conversation. It was quite nice.

"We oughta get to class" Mr Burley brought up, checking his watch.

Peter didn't say anything. Despite the conversation he wouldn't start with his best friends, Mr Burley was still considered a 'distanced' teacher to him. One conversation didn't warrant free talking passes.

His classroom had never felt so great to Peter though.

Once they had regained composure, they made their way inside. Conversation was at a normal level, a small dip when they walked in but average nonetheless. Peter sat back in his seat, Stiles immediately returning back to the topic they'd left out on no less than twenty minutes ago.

-

I think something went wrong while writing this chapter, but it's in dedication to a teacher I like and what he did for a friend of mine, so I am keeping it in. Mr Burley isn't the actual teacher's last name, but I thought I'd give you guys something to go off of.

Anywhoosies, I hope you all have a fantastic day, otherwise I'm gonna remove your knuckles and use them as toothpicks

Love you all 💛💛💛

Sincerely, sexy entity (haha)