Something From Nothing

Chapter 3 - Ugh School.

(Again sorry for the jumpy POV :))

The next day after a night in the homeless shelter, Peter had woken up managed to eat some food from the food bank and headed to the cafe to apply for the job. Which he had gotten, and after a few hours of training, headed to midtown tech for his exam and tour of the grounds.

He was now outside the front of the school and a receptionist came put to greet him. "You must be the Parker boy. We've been expecting you. Welcome to Midtown School of Science and Technology." She said in a polite and welcoming tone that he could immediately tell was fake while gesturing to the sign above the entrance.

Peter decided to use some of the acting skills HYDRA had taught him to create a persona that nobody could see through. In other words he decided to act everything that he was not. Happy, naive, shy, awkward...

"U-um y-yes Ma'am, th-thank you Ma'am" he said with a fake nervous smile.

"Yes yes okay, well lets get you situated to take the entrance exam shall we?" She said, her tone noticeably less fake this time. Guess she was expecting him to be rude or snobby or something.

Keeping up the act he said "y-yes ma'am" allowing some fake nervousness to creep into his voice.

Softening, the lady replied "don't worry, Peter, was it? Im sure you will do fine.". Wow, he was almost surprised how well that worked.

He faked relaxing a little bit and said "Thank you ma'am". More confidently this time and with a beaming smile but still somehow coming across as awkward and shy.

She actually chuckled a bit at that and softly said "you can call me Jess, Pete". He almost couldn't believe how fast her personality changed but he has seen things a lot more extreme so he just let it go.

She led him to an exam room and told him that the teacher waiting inside would help him with anything he needed, before heading off to do her job. He supposed she thought he would be nervous once she left. He internally rolled his eyes at the thought as he pushed open the door to the exam room.

The teacher at the front of the room looked up at the sound of him entering. He had made sure to be deliberately loud and to come across as uncoordinated. After all, not many teenagers walk as silently or gracefully as he does.

"Ah you must be Peter?" The man asked. He seemed ridiculously exited, but it actually seemed genuine. Interesting, Peter thought this seems like the kind of teacher he will have to suck up too to maintain his nerdy teachers pet persona.

"Yes sir." Peter said with a once again fake nervous smile.

"Goodness your polite too. How nice. Well its nice to meet you Peter. Im Mr Harrington, I'm the chemistry teacher here at MSST." He said with a smile.

Peter smiled back and said "Oh cool , chemistry is like one of my favourite subjects, but i also really like coding and engineering and stuff and...oh my gosh sorry I'm rambling, il shut up now." He said then smiled awkwardly. He had never had to word vomit so much in his life. In fact he has almost never spoken this much in his life. But thats not exactly surprising.

But hey, he needs to start becoming a teachers pet and this seemed like the quickest way, even if he hated it. He knew that his whole persona was an act but it almost feels wrong. Its not him. But then again he played the role of obedient Hydra soldier for years so this shouldn't be too different. A small part of him cant help but be annoyed though that even after all this time he cant be himself. Not yet. He needs to play the role for now. Maybe eventually he will be able to be himself but not yet, now, he had to be the exuberant naive nerd who is a total teachers pet and will probably never have any friends.

Though that last part suits him fine. Unsurprisingly he has major trust issues and friends just mean more trouble. Wow even peter knew that was depressing. Back to the topic at hand...

"Ah really, thats great it sounds like you have a lot of cool interests there. Well if you think science is cool that is". He said with a smirk.

Peter knew what he was doing, he was testing if the boy was lying. Not bad Peter thought. He gasped dramatically and faked outrage, "of course science is cool it literally makes up like everything. Like i know a lot of people don't really care about science, or like think it is lame or just for nerds or something, but if science is for nerds i am the nerd king, king of the nerds." He says then fake blush as if he just realised what he had said. 'I deserve an award for this level of acting' he thought.

Mr Harrington just laughed and began explaining the rules of the exam. After a while he gave me a pen said i had 1 hour to complete it and told me to begin when ready and he would start the clock.

Fifteen minutes later i put my hand up and tell him am done. That was ridiculously easy, it was still more difficult than the stuff hydra would have me do but it was still easy.

Mr Harrington looked at me then frowned and said "its okay if you cant answer all of them but you still have some more time if you want to give them a try. You don't have somewhere else to be do you".

Is this stuff really supposed to be that hard? "U-um no sir, i mean i have answered all of the questions". I say blushing and rubbing the back of my neck nervously.

At this he looks shocked but then he says "very well, bring it up then, lets see how you did."

10 minutes later i am sitting there with 102% i got the extra two percent because apparently i used some college level maths in one of my answers.

Needless to say i got accepted into the school, and successfully got Mr Harrington to love me. Yay. [cue internal eye roll].