Trapped in the Shadows

Chapter 13 - Digging

Peter's POV:
I didn't care what (Y/N) said, I couldn't let Mr. Caldwell treat her so terribly. He didn't deserve to be a teacher if he was going to blame the attack on (Y/N) and keep treating her as though she was less simply because of her gender, even though she had proven herself time and time again as being the smartest one in the room. Even if (Y/N) didn't want to report him, I was going to.

After school, I made my way to the compound to discus it with her father. I couldn't just have Principal Morita dismiss Mr. Caldwell's behavior and let him continue teaching, I needed to see if there was anything else that I could use against him. Tony would be able to help me with that and I knew he would be willing if I told him how he had been treating his daughter all year.

"Hey, Mr. Stark?" I asked as I popped my head into his lab.

"Pete, how many times do I have to tell you to call me Tony?" He replied, not looking up from his work.

"Sorry, it's a bit of a habit," I confessed as I walked in and sat down at one of the lab benches.

He gave me a smile, "what can I do for you? (Y/N)'s up in her room right now, but I would ask that you don't interrupt her as this is the only time she has to do homework."

"She shouldn't have homework, unless she's studying for her genetics final. But no, I was actually wondering if you could help me out with something. There's this teacher, Mr. Caldwell, and I was wondering if you could help me find information on him."

"Mr. Caldwell, huh? What'd he do to you?" He asked, still not looking up from the project that he was working on.

"He didn't do anything to me, I can't stand the way he's been treating (Y/N)."

That made him tear his eyes from his work, anger clearly present within them. He stood and leaned towards me, "And how has he been treating my daughter?"

"Well, he's incredibly sexist for one. He's hated (Y/N) since the first day of classes when she proved that she was more than smart enough to be in his AP class. Then today he blamed her for what happened and, while other students did as well, he's a teacher and shouldn't have spoken to her the way that he had. He called her a spoiled bitch."

"He what?!" Tony shouted, assuring me that I would have no trouble convincing him to help me. "F.R.I.D.A.Y. bring up everything you can on this Mr. Caldwell- what's his first name, Pete?"

"Gary."

"Right, bring up everything on Gary Caldwell: all communication, personal files, I want to see everything."

As per Mr. Stark's request, images filled the room around us. We both started immediately sifting through the information as it was clearly going to take a while. I chose to begin with his email, feeling a little less guilty looking into that than any of the more personal information that surrounded me.

"Hey, Tony, I found something," I informed him, only minutes into my search. I pulled up the email that he had sent Principal Morita. "Apparently it was Mr. Caldwell who first reported suspicions that (Y/N) was cheating. Not surprising, he couldn't believe that a woman could excel in a subject such as computer science. He was the one who made the test as well, according to (Y/N). It seems that he was trying to set her up, discredit her academically and get her kicked out of school, maybe even invalidate her AP scores."

"Well now I really want to get this man fired. Save that file, but that will certainly not help our cause, keep looking," Tony replied, returning to the holographic information.

We fell into silence as we continued working, both of us determined to make Mr. Caldwell pay for how he treated, not only (Y/N), but all of the women before her. I saved any email that could help prove our case against him, including one that he had sent at the beginning of the year to the principal. He requested that (Y/N) be transferred to a CP level class, even though I knew that (Y/N) had proven herself more than capable to be an his AP class earlier that day.

"Hey, kid, look at this," Tony spoke up, expanding a number of emails for me to see.

I glanced over at him in confusion, "what are those? I'm going through his email right now."

"You're going through his public email, the one everyone knows about and the school probably has permission to search through. You have the one that people can easily connect to him as it has his name in the address. This one, however, is private and if you received an email from this account, you would have no idea who sent it to you," Tony explained as I skimmed the messages.

It didn't take long for me to realize what Mr. Caldwell was up to. I turned to Tony, "so he's been blackmailing the other teachers?"

"Not just the teachers. Other members of the faculty, students, it even breaches outside of the school system. He sends people threats and in turn they give him money or, if possible, more information that he can use to blackmail others."

"Oh my god," I breathed, shocked that Mr. Caldwell was hiding such a big secret. I had thought that the only way to get him fired was by compiling times that he had made prejudiced opinions on the basis of sex, but this was so much more.

"Well, kid, I think we've just gotten a teacher fired," Tony smiled proudly at me, his eyes crinkling as his lips upturned.

"(Y/N) can't find out about this, ok? She didn't want to fire him because she thought that it would prove that she's exactly who he accused her of being or something like that," I immediately informed Tony, suddenly remembering my conversation with (Y/N) earlier.

"Of course, Pete, she won't have any idea who got him fired. Now why don't you stay for dinner, you can go tell (Y/N) that I invited you over so that she won't get suspicious."

"Thanks, dad," I replied absentmindedly as I hurried out of the lab and headed up to (Y/N)'s room. Realization as what I had just said hit me as I hurried through the hallways and I froze, embarrassment flooding through my body.

I couldn't face Tony at dinner after what I had just done, after such a slip-up. (Y/N) didn't know I was in the building yet, I could just go home and hope that Tony would forget about it over time. And yet I knew that wasn't going to be for a long time, so I might as well get the embarrassment over with early and hopefully the awkwardness would dissolve eventually.

-

(A/N): Rip Peter. Though I suppose if he could get over the embarrassment from hugging Tony in hoco then he can recover from any embarrassment let's be real