Chapter Text
“Come on Peter! I can't go by myself and this is your chance to prove Flash he's wrong!” Ned sat next to Peter, waving the slip of paper in his face. Their workshop class was had decided taking a field trip to Stark tower was important and would be beneficial to inspire the classes future projects. He would've been fine with it if he was just Spiderman, but since Mr. Stark made him a “personal intern” and paid him to work in the lab, all the staff knew him. They also knew he was oddly high up for a teenager.
“I know, it's just-”
“Mr. Parker, Mr. Leeds! This is silent work time, so be silent.” as soon as the teacher ducked his head they continued to whisper.
“if I go then someone on the team could be there, and I really don't need that to happen.”
“But I can't go alone, and you know how much I want to go,” Ned proceeded to do his version of a puppy dog face, though he really only scrunched up his face and frowned a bit.
“Fine, but-”
“Great, I owe you.” before Peter could respond, the bell had rung and everyone was rushing out of the class. Today was Tuesday and the slip said the trip was on Friday, so if he avoided Mr. Stark long enough, he won't know Peter is coming and won't embarrass him.
……
The next few days passed by slow and fast all at once. He didn't realize it was Friday until the teacher was leading everyone to the buses. He and Ned were the last ones on, so they took the only seat left, in front of Flash and his friends.
“Yo Penis, ya realize everyone's gonna know your secret now?”
“I don't have a secret, Flash.”
“Are you sure about that?” The rest of the trip went on exactly like that, Flash continuously asking Peter about his “fake job” and asking what Mr. Stark was like. Everyone oohed and aahed when they pulled up, all except Peter, who was pretty used to it. At the receptionist table, they did the roll call and passed out temporary badges for everyone to get past security.
“Peter!” Anna called him name happily. She had started just recently and immediately took a liking to the boy, “I saw your name and assumed you would have your own badge,”
“Yep, I got it.” he took his bag off and shuffled through the packets until he pulled out the dark blue badge. People stared at him as he clipped it on. It was definitely different from the plain white ones everyone else had.
“Hello everyone,” someone Peter had never seen before walked up. His figure was lanky and he had a had a generally creepy look to him, “I'll be your tour guide today, my name is Joseph. You can all follow me this way, then I'll lead you all through our standard security check, and we'll begin!”
That was where Peter first fell apart. The standard visitors' security check was a badge scan, going through a metal detector, and in special cases, some questions. He had to go through it a few times at first, but when he came in late to work in the lab, Mr. Stark had given him an automatic bypass through all of it.
He waited at the back of the line when everyone else pulled out their badges eagerly. When he scanned it, Jarvis spoke instead of some random bot Mr. Stark created. The screen lit up blue.
“Hello Peter, your early visit was not expected.”
“Hey Jarvis, I'm just on a school trip..”
“Would you like me to inform Mr. Stark that you are her-”
“NO...No thanks, Jarvis, I'll be coming back later so….”
“Very well,” when Peter looked back at his classmates, they were in awe. I guess no was thought I was telling the truth he thought to himself. He felt rather cocky as he waited for everyone else to get through security, even the tour guide had to. He had to hide his laugh when Flash walked through the metal detector and it blared, causing him to panic and the security guards to get very suspicious.
“Ok!” Joseph said once everyone was ready to go, “First, we'll go through the relic area, where Mr. Stark keeps some rejected Iron man suits and some alien remains, Then we’ll be able to see inside one of his labs, maybe even run into Dr. Banner!” everyone started gossiping, completely forgetting about Peter, that is, until they were looking at the suits. Everyone was crowded around one of the most recent ones, freshly damaged. Peter knew Mr. Stark could easily repair it, but he said, “It looked cool.”
Someone grabbed his shoulder and he instinctively moved away. He saw only Bruce carrying a file.
“Sorry Peter, but I saw you and I was gonna take this to Tony but I saw you, and you’re more helpful than him,” Peter followed him to a small table and Bruce spread the papers out and explained the problem, completely oblivious to the dropped jaws behind him.
“I was trying out this formula to make a stronger metal for Steve’s shield, but something's wrong. I’ve been running on coffee and sugar for a while, so I just need new eyes to look at this,” As he looked at the jumbled formulas and scribbled notes, he caught it almost immediately.
“Your math is wrong right here,” he grabbed a pencil from his backpack and crossed out some numbers, “You actually just mixed up these numbers, so if I do this correctly, then that should work.” Bruce looked at the new numbers and smiled.
“You, are a lifesaver, Pete. Are you coming over this tonight?”
“Yeah, I’m spendi-” he was suddenly aware of the eyes behind him, “I’ll be here Later tonight,”
“Ok, when you have time, come to my lab and we can test this out, I got some other projects you might like too.” Bruce walked away, typing the password into the personal elevator and getting in. Ned ran up behind him.
“Dude! That was so cool! What were you guys talking about?”
“He just needed some help with a formula, he’s tired and, uhh..” MJ had walked up in front of Peter, smirking.
“I didn’t know that you knew Banner,”
“Well, I uhh..he lets me into his uh, lab sometimes,” she smirks once again
The best second of his life was ruined by Flash jumping up behind him, pushing down on his shoulders.
“Yo Penis, how many dicks did you have to suck to get him to talk to you?”
“Gross Flash,”
“Aww come on man!” he punched Peters arm rather aggressively. “Just tell me, like a true friend would,” no one besides Ned noticed Flash's display of whatever he was doing. The next 5 minutes consisted of Flash asking various, disgusting, questions about how much Peter did to know everyone. He was honestly about to throw something at him when a hand grabbed his arm, but it was too big to be Flash.
“Hey kid, you ok?” Tony wasn't wearing what he would usually flaunt around the tower. He instead wore an oil-covered cat t-shirt and an obviously old pair of black sweatpants.
“Hey Mr. Stark! What are you doing here?” he muttered the last part through his fake smile. Now, everyone was gawking at him, like he had just struck gold.
“Jarvis said that you were being harassed or something, what's wrong.” he didn't seem to care about the other students around them.
“Mr. Stark!” The guide ran up, placing a hand on Peter's shoulder, trying to pull him away. “I'm so sorry this student has bothered you. I'll just -”
“I came to Peter, he's not bothering me. Why in God's name would he bother me?”
“I'm sorry, I jus-” Tony cut him off.
“Are you new here?”
“Yes sir, only been here-”
“Don't care. New guy, this is Peter. Peter here is my personal assistant. Don't be rude to him, ever.” even other employees at this point were watching. Everyone knew that Tony cared about him, and to never be mean to him. He was never mean in the first place though, so usually the warning was placed aside.
“I’m so sorry sir, -”
“Once again, dont care.” he turned back toward Peter. “I need you in the garage, preferably now.” Peter motioned back toward the group of student watching intently.
“I-I’m on a trip right now,”
“Is it a problem if I take him with me?” Tony was speaking directly to his teacher now. He looked as though he was dreaming.
“N-No, tha-that’s ok.”
“You’re friends can come too, if they want.” He turned back to Ned and MJ, the closest to him. Ned obviously wanted to go, already jumping in the spot, MJ looked more confused if anything, probably at Tony calling her a friend.
“That would be great Mr. Stark!” he ran up next to Peter, along with MJ.
“Ok, you can go up to my floor, in the lab, I’ll be there in a minutes, but I gotta talk with big guy about something.” He walked off toward the lab.
“Nice suit Mr. Stark!” of course Flash would try something to make this his moment. Stark stopped midstrp and turned toward the voice. He seemed to scan him up and down as he walked toward him.
“What’s your name kid?”
“Flash! Thompson, sir.” his face turned him up into a scowl almost right away. Peter had complained about him sometimes, but he never considered that the man was actually listening.
“Don’t touch any of my suits, I saw you earlier.” and with that he was gone, leaving Flash looking like he was about to cry. Peter quietly lead his friends to the elevator, hoping Flash wouldn’t attack them. When the doors closed Jarvis immediately started them up towards Tony’s floor.
“I do apologize Pete, I saw you being harrassed and decided the best course of action was to inform Sir.”
“It’s ok Jarvis, let’s just go.”