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It’s his first day of his senior year of high school, and Peter doesn’t know what to do with himself. Doctor Captain Ryland ‘Savior of Earth’ Grace is gonna be his science teacher, his HIGHSCHOOL teacher. Everyone knew how much Grace loved teaching; he made it very clear in the logs he sent to earth, so no one was confused when the first thing he wanted to do when he was out of physical therapy was to become a teacher again, but a high school teacher? Peter expected him to be a college professor or go back to the middle school he used to teach at, but no, instead, he is here, at Midtown School of Science and Technology in Queens, New York.
Peter was walking faster than usual to most of his classes that day. He isn’t the type to go slow in the hallways by any means; he just wanted to go a bit faster today and meet, oh yeah, one of the smartest guys in the world.
“Jesus, Peter, got somewhere to be?” MJ said with her usual unbothered coolness. She made him realize that he was nearly running through the hallway.
“MJ, don’t you understand what class we are going to next, what teacher we’re about to have?” Ned and Peter are usually on the same page, and today was no different; they were both talking about Dr. Grace all of last period.
“I understand that you two look like fanboys right now.”
They did look like fanboys. Peter was fidgeting with one of the keychains Mr. Stark gave him, which helps him calm his nerves in times of childlike excitement, like right now. There was a crowd around Dr. Grace’s door, a door that had already been lovingly decorated head to toe in whimsical science decoration.
“Now, everyone, I would love to keep talking, but I’ve got a class to teach, and you all have classes to go to, so please clear away from the door!”
Peter must be dreaming right now. This can’t be real. Dr. Ryland Grace cannot be his teacher right now, but it is real, no dreams, no hallucinations.
Dr Grace was taller than Peter expected; he obviously didn't assume he was short, but he was taller than expected, around 6 foot. Dr. Grace was in a pinstripe blue shirt with a red, outdated square tie. On top, he wore a tweed suit jacket with his teacher's badge clipped onto it. On his neck and creeping up to his cheek was part of a massive burn scar, one he got on the Project Hail Mary mission. Dr. Grace also seemed to hum as everyone came in, just small little noises that Peter thinks became unconscious after spending time with Rocky.
“Goooood morning, class!” Dr. Grace starts, “I am Mr. Grace, and I will be your AP biology teacher this year. Now I know you all have many questions about me and my journey, but let me get through a short introduction, then we can do a quick Q & A and get it all out of the way, that way we can get into the juicy stuff faster!” Mr. Grace then proceeded to pull up a little slideshow, not unlike some of his other teachers, typical first day get to know you stuff.
“As I said, I’m Mr. Grace. I have one twin brother; he’s a stunt man for many movies, you may have seen him!” Mr. Grace cycled through the slideshow, which showed a bunch of photos of him and his brother, Colt Seavers, as he's known. His real name is Colton Seavers Grace, but he seemed to use his middle name as his last for his stage name. The photos also included a few with a woman, Colt’s wife, Jody Moreno. (Also known as Jody Grace, but she keeps her maiden name for a stage name, like Colt) Mr. Grace went through a few more fun facts about himself and then got to his education. He got his bachelor's from M.I.T. and then transferred to UC Berkeley for the rest of his education.
Didn’t Mr. Stark also go to M.I.T.? Come to think about it, Mr. Grace and Mr. Stark would have been the same age, too, did they know each other? They couldn’t have, could they?
Peter looked at Mr. Grace's graduation photo from M.I.T. it showed Mr. Grace on the left with Colt by him, giving him a noogie. After looking at it for another second, Peter realized that the picture seemed to have another person who was on the left of Mr. Grace that was cropped out.
That thought was quickly chucked to the back of his mind as he realized, Holy crap, he is letting us ask questions. The Savior of the universe is letting us ask him personal questions. Peter needs someone to pinch him. Mr. Grace then proceeded to clap his hands to get everyone's attention from the excitement throughout the classroom.
“Now! Here is how this is gonna go,” Peter watches as Mr. Grace picks up one of the croctech bean bags (It was a greenish cyan one, looking like the planet Tau Ceti-E or Adrian as it had been renamed after the Project Hail Mary porbes returned) and throws it around in his hands “I’m gonna throw one of you this,” He held the hacky sack high in his hand “and when you catch it, you tell me your name, something about yourself, then your question for me, once you ask it you throw the hacky sack back to me and I will answer to the best of my ability, but I can pass if something is either classified or I just don't want to answer.” After he said that, a few people seemed disappointed, which Mr. Grace noticed. “Now, now, I would love to tell you guys, everything, but some things are out of my hands; take it up with my boss, not me.”
After Mr. Grace said that, people seemed to understand, still a little disappointed, but understanding nonetheless.
“Later in the year, we will do similar exercises like this where the hacky sack will be lava,” as Mr. Grace spoke, he was throwing the bean bag around in his hands. “However, today it's just a bean bag.”
“Now….” Mr. Grace started scanning the room, ready to throw the bean bag, leaving everyone in a moment of suspense. Peter and many other students still seemed to be shell-shocked because why wouldn’t they be?
Mr. Grace then, in a sudden movement, threw the bean bag to one of his classmates, a girl named Crystal. She fumbled with it for a little bit, then said her name and asked a question, one that Peter could easily answer from the video recordings Dr. Grace sent back to earth. That happened a couple of times, but there were a few questions that caught Peter’s eye.
“Are you still in contact with the alien you met?” inquired a guy named Jackson
“Yes! Well, partially; we have communication probes that travel between Earth and Erid. We send each other long messages to update each other and just generally update each other on our worlds and our suns. It takes a while, but we are working on making it faster and establishing a true connection between Earth and Erid.” replied Mr. Grace, seemingly happy that someone asked about who he considered his best friend in the universe. The logs clearly showed how close Mr. Grace and Rocky had become; they both saved each other’s lives. Peter watched as, after that question, Mr. Grace's hand drifted to his sleeve, just above where another burn scar was, the one that was Rocky’s handprint.
“Why’d you transfer to UC Berkeley after getting your bachelor's?” Asked Andrew. After being asked that question, Mr. Grace’s mood seemed to lessen a bit; was it regret? Remorse? Peter couldn’t decipher it.
“After finishing my Bachelor's, I just felt like I needed a change of scenery and pace. UC Berkeley was closer to where my brother was and offered me a full ride, so I made the transfer.”
Andrew seemed happy with that answer, but Peter felt like there was more. That could not have been the only reason.
After a few more obvious questions, the bean bag was thrown to Ned.
“Uh, I’m Ned Leeds. I built the LEGO Death Star during the summer!” Ned answered, a bit nervous, who wouldn't be?
“That sounds awesome!” Mr. Grace replied earnestly, smiling as he kept his eyes on Ned.
“My question is, did you see anything else out there in space?
“Other than meeting Asgardians on the way back and them enabling me to get back exponentially faster, no! Surprisingly.”
What. How did Peter not know that? How did Peter not learn that Mr. Grace also met Asgaridians? Maybe he needs to talk to Thor more. Peter looked around; a few other students were talking, surprised. Thank God, he wasn't the only one who didn't know. Peter and Ned stared at each other, both mouths agape, only knocked out of it when he heard Mr. Grace give a silent chuckle. This has to be a fever dream.
“Where is the Hail Mary now?” Another student asked
“Ah! The Hail Mary is in orbit still! She is being taken care of by the I.S.S.” Another question that made Mr. Grace smile, he seemed happy being back in a classroom, back being asked questions by students.
After that, Mr. Grace looked at Peter and threw the bean bag to him. It went a bit higher than expected, but Peter still caught it.
“Great catch!” That nearly made Peter jump out of his seat.
“Hi! I’m uh Peter Parker, and I helped my Aunt at a homeless shelter last weekend.” He did, it was a nice weekend of bonding that helped him get his mind off the thought of, oh yeah, what was happening right now.
“That's awesome!” Mr. Grace was still smiling earnestly, making Peter proud of himself.
“Uh, my question is, why did you decide to teach here, of all places? I mean, I know you used to be a middle school teacher, but why didn’t you go back or decide to work as a college professor?” It was what Peter had been wondering for a while, and it seemed to be a bit of a different question than what Mr. Grace was getting.
“Well, ultimately, it was the middle ground. I did originally want to go back to teaching middle school, but my team over at the Petrova Restoration Team convinced me to at the very least teach High school. They did want me at the college level, but I just feel better in a place like this, with all of you!”
That made sense to Peter, even on board the Hail Mary with an alien, his teacher's side still showed. The only thing that made Peter not fully satisfied was the question of why New York? His previous School, Grover Cleveland Middle School, was in San Francisco, California; wouldn’t he want to go close to there to see his previous students? Peter was still very curious, but he used up his only question, so he went back to listening to everyone else’s questions.
After a little bit, the bean bag was thrown to MJ, which she caught in her usual nonchalant fashion.
“The name’s Michelle, and I’m skipping the fun fact to ask if we are gonna get to some actual biology, or are we gonna keep messing around like children all day.” Peter and Ned looked at MJ with pure surprise. (a lot of other kids did too)
“What?” MJ whispered to Ned and me.
“Ha! Harsh, but don’t worry, Michelle, we’ll get to the good stuff soon enough, just getting this out of the way!” Mr. Grace said as he scanned the room for the last kid in the class who hadn't introduced themself yet.
“Why was your coma induced early?” said the last kid. Peter was also curious, as many people were. Eva Stratt, the head of the Former Petrova Taskforce, now Petrova Restoration Team, gave her own answer to the news, but it would be interesting to see if Mr. Grace replied the same way.
Peter watched as Grace slightly flinched from that question. It was a small motion, something most people couldn't see, only enhanced senses like his own could see it.
It took a second for Mr. Grace to reply. “...It was just for my safety! I had very little training before the trip and was extremely nervous about the whole thing. I asked them to induce my coma early to reduce my nerves and increase my chances.”
Was there something Mr. Grace wasn’t telling them?
“Dude, that was completely surreal!” Ned exclaimed once they were out of the range of Mr. Grace’s classroom. It was surreal. Mr. Grace was an amazing teacher. The best teacher he ever had in his life. Even after just the first few days, Mr. Grace had gotten everyone excited to learn everything, literally.
Sometimes school bored Peter; a lot of the concepts came to him pretty fast, which let him finish the work quickly and then work on whatever other thing piqued his interest more than school. Usually it was thinking about the experiments on his web fluid to improve it. That or improvement ideas for his suit that he could bring up to Mr. Stark.
Speaking of ideas for improved web fluid, those exact designs are why he is now eagerly fidgeting in the backseat of a car being driven by Happy Hogan, the Head of Security at Stark Industries, and also Peter’s chauffeur (informally)
“What's got you so excited, kid?”
“I just got this amazing idea for new web fluid, my new AP Bio teacher is amazing!”
“Oh, really? What’s his name”
Peter was flabbergasted that he hadn't told Happy by now; it's been on his mind for the past few weeks.
“Oh my god, how did I not tell you? Happy, you are not gonna believe this, but my new AP Bio teacher is THE Doctor Captain Ryland Grace!”
“Good one, kid.” Happy didn’t believe him, I mean, who would? Peter still barely believes it himself.
“I’m not joking, Happy! He let us ask questions about him and everything! Apparently, he is still in contact with the alien he met, and he also prefers just being called Mr. Grace instead of Dr. Grace, and–”
“Kid, why would the savior of the planet be teaching high schoolers?”
“That's what I was wondering too! Apparently, he loves teaching more than anything and originally wanted to go back to the middle school he taught at before Project Hail Mary, but his team wanted him to teach at a college, so they met in the middle, and now he’s at Midtown.”
“Okay, I understand that, but why in New York? Wouldn’t he want to go back to San Francisco?"
“I wondered that too! But Mr. Grace only gave us one question, so I didn’t end up figuring it out. It couldn’t have been trying to get closer to his brother because he lives all the way in L.A.”
By the time Peter said that, they were nearly at Avengers Tower, and Happy seemed more annoyed than anything, which confused Peter. Happy parked, and Peter opened the door as he got his backpack.
“Alright, look, kid, can you do me a favor?”
“Sure, what is it?”
“Don’t mention any of this to Tony.”
Before Peter could even question him, Happy drove away. Why did Happy not want Mr. Stark to know his teacher was Mr. Grace? Why did Happy seem annoyed at the fact that Mr. Grace was in New York? So many questions went through Peter’s brain as he went into the building and used the special ‘Avengers Only’ elevator that was located near the back of the building, where no low-level staff or touring citizens could see.