For 30+ Advance/Early chapters :p
atreon.com/ScoldeyJod
The morning of the biophysics midterm was a cold, grey, miserable affair that perfectly mirrored the landscape of Peter's mind. He had walked through the motions of his morning—a silent, tense breakfast with May that was more about avoiding eye contact than eating, followed by a long, lonely subway ride—all in a fog of guilt and anxiety. The fight hadn't been resolved; it had just been paused, leaving a raw, aching wound that throbbed with every beat of his heart.
He met Diana on the library steps, and the moment she saw him, the warm, welcoming smile on her face dissolved into a look of sharp, immediate concern.
"Peter," she said, her voice a low, steadying hum as he slumped onto the cold concrete beside her. "You did not sleep."
"Sleep?" he repeated, the word sounding foreign, like a concept from a language he no longer spoke. "No. Not really." He ran a hand through his already messy hair, a gesture of pure, overwhelming stress. "I tried to study. I swear. I sat at my desk for hours last night, just staring at the book. But the words... they wouldn't go in. It was just noise. All of it. The fight with May, the... the A.I.M. stuff, this stupid test... it's all just a big, tangled knot in my head."
He looked at her, his eyes wide with a frantic, desperate panic. "I'm going to fail, Di. I'm going to look at the paper, and my mind is just going to be a blank, white wall. I know nothing."
This was a new kind of vulnerability for him. She had seen him physically wounded, had held him while he wept. But this was different. This was an attack on the very core of his identity. He was Peter Parker, the science whiz. It was the one thing he was supposed to be good at. And in this moment, that part of him was broken.
Diana didn't offer empty reassurances. She didn't say, "You'll be fine." Her response was immediate and tactical. She stood, pulling him up by the hand. "Come with me."
She led him not towards the crowded, buzzing lecture hall, but deep into the quiet, forgotten stacks of the library. She found their carrel, the small, secluded desk that had become their sanctuary, and gently pushed him into the chair. The space was a cone of silence, insulated from the rest of the world by a fortress of books.
She didn't open a textbook. Instead, she knelt in front of him, her hands coming up to cup his face, forcing him to look at her. His eyes were wild, unfocused, darting around as if seeking an escape.
"Peter," she said, her voice a low, commanding anchor. "Breathe. Look at me. Only me. The noise is not real. I am real. Breathe with me."
She took a long, slow, deliberate breath, and he found himself, against the frantic rebellion of his own lungs, mirroring the action. She held his gaze, her deep blue eyes a calm, endless sea in his mental hurricane.
"Your mind is not a blank wall," she said, her thumbs stroking his temples in a slow, soothing rhythm. "It is a library, filled with more knowledge than you can comprehend. The doors are simply locked because of the storm outside. I am here to help you find the key."
He leaned into her touch, a shuddering, ragged breath escaping his lips. "I can't," he whispered. "It's all a jumble."
"Then we will untangle it," she stated simply. She pulled his textbook in front of him and opened it to a complex diagram of ATP synthesis. "Forget the book. Forget the test. Just listen to my voice. This is not a factory. It is a dance."
And she began to teach him. It was not a cram session; it was a guided meditation through the world of cellular biology. She used the poetic, metaphorical language that she knew his mind responded to.
"The mitochondrial matrix is not a location," she explained, her hand resting on his, a point of constant, steadying warmth. "It is a ballroom. The electrons, passed down the chain, are dancers, handing off their energy with each graceful turn. And what is the purpose of the dance? To create a charge. To build a potential. Just like the tension that was between us, Peter. A force that, when finally released, can accomplish great work."
He stared at her, mesmerized. The frantic, screaming chaos in his mind began to quiet, soothed by the melodic, confident cadence of her voice. The complex, abstract concepts, which had been a meaningless jumble, began to reform, to connect, illuminated by the unique, beautiful light of her perspective.
He found himself nodding along, the knowledge that had been locked away beginning to surface. "The final electron acceptor," he murmured, his own voice still shaky, but the words were there. "Oxygen."
"Yes," she said, a proud, beautiful smile on her face. "The final partner in the dance. The reason we breathe."
They moved on. Protein folding, gene expression, signal transduction. For forty-five minutes, she guided him through the most complex topics of the course, not as a list of facts to be memorized, but as a series of interconnected stories, a grand, elegant narrative of life itself. He began to answer her questions, his voice growing stronger, more confident. The blank wall in his mind was crumbling, revealing the vast, well-ordered library that had been there all along. A spark of his old self, the brilliant, passionate science nerd, flickered back to life.
With five minutes to spare before the exam, she finally closed the book. She held his face in her hands again, her expression soft and full of a profound affection.
"You are ready," she whispered.
"No," he whispered back, his voice thick with an emotion that went far beyond gratitude. "We are."
They walked to the lecture hall, their hands clasped tightly. He was still tired. The wound from the fight with May was still raw. But the frantic, paralyzing panic was gone. His mind was clear, quiet, and focused. He was a warrior, tested and scarred, but he was not going into battle alone. He had his shield-mate beside him. And as they took their seats and the exam papers were passed out, he looked at her one last time, and she gave him a small, almost imperceptible nod. You can do this.
He picked up his pen. The first question was about the electron transport chain. He smiled. The dance was about to begin.
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