By hblankm

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15742707#main

On paper, Peter is, technically, a legitimate Stark Industries intern now.  This whole visiting the tower every second weekend or so and actually getting to work with Tony Stark in his personal lab is a great improvement from being mostly-sort-of-ignored by Happy.  And it’s not even all Spider-Man stuff!  Which, okay, the Spider-Man stuff is definitely the coolest thing to tell Ned about and definitely the most important because it leads to him saving real, human lives - but this thing where Mr Stark seems willing (happy, even?) to just teach him about completely unrelated tech stuff?  It makes it feel like Mr Stark isn’t just interested in spending time with Peter because he’s Spider-Man.  Like he’s interested in spending time with Peter because he’s Peter.  Which is honestly way more unbelievable and way more amazing than any of this superhero stuff.

But anyway, none of that is the point.  The point is that Peter’s internship is 100% real.

It’s just not exactly… standard.  Peter doesn’t spend his time getting people coffees, or cleaning lab messes, or even working with any of the college level interns who experiment in the labs.

Peter doesn’t really interact with anyone else at SI other than Mr Stark, Happy, and occasionally Miss Potts.  When he arrives he walks straight through the foyer and FRIDAY lets him into the elevator reserved for access to Mr Stark’s personal floors and lab.  Peter doesn’t even have an ID badge because SI employees don’t ever actually use those floors.  The security for them is handled completely by FRIDAY.

Which makes everything much simpler for Peter because he would definitely have lost a badge by now if he’d been given one and there is no way he’d be able to survive the embarrassment of having to ask Mr Stark for a new one every time he misplaced one.  He really really didn’t want to annoy anyone and jeopardise this mentor-mentee thing he had going with Mr Stark right now.

On the other hand though, it means Peter is going to look like a big fat liar today when he doesn’t even have badge to let him into the tower.  Ever since the permission slips were handed out Flash has been going on and on about how everyone will finally get to see that “Penis Parker’s” internship is a total sham.

Peter seriously considered not going at all.  Too bad he was already on thin ice with the school after the whole Washington incident, and even thinner ice with May after the whole… walking in on Spider-Man incident.  He was pretty sure if he skipped any more school he’d be grounded for, well, ever.  Plus, he was still kind of terrified that May was one slip up away from taking his suit and burning it.  So, no skipping unfortunately located field trips.

“Hey, Peter, do you think Mr Stark will be at the tower today?  And if he is do you think we’ll get to see him?  I mean, I know you see him all the time, obviously, but how cool would it be if we all got to meet him?”

At least Ned seemed excited about visiting the tower.

“Yeah, Ned.  That’d be cool.  But I don’t think Mr Stark will—“

“You talking about your fake internship with Tony Stark again, Penis?” Flash butted in, leaning over the back of his seat on the bus, “Don’t you realise everyone’s going to know you’re a liar as soon as we get there?”  Peter felt himself flushing.  Usually he’d be able to just brush off Flash’s comments but he was fairly certain today was only going to make everyone believe that Flash was right.  There was no point denying it, not saying anything was probably better.

 “Shut up Flash,” Ned said, sitting up straighter in his seat, “just because you got rejected for an internship doesn’t mean Peter did. We all know he’s ten times smarter than you, anyway.”

Flash bristled.

“I didn’t get rejected; I called up and they told me they don’t take high school aged interns.  Which just proves that Penis is lying for the attention.” 

Of course Flash had tried to get an internship at SI, and of course that’s what he’d been told.  Peter wasn’t even surprised, today was just going to be another example of his typical Parker luck.

“They don’t usually, it’s just a part of Mr Stark’s September—“  Peter trailed off and shrank into the bus seat as Flash interrupted him again.

“September Foundation?  The one for MIT students?  You’re not at MIT, Parker, and you’re definitely not smart enough to get in, even if you could afford it with the help of some charity scholarship.”

“And you probably won't ever be able to get in even with all of your father’s money, Flash,” said MJ, looking up from the book Peter thought she’d been absorbed in, “Besides, Peter is easily smart enough to get into MIT if he wants; there’s a reason he’s on the decathlon team and you’re just an alternate.”  MJ glanced over at Peter.  “He’s not lying about the internship,” she stated firmly, before turning away and going straight back to her book.  Flash looked embarrassed, but Peter doubted he’d have the guts to argue with MJ. 

He was right, too, as Flash just glared at Peter before turning back to face the front of the bus with a muttered “We’ll see later, Penis”.

Peter looked at Ned. “Did MJ just…”  Stand up for him?

Ned looked just as surprised as Peter felt. “Yeah, dude, she did.”

“Huh.”

“Alright, everyone!  Stark Industries is being very generous giving us this tour today, so please remember that you are representing Midtown – I want everyone on their best behaviour, okay?” Peter saw Ned rolling his eyes at Mr Wright’s words as they all started to climb out of the bus and assemble in front of the entrance. “That means I want all of you staying together in a group, absolutely no wandering away.” The last part was said with a look towards Peter that didn’t go unnoticed by the rest of the group.

“Yeah Parker, I know you’ve never stepped foot in this place but try not to get ‘lost’ like you did in DC,” Flash said, jostling Peter’s shoulder as he passed by him.  Peter breathed out, fiddling with the sleeve of his sweater.  Maybe if he was really quiet and still everyone would just forget he was there and he could be invisible for the rest of the trip.  It was possible, right?  Crazier things had definitely happened to him before.  Ned shot a glare at Flash and put his arm over Peter’s shoulder.

“Ignore him, Peter, he’s just jealous you get to work somewhere so amazingly cool.  I mean, look.”  He gestured at the building before them.  Which, yeah.  Definitely cool.  Peter always felt a little thrill when he stepped through the entrance.   This was, after all, both Avengers Tower and Stark Industries – home of pretty much everything Peter had idolised growing up.  Still idolised, even now that he was an (actual) intern and (sort of) Avenger.

“Yeah, thanks Ned,” Peter said as the class all gathered together in the ridiculously spacious foyer.   A professionally dressed woman who looked to be college aged stepped over to the group of schoolchildren.  She had a clipboard in her hands and a lanyard with a green card hanging from her neck.

“Hi, you must all be from Midtown, is that correct?” she looked over to Mr Wright, who nodded politely, “Great!  I’m Abby, I’ll be your tour guide today, so if you have any questions during the day don’t feel shy about asking me.  Before we go anywhere I’m going to give all of you visitor passes, you won’t be able to get around anywhere in the Tower without them so make sure you keep them with you at all times.”   Her voice was friendly, and it was obvious she’d done this plenty of times before as she started handing out lanyards to all of the students.  They looked exactly the same as the lanyard she had around her own neck except the cards hanging from these ones were white instead of green.  Ones of the students pointed this out curiously.

“Everyone who enters the Tower needs an ID badge to get through any of the doors and lifts,” Abby explained, “The colour of the badge depends on which areas of the building each person is authorised to access; white is a basic visitor’s  pass that gives you access to the restrooms, food areas and the clean energy exhibit.”

“What does green give you access to?” asked Flash.

“Green gives me access to all areas someone with a visitors pass can go, as well as well as most of the lower level labs and offices – all interns get a green ID badge.  I’ll have to use mine to let all of you in when we get to the lab we’ll be using later, but for now we’ll just be visiting the exhibit, if you’ll all follow me this way,”  she gestured over to a staircase and started ushering the students onwards.  Peter’s stomach sank a little as Flash immediately turned to him and grinned.

“So how come you don’t have your own badge, hey, Penis?” he nudged Peter’s arm, “If you’re an intern why are you using a white one like the rest of us?”  And there wasn’t really any way to explain that, was there?  Peter resigned himself to the fact that this was going to be the worst field trip in history, which, considering the whole Oscorp fiasco, was really saying something.  At least Flash teasing him wasn’t going to end in him puking his guts into a toilet for about a week and then dealing with senses that he couldn’t control.  Although, in the long run he supposed it was really a good thing, it hadn’t seemed it at the time.  Peter sighed.

“I don’t have one, Flash.”  Flash faked a gasp of surprise.

“No! Really? But that would mean you don’t have an internship and you’re just a pathetic liar desperate for attention.” 

“It’s not a lie – I don’t need one; Mr Stark’s AI usually just-“

“You don’t need one? You know Penis, you’re meant to be so smart but you can’t even lie convincingly.”  Peter could see some of the other students listening in on what Flash was saying, and he cringed at the muttering he could hear only too clearly all around him.

“Wait, do you think Flash is right?  Peter’s always disappearing, what else would he be doing?”

“He doesn’t have a badge, there’s no way he’s been interning here for months without one.”

“Wow. I didn’t think Parker would be the sort to make stuff up like that.”

Peter was glad only he could hear the whispers from the other students, Ned (and MJ?) would only try to defend him when there was really no point. Peter could already see Ned getting ready to say something to Flash before Mr Wright interrupted them.

“Thompson, Parker, be quiet, I expect you all to get along on this excursion, remember?”

“Yes, Mr Wright, of course,” Flash responded quickly, the brief reprimand not enough to remove the smirk from his face.

“Sorry Sir,” Peter mumbled, resolving to just get on with the excursion and ignore Flash as much as possible.  Thin ice, he remembered.  He could not afford to get any more detentions.  Decision made, Peter hurried along with the rest of the class to follow their tour guide over to a flight of stairs leading to the clean energy exhibit.

Peter had never actually visited the exhibit, although he knew it was part of the tower.  It hadn’t really occurred to him to bother having a look when Mr Stark had let him examine an actual real life miniature arc reactor in his lab.  But looking at the full sized (non-functional, unfortunately; it was just for show) replica of a reactor in the exhibit was honestly impressive.  Abby gave a brief explanation of the technology before letting the students wander through to read the different displays themselves.

“Peter, Peter! Come on, we’ve gotta take a picture in front of the reactor!”  Ned dragged Peter over to the display impatiently.  Peter laughed but didn’t stop him.

MJ was hovering in front of one of the informative posters by the reactor.  “You nerds know that’s not real, right?”

“Uh, yes, but it’s the closest we’re probably ever going to get to being in the presence of a real one and therefore by default the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” Ned rushed to answer MJ, “Don’t even try to convince me this isn’t awesome.  We both know it’s amazing.”

MJ narrowed her eyes.  “Closest we’ll ever get?  I think Peter’s probably gotten a bit closer than this to a real one, what with his internship,” she pointed out.  Ned turned to Peter, eyes wide.

“Wait, Peter.  Please tell me MJ is right so can live vicariously through your experiences, please.” 

Peter shrugged, feeling slightly embarrassed.  “Well, I mean, I haven’t gotten to do anything with a full sized one, obviously, only—“

“You mean you’ve ‘gotten to do stuff’ with a miniature one? Peter! How could you not tell me about this? I thought you were my friend!”  Ned puts his hand over his heart.  “This is a betrayal I may never recover from.”  Peter laughed, elbowing Ned a little (careful not to use any of his strength).

“It never came up, because I’m usually telling you about the other stuff I do for my internship.”  Peter said with a pointed look at Ned, before glancing quickly over to MJ.  She didn’t seem suspicious to him.  But then again, that could just be because MJ always seemed to just know things and he was used to it now.  He never really knew what she was thinking.

“Ohhhhh, right. The other stuff.”  Ned winked and Peter had to restrain himself from face palming. “Well, I suppose that’s fair but from now on no leaving out working on incredibly awesome things, deal?” 

Peter rolled his eyes, “Yeah, deal.”

“Well, now that you two have kissed and made up, want me to take the photo for you?”  MJ offered.

“Really? That’d be great, thanks MJ!”  Ned said, surprised.

“I know, I’m feeling extremely generous today, you’re welcome.”  Ned handed MJ his phone so she could take the picture.  “I’m not telling you to say cheese so make sure you’re smiling if you want to look happy in this.”   Peter put his hand over Ned’s shoulder and they both smiled brightly at the camera, with no need to fake their enthusiasm.  “You guys are dorks, it looks great,” MJ said, snapping it quickly.  MJ was just going to hand the phone back to Ned when Peter had a thought and without actually thinking it through properly and half regretting it immediately after it left his mouth he blurted it out.

“Hey, MJ, how about we get a picture with you as well?” 

MJ paused and just kind of… looked at Peter.  Okay, okay, thought Peter, that was a mistake.  Time to backtrack.

“I mean, we’re friends aren’t we?”  No!  What?  Why did he just say that?  That was not backtracking.  That was the complete opposite of backtracking!  What was wrong with him?  Now Ned and MJ were both staring at him.

“Oh!  A photo with the three of you, here, I’ll take it for you!”  Peter wasn’t sure if Abby-the-tour-guide was at all aware of just how awkward the atmosphere that she’d just interrupted was, but if her chirpy disruption was going to help him break the tension then he was more than happy to go along with it.

“That’d be great!” he said, cringing at the slight squeak in his voice.  Abby held her hand out to get the phone from MJ, who only hesitated slightly before handing it slowly to her.

“Yeah, uh, thank you.”  MJ uncertainly went over to stand beside Peter, leaving a good few inches between them.  Well, he was all in now, and the photo would look weird if he had an arm over Ned’s shoulder and MJ was standing stiffly to the side like that.   So, Peter pasted a smile on his face and attempted to look completely casual as he put his other arm over Michelle and (gently) dragged her into the picture properly so the three of them were all squished together.  He determinedly looked forwards and not to the side as Abby took the photo, clumsily removing both of his arms as soon as she was finished.

“There you go, perfect,” she smiled as she handed the phone back to Ned, who was noticeably elbowing Peter in the arm.

“Dude.” 

Peter shot him a look and shrugged, he wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened either.  MJ cleared her throat and addressed Peter.  “Thanks, nerd.” She paused and looked away before she spoke the next sentence.  “Ned, you should, uh, send me that photo.”

Peter was pretty sure Ned’s eyes were going to fall out of their sockets at this point.  “Oh, yes, sure, I’ll – er, text it to you.” 

MJ nodded.  “Cheers.”

“You know, Michelle, it’s probably not the best move to make friends with Parker and Leeds now everyone knows they’re complete liars.”  Why, why, did Flash have to have such bad timing?  Peter supposed it probably seemed like good timing to Flash, but at the moment it was really, humongously inconvenient.  And even more inconvenient than the fact that Flash was making the whole MJ situation even more awkward was that he didn’t have the subtlety to wait until one of the two adults in the room weren’t listening.  Abby, who clearly wasn’t used to settling disputes between children but also seemed to realise she was the adult in this situation, decided to step in.

“Hey, I’m sure there’s just a misunderstanding. Nobody needs to be called a liar here.”  Flash, who was apparently an idiot, actually smiled at this.

“Oh, sorry Miss.”  Flash, Peter suspected, had neglected to remember their guide’s name.  “But actually, I was wondering, how’d you get your internship here?”

Abby seemed relieved at the change of topic.  “Well, I go to MIT, and Stark Industries has a program for students where—“

“Is that just for college students?” interrupted Flash.

“Uh, yes,” replied Abby, “Stark industries only takes on a limited number of interns and you have to be currently attending, or recently graduated university to be able to apply.”  Flash practically beamed at Abby.

“Thank you very much, that’s really all I needed to know.”

“You’re welcome,” replied Abby awkwardly, who appeared slightly confused by the exchange.  “Oh!  I’ve just got to go see if those students need help,” she said, “we’ll be moving on to the lab session for today soon so make sure you’re finished up here.”  With that she hurried off to a couple of students that looked like they were trying (unsuccessfully) to climb onto a display.

Flash turned to Peter.  “Huh, last time I checked, you went to Midtown High School, Penis.  Anything you want to admit?”

“Peter’s not lying!” protested Ned.

“Really, Leeds, you’re still going to defend him after you just heard that?”  Flash sighed with fake disappointment.  “I suppose you always were gullible.”

“Did you consider that maybe Ned just knows more about the situation than you do?”  MJ said coldly.  This was, Peter noted with surprise, the second time today that MJ had decided to defend him against Flash, even though at the moment, the evidence really was against him.  

Flash just sneered. “Whatever, Michelle, everyone knows the truth now, even if you’re still too blind to see it.”  He turned and went over to where most of the other students were all obviously sneaking looks at them and whispering between themselves.  Clearly they’d all heard what just happened.

Peter knew he should’ve stayed home.  Now everyone thought he was lying.  He wished he could just sink into the floor.

“Alright everyone!” Abby, who appeared to have successfully prevented anyone from damaging the displays, called out loudly, “It’s time for us to move on to the more hands on part of our tour.  If you’ll all follow me over to the elevator now.”  Peter let everyone head over first so that he could stay at the back of the group and pretend that he didn’t exist.  There were two elevators; one, Peter knew, was Mr Stark’s personal one which had access to all of the tower’s floors and could only be accessed with authorisation from FRIDAY.  Only a select few people other than Mr Stark and Pepper could use it, Peter now being one of them.  The other was the regular elevator for visitors and employees which gave access to different floors of SI depending on the access level of a person’s ID badge.  There were multiple elevators like that throughout the tower, but only one of the personal elevators.  Abby gave a brief explanation of this as she steered the group into one of the public elevators and used her badge to give them access to one of the lower laboratory floors.

The inside of the elevator was quite roomy, but with all of the students squeezed inside Peter was starting to feel slightly claustrophobic.  Ned and MJ were to either side of him and Ned’s arm brushing against his was a small comfort to the fact that he was stuck with in an enclosed space with people who were all whispering about him.  There were some situations where his enhanced senses were the opposite of helpful.  Peter was so relieved when they arrived at the correct floor and all tumbled out of it into what appeared to be a relatively basic robotics lab that he at first didn’t notice the hand pulling him off to the side as Abby directed the rest of the students towards the benches.

“Peter, I need to speak with you for a moment,” said Mr Wright as he led Peter slightly away from the rest of the class, towards an area with a few sinks and bottles of acetone ready to be used to clean up any glassware.

“Uh, yes Mr Wright.  Is everything okay?”  Was Peter in trouble for arguing with Flash?  He’d barely said anything, but he knew after the trouble he’d been in with the school over last few months even a small slip up could get him into detention.  It seemed the general consensus was that he needed a ‘firm hand’.  

Mr Wright sighed.  “Peter, I couldn’t help but overhear what was going on down in the exhibit.”  Oh no.  He was in trouble for arguing with Flash.  May was going to kill him.  He was going to get detention and she would decide he wasn’t responsible enough and take away the suit.

“I—I’m sorry Mr Wright.  I didn’t mean to cause any trouble.  I swear I wasn’t trying to—to cause a scene at all.”

“That’s not what this is about, Peter.  This is a bit more serious than that.”  Mr Wright’s voice had become suddenly stern.  “We all know you’re a bright student, but doing something like this could seriously harm your academic record, and your chances of getting into a good college.”  Peter’s heart dropped.

“What?  I don’t understand, Sir.  What did I--?”

“The internship, Peter.  Do you realise that forging fake documents is an offence?  And using it to claim a fraudulent internship as an extracurricular on your academic record?  That is a very serious transgression.”  Mr Wright thought Flash was telling the truth. 

“But Sir, I didn’t—I’m not lying.”  Peter could feel a hot sting in his eyes and he looked away from his teacher to try to control himself. 

“Peter, I’ve seen more than enough evidence today that says otherwise.  It’s my duty to report this to the school.”  Peter didn’t know what to do.  If Mr Wright thought he forged his internship documents there was nothing else to prove it was real.  His teacher had heard a Stark Industries employee straight out say that the company didn’t hire high school interns as well as seeing that Peter didn’t even have an access pass that supposedly every intern received.  He blinked a few times to try to stop any tears from escaping.

“What’s going to happen?” 

Mr Wright had said it might affect his college options.  Peter knew even if he got accepted somewhere he wouldn’t be able to go without a scholarship.  May never mentioned it, but he’d seen the bills piling up even before they were down to one income.  If he had something like this on his record…

“We’re going to have to call your guardian in and have a meeting with the principle about how this will be handled.”  Peter nodded silently.  May could explain.  But what if they just believed that Peter lied to May as well?  Her word would hardly be seen as proof of an internship.  “I’m very disappointed in you Peter, the school’s given you a lot of leniency lately.”

“I’m sorry, Mr Wright.  I didn’t mean—“  There was really nothing Peter could say.  He hung his head.  “I’m sorry.”

“Yes, well, I’m not sure there’s much you can do about it at this point.  Now go join the rest of your classmates.”

Peter wiped his eyes quickly with his sleeve.  “Yes, Mr Wright.”

He headed hastily over to where the other students where set up at the benches.  It looked like Abby had put them all into groups and given them a small robot to fix.  He figured he could just join Ned and MJ with theirs.

“Peter!  Are you okay?  You don’t look okay.  What was Mr Wright talking with you about?” 

“It’s nothing, Ned.  He was just telling me not to antagonise Flash.” 

“What?  Flash was the one antagonising you, and you didn’t even do anything!  That’s totally unfair.”

“I know, Ned.  I just—can we talk about this later?” Peter said, moving to grab one of the parts from the bench.  “Let’s just work on this, okay?  I don’t want to get in any more trouble.”  Peter knew Ned wouldn’t let it go completely, but his friend would understand that now wasn’t the time.

“Fine, but only because if we can fix this before Flash’s group does the look on his face will be amazing.” 

Peter smiled, shoving everything down.  “Yeah, let’s do it.”  He could see MJ looking at him with concern, but thankfully she didn’t say anything.  The three of them got to work.  Their task was relatively simple, and it didn’t take much for them to work out how to reassemble the bot they’d been given.  Some of the pieces were a little fiddly though, and would take a bit of time to put together.  The three of them worked well together, and before long Peter was lost in focus.  He barely noticed what the other groups were doing, which is why it came as a bit of a surprise when one of the students yelled out in fear.

“Flash! What are you doing?” 

Peter turned around in his seat to see that Flash’s group had managed to somehow set their robot on fire.  Flash, who was still actually holding the flaming pieces of machinery, had a look of pure panic on his face.  Reacting belatedly he threw the robot away from him towards the stairs, where it stopped just at the top of them.

“Okay, everyone please remain calm and stay in your seats,” Abby said, taking control of the situation.  It was, after all, only a small fire and there wasn’t much for the flames to actually burn.  Peter was honestly surprised it hadn’t gone out when Flash threw it onto the hard lab floor.  Abby quickly walked over to one of the walls where a fire blanket had been installed.

Meanwhile, though, Flash’s panic had not abated in the slightest. “Oh shit, oh shit—I’ve got it!”  He dashed over to the sinks, grabbed one of the bottles of clear liquid and dumped it over the small fire.  Peter’s eyes widened.

“Flash, wait—“  But it was already too late.  As soon as the liquid came near the flame it shot up and spread over the area near the top of the stairs.  Flash had managed to pour the liquid so that it covered that entire area, including the wooden filing cabinets by the entrance.  Immediately, an alarm started to ring interspersed with an electronic voice instructing them to evacuate the building.

“Everyone move away from the fire, please!”  Abby said loudly.  A weird smell was starting to come from that direction and Peter wondered what sort of chemicals were being burned.  The staircase itself was blocked by the flames and the only other exits available were the elevators.  Abby hurried everyone over to the public elevator and scanned her badge to open the doors.  Except, they didn’t open.  Abby looked confused and scanned it again.  This time, another electronic voice spoke from above the elevator. 

“As a safety measure, elevators are disabled in the event of fire or evacuation.  Please use the stairways to exit the building.” 

“But the fire is in front of the stairs!” yelled Flash.

“Please remain calm,” Abby repeated.  Her cool composure was now starting to fade, though.  The fire was burning strongly and who knows what materials were in the different cupboards.  The weird smell was only getting stronger as well.  Peter wasn't sure if it was just his senses making the fumes seem so dizzying or if they were actually that concentrated.

“Can’t we use the other elevator?”  Flash pushed, not calming down at all.

“I—I can’t,” admitted Abby, “I don’t have access to anything FRIDAY controls.”  A hush fell over everyone in the room as they realised there was no way out.  Peter looked around.  What could he do?  He couldn’t reveal himself as Spider-Man, but the fire didn’t look like it was going to go out on its own.  But what could he even do anyway?  Help everyone out of a window?  Punch out a wall so they could find a different exit?

“Peter!” Ned said suddenly, “don’t you have access to FRIDAY?”  Wait.  Ned was right.

“Leeds, now really isn’t the time to entertain your classmates fantasies!” snapped Mr Wright.

“No,” Peter spoke up.  “I do have access to FRIDAY.”  Mr Wright looked frustrated and like he was about to say something but Abby interrupted.

“You do?  Could you open the other elevator?” 

Peter nodded and stepped over to it, the whole class watching him.  He placed his hand on the sensor on the wall.  Straightaway, the familiar voice of FRIDAY spoke up.

“Mr Parker, the elevators have been disabled as a temporary safety measure.”  Oh no.  Surely FRIDAY was advanced enough to understand that this was an exception, though?

“Yeah, I—I know, FRIDAY, but it’s important.  The stairs are blocked off and we need to leave,” Peter tried not to stammer out.  There was a slight pause.  Everyone in his class looked shocked that the AI had responded to Peter at all.

“Very well, Mr Parker.  Would you like to override the command?”  Yes!

“Uh, yes please, FRIDAY.  Override the safety protocol.”

“Command overridden.  You may now access the elevator.”  The doors instantly slid open.  Peter sighed in relief and turned to see everyone staring at him.

“Oh, thank God.  Okay, everyone in!”  Abby commanded.  “Quickly, quickly!”  Snapped into action, everyone rushed into the elevator.  It was an even tighter fit than before as Mr Stark’s personal elevator wasn’t as large as the more public one that was designed for more people to use at a time.  Once everyone was in and the doors closed FRIDAY spoke up again.

“What floor would you like to visit, Mr Parker?  I assume you would not like to go to the penthouse floor as usual, considering that you have company?” 

“Um, ground floor please, FRIDAY.  Thanks.”  Peter felt extraordinarily self-conscious speaking to the AI in front of everyone.  The elevator started moving downwards and that seemed to be enough to break the silence of Peter’s classmates.

“Holy shit, you can override commands?”

“You usually go to the penthouse!”

“Wait, so, the internship is real?”

Peter scratched the back of his head awkwardly.  “Well, uh, yes.”

MJ rolled her eyes.  “He did tell you he had an internship, remember?”  Most of the students looked vaguely guilty at that.  Peter was just thankful when they reached the ground floor and all exited into the lobby.  Ned was smiling proudly and called out to Flash.

“See?  Peter wasn’t lying at all!” 

Flash glared at both of them.  “That doesn’t prove anything.  You probably hacked Mr Stark’s AI or bribed someone to do it for you!”  Peter decided not to point out the fact that he hardly had the sort of money to bribe anyone.

“Excuse me,” came a displeased voice, “but did you just accuse my top intern of hacking into my personal Artificial Intelligence?  The Artificial Intelligence that he already has complete access to?”

Flash’s face paled.  Peter could hardly blame him, after all, Tony Stark himself was a rather intimidating figure.

“Mr Stark!”  Mr Stark’s attention immediately switched over to Peter.  “It was nothing, really, don’t worry about it.”  If anything, it looked like he just got angrier when Peter said that.

“Nothing?  Pete, first I get an alert from FRIDAY about an evacuation in one of the labs and then she notifies me that you were in there and had to override one of the building’s safety protocols.  Now I come down here to see some kid making ridiculous accusations at you?”  He sighed and placed a hand on Peter’s shoulder.  “Are you okay?  What happened?”

“I really am fine, Mr Stark.  I promise.  There was just a, uh, a bit of an accident in one of the labs.  But it’s fine!  Nobody was hurt.” 

Mr Stark didn’t look totally convinced, but Peter could tell he was checking him over for injuries and seemed at least satisfied that Peter wasn’t lying about not getting hurt.  “God, you really like to play with my heart condition, don’t you, kid?” he said, a corner of his mouth twitching up, “and how many times have I told you?  It’s Tony, not ‘Mr Stark’.”

“Right, sorry Mr—I mean, sorry Tony.” 

“Nothing to apologise for, Peter.  After all, I doubt it was you who caused the accident.”  He looked accusatorily over at Flash, who was practically gaping at the interaction.  “While you’re here, would you like to work some more on that design we’ve been doing in the workshop?  It seems pointless for you to have made the trip over here just for a tour that wouldn’t have taught you anything you don’t already know.”

“Oh, I um, I’m not sure that’s allowed.  We aren’t really allowed to leave an excursion,” Peter said, a bit disappointed.  He’d probably have to wait until next weekend before he got a chance to visit the tower again and he was running a bit low on web fluid.  Mr Stark (Tony, Peter corrected himself) looked up at Mr Wright.

“Oh, I’m sure we can make an exception, isn’t that right Mr…?”

“Mr Wright, uh, sir,” said the teacher nervously.  “I’m not sure how—“

“You can call the kid’s guardian, clear it with her, of course.”  Tony said firmly.  “In fact, how about you go do that now?”  Mr Wright looked a bit put out at that but didn’t argue and went to do as asked.  Once the teacher was out of earshot Mr Stark turned to Flash.  “You,” he said, his face darkening.

“Flash Thompson, uh, Mr Stark,” Flash introduced himself.  Tony just waved a hand carelessly.

“I really don’t care.  I just want to let you know that you’re lucky you’re just a kid.  Peter here is an incredibly important asset to Stark Industries, and I don’t take kindly to threats against my company, or to the people I care about, do you understand?”  Tony held Flash’s gaze before Flash looked away, a look of dread on his face.

“Yes sir, I understand sir.”

“See that you do.  Ah, Ms Lee, I see you’ve met Peter,” Tony turned to Abby, who looked surprised that Tony knew her name.  “Miss Lee is one of our head interns,” he said to Peter, “and Peter here is my personal intern,” he told Abby.  “I might see if you two want to collaborate on a project at some stage, I fear I’ve probably been hoarding Pete’s intellect for my personal projects.  I’m sure it would be great experience for him to work with actual employees.”  Tony gave Peter a pat on the back.  Abby looked surprised, but smiled easily.

“I look forward to it,” she said, moving to shake Peter’s hand.

“Yeah, that—that’d be great.”  Peter shook her hand earnestly.  That would be amazing experience for him.  She smiled brightly at him.

“Well, the tour is over, and I’m afraid I’m going to have to go fill out a bunch of paperwork,” she said, “although not as much as I would’ve if someone had actually gotten hurt, so thank you, Peter. It was lovely to meet you.”  With a nod, she hurried away.

Tony turned back to Peter.  “Perhaps I should be introducing you to more people rather than getting you to work just in the lab with me.”

“I like working with you.”   Tony smiled at that.

“Yeah, me too, kiddo, but maybe we can see if you have time to visit a bit more often over the school holidays, and then you’d have time to work with some of the other staff as well.” 

Peter brightened.  “Definitely!”

“Now, it looks like your teacher is off the phone, so we may as well head up to the workshop.  Wait, have you had lunch yet?”  Tony huffed exasperatedly at Peter’s shrug.  “I’ll get some food brought to us then, you must be starving by now, with how much you eat.”

Mr Wright had indeed finished his phone call, and came back over to them.  “It seems Mrs Parker is happy for Peter to stay here when the rest of the class leaves.  And, uh, Peter, you’re not in any trouble about the internship.”  Mr Wright looked embarrassed at that, but Peter felt a weight lift from his chest.  Mr Stark, however, narrowed his eyes.

“Of course Peter isn’t in any trouble,” he said, glancing at Peter in curiosity.  Peter tried to project please Mr Stark don’t push as much as possible into his face.  Tony seemed to get the hint, as he didn’t question Mr Wright about it.  “Anyway, we best be off then, huh Peter.  Goodbye, uh, Ned? And you must be Michelle?”  Michelle nodded casually, but Ned looked like he was about to have a stroke.

“B-Bye Mr Stark!” he said. Peter could see him mouthing Ohmygodheknowsmyname to MJ and laughed quietly.

“Bye Ned, MJ.  Thanks Mr Wright,” he said, letting Mr Stark steer him away from the group of students all still staring at what had just happened.  Flash, it seemed, was on the verge of passing out.

“So, uh, Tony?”

“Yes, kiddo?”

“The fire in the lab - shouldn’t we all have evacuated the tower or something?”  Peter asked, realising belatedly that it could still be going.  Mr Stark just chuckled.

“Don’t worry about that kid.  It’s hardly the first fire we’ve had and it definitely won’t be the last.  Besides, it was contained to that lab and the fire safety unit we’ve got have already put it out,” he assured Peter. “I get automatic updates about all of that.”  He gestured to his phone. 

“Oh, that’s good.”

“Sure is,” Tony’s eyes crinkled, “now, I do want to know about what actually happened in there.  Was it that rude kid’s fault?  The one with the stupid name?  Sparkle or something?”  Peter laughed.

“You mean Flash, and actually, it sort of was…”  Peter said, launching into an animated explanation as they both headed up the private elevator