chapter one | the plus side of math class

Surprisingly enough, Oliver Jensen was actually a big fan of the American school system. While many of his peers seemed not to be all that happy with the education they had to endure, Oliver had a select few things he'd come to really like and chose to try to focus on those positives, like his mother always told him to do. In this aspect, he was quite the opposite of his best friend, Bex Tran, who declared not even a month ago that after she took down the patriarchy, she was going to be coming for the American Education system. 

Oliver Jensen, like any other person with half a brain who had met Bex, did not doubt for a moment that she was someday going to complete those tasks.  

The young freedom fighter herself currently  stood next to Oliver, a bemused smile painted on her lips as she watched her best friend struggle with the one thing their school had that he truly despised,the lockers. It had been decided ages ago that Oliver's locker was bewitched, but when they tried to explain this to the administration, the responses they got tended to consist of long sighs and doors shut slowly in their faces. 

And so, Oliver was left with a locker that had a personal vendetta against it's user and Bex was left with a slight dose of entertainment every morning as she watched him struggle with it. 

"Shit. Fittetryne," Oliver murmured under his breath, his words slipping between both the English and Norwegian swears he often heard from his mother when she thought he was out of ear shot. With Bex still smirking over his shoulder, Oliver took a breath before twisting the lock and entering his combination, again.

After a few seconds of spinning the lock left, then right, then left again, Oliver stopped it perfectly on the last number of his combination. Unconsciously holding his breath, Oliver tug at the locker's handle which, by some miracle, finally flung opened. 

"There we go," Bex sighed heavily, leaning against the other locker's as Oliver went through his own. Oliver shot her the world's most un-menacing glare. 

Swapping out his chemistry book for his pre-calculus, Oliver rolled his eyes at the girl. Even in her heeled combat books that added a few inches to her height, Oliver was still a good few inches taller than Bex, which made him feel a little bit more satisfied as he silently stuck his tongue out at her. Rolling her eyes own, Bex nudged the blonde boy before the two began walking together to their beloved (meaning loved by Oliver but definitely not Bex) pre-calculus class.

Making their way into the math class, Oliver and Bex moved to their assigned seats. Having been assigned in alphabetical order (by the first names, not their last name's like most teachers because this teacher was trying something new, apparently) the pair had only one student who's named fell between Rebecca and Oliver, and that was one Peter Parker. 

Sitting next to Peter was both a blessing and a curse. Oliver, who had been harboring a crush on Peter since they'd both joined chess club freshman year, enjoyed having an excuse to talk with the other boy. However, with Bex being on the other side of Peter, he felt rather self-conscious every time Peter did something cute and made Oliver stumble over his own words, resulting in Bex smiling knowingly over to her best friend. 

Oliver did his best to push the thoughts of the other boy out of his mind for the time being. Their teacher had putting warm-up papers on their desks already and, after pulling out his last surviving pencil, Oliver began working out the equation for the hyperbola on their warmup. 

Math was one of Oliver's favorite subjects, which Bex really couldn't rap her mind around. She was more of an Art History fiend herself and she was very excited for the day where she could leave hyperbolas in the past. And, just a word of advice, never bring up the topic of imaginary numbers to Bex unless you want her to go on a terrifyingly vulgar rant. 

"The test on this unit is next class, right?" Bex clarified, talking in a low voice as she knew the other kids still coming in were trying to get to work, too. As was usually the case for the pair when Peter hadn't arrived yet, Bex craned her neck to see what Oliver had been writing. Sighing unhappily, she took her eraser to the numbers she'd written down and erased all of her work. "I am so screwed," the girl decided. 

It was now Oliver's turn to crane his neck to look over at the work Bex had done and was now trying to undo. "I think you mixed up the coordinates for the center. It should be H and K, not K and H, right?" 

Stopping her erasing, Bex began to stare blankly down at her warm up. "This is why I hate math," Bex summed up, motioning to her now smudged paper. "You remember one thing incorrectly, make one little mistake, and everything just goes to hell! Why did I let you convince me to take this class? I should've taken statistics or paid of administration to get me out of math for the rest of my life, or something." 

Before Oliver had a chance to console his best friend and her hatred for the subject of math, a bag was placed on the desk between them. Pulling out his chair, Peter Parker plopped himself nimbly between Oliver and Bex. 

"You guys stressed about the test next class too, huh?" Peter gandered. 

"Stressed? Me?" Bex scoffed defiantly. She looked over to catch Peter's eye, and her sarcastic expression suddenly got deadly serious. "Always." 

Laughing softly in sympathy, Peter shook his head, murmuring something under his breathe that sounded like an agreement with Bex's statement. Oliver did his best to bite back a smile as he tried to remember where he had left off in the first problem. 

Eventually, the bell rang and told all of the students in the class that they should be sitting at their desks and struggling silently with their warmups by now. Anyone who took a quick look around the room in that very moment could see that Bex was far from being the only one questioning why they decided to take the course. 

After at least her fifth defeated sigh, Bex placed her pencil on her desk and her face into her palms. Tiredly, she turned her head so that she could look at both Peter and Oliver who were both -- frustratingly enough-- still hard at work. Unsurprisingly enough, the two boys looked like they both were actually succeeding in figuring out the problem. Leave it to Bex to make friends with the braniacs of the class.

"So," Bex finally said, speaking in a low tone. "You boys in the mood for cramming in all this information in a study group after school?" 

Without thinking, Peter and Oliver exchanged a quick look. After a moment of private amusement passing between the two, Oliver's gaze slowly slipped back to Bex. "We have a Chess club meeting after school today," He explained. 

"Maybe afterward, though?" Peter added hopefully. The boy had sat back in his seat so he could look back and forth between Oliver and Bex, waiting for an answer. 

"Can't," Bex told him. The girl's lower lip puffed out just enough to form a pout. "I have to work." 

Peter nodded his head understandingly, feeling a bit bad for Bex since she looked genuinely disappointed in not being able to study. From his other side, Oliver whispered something that miraculously seemed to encouraged Bex to retry the problem. Peter then remembered that he too had to actually do the work, and sat forward to begin working again.

At the front of the classroom, the teacher began going over the warm-up problem. Much to Oliver's relief, he hadn't done the problem completely wrong, which was really all he was asking for. 

By the time everyone realized what they had done right and where they had gone horribly wrong in on each of their individual warmup problems, the teacher was handing out review guides for the upcoming test for everyone to start going over. While he was passing out the intimidatingly-sized packet, Peter tapped his fingers anxiously on his desk. He quickly glanced over at Oliver, then, seemingly flustered, looked away just as suddenly. After a moment to recollect himself, he cleared his throat and looked back at Oliver, who was too busy writing out the reasoning for one of his answers to have noticed the boy's apparent internal anguish. 

"So, um, do you think you'd still want to, you know, study? A-after chess club, I mean," Peter asked Oliver in a hushed voice. He cheeks felt like they were practically on fire and he was very conscious of the fact that Bex was most likely listening in. 

Oliver, who had been inputting his calculations into his calculator, took a moment to look up. It seemed as though he hadn't quite heard Peter at first but, when the other boy's question finally registered in Oliver's mind, he looked up with eyes  that had doubled in their usual size. From the other side of Peter, Bex was attempting to stifle a laugh and pretend not to be listening, even though everyone knew that absolutely she was. 

"Study?" Oliver repeated, his voice a little higher then usual. "Just the two of us?" 

"That means yes," Bex coughed, no longer carrying to pretend to be minding her own business because, in all honesty, that just wasn't even believable. 

Quickly shooting Bex a sheepish smile, Peter looked back over at Oliver expectantly. After a moment of anxious --and admittedly awkward-- eye contact between the two, Oliver realized Peter was looking for an actual answer from him. 

"Oh, um, yeah," Oliver managed to sputter. He returned Peter's nervous smile with one of his own. "We can go to my place after chess club, if you're interested." 

Peter's smile began to look more relieved then anxious. With a wide grin, he nodded his head. 

With Peter and Oliver both blushing awkwardly, both a few shades brighter red than usual, Bex sat back in her chair with a proud smirk on her face. The teacher began going another warmup prodlem on the board in the front of the room and, with a bit of difficulty, each teen tried to make their minds go back to the travesty that was a high school Pre-Calculus class. 

It wasn't until after chess club that Oliver really began getting nervous about his after-school plans with Peter Parker. While he had no shame in his home life or even where he came from, he couldn't help but think that the apartment he lived in with just his mom wasn't much. It was too late to turn back now, though, as the pair were already walking up the staircase in his apartment building to get to his floor. 

Fumbling for an embarrassing amount with his house key, Oliver finally managed to get it into the lock and open his front door. Maybe it wasn't just his locker at school, maybe he just was prone to lock-related clumsiness. Either way, Oliver took a step back,  smiled nervously, and motioned for Peter to go in. 

It was only human nature for Peter to start looking around the apartment as soon as he had entered it.  At the end of the small entrance way, which was wide enough for one welcome mat that was covered in tulips, was a portion of a wall dedicated to all the certificates and awards Oliver had ever won, some of which dated back to a soccer team he had been on in the kindergarten. It was immediately clear to Peter that Oliver was very much loved. 

In the living room, which was where Oliver had guided him next, were a few family pictures scattered around. In each picture was Oliver smiling brightly, practically shining in the same way that he would  when he laughed at a totally lame joke Peter would tell him. More often then not, Oliver was accompanied by an older blonde woman in the pictures that Peter could only assume was his mother. Other then the two of them, there was no one else in any of the pictures. Peter wondered for a moment why that was, but he more then anyone knew better than to just ask someone something so personal, even if he did consider Oliver a pretty good friend. 

Kicking off his shoes, Oliver peered around the room. "Mamma?" 

There was a pause, and then a rapid burst of words. Wherever Oliver's mother was speaking from, she was doing so at a pace Peter could not possibly keep up with. It took the Parker boy a minute to even realize that she was speaking a language that most definitely was not English.

"Mamma," Oliver recited, finally cut into her talking. He shot Peter a sheepish look although Peter didn't think he had anything to be embarrassed about. "Jeg tok med meg en venn."

Knowing there was no chance he was going to understand what was going on, Peter opted to instead respectfully wait and sit on the Jensen's surprsingly comfortable couch. As soon as he did, the woman from the pictures popped out from one of the doorways. A smile wide on her round face she hurried her way over to him. 

"Elskling!" She exclaimed happily. Even from the single world, it was clear that her voice held a semblance of an accent, but Peter couldn't quite place what kind. "That's not Bex!" 

Oliver tried not to cringe at the fact that his mom thought the only friend he had was Bex. 

Quickly, Peter jumped up from his seat to introduce himself. Wiping a hand that was more than likely sweaty on his shirt as quickly as he good, he held it out to Oliver's mom. "Hi, Mrs. Jensen. It's really nice to meet you. I'm Peter. Parker. I'm in the chess club with Oliver," Peter explained. 

"You are?" Ms. Jensen's lips tugged up into a warm smile, her eyes looking over at Oliver with amusement. For the time being, Oliver seemed preoccupied in staring at the floor, so the woman opted to turn back to Peter. "Lovely meeting you, Peter Parker. I'd tell you to call me Dorothea, but most people seem to prefer to call me Miss Jensen. Which ever makes you happiest is fine with me, though." 

Peter would've immediately agreed to this, but he was to busy realizing the way that she pronounced Jensen was very different from how he always had. So, for the sake of not messing up her name and offending the woman and embarrasing himself and further, Peter just smiled and nodded politely. 

Oliver finally decided it was turn to cut into the introductions. "Mamma, we're going to my room to study for our math test." 

In the first word he said, the same accent that Ms. Jensen had seemed to peak through in Oliver's tone. Peter couldn't help but marvel at the sound of his voice, but it was mostly because Peter was stuck with wondering how he hadn't noticed how Oliver's voice could change like that before now. 

As his mother nodded, Oliver readjusted his backpack on his shoulder and nodded his head at Peter. Realizing Oliver wanted him to follow, Peter quickly made sure to gather his things, said a quick goodbye to Ms. Jensen while giving her his kindest smile, and followed after Oliver. 

"I'll bring you in snacks soon!" Dorothea Jensen called after the two boys. 

translations ; 

Elskling - darling or sweetheart

 Jeg tok med meg en venn - I brought a friend home 

ollie is a mama's boy and the worlds biggest softie, pass it on. 

also! I will always have any translations at the end of the chapter, however I only know very few phrases in noregeian so i have to look most of it up, so if you see anything that's been translated in correctly please let me know! I hope you enjoyed though! if you did, let me know!