Peter Parker Imagines Book

Stress & Secrets

A/N: this chapter was a request from ebionio over on AO3. Anyone could find me over there too, I have the same name, but I'm basically just reposting what I already have here. Nothing new yet.

Warning(s): tiny bit of non-graphic violence, you know how it is.

"Three essays, two projects, and five homework assignments..." You mumbled under your breath as you were flipping through your binder in the middle of class, your eyes sweeping over your full agenda for the week. You tapped your finger against the page before picking up your pen, glancing at the corner of your desk, where To Kill A Mockingbird was sitting with a bookmark ten pages in. "Can't forget I need to get to chapter five by Wednesday-" you began to squeeze the words in the English section of the paper for Wednesday when you heard a voice interrupt your spoken thoughts.

"Everyone turn to page ninety-four." A sharp knock on your desk made you flinch, and you smiled sheepishly at your teacher as he continued to walk past, through the columns of students seated at their desks. "We're starting a new unit today, so study up on the vocab terms. You know how it goes, quiz on Friday."

"Quiz on Friday." You repeated, quickly scribbling it in before clamoring to close your binder, pushing it to the opposite corner of your desk as you opened your history textbook, flipping through the pages to find 94 before the number escaped your mind.

Your teachers voice was background noise as he began to go over definitions and showing slides of examples. You were trying to figure out the best work plan so you could stay on top of your schoolwork. Last year, you had been sick for two weeks and when you came back, you were drowned in make-up work, falling behind for the rest of the year, barely passing. That had scared you so much, you vowed you would never fall behind again to stop history from repeating, the feelings of fear and anxiety still flowing through you like it all happened yesterday.

For the majority of the year, you had succeeded. You had an elaborate system of dedicating the time after you had gotten home from school for homework that was due the next day. Then you would eat, either a snack or dinner depending on how much work you had that day. Then you spent an hour or so working on any long term projects, the time differing if there was more than one. It normally left you with about two hours of free time to do whatever you wanted to do before you put yourself to bed. The system leaving the vast amount of your weekends free.

But now that midterms were coming up, classes were stockpiling and doubling down, giving out review work as well as rushing through units that the students need to have learned before they took the tests that involved them. It had thrown your entire system off, giving you less and less time to enjoy yourself. You hadn't seemed to notice or care; school was your top priority at the moment, and you knew once midterms were over, things would go back to normal. Plus, you would have the experience to learn from and it would help for you to prioritize when finals rolled around. Tough it out now, because you knew you were going to make it through. No matter what.

Out of the corner of your eyes, you saw your teacher begin to turn towards the half of the class you were sitting in, and you scrambled to look like you were paying attention, your eyes forward as your hand tucked a couple of papers back into your folder. But when you had actually noticed what he was doing, you were quick to take out a piece of loose leaf paper, repeatedly glancing between the slides and your textbook, writing down the words and their definitions. You took a deep breath, and just as you finally got settled, the bell rang.

You began to gather your things, grabbing your backpack from where it was hanging on the back of your seat, but you kept dropping things every time you picked them up; a mixture of you just being clumsy and the students around you bumping into you as they all rushed to get out of class as well. After a minute, you had succeeded in getting your textbook into your bag, so the majority of the weight wouldn't be in your arms, and you stood, clutching your binder tight to your chest as you began to walk out of the door, the last student to leave.