Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Peter Parker sat in his sixth period chemistry class pondering which chemical compound could knock him out for long enough to miss the rest of the class. (It didn’t take much thought for him, of course, but he didn’t have much else to do so he drew the process out.)

“Class, this is the moment you’ve all been waiting for!” Ms. Warren announced from the front of the room. Her genuine smile proved that Peter’s signature Parker Luck was about to kick in again.

“It’s time to announce where our field trip this year will be!” The teacher bounced her shoulders in anticipation, “Drumroll, please!”

The class did not give her a drumroll.

“We’re going toooo……. Stark Tower!” She announced cheerfully, throwing her hands up in the air in excitement.

Peter needed to have a nice, calm little chat with whatever force was controlling his life.

“Psst. Hey, Penis!” Peter felt a wad of paper hit him in the back of the head. This wasn’t unusual for Flash Thompson, his bully of five years. He really needed some new material.

“The SPED school has some openings. You can transfer once your fake internship gets out.” Flash stage whispered.

“You know, Thompson, you shouldn’t talk about the SPED school like it’s an insult to go there. It’s rude and ableist.” MJ chimed in to the conversation. Peter and Ned nodded along with her.

“Ugh. You feminists make no sense. Everything has to be so fucking PC these days.” Flash complained.

The other three students shared a look to make sure that his statement hasn’t made sense to any of them, then MJ said:

“I’m sorry, Eugene. I should have known better than to ask you to show basic human decency.” She gave him a sickly-sweet smile and turned back to her crisis journal. She was sketching Peter’s face when he heard about where the field trip was. The page was labeled ‘Distressed.’ Seemed about right.

That night, Peter asked his Aunt May to sign the permission form for the trip. She laughed the entire time and marked the date on her calendar. It was scheduled for the following Thursday, leaving six days for Peter to regret his poor life choices.

“Do they need chaperones?” May asked, “This could be entertaining.”

After Peter had assured his aunt that the SI interns ran tours without chaperones, she sent him to bed with a forehead kiss and a laugh. Sleep came almost too soon, as did the next five days.

Before he knew it, Peter was rolling out of bed with ten minutes left before he had to leave for school. The teenager looked at his alarm clock, wondering why it hadn’t gone off. It was covered in haphazardly shot webs. Well. That explains that.

Peter threw on a pair of jeans from his bedroom floor and found a clean science t-shirt hanging in his closet. It showed three Heliums as they appeared on the periodic table (He He He) and was captioned “Laughing Gas.” It was one of his favorites.

He made it to the school slightly out of breath just as the last student was getting on the bus. He smiled apologetically at the teacher checking names off, and found a seat across the aisle from MJ and Ned.

Flash messed with him the entire bus ride to the tower. He only relented when the bus stopped in the drop-off lane and Ms. Warren called for silence.

“Students, we are about to enter the tower. Please remember that going on field trips is a privilege, not a right. You will respect our tour guide. Any failure to comply with their rules and you will spend the remainder of our time here alone on the bus. You will have three strikes” She scanned the bus, looking for signs of disagreement. Upon finding none, she released the students from the bus.

Peter’s classmates started up the tower, shielding their eyes as they tried to see the top. The group eventually moved forward into the wide open lobby of the first ground floor of Stark Tower. There was one other school group waiting to start their tour.

Ms. Warren walked up to the desk to check them in. A pretty dark haired college student ran over with two plastic tubs full of name badges.

“Peter!” She exclaimed as the reached him. “Thank God you’re here! I’ve been the only intern here all day and I need some help.”

“Sure, what’s up Jade?” Jade Harper was one of the other nine interns at SI. The two had grown close recently.

“Well they somehow booked me to run two tours at the same time this afternoon. If I work with that group over there,” she motioned towards the far group, “can you run the tour for this group? There’s no other interns in right now.” She gave him pleading eyes.

“But Jade, this is my -”

“Perfect! I knew I could count on you!” Jade shoved the top plastic bin of IDs into Peter’s arms. Giving him a quick and friendly peck on the cheek, she jogged off to the other side of the room.

Peter turned around to face his his shocked classmates.

“But… I thought Flash said you were lying about your internship?” Dot, a quiet girl from his class, asked timidly.

“Well, I’m afraid that Flash was lying to you.” Peter gave her a smile, attempting to push down the anxiety of the situation that was starting to hit him. He was supposed to be enjoying a quiet time on his phone at the back of the group, laying low to avoid any Avengers, and now he was leading the damn tour? His Parker Luck was unbelievable sometimes.

“No way! You can’t even apply for the internship until you’re in college! I’ve checked. He must have paid that chick off.” Flash announced this proudly from the front and center of the tour group.

“They made an exception for me, Thompson.” Peter assumed an air of superiority to mask his discomfort at the accusation. He popped off the lid of the plastic ID badge box.

“I’m going to call your names one at a time. When you hear yours, uhh, come and get your badge!” As Peter distributed the badge lanyards, he thought about how it was nice that he knew the names in advance. Whenever he had to do actual intern things like lead tours, he always butchered the names the first few times he said them. This was a little bit of a confidence boost.

After the badges were in the right hands, Peter pushed the lid back onto the now empty plastic container, and handed it to the sweet old woman at the reception desk.

“Now, these badges are on lanyards for a reason. Our head of security gets a little… unhappy if he can’t see your badge all the time, so put it on and don’t cover it up!” Peter laughed a little at his own joke, and pulled his own badge out of an inside pocket in his jacket.

“Hey, why have you got a different color badge, Penis?” Flash pointed a finger at Peter accusingly. Ms. Warren muttered something quietly about watching his language, but largely ignored the offensive nickname.

“The colors of the badges indicate different levels of clearance.” Peter opted to ignore the last bit of Flash’s sentence.

“There are ten levels of security clearance. Visitors have level 1 clearance, that’s a white badge. A manufacturing worker might have a level 2 badge, a newer intern might have a 4. Tony- Mr. Stark, that is- has a 10. Only someone with level ten clearance can move about the entire building.” Peter smiled, but it quickly turned into a smirk.

“Also, didn’t Ms. Warren mention something about respecting your tour guide? That’s strike one, Thompson! Wouldn’t want to end up back on the bus.” Peter, head held high, turned to the security checkpoint at the end of the lobby and led his classmates towards it.

This might not be so bad after all.

-

Peter changed his mind. This was definitely so bad after all. The secret hero decided this a moment after he stepped through the security scanner and was greeted by F.R.I.D.A.Y.

“Peter Parker, Level 10. Welcome back, Peter. Tony asked me to inform you that you didn’t make your bed this morning, again. He says that he is not mad, just disappointed.” Peter winced.

He couldn’t believe that F.R.I.D.A.Y would expose him like that for his messy bedroo- oh shit. Peter had forgotten about the fact that his living here most nights was meant to be a secret.

He turned to his class.

“I’m here really late for projects a lot, I have a room here to crash in when it’s too late to catch a bus.” He explained lamely. He couldn’t very well tell them that Tony Stark was basically his dad, Peter had just barely managed to convince his classmates that his internship even existed, they wouldn’t be so quick to believe him.

“Peter, why are you level 10?”

Shit.
-

Peter was saved from answering by the arrival of Steve Rogers. He was sporting jeans and sneakers with an American flag t-shirt (ever the patriot.) He was also carrying his shield.

“Pete, I thought you had a field trip today! Why are you leading tours?” Cap looked at him like a concerned parent.

“Hey, Steve. This actually is my field trip! This is my chemistry class, there just weren’t enough interns so somehow Jade roped me into leading their tour. Actually, I’m not really sure how that happened…” Peter trailed off.

“What, you got a crush on her or something?” Abe joked playfully. The class laughed but there was no venom in it.

“Do you? I was under the impression that you liked that M-” Steve was abruptly cut off by Peter’s hand being shoved in front of his mouth.

“Dude!” Peter shouted at him for almost revealing (one of) his secret(s.) He couldn’t tell if his class was more shocked that Captain America knew who Peter liked, or that quiet and nerdy Peter Parker would slap a hand over an Avenger’s mouth. Regardless, Peter understood why MJ had taken out her crisis notebook.

“Whhhhha- ohhhhh” Cap gave Peter an apologetic glance and Peter lowered his hand.

“Sorry, kid.” Steve ruffled Peter’s hair, “won’t happen again.” Then with a smile and a light toss-and-catch of his shield, Captain America was off.

“HOW does Penis know Captain America?” Flash yelled angrily from the group.

“I climbed the ladder once I got here. I make tech for the Avengers now, got my own lab and everything. That’s why I’m here so late some nights.” Perfect. That explained the bedroom as well.

Peter continued down the hallway towards the Iron Man exhibit. He froze for a second and turned over his shoulder.

“Oh, and Flash?” He started innocently. He narrowed his eyes, “Strike two.”

Peter gave the official tour speeches as they passed different windows and exhibits. Various scientists and engineers would spot him out the glass walls of their workspaces and give him a wave. It made Flash and the other students sputter every time.

It was a largely uneventful tour for the next few floors. Only when they started to head towards the food court for lunch did things get interesting again.

Peter led the group towards the visitor elevators to head to the level where they could get food when he heard a booming yet incredibly cheerful voice calling to him from behind.

“Little Stark!” Thor bounded around the corner towards the class. He scooped Peter up off the ground and gave him a massive hug.

“Little Stark! It has been too long!” Thor put Peter down, smiling widely. He could’ve sworn his classmate’s jaws hit the floor. Even MJ was too shocked for crisis drawing.

“It has been, hasn’t it!” Peter beamed up at the thunder god. “I was just about to take this group down to the food court.”

“Excellent! We can catch up there!” Roughly 30 teenagers, a sleep deprived adult, and an Asgardian crammed into the elevator which was large, yes, but not large enough for this. Peter was relieved when the doors opened.

Thor and Peter chose a table near the doors of the massive room. So, naturally, so did the rest of the class. The students and even the teacher were desperate for more information on Peter’s strange relationship with the Avengers and his mystery case of level 10 clearance. Thor did not mind, he was happy to entertain the group.

“-and then Little Stark, here-” Thor was in the middle of an embarrassing story when he was interrupted by Ned.

“Mr. Thor, sir, why do you call Peter ‘Little Stark?” He asked timidly.

“Why, because he is the son of the bigger Stark, is he not?” Thor looked to Peter with confused puppy eyes. The class went dead silent.

“Really? I thought you meant it as a joke! Tony’s not my real dad!” Peter exclaimed, waving his arms wildly. That’s when all hell broke loose.

The doors to the room swung open and two men walked in. It was none other than Tony Stark, sipping hot coffee and Steve Rogers, now without his shield. It was Iron Man and Captain America! But Thor didn’t see them…

“But Peter, I thought you were the son of Tony and Steve!”

Hearing this, Tony spewed out a mouthful of steaming black coffee.

Right onto Steve.

“Thor, that would be biologically improbable-” Peter tried to reason with him,

“SHIT!” Steve shouted, the coffee burned! He pulled his shirt off over his head ot keep the liquid from hurting his skin.

Only then did he look up to see that he was in a room full of teenagers and one very flustered looking adult lady.

He raised a hand to cover his mouth. The teenagers mouths were gaping open upon hearing Captain America curse. They were shocked that the word was even in his vocabulary!

Peter stood up, turned his chair around backwards, and sat back down in it, using the back part as an armrest.

“So you cursed in front of a bunch of kids…” Peter said in a mock-serious tone. Tony and Thor barked out laughs, and some of the students had tears of laughter in their eyes after Peter’s flawless impression of the videos of the Cap they have to watch in school.

“Thor, I’m not with Steve.” Tony felt the need to clarify this. Peter turned his chair back around.

“No? If not Steve then perhaps… is it Steven?” Thor pondered.

“No! I am engaged to Pepper! I have been for months, Thor, where have you been?” Tony was mildly red in the face.

“Asgard,” he answered thoughtfully, “Are you really engaged to Miss Potts?” Thor inquired.

“Why is that so surprising to you?” Asked Tony.

The field trip group was looking back and forth between the two heroes, not daring to speak. This entire tour had been wild.

“I guess I’m just not used to being around women who like men.” Thor shrugged.

“What?”

“You know, patron god of lesbians?” Thor motioned to himself. At the blank stares he sighed and continued.

“Somehow I ended up only working alongside ladies who happened to like ladies. It’s nice. We talk about girls and fight giants to the death. Along the way they dubbed me the patron god of lesbians.” Thor shrugged again as if this were a normal occurrence. “So sometimes I forget.”

There was a silence.

“Cap could never be Peter’s dad anyways! He’s not gay.” Piped up a student in the group.

Just then, Bucky Barnes, Winter Soldier himself, stepped through the doors to the food court. The scene he walked in on was a confused Thor sitting with his head in his hands, an exasperated Tony who also had his head in his hands, and a shirtless Steve Rogers.

Bucky focused on the latter. He looked him up and down once, then gave the other man a ‘how you doin’ nod. Steve nodded back.

“Nice shirt, Cap.” Bucky said cheekily. He then walked away.

“Okay, maybe not.” The student amended.

“Why are we discussing Peter’s parents, anyway?” Tony asked. Evidently, he had not seen the boy himself yet.

“His classmates asked me why I call him Little Stark!” Said Thor.

“His classma- Peter, your field trip is here!?” Tony stared at his kid. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“So something like this wouldn’t happen.” Peter looked around helplessly at the starstruck students and stressed out avengers assembled (hehe) in the food court. Tony looked slightly hurt.

“Well, then, that’s okay, kid. Who’s your tour guide?” Tony tried for small talk.

“Well, actually, it ended up being me because there weren’t enough interns in today.” Peter looked almost sheepish. “Jade somehow got double booked for tour shifts today.”

“How did that happen?” Tony looked up slightly. “F.R.I.D.A.Y, how did the shifts get screwed up this morning?”

“This morning’s shifts were Karen’s responsibility, boss.” The A.I reported.

Tony gave Peter a Look for the apparent programming error in his A.I.

“And you didn’t confer with Karen?” Tony asked.

“Karen is a bitch.” The A.I said flatly.

There was a pause.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y, WHERE DID YOU LEARN THAT TERM?” Tony knew for a fact that his A.I didn’t curse.

“I learned it from Steve, boss.”

Another pause.

The squeak of a chair on tile.

“So you cursed in front of a robot…”

Chapter Text

Once the chatter died down in the lunchroom from Peter’s second flawless Cap impression of the day, Steve quietly excused himself to get a new shirt. Thor followed him for answers, but bumped into Bucky heading the same direction so Thor turned right back around.

“Well, Peter I’d hate to see you leading your own field trip.” Said Tony to his protege.

“That’s a nice thought, Mr. Stark, but there aren’t any other interns free right now.” Peter responded warily, dreading where this was going.

“Well, I have a free afternoon!” Tony chirped.

“Actually, boss, you have four meetings and a phone call with the president tonight.” Echoed a voice from the ceiling.

“Don’t sass me, F.R.I.D.A.Y, you’re still in trouble.” The man snapped.

Tony turned back to Peter and gave him a winning paparazzi smile.

“I can lead your tour!” Peter should have stayed home today.

Tony led them though the next few floors, the massive Avengers museum and old training area, then stopped in a conference room to take questions. The class spent a moment spinning around in the luxurious rolling chairs before spinning to the front and awaiting further speech.

“I thought this would be a nice place to take a break and rest your feet for a sec,” Tony announced. “Does anyone have any questions about Stark Industries?”

Twenty hands shot up.

“Is Peter really an intern here?”

“Well, the kid definitely started out as one, but he’s much more than just an intern now. Part of a real team, this one is.” Tony smiled fondly at ‘the kid.’

“Who’s the lady in the ceiling?”

“That would be F.R.I.D.A.Y. She’s my AI. Karen is Peter’s AI.” Tony answered with a glare towards the ceiling.

“Peter has an AI?”

“Kid sure does! Programmed most of her himself. He’s got a lab and a room too. He’s here a lot.” Tony chuckled.

“Why does he have a lab?”

“Peter is one of our most trusted engineers and he builds a lot of tech and weapons for the Avengers. We can’t have projects like that out in the open, so he has his own lab.” Tony smiled at the kid who asked the question, and she looked like she might pass out.

“Why does Peter have a bedroom here?”

“Why is Peter a level 10?”

“Is Peter secretly an avenger?”

“Is Peter secretly your son?”

“Are you really dating Captain America?”

“Was Civil War just a setup to keep your relationship a secret?”

“Enough!” Tony shouted, not angry but just loud enough to quiet down the eager teenagers.

“Raise your hand if you have a question…”

Everyone’s hand shot up.

“...that is about Stark Industries.”

Only one hand remained. Tony called on her.

“Can you tell us about how your company will be applying your findings about clean energy initiatives to help rural areas in third world countries gain electricity?”

Tony smiled. “Sure.” He answered her question and went back and forth with her for a bit. She impressed him with energy and quick wit. He needed thinkers like that in his company.

Tony declared the questions session over and ushered the kids out the door towards an interactive lab area where tour groups could try to make robots. He tapped the girl on the shoulder on her way out.

“What’s your name?” He asked her.

“Michelle Jones,” she answered, “people call me MJ.”

Tony smiled. So this was MJ. “Pleasure to meet you, MJ. Peter talks about you a lot. You should come around here with him sometime! I like the way you think.”

The tour continued. Tony told ridiculous stories about Peter and the class soaked it up. They were confused about the dynamic between the two, but always happy to get embarrassing blackmail on a classmate.

“Oh! I should tell them about the time you accidentally walked into a conference room during a board meaning and you ran out of the room so fast you face planted into the door to the women’s restroom and knocked yourself unconscious?” Tony grinned evilly.

“That’s a great idea, Tony! Especially if you want me to tell them about the time you set your shirt on fire cooking spaghetti and it set the fire sprinklers off which got your autographed photo of Joe Biden wet so you spent half an hour crying on the phone with a White House attendant apologizing and asking for a new one!” Peter smiled wide. Tony looked horrified.

“Okay, I’ve had enough. There is no way that Penis actually knows Tony Stark. I don’t know what you did to get all the Avengers to act like they know you or Tony Stark to act like your dead dad, but quit the bullshit. How did you do it?” Flash Thompson was staring angrily at the two. His hands were on his hips and he looked as though he felt entitled to these answers.

“Excuse me?” Tony rounded on him. “Peter worked hard for his position on my staff. He has beyond proved himself to be worthy of being under the roof of this building, unlike you, who’s only here because of a fird trip opportunity plopped right into his greedy hands.” Flash moved like he meant to retaliate but Tony didn’t give him the time of day.

“This kid may not be my child biologically but I think of him as a son. He is too good to have to deal with comments from people like you. You may be laughing now, but you won’t be when he becomes the next head of Stark Industries.” Tony had been trying to keep the fact that Peter was the heir to his company away from public eye, but it was about time he told people anyways.

Flash looked dumbstruck.

“Anything to add, son?” Tony turned to Peter.

“Hm? Oh, yeah. Flash that’s strike three. See you on the bus.” Peter smirked and gave the bully a condescending little wave and sent him on his pouty way.

Flash sputtered a bit but eventually stormed away to prevent further blows to his honor.

The class kept walking down the hallway.

Black Widow passed them. She said hello to Tony and gave Peter a high five. The class did not know how to react.

“Shall I tell more embarrassing stories about Peter” Tony chuckled and nudged the boy with his elbow.

“Ooooh, I love those!” Said a voice behind the group.

Shuri, princess of Wakanda, walked through the class towards Peter and Tony. The students parted around her, granting her passage.

When she arrived at the front, she and Peter engaged in a fifteen second super-secret handshake that ended with a booty-bump and shouting “Bestie!” before dissolving into giggles.

The class was, once again, rendered speechless. Tony just rolled his eyes. He led the group, now including Shuri, to another interactive lab exhibit. He let them explore the area and pester Shuri with questions as he poked around at a computer to do some reprogramming on F.R.I.D.A.Y.

Starting with deleting some words from her vocabulary.

And deleting her recognition of Steve.

Including his status as an Avenger.

And his access abilities to the tower.

Tony felt a gentle tap on his shoulder. He turned around expecting to find a timid student or new intern he hadn’t met. Instead he came face to face with the god of thunder.

“Hey Tony, I’m still not understanding who Peter’s other parent is.” He poked his index fingers together as a nervous tick.

“Thor, buddy, you don’t know his parents. They’re dead. They died in a plane crash when he was just a kid. He’s lived with his Aunt May ever since then-”

“Is she-”

“Yeah, the hot one. She practically raised the kid. He’s not mine even though I treat him like he is sometimes. And I am not with Steve. Or with Steven. Okay?” Tony gave Thor a reassuring smile. He hesitated for a second the nodded slowly.

“Yeah, thanks Tony.” He retreated out of the room like a puppy. Tony wondered how this man had people trembling with fear of him. He stopped at the doorway.

“Wait, can I still call him Little Stark?”

“If it doesn’t bother him then I don’t see why not.” Tony chuckled.

Thor gave him the biggest, brightest smile in all the nine worlds and took his leave.

Tony returned his attention to the class for a moment and was not thrilled with what he found. In his distraction, Peter and Shuri had turned a StarkPad, a prototype motherboard for an old AI of his, and a box of microphones and spare parts into a karaoke machine.

They were currently leading the class in high school musical songs (complete with the exact choreography from the movie.) Tony didn’t know that Peter could dance.

The song switched from an upbeat chorus to a slow, romantic duet. Shuri shoved her microphone into MJs hands, forcing her to drop her crisis notebook. MJ stepped forward to sing the duet with Peter, smiling.

When the class was distracted by whooping and whistling at the two (especially Ned,) Shuri leaned down to pick up the crisis notebook. It had fallen open to a page at the back titled “not crisis, just cute.” It featured adorable drawings of Peter smiling and laughing and being a goofball.

Shuri shipped it.

After the duet, Tony led the groaning class out of the room. They were going to be late back to the school for the end of the day, and they unfortunately had to leave.

On the way back down, they passed Steve. He was wearing a clean shirt and gray sweatpants. He had a hickey barely visible above the neckline of his shirt on his neck. The class’s mouths watered a bit.

They passed Bucky. He was making coffee at a cart in the hall and humming to himself. The class did not think much of it.

They passed Black Widow. She said hello to Tony again and gave Peter another high five. The class still did not know how to react.

They passed Thor. He was leaning against a wall and talking on the phone.

“Just ask her out! Yes, she likes you, I’ve read your messages with her. Why would you just wait- you are the most useless lesbian SHE is probably waiting for YOU to ask her- for the love of- okay fine this is your problem now.”

They silently shook with laughter and continued on.

When the class reached the lobby of the tower it was too soon. They knowledge they gained that day was more than any man should have the power to wield and any man would ever want in the first place. What the fuck.

When they climbed back onto the bus, Flash glared at each of them. They didn’t care very much.

For most of the ride home, the class silently processed everything that had just happened. if Was it even real or not? What would they tell their parents about the trip when they got home that day?

Peter: “May, it was sooooooo embarrassing!”

Ned: “Mom it was the COOLEST place I’ve ever been to you wouldn't believe…”

MJ: “Yeah. It was pretty cool I guess.”

Flash: “Father, I’m switching schools.”

Dot: “Mom, Mum, today I met the patron god of lesbians.”