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Peter had his hood up and his headphones in as he walked off the bus. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be on this field, it was just… he really didn't want to be on this field trip. Field trips in general sucked and going on a field trip to the building he pretty much lived in was not going to end well. He was already dreading the awkward stares. He stopped as a hand grabbed his shoulder. Mr.Harrington had on his best serious face, so Peter automatically dreaded what he was going to say. Mr.Harrington gestured to his earbuds.
“I can hear you Mr.Harrington. They’re hearing aids.” Peter pressed his lips together as Mr.Harrington floundered at that.
“Well, right. Okay, Peter. Look, we understand things have been hard, but the school has been made aware of the rumors going around about your… internship.” Peter raised an eyebrow. This was going to be awful, he could already tell.
“What about it?” Peter asked.
“Well Peter, Midtown has a very important reputation and lying about an internship at Stark Industries of all places puts the school in a very awkward position. We can’t have a student bringing unwanted attention to us. Now if you continue this lie I will be forced to involve the principal. You’re a bright kid Peter, I hate to see you put the schools, and your own, reputation at stake.” Peter hummed non committedly. He was so over this crap. He had tried to get the internship officially licensed through the school, but they had refused his paperwork. That’s it. He was so done. “I’m glad you understand Peter. Now let’s have a good field trip.” Mr.Harrington led the way back to the class. Peter had a scowl on his face as he reached MJ and Ned.
“Uh oh,” Ned started.
“Peter has his ‘give no shits’ face on.” MJ finished.
“Get your notebook ready MJ. It’s gonna be a good fucking field trip.” Peter said. Ned and MJ gave each other amused looks. The group followed at the back of the class and they walked into the tower. The tour guide was a blonde girl named Gwen that Peter was actually pretty good friends with. She was already handing out badges when the trio joined the group. When she reached Peter’s name she looked up with a confused look on her face. Peter gave her a nod and she continued down her roster, a smile on her face. Mr.Harrington looked between the two of them, but before he could call out that Peter didn’t have a badge, Gwen was starting the tour.
“Welcome Midtown! So a few ground rules to start off. Your badges are automatically read by our AI system when you walk into a room. If you walk into a room without someone who has clearance to be there, the system will raise an alarm and you will be escorted off the premises. If you take your badge off, the same thing will happen. Now you’re not allowed to take pictures or videos or anything like that. And please, do NOT touch anything. Some of the labs we will be going to will have very fragile materials and scientists working incredibly hard on what they’re doing, so let's not ruin all their research, okay? Awesome. Now the tower had 93 floors. About half are administrative, legal, support, all that jazz. 40 of them are labs. Intern labs, private labs, the whole lot. There are 2 gyms, a museum, 3 cafeterias, and a garden. The top ten floors are residential. So Mr.Stark, Mrs.Potts, and any family that they have. Those floors are completely off limits of course. We’re actually going to start pretty high up, all the way up to floor 78.” Gwen continued to explain the ins and outs of the building as they rode a massive elevator up to floor 78.
“Now, this floor is currently working on a new Stark phone. One of the engineers will be there to answer some questions, but they are incredibly busy. I'm not sure we’ll be able to ask a lot of questions, but let’s go see.” Gwen led the way into the room. There was indeed an engineer waiting to answer their questions. Gwen slipped to the back of the group and hip checked Peter.
“‘Sup Parker.” She grinned. He smiled and dropped an arm on her shoulders.
“‘Sup Stacy. You drew the short straw on the tour duty, huh?” He asked.
“What and you didn’t?” She asked. Peter snorted.
“This is Ned and MJ. Guys this is Gwen, we work in the intern labs together.” MJ nodded and Ned gave her a warm smile.
“Please,” Gwen snorted. “ We work in the intern labs together. Like you aren’t my fucking boss.” Peter chuckled. “Speaking of, I better get back to work.” Gwen hip checked him again before returning to the front of the group. “Alright, thank you very much. We’re now going to continue up to floor 84. This is the main floor for our biochem labs, so there will be a lot of possible dangerous substances. Again, please do not touch anything.” When the doors opened, Gwen led them to the back of the lab for a quick presentation, but Peter paused and watched as a scientist began pouring a blue liquid into a cylinder. The scientist looked up and grinned.
“You know, instead of just standing there, you could be the steady hands we both know I don't have.” The scientist said. Peter grinned back and walked over to help. Peter took the liquid.
“How much?” He asked.
“150ml.” The man leaned back in his chair and looked around. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school? I seem to remember you being a child.” Peter flicked his eyes up to glare at him.
“I’m on a school trip.” Peter huffed. The man barked out a laugh. “Oh don’t laugh at me.”
“Peter!” Mr.Harrington had finally noticed he was missing. He tried to pull Peter away from the station, but Peter didn’t budge.
“Mr.Harrington, if I jostle this too much, it could explode.” Peter said calmly, eyes focused on the cylinder. Mr.Harrington wrenched his hand away. The scientist raised an eyebrow.
“My poor old hands are a little shaky. The young man is much more steady than me.” His voice had an amused lilt to it. Peter rolled his eyes.
“You know you can’t wander off Peter. And you shouldn’t be doing this. As soon as you’re done I’m not letting you out of my sight.” Peter rolled his eyes again but didn’t say anything.
“Anyway,” The scientist was glaring at Mr.Harrington now. “School trip huh?” Peter’s eyes met the mans.
“Yep. Just seeing the company.” Peter bit out. The man’s amused grin came back.
“Well, i can’t believe you’d want to see anything down here.” Peter put the beaker of liquid down and before he could reply, Mr.Harrington was dragging him back to the class. Peter lifted an annoyed hand to the scientist as they walked away. Peter turned away before he saw him take his phone out of his pocket.
Gwen gave him a concerned eyebrow as he and Harrington joined the presentation. Peter rolled his eyes and waved her off. After the presentation, the class filed off, on their way to the next floor. When they reached the elevators, Peter found himself standing at the front in between Gwen and Harrington.
“Hold the door!” A voice called. The elevator doors stopped abruptly from closing and opened to reveal Bruce Banner. He slid into the elevator in between Peter and Harrington.
“Penthouse Friday, express please.” He huffed out. He turned to apologize to Gwen when he found Peter looking at him, a grin akin to the cheshire cat on his lips.
“Peter,” Bruce sighed.
“Bruce.”
“What did you do?” Bruce asked. Peter gasped and put his hand on his chest.
“I did absolutely nothing.” Peter said. He turned to Gwen. “Have i done something?”
“You’ve always done something.”She answered. Bruce snorted as Peter pouted in offense.
“You two are fucking rude.” He said. Bruce looked at him, eyebrows raised.
“We’re fucking rude huh?” Peter wiggled his eyebrows. The elevator opened to the penthouse. “I’ll keep that in mind. Sorry for the hijack, Gwen.” Bruce waved goodbye and strolled onto the floor.
“Sorry about that,” Gwen explained. “Many people in the tower have the power to override the elevator for express trips. We’re not in a rush, so Dr.Banner has priority. Now the next floor we’re going to hit is the head of the robotics department.” The doors opened to find an incredibly busy lab. Gwen led them through the work spaces until they reached a large open table.
“Welcome! I’m going to be showing you guys some of our top projects.” Peter started to zone out and look around the lab. He grinned when he heard the whispers of Tony Stark on the floor.
“Mr. Stark!” Someone squeaked. All of the students looked around wildly. Mr.Harrington froze before whipping his head around. Tony Stark’s head was barely visible above the mass of students. Peter raised an eyebrow as Mr.Harrington stationed himself in front of Peter.
“Mr. Stark, how can I get an internship?” A student asked.
“I have absolutely no idea.” Tony snorted.
“Well, you could always just lie about it.” Another student laughed.
“Wait, I’m confused. There’s a student lying about an internship?” Tony asked, eyebrows raised in confusion. Peter leaned around Mr.Harrington, who was trying to shift so he kept in front of Peter.
“That’d be me.” His tone dripping with poorly veiled annoyance. Tony bit back a smirk as he looked at Peter.
“And how the hell did that happen?” He kept his eyes trained on Peter.
“I’m sorry, Mr.Stark. He’s had a rough time lately-” Mr.Harrington started. Tony’s eyes flicked back to him.
“I wasn’t asking you.” He focused on Peter again.
“ Apparently ,” Peter drug the word out. “If I continue to lie about having an obviously fake internship to SI, Mr.Harrington is just going to have to talk with the principal. These lies could be detrimental to Midtown’s reputation.” Pure passive aggressive sarcasm rolled off his tongue. Gwen hid her smirk behind her clipboard. Tony reached up and scratched his chin. Peter could see him hiding his smirk.
“Well that is a problem.” Mr.Harrington looked relieved at his tone. He was obviously worried about some type of lawsuit. His face fell the minute Tony started talking again. “I think we should revisit the option of switching schools. I mean, if Midtown’s faculty is too stupid to figure out a genius is within their student body, how can I trust them with your education? I know we decided not to skip high school, but maybe it’s time to dig that MIT acceptance letter out again.” Peter rolled his eyes. He had been accepted to MIT early, having applied with a gentle nudge from Tony, but they had agreed to keep him in high school.
“As fun as that would be, I’m not ready for college yet.” Tony nodded.
“Well with all the work you do here as well, you have a rather full plate. We could send you to Hunter, that would be better than the travesty that’s happening right now.” Peter snorted.
“I mean, i guess. But the whole point was so that we didn’t disrupt my life and keep it as normal as possible. Suddenly switching schools isn’t going to help with that.” Peter explained.
“Fine, how about homeschooling? Or expedited schooling? We can figure out a half and half thing. You go to classes in the morning, you come here to study after.” Tony compromised. Peter rolled it around in his brain.
“And just what would i be studying here?” Peter asked. Tony shrugged.
“Kid literally anything. I’ve been dying to add that new tracking system to my latest mark. We can do private study.”
“Fine. But I have one condition.” Peter said. Tony sighed but gestured for him to continue. Peter grinned.
“Harley gets to come too.” Tony groaned and looked up at the ceiling, shaking his head.
“You two are going to kill me, aren’t you?” He gave Peter his best glare. MJ, Ned, and Gwen all laughed quietly. “Oh shut it you three.” Peter grinned at them.
“We would never do that Mr.Stark.”
“ Dad .” Gwen coughed. Tony rolled his eyes.
“Can it Stacy. Okay, we’re starting today. Teacher,” Tony pointed at Harrington. “I’m pulling Peter out of school early.” Peter squeezed Ned’s shoulder and nodded to MJ, who had several pages of her sketchbook filled with Mr.Harrington’s panic.
“Well, his guardian-” Harrington started.
“Is me, so it’s perfect. Come on Pete.” The students gaped as Peter sauntered over to Tony, who ruffled his hair. They turned and walked away from the group. “So I heard you fucking cussed to Bruce.” Peter snorted.
“It was a fucking day.” Peter admitted. Tony snorted.
“Come on kid. We have to go call your boyfriend so you two can terrorize me for the rest of my life.” Peter grinned as they rode up to the penthouse.