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There were a lot of projects that Stark Industries’ and the Avengers’ PR department started to garner favour and approval from the public and make them happier and more trusting of their heroes after the whole Civil War fiasco.
It started with getting the legal things straightened out, from the Accords themselves to the chain of command of the Avengers to the sentences the two ‘Rouge Avengers’ got when they turned themselves in to stay with their families.
The Avengers started by rebuilding. After the devastating loss of most of the team and War Machine being out of commission because of the Colonel’s injury they only really had Iron Man and Vision to count on and that would not do. Especially when Tony Stark himself got back from Siberia severely injured and near death, only saved by the Cradle and a modified version of Extremis.
Vision himself went to therapy and did some interviews so people could start to understand what he even was. An android was still a foreign concept to most people. After a few weeks he started gaining a fandom and many scientists and coding experts seemed more eager to express their interest in getting to know him.
Then, once Tony Stark was recovered and the Colonel decided to join the Avengers full-time and agreed to be their field commander they started looking for new members and allies. There were quite a few recruits. Captain Marvel, the Wasp, Doctor Strange and She-Hulk being just a few. A couple of mutants joined the Avengers and the X-Men became allies to the team along with the Defenders who all agreed to be part-time members.
They started the Junior Avengers Initiative and revamped and expanded the Compound. Talk shows, press conferences and interviews were scheduled to better the Avengers’ image.
Stark Industries also felt the blow of the Civil War fallout so their ever-competent CEO and her fierce PR team started making plans to improve public favour again. It started with announcing new products and projects, internship programs and competitions. Stark Industries started a whole new branch for prosthetics thanks to the invention of the leg braces that Tony Stark created to help his best friend walk again. Soon, more facilities were opened all over the world.
Over the course of two years the public approval changed drastically, but with the continuous competition between companies and rumors of the Rouge Avengers return Stark Industries’ PR department thought it would be a great idea to open up their doors to high schools all over the world for the first time. The first location to do so would be the brand new Stark Tower, revamped and with additional buildings attached to it, it now stood even prouder in the centre of New York.
That is why, during spring of their senior year Peter Parker, Ned Leeds and Michelle Jones got a week and a half off to prepare for the onslaught of tours that they would have to lead or present to. The first few days were mere preparation: going through the tour again, preparing and reminding all workers of the tighter regulations for the next week and setting up conference rooms.There would be around five to ten tours happening simultaneously and SI was never happier that they had so many interns.
The week was exhausting for all of them but also incredibly fun. MJ and Peter liked guiding people through the building and giving short explanations for different things and Ned absolutely loved giving his presentation in the IT department and explaining to them his newest coding projects.
It was the second to last day and Peter felt like sleeping for a week he was so tired.
He still had to wait for MJ to finish up but him and Ned were already laying on the couch and trying not to fall asleep when his phone chined.
hothead : u ok?
Peter sighed, sitting up slightly and texted back quickly, not wanting to worry his boyfriend any more than necessary.
webhead : yeah
webhead : just tired
webhead : and hungry but we dont wanna get up so
webhead : guess we going airplane emoji starvation
hothead : i cant believe that your spelled out airplane emoji
webhead : shut up im too tired to change to the emoji keyboard
hothead : ok valid
hothead : can i come over?
hothead : i promise ill be nice
webhead : hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
hothead : i can bring food???????
webhead : YES!!!!
hothead : ok what do you want
webhead : hold on a sec
He looked up to see MJ finally sitting on the couch next to Ned, looking absolutely exhausted too.
“Hey guys?” he spoke up. He only got tired hums in return.
“Johnny is coming over and offered to bring us food, what do you guys want?” he asked.
They both perked up at that. “Oh my god tell Johnny I love him and that if he brings me my usual Delmar order I’ll give him my blessings for your marriage!” Ned exclaimed and Peter desperately tried not to blush at that.
“Can he get me my usual order from the vegan restaurant downstairs? I know it’s not far but I’m so tired and don’t want to see any more people.” MJ requested before laying her head on the armrest of the couch and closing her eyes.
“Sure thing!” Peter replied and texted his boyfriend Ned and his order for Delmar’s and MJ’s order for the vegan place in the tower.
hothead : mj admitting defeat? damn it must be really exhausting
webhead : it is, i want to sleep for a week straight
hothead : nothing about you is straight
hothead : also tell ned thanks for his blessings, he will be the best brother in law
webhead : point
webhead : also harley would be very upset at that
hothead : why isnt he there btw
webhead : he’ll do tours at a different SI facility, closer to his hometown
hothead : shame
webhead : anyways im gonna nap now, wake me when you’re here with our food
hothead : lmao ok sweet dreams <3
With that he closed his phone, put it on the coffee table in front of him and layed back down for a well deserved nap.
…………………………………………………………………..
Dinner was a quiet affair, none of the interns awake and energised enough to start or maintain any type of conversation. They only spoke up to greet Pepper and Tony and in Peter’s case to ask them if Johnny could stay over.
“Alright, but no funny business Storm!” Tony agreed, pointing at the blonde haired teenager wildly. Johnny simply raised his arms in innocence, not that anyone actually believed it.
“Don’t worry dad , I’m probably gonna pass out as soon as my head hits the pillow.” Peter reassured, brain-to-mouth filter apparently gone and getting hums of agreement from his two best friends.
The genius simply stared at him in astonishment before shaking his head in amusement, saying his goodnights and leaving them in the living room.
Just as predicted, Peter was barely able to clean up the mess they made, change into his pjs and brush his teeth before he flopped down in his bed next to Johnny and promptly fell asleep.
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Breakfast the next morning was rushed, all three of them just hoping for the week to end. Peter’s lunch break was not very long but when he wasn’t eating he was hiding with Johnny in a supply closet and making out. They were very careful not to start any fires though. Johnny did have a tendency to get all -ahem- hot and bothered.
When Peter got the list with the names of the students of the last tour group he was both relieved and extremely tense. He was lucky to have gotten out of giving any tours to classes from Midtown the entire week, MJ apparently had a couple and Ned had to give presentations to all of them. So of course he ended up giving a tour to the one class that had pretty much the entire decathlon team plus a couple of other smart students. He wasn’t particularly excited for it but he’d manage. He really just wanted to go to bed and laze around with his boyfriend all weekend but he figured that he could power through this last tour group and then settle back down on his giant and comfortable bed in his rooms in the tower.
………………………………………………………………………………………..
The introduction to his classmates as their tour guide were a bit stilted but he powered through it by thinking about having a whole weekend free of any responsibilities that he could spend with Johnny.
Giving out single-use badges and quickly explaining the basic rules he barely even noticed all of them getting through security and started the tour without thinking too much about it. At that point, his head was on auto-pilot and the well practised and phrased words stumbled out of his mouth without him having to think much about them.
Though the start of the tour was quite awkward, what with everyone being confused about Peter being the tour guide but they quickly realised that they wouldn’t get any answers from him and gave up. It didn’t take long for them to forget all about their questions about Peter when they reached the intern labs, one of the first stops of the tour.
The tour continued like that, the students making a good impression on all the scientists, even those who were quite frankly already exhausted from having seen too many teenagers all week and simply wanted to isolate themselves from everyone. Understandable, really.
They finally got to the IT department and while Ned was busy explaining to everyone his job and responsibilities at SI, Peter noticed someone slipping into the room undetected. When he realised that it was his boyfriend he simply rolled his eyes and leaned back on the wall.
“You couldn’t have waited another hour?” he asked quietly, eyebrow raising in question at the boy’s excitable energy.
“Hmm...no, missed you too much. Plus this is your last tour so I figured it would be ok.” Johnny replied easily, smirking at him while leaning into the wall next to him as well.
“Yeah well, it’s also a class from my school, more importantly the class that has all the decathlon team members in it.” Peter explained hastily, flicking his eyes over his classmates and their teacher, not wanting to attract more attention.
Johnny snorted. “Seriously? Only you Petey-Pie.” he stated, slowly dragging his eyes away from Peter to look over the teenagers that were listening to Ned talk in front of him.
Seeing that the students attention wasn’t on them Johnny moved even closer, leaning into Peter with a smirk. The young genius just sighed. “Johnny no, not here.” he stated, without actually bothering to push the other boy away from himself.
That only served to make Johnny’s smirk grow and when he slowly started kissing Peter he really couldn’t find the strength to stop. When his boyfriend finally stepped back to admire his work he rolled his eyes at him and focused on not blushing, desperately trying to keep his hands to himself.
Luckily Ned wrapped up his presentation a minute later. Not so luckily, when the their classmates turned around they saw the Human Torch standing very closely next to Peter Parker with a mischievious smirk on his lips, which were very red. Peter immediately started blushing and glared at Ned when he heard him snicker from the other end of the lab.
“Peter..you know Johnny Storm?” Abe asked in shock.
Peter just stared at him before quickly glancing at Johnny. “Clearly.” he deadpanned. Johnny snorted quietly.
The class erupted into a bit of chaos after that. It seemed that after holding back their questions for the entire tour they now felt the need to ask everything at once. It was chaos and Mr. Harrington himself was too shocked to get them to behave.
So Peter held up one of his hand to silence them, glared at Ned when he continued to laugh at him and waited for his classmates to settle down. It took a few minutes but in the end they got there.
“Okay, I can tell that you guys have a lot of questions but I’m tired and have been giving tours all week so do me a favour and don’t yell them out and ask one after the other and I’ll try to answer them.” he explained quickly.
He noticed Sally raising her hand slowly and nodded to her. “So...you’ve been missing school for two weeks to give tours at Stark Industries?”
“Yes, Ned, MJ and I had to help prepare the tower and it’s employees for the tours so we missed half of last week for that and then this week me and MJ were tour guides while Ned gave presentations here.” he confirmed.
“Wait..so you really work here?” Flash demanded.
“No, Flash I hacked Tony Stark’s AI and gave myself a pass, then convinced everyone else that I actually work here just so you couldn’t prove me wrong.” he answered seriously.
His class looked shocked at his sarcastic response while Johnny chuckled. “You have to forgive him, he’s been running on fumes this entire week, giving dozens of tours everyday. I honestly think he’s been on auto-pilot since lunch.” he explained, tugging Peter closer to him.
Peter just sighed. “Yeah, sorry. I do work here and have been working here for around two years now. Ned and MJ joined me about a year ago and our school has all the documents, but the principal and everyone who was responsible for writing it down and stuff had to sign tons of NDAs. The three of us are technically something like personal interns I guess? But we often just run around the tower if we have nothing to do and help where help is needed. It’s a lot of fun but this week has been exhausting.”
“That’s ok! So are there any other high school interns at SI?” Betty asked.
“Yes! I know one who doesn’t live in New York but often travels here and works with us and I know that Tony has a couple more teenagers he kind of mentors..I guess?? But he hasn’t introduced all of them to us yet. Usually high school interns are hand-picked, otherwise it’s really hard to get a job at SI at our age. I know that several employers keep an eye on smart high school students though, so keeping your grades up and participating in competitions and summer camps and what not definitely helps.” Peter explains, knowing that his classmates are all pretty smart and have potential. They don’t go to Midtown for nothing. If he can give a few tips here and there to give them more of a chance then he definitely will.
“Are you saying Tony Stark is your mentor?” Jason squealed.
Johnny hid is snort by pressing his face into Peter’s hair while Peter just smiled. “Yeah. Ned’s too. MJ does work with him as well but she spends a lot more time with Ms. Potts and the people in legal and finances. She’s very good at maths and statistics and that stuff and works well with our dear CEO.” he grinned.
He saw a few people gulp while others just stared at him like he had grown a second head or something.
“So what kind of things do you work on then?” Cindy questioned.
“That...is classified.” he hesitated. “But I can tell you that I have my own projects apart from everyone else and that sometimes I get to help Tony or Dr. Cho in their labs. It’s a lot of fun. The R&D labs, that we’re gonna visit soon by the way, are always chaotic and even though it can be fun sometimes I prefer to have some peace and quiet. Though I do enjoy wandering around and looking at other people’s progress with their projects. Sometimes I get called down for help too. It’s...always different I don’t really have a lot of fixed projects and stuff because my position here is kind of special so it’s different from what normal interns get to do in the intern labs.”
“So….are you dating the Human Torch?” Charles asked, taking one for the team and asking what the whole class wanted to know.
“No Charles, I always make out with people in the corners of rooms and then stand very closely to them while talking to other people.” he answered.
“Peter..” Johnny said, reminding him to be a little less sarcastic to his classmates.
He shook his head and cleared his throat. “Sorry, Charles. The exhaustion is making me a bit of a sarcastic asshole as you can tell. But yes, we are dating and have been for a while.” he replied, looking at the boy guiltily. He truly did not mean to be so rude, he was just really tired.
“It’s cool, I get it.” Charles told him with a small smile.
Peter cleared his throat again and stepped away from the wall. “Thanks. Anyways, are there any more questions? I think we need to get on with the tour if we don’t want to shake up other group’s schedule as well.”
“I think we’re ok, thank you Peter.” Mr. Harrington finally said, speaking up for the first time.
He nodded at the teacher. “Okay. Ned, I’ll see you later, any requests for dinner?” he asked his friend quickly before leaving.
“Yeah, I think MJ said something about thai food during lunch when you were hiding in a supply closet making out with Johnny.” Ned replied with a grin. “But I agree with her, thai sounds good.”
Peter hid his blush experdly and rolled his eyes at his friend. “Cool, thai it is then.” he turned back to his class. “Okay let’s go, the R&D labs are next and I promise they’re more fun than listening to Ned.” he told them with a smirk.
“I heard that! Watch out, I’m gonna eat all your grapes!!” Ned shouted at his back.
“Noooooooo...not my grapes…” he shouted back before finally leading the group towards the elevator and getting them to the R&D floors. The exchange made no sense to anyone but the two of them, but it seemed that his classmates were already used to that so it was easy to just continue like normal.
…………………………………………………………………….
The R&D labs quickly distracted his classmates from asking Peter more questions about his job and his relationship with Johnny. His boyfriend took that as a sign to continue getting handsy with him. Which, no. He did not want. Not in front of all his colleagues.
“Johnny, I swear to god, get your hands off me you asshole.” he whispered angrily, pushing his boyfriends’ hands off his sides.
“But Petey..I missed you…” he explained with a pout, as if that was an adequate excuse for getting handsy in public.
“Okay, but you don’t have to show me that in front of everyone you horny teenager.” he explained quickly, looking around to check that no one had noticed their behaviour.
Johnny chuckled. “Peter..you’re a horny teenager too. Also that insult was horrible, I thought you could do better than that.”
Peter sighed heavily. “Okay, first of all. Shut up. Secondly, I’m not the one trying to get handsy in public, you could at least wait until we were alone. Third, I’m tired leave me alone.”
“Ohhh but you love iiiiiit..” Johnny teased with a grin. Peter just groan slightly and tilted his head back, which coincidentally gave Johnny perfect access to his throat which. Not good. Not even a little bit. Stop.
“Johnny!” he hissed. “Stop it or I’ll tell Pepper!” he threatened and sighed in relief when Johnny immediately stepped back.
“You wouldn’t.” he stated.
“I would.” Peter told him with a glare. Johnny narrowed his eyes at him, trying to figure out if he was lying or not. Suddenly there was a loud crash and everyone looked towards one of the scientists who let a huge piece of metal fall to the ground.
“Sorry!” shouted the scientist and immediately started to clean up her mess.
Peter looked back at the tour group and was relieved to find that they were almost done with the presentations. They didn’t have much more to see but the thought of having Johnny with him for the duration of it really did make him feel slightly better, he was exhausted.
So he waited for them to be done before getting them back to the elevator and finishing his last tour.
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There were a few more offices that the class was allowed to visit and Peter made sure to give them more time than normal when he noticed representatives actually looking interested in talking to his classmates, secretly hoping it would help them even more. He knew that many of his peers were smart enough to join SI either now or in the future and if he could help them climb a little higher on the list of people SI kept an eye on then he would do so gladly.
That meant that the tour finished around an hour later than planned but no one seemed really upset about that, even Mr. Harrington looked happy when they found out that Peter let them talk a lot longer than normal.
He helped pack up some things in different offices and labs before Johnny told him to let other people do their jobs and practically carried him away, into the elevator and from there onto the couch where Ned and MJ were already waiting for them.
Fifteen minutes later May and Happy entered with multiple bags of food, happily helping the three exhausted teens get their orders while Johnny went and got everyone drinks.
It was pretty late when they finally all went back to bed, Johnny joining Peter again in his room, while Ned and MJ went to theirs to call their parents before going to bed. Peter quickly texted Harley before setting down his phone.
spiderson -> ironson
i’m done
lmao good luck with your tours
make sure to have someone bring you food at the end of the day idk how i’d have survived otherwise
He fell asleep a few minutes later with his own personal heater keeping him warm through the night.