Chapter Text
the first thing pietro noticed was that mr strange didn’t use a whiteboard.
he used chalk.
like, actual chalk, which screeched against the blackboard and left white dust all over his sleeves. it was kind of old-fashioned. kind of dramatic. pietro thought it suited him.
the word DETENTION had been carved across the board in slow, deliberate letters like it was a threat.
stephen strange had survived med school, a car crash, years of working with people of all ages in all conditions, in the most dire situations.
but he had not — until now — survived middle school detention.
it was just his luck to be roped in to it on his first day, however it seemed that the newbie was destined to get stuck with the role and that was what he was now. he had papers to go through, though, and had already planned to stay behind a little later so it didn’t disrupt his plans enough for him to hold any true frustrations against it.
the room was nearly empty, thankfully. just one student.
a blur of silver in a hoodie, legs swinging under the desk, one foot bouncing so hard the chair legs rattled like teeth. a part of him would have questioned the silvery white unruly hair on an eleven year old boy- of how his desk was already a mess or of why he was in detention in the first place. however, he’d heard all the complaints already in the staff lunch room in lieu of encouragement. the ‘repeat offender’.
stephen exhaled slowly and rubbed a hand down his face, setting the chalk down. “you must be peter maximoff.”
the boy blinked up at him. his hair had that always-electrocuted look and his hoodie strings were chewed nearly in half.
“pietro. are you the detention guy now?” he asked, halfway between a dare and a genuine question, his head tilting slightly.
“temporarily,” stephen muttered, setting a stack of worksheets on the desk with a soft thunk. “don’t get used to it.”
pietro shrugged, twisting sideways in his chair until it creaked. “most teachers don’t come back after me.”
“charming.”
“i wasn’t being rude.”
“of course not. just devastatingly honest.”
pietro grinned a little, teeth slightly crooked. “people say that a lot.”
stephen arched an eyebrow. he wasn’t smiling, but there was something vaguely amused behind his eyes. “you’re a frequent flyer, i assume?” well, he knew, but he always viewed people from a clean slate first.
“i don’t mean to be,” pietro said, yanking on one hoodie string and looping it around his finger, tighter and tighter. “i just… move too fast. and talk too much. and sometimes stuff breaks. or people yell.”
he didn’t sound angry- it wasn’t a complaint. didn’t even seem to care that much. it was just information. facts.
stephen sat behind the desk and folded his hands over the top of the worksheet pile. his fingers twitched — stiff, not quite steady.
“no one’s yelling right now.”
pietro looked up, cautious. his knee had stopped bouncing. “are you gonna?”
“not unless you make me.”
there was a pause. quiet enough to hear the tick of the clock over the door. pietro shifted in his chair, almost like he was testing the weight of the silence between them.
“…are your hands broken?”
stephen didn’t look up.
“they look weird,” pietro added, casually. like he was noting the colour of someone’s socks.
still no answer. just the quiet scratch of a pen on paper.
“is it rude to say that?” pietro asked, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. he sounded genuinely curious, not defensive.
stephen sighed, soft and flat. “yes.”
pietro was quiet for a beat. then, just as honest:
“sorry.”
another pause.
then: “but… are they?”
stephen finally set the pen down and looked over the top of his glasses, mouth tight, expression somewhere between annoyed and deeply, deeply exhausted.
“you’re very observant.”
“i just notice stuff,” pietro said with a small shrug. “like, all the time. it’s like my brain’s too loud. i can’t turn it off.”
“not everything needs to be said out loud.”
“oh.” pietro tilted his head to one side. “is that a teacher rule or a grown-up one?”
stephen didn’t answer at first. instead, he closed his notebook and laced his fingers together like he was trying not to snap.
finally: “you ever hear of tact?”
“what’s that?”
“exactly.”
pietro leaned forward, elbows on the desk, chin balanced on his fist. “i could stop asking stuff. if it bugs you.”
stephen watched him — the twitchy legs, the restless fingers, the constant need to move or do something.
“asking questions doesn’t bug me,” he said. “assuming answers does.”
that quieted pietro. really quieted him. he leaned back slowly in his chair, nodding, like someone filing that information away under stuff grown-ups say when they’re actually serious.
almost a full minute passed — a new record, probably — before he piped up again:
“okay. i’ll ask better.”
“…fine,” stephen said, with the weary tone of a man who very reluctantly wasn’t as annoyed as he should be. “but only if you sit down and do your work.”
“i am sitting.”
“do your work.”
“you didn’t give me any.”
stephen’s mouth twitched. he finally turned his head toward the board, then gave pietro a pointed look — flat, dry, unimpressed.
“you’re very good at noticing things,” he said. “try noticing the assignment on the board.”
pietro’s eyes flicked up. his eyebrows jumped. “oh.”
he leaned over and fished around in his bag, eventually surfacing with a chewed-up pencil. he cracked his knuckles, then immediately dropped into exaggerated focus, tongue poking slightly out the corner of his mouth.
his leg bounced again. his fingers tapped the edge of the worksheet.
after a few beats of silence:
“…you don’t seem like a science teacher.”
his blue eyes flicked up to meet the older man’s, expectant.
stephen gave him a look. not angry. not unkind. just the kind of tired glare that said i know you want attention and i am not giving it to you.
pietro’s grin faded just slightly. he turned his eyes back to the paper. the tapping slowed.
but not for long.
he was already winding up another question.
for a few blessed minutes, there was peace. stephen returned to his paperwork. pietro scribbled furiously, tapping his pencil against the edge of the desk every few seconds like he couldn’t stop moving.
until—
“do you live alone?”
stephen didn’t even glance up. “do your work.”
“i did.”
silence.
stephen raised an eyebrow.
pietro shoved the worksheet forward, pages slightly crumpled from how tightly he’d been gripping the pencil. every answer — messy, rushed, but clearly written — was correct.
stephen flipped through it once. then again.
“…huh.”
pietro shifted in his seat, crossing his arms tight like he was bracing for something. “i probably got a bunch wrong.”
“you didn’t,” stephen said simply.
“oh.”
pietro pulled his sleeves down past his hands. “most teachers think i cheat.”
stephen handed the paper back without flinching. “did you?”
“no.”
his voice was quieter now. “i just… think fast. sometimes. not always.”
he paused again, eyes on the desk.
“doesn’t mean i’m, like, smart-smart. i mess up a lot. forget stuff. people get mad.”
stephen didn’t soften. not visibly. but his voice lost some of its edge.
“thinking fast is a kind of smart.”
pietro didn’t look up. just shrugged. “you don’t have to say that.”
“i’m not saying it to be nice.”
that earned a glance, brief and searching. stephen didn’t smile — but he didn’t look away, either.
“sooo…” pietro tried again, more quietly now, “do you live alone?”
“yes.”
“why?”
stephen exhaled through his nose. “you ask a lot of questions.”
“you answer most of them.”
“not because i want to.”
“but you don’t not want to either.”
stephen gave him a long, flat look that usually ended conversations. pietro just rested his cheek on one hand and kicked his foot against the floor.
“my vati says if you want to learn something, you’ve gotta ask,” he said.
stephen looked up. “vati?”
“yeah.” pietro brightened a little. “he’s, like, very serious. he does this face when he’s mad—”
he pulled the best grumpy expression he could muster, complete with narrowed eyes and a deep frown.
“—but he’s nice. just bad at showing it sometimes when i get in trouble again.”
“he sounds like a handful.”
“he is.” pietro sounded proud of it. “but he tries really hard. like… too hard sometimes. like he’s scared he’ll mess up, so he keeps trying to get it extra right.”
stephen didn’t answer right away. he was quiet for longer than usual.
the clock on the wall ticked once. twice.
pietro tilted his head toward the hallway. “am i allowed to go, or is this one of those mental detentions where you just sit here until the teacher forgets you?”
stephen waved a hand toward the door. “go. before i change my mind.”
pietro slid off the chair like liquid, hair trailing behind him like ribbon. he moved fast — faster than he needed to — but paused at the door, hand hovering near the frame.
“bye, mister strange.” he was halfway out the door before pausing again.
“…you gonna be here tomorrow?”
stephen glanced up. “why?”
“just… wondering.”
a beat.
“i don’t plan to get detention. but, y’know. stuff happens.”
“what kind of stuff?”
“hallway stuff. class stuff. mouth-running-too-fast stuff.”
he bounced on the balls of his feet. “i’m not trying to be bad. sometimes i just go too fast.”
stephen nodded slowly. “don’t break anything.”
pietro grinned. “i’ll try not to.”
he turned to leave, then stopped again, glancing over his shoulder.
“you’re cool, yknow?” and then he was gone — a blur of silver and a rush of wind, the faint echo of his footsteps fading down the hallway.
stephen stared at the door for a long moment. at least the peace and quiet returned for him to finish his marking. . .
maybe he didn’t love the silence as much as he assumed.