'Sounds great,' I said with a smile, rocking back on my heels. It was nice to see Antony seemed just as nervous as I was. As he climbed back onto stage, I added, 'Do you need my number? You can text me when you're done.'
'Already have it,' Antony waved his phone at me. To answer my unsaid question, he said, 'Email, remember? But yes, I will let you know. Sorry for the wait. I know you must have better things to do.'
You'd be surprised, I thought to myself wryly, as I said good-bye, giving one last wave before heading out the theater. It had been cloudy early, but the sky had cleared up since then, and a silver sun gave a vague sense of warmth upon the earth. The brisk air was a nice change from inside, and for a moment I just stood in the plaza, taking in a deep breath. That could've gone worse.
Then I looked around and wondered what the heck I was going to do until three-thirty.
Well, I was right on Broadway, and there was plenty to do around here. I caught the savory scent of a nearby deli and started heading towards the street, deciding I might as well get something to eat and think about what just happened.
I decided I liked Antony. Sure, the first impression wasn't great, but he seemed genuinely nice. And I couldn't help but think that if Michelle were here, she'd be making fun of the way I had been looking at him. There was no way I was going to tell her. Or Peter or Ned, for that matter. It'd be too weird.
As I stepped off the curb, I was secretly thankful Antony didn't go to our school.
I didn't see the bus until too late.
'Careful!'
Snap! I gasped as I was suddenly yanked backwards. The bus roared by, brakes screeching, rubber smoking. Its metal side slipped inches past my face as I was sent sprawling backwards onto the sidewalk.
Before my head could crack against the tarmac, a pair of arms caught me, breaking my fall.
I expected to see a face. Instead, two white lenses blinked through — were those welder's goggles? — from a red mask. He was already talking to me: 'Hey, you need to watch your step next time, miss. I can't always be there to save you —'
With a startled cry, I seized and yanked myself out of his touch. The guy jumped back, holding out his hands in a sign of peace. 'Whoa, easy! I was just helping you out!'
'What the —' I didn't recognize him at first. The red and blue suit, which looked like a pair of pajamas hung loosely off him, with the big spider symbol painted on his chest? Should've been a dead giveaway. But I was still reeling from almost getting hit by a bus that I just stared at him like an idiot. 'Where did you come from?'
'Um,' He pointed at the sky, as if that were some sort of obvious answer. He wore fingerless gloves, which revealed a strange wrist mechanism on either hand. His entire get-up looked homemade, amateur, nothing like the cool expert look the Avengers pulled off. It was definitely a lot less cooler in person.
I opened my mouth to speak, still freaked out, but someone to the right called out, 'Hey, look, it's Spider-Man!'
Spider-Man saluted the man who was pointing at him down the street. 'Just doing my civic duty!' he said, and I noticed how strange his voice sounded. It was husky, deep, but it sounded forced. Like he was putting on an act. Why would he do that? Beneath it, he sounded a bit young to be called Man...
I squinted at the superhero in his ridiculous suit. Although shorter than me, he was quick and lithe, befitting that of a guy with superpowers, I suppose. But there was something about him. Something off —
Before I could think to ask, Spider-Man lifted his arm and flicked his fingers — thin rope shot out of his wrist and I stumbled back as he shot up into the air with a quick but powerful jump. I almost considered going after him, but Spider-Man was already swinging around the corner and out of sight.
My shoulders slumped and I fell against a nearby kiosk, hand against my head. One near-death experience was enough to make me slow down for real this time. Still, I couldn't shake this odd feeling I had. I checked my nose, but it wasn't bleeding. Yet I couldn't deny that I had gotten a really strange vibe.Two hours later I was still stewing about the bus incident.
No one was hurt, and I wasn't dead, but the event left me shaken nonetheless. I kept thinking about Spider-Man and his oddly familiar voice, disguised by an act I couldn't decipher. At the very least, it kept my thoughts busy, and I wasn't as flustered when I met Antony again at the library.
It also helped that he was wearing less-form-fitting clothes now. Just jeans and a windbreaker — a little light for November here, but I wasn't one to be pointing that out. Especially since I wasn't too cold myself.
The library was right on the plaza, a separate building from both the class halls and the theaters. It provided a warm, comfortable, and oh so silent environment to study in. I hadn't realize how the busy streets were giving me a headache until I stepped inside the library, with its muted aisles of shelves and distant hum of heaters and fans.
Luckily the library was bigger than the school it was built for, so there were plenty of places to sit without being overheard. Antony was already familiar with the place, and led me towards the left, along rows of desks lit by old green lamps at regular intervals. I recognized some others here as being in the theater with Antony earlier, and there were other folks, older types who didn't seem attached to the school. No one paid us a second glance, which was a relief because my nerves were on fire again.
I tried to keep a damper on it as we went over Antony's work. But as we were parsing through quadratic formulas without a calculator, I must have had a funny look on my face, because Antony eventually looked up at me to ask, 'Is there something wrong? You look...concerned. Did I make a mistake?'
'No, no, you're f-fine,' I just shook my head, chin on my hand. Like an afterthought, I added, 'I almost got hit by a bus earlier.'
Antony stared at me. After a pause, he tilted his head uncertainly. 'Are you...okay?'
'What? Yeah, I'm fine.' I blinked, remembering how normal people had conversation and I needed to be more specific. 'Spider-Man, he, er, he pulled me out of the way just in time.'
Antony's expression brightened, now that I gave him something to work with. 'Oh, so he saved you?'
'Oh, yeah. I g-guess.' That wasn't how I meant it. I didn't need to be saved...did I?
Antony watched me for a moment longer, maybe thinking I had more to say. But I didn't; I was too busy chewing on my lip and thinking about Spider-Man's voice. Where had I heard it before?
Perhaps sensing this conversation leading to a dead-end, Antony said, 'Well, I like Spider-Man. I know I am new here and all, and maybe I don't understand, but it seems to me he is of good help, yes? New York is the only city I know that has its own superheroes protecting it. No place in Russia is like this, I can tell you.'
'Hmm, not yet,' I said, tapping my pencil to my notebook. While testing out my own answers to Antony's homework, I was multitasking with the material I had to study for my Freshman finals at the end of the month. Math and math seemed to go well together. 'But I have a feeling we're only going to get more...special people out there. The Avengers can't be the only ones, if Spider-Man is any proof. After all, America can't hog all the heroes.'
'It suits you. America always want to be saviors of the world,' Antony said, before quickly backpedaling. 'Er, no offense.'
I cast him a look out of the corner of my eye, flashing a wry smirk. 'None taken. So h-how are those questions going?'
'Already it makes more sense when you explain it to me,' Antony muttered, scratching down in his notebook. It had taken half a dozen tries and two pages full of notes, but eventually he managed to figure out the formula. 'Although I am still partial to the calculator. Do you have something against technology, or do you just hate me?'
That actually made me laugh a little. Up to this point, I'd been winging it, not really knowing how actual, professional tutoring works — I figured just explaining what I knew to someone else my age wouldn't be any different if I was being paid for it than if i
t was in the classroom. Just yesterday I'd been helping Michelle with the Pythagorean theorem during class. At least Antony wanted to learn, and didn't doodle my face on every spare sheet of paper (I didn't realize Michelle was an artist until too late). It was nice to know I was doing a good job from his perspective.
'Because c-calculators are just there to check your answer, not give it to you,' I said, pushing the graphing calculator out of his reach when he went for it again. Antony threw me a dirty look and I added, 'I'm being serious! You can't use calculators as a crutch, you'll n-never learn to do it yourself. Besides, quadratic equations are easy to graph freehand, you just have to learn a few tricks. I can show you that, t-too.'
Maybe I was being too hard on him, but it was just the way I grew up. During middle school I didn't have my own calculator and Uncle Ben refused to let us use one when Peter and I did homework in the kitchen. Uncle Ben was the kind of man who swore backwards and forwards on the ability to do math in your head. Sure, he didn't have a Masters degree in engineering, but he could still multiply 129 by 231 and get the right answer without even needing a sheet of paper. That's why Aunt May usually let him do the taxes. And sometimes Mom's, too.
Antony still looked doubtful, but he seemed to believe I wasn't doing this just to torture him. 'Well, I hope so. This textbook is of no help at all. I have read it a thousand times and it still makes no sense.'
With a somewhat derisive flick of his hand, he closed the book and pushed it away. I pulled it towards me, opening it back to the questions we still needed to answer. 'I've never had an o-online class before but I'm going to take a wild guess and say it sucks?'
'You have no idea.' Antony leaned back in his seat, running a hand over his face. I could see that doing all this math was starting to fatigue him. A long day of exercise probably didn't help, either. 'Most of my classes are like that since coming here. It gives me more studio time to practice, but then I am left up all night doing this.'
'An English t-textbook doesn't help,' I commented, and made a face at the rather difficult way the author had decided to describe solving the quadratic formula. Most of the questions had parenthesis, which changed up how to go at the formula, while the example we should be following had no parenthesis at all. There was no guide as to how to deal with it. Not to mention the book was published nearly two decades ago. 'I'd hate to learn math in a-a different language.'
'It doesn't matter how good at English I can get,' Antony said, shaking his head. 'I will always count numbers in my native tongue. If only our alphabets were the same...maybe I should have requested a translation.'
I frowned to myself, looking over the book's instructions. It me a moment to find the right words in my head, before I started to speak in Russian. 'First identify the value of the coefficients, A, B, and C. Make sure that the equation is in the correct form: A-X- squared plus B-X plus C equals zero. When you have the values of A, B, and C, plug them into the quadratic formula…'
It was a little rusty. I hadn't spoken Russian since the Crucible, and since then it was either Sokovian or English with the twins. But when I looked up and was startled by Antony's astonished look, I figured I wasn't so bad.
'You...what?' Antony blinked several times, a hand going over his face before he looked at me again, a bewildered grin pulling across his face. 'You can speak Russian? And you never said anything before?'
I just shrugged my shoulders, fighting a blush rising to my face as I set down the textbook. 'Sorry, k-kinda slipped my mind.'
'But you speak so well!'
'Spent a s-summer abroad,' I said, which wasn't as much of a lie as it seemed. 'Got a lot of first hand ex-experience.'
'Abroad?' Antony tilted his head, and I wondered if I made a mistake, getting too specific. I felt a little embarrassed by this attention. 'Where did you go?'
Of course, the first thing I thought of was Simmons' comment on the quinjet, so my immediate answer was, 'St. Petersburg.'
'No way! I'm from St. Petersburg,' Antony looked absolutely delighted, while I just wanted to kick myself. If he asked me about the city, then he'd know I was lying for sure. Thankfully, though, he corrected himself before he could think of it: 'Well, actually my father is from St. Petersburg. I was born here.'
Now it was my turn to look shocked. 'You're American? Seriously?'
Antony shrugged one shoulder. 'My mother lives here. She is a journalist, I suppose you could say she's famous but...well, that's not important. She and my father divorced when I was only about a year old, and he got, er, what do you call it in English? Опека?'
'Oh, custody?'
'Yes! Custody, that is the word. So I was born here, but grew up in Russia,' Antony continued, pleased to have the correct word. 'It makes travel interesting, to say the least.'
'So w-why did you come back here, then?'
'My father had bad business,' Antony said, and the brightness in his expression faded a little. His eyes grew distant for a moment, and he frowned. 'He is a banker, travels a lot. I attended dance school in St. Petersburg, but my father, he said it would be too difficult for him if I stayed. So now I live with my mother until things settle down again.'
'Oh,' I said, and I could tell there was some unspoken thoughts there. Either Antony didn't know what was going on either, or he did and didn't want to tell me. Not that I blamed him. Already this was treading on personal ground I wasn't ready to go through. 'It's okay. New York's not St. Petersburg, but I think it's pretty great. Having two homes is better than one, right?'
'Oh, I suppose I can learn to love New York, warts and all,' Antony smiled wistfully, casting me a teasing look. 'It has its charms, certainly. And Little Odessa is nice, even if my mother doesn't like me going there. She says it is low-class. But what she doesn't know won't hurt her, yes?'
'Hey, she won't hear it from me,' I said, holding up my hands in innocence. From the sound of it, Antony's mother sounded like a piece of work. I'd been to Brighton Beach, and honestly it wasn't that bad. Certainly one of the nicer neighborhoods of Brooklyn, and it was the closest we'd ever get to summer ocean swimming. If she thought it was low-class, then Antony's mother must be pretty well off. Which honestly wouldn't be surprising, if she was famous and could afford to send Antony here. 'All you rich folks with your secrets, I don't want any part of it.'
'You joke, but it is annoying,' Antony said, shaking his head in frustration. 'Half the fun of this tutoring is that I don't have to go home so soon.'
'And the other half is doing this without a calculator,' I said, taking the calculator just as Antony was deftly reaching for it again. 'Thought you were pretty slick, huh?'
'Cannot blame me for trying,' Antony flashed me a grin.
It was near twilight by the time we were finished, and I separated ways with Antony. Taking the train home was a nice, quiet ride to collect my thoughts, and leave me completely unprepared when I discovered both Peter and Ned waiting for me when I got back to Aunt May's.
Honestly, I should have been expecting this.
I had completely forgotten about the text I sent Peter, so of course he was a little annoyed I left him hanging for hours on end. They were gatehred in the kitchen, so I was stuck there, recounting my day, including the interview with Tony Stark (sans Bruce Banner) and the weird first impression with Antony, then my latest near-death experience with the bus. I left out the part about the panic attack completely, deciding it not worth getting into right now.
'Wait, wait, wait, who cares about the guy? Tell me about Tony Stark!' Ned cut me off, waving his hands in the air. 'And Spider-Man! He saved your life? How? Don't leave me hanging here!'
I kind of wished Aunt May was here to mediate all of this, but she was still at work. I was on my own to navigate this conversation. I could feel exhaustion starting to drag me down. I just wanted to take a nap.
Even so, I had to restrain myself from rolling my eyes. Leaning against the table I said, 'I was just being stupid, okay? I w
alked onto the street and I didn't see the bus coming. Spider-Man, he — he pulled me out of the way. He said hi and then he swung off. That's it. That's all. End of story.'
'And what happened with Tony Stark?' Peter asked, returning with a glass of milk. Ned scooched aside so we could all sit at the table together. 'He texted me for the first time today. Said you missed your interview but it was all right? What did that mean?'
'I, um,' I stammered, suddenly wishing we were talking about Spider-Man again. I didn't want to explain the panic attack to them, the mural or what I was thinking then. 'I felt r-really sick all of a sudden, so I went onto the balcony. By the time I felt b-better, I'd missed the appointment. But then T-Tony Stark showed up and kind of did a speed-run interview. He was actually kind of nice, in a way.'
It was hard to think of Tony Stark as nice after only a ten minute conversation with him, but I didn't know how else to describe it. He had done me a huge favor, and for what? Just because he felt like it? Because it wasn't a big deal? He didn't even mention it as a favor, but I still felt like I kind of owed him one.
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