Work Text:
“So basically, you get to play as Spider-Man and you have to see how far you can swing around New York before you crash,” Peter explained, not taking his eyes off of the red and blue figure flying across his phone screen. “It progressively gets faster and faster to make it more challenging.”
“Sick,” Ned breathed out, captivated by the mobile game his friend was playing.
“Here, wanna try?” Peter asked, letting the character crash into a tall building. Ned took the device from him and tapped the restart button that popped up onto the screen. Peter scooted over on the cafeteria bench and leaned closer to watch as the other boy quickly got used to the mechanics.
“This runs so smoothly,” Ned commented, tapping away at the screen, “and the graphics are amazing!”
“Yeah, MJ helped me out with a lot of the visual aspects and I ran some of the coding by Mr Stark whenever he wasn’t too busy,” Peter explained. He had been working on the app for a few months now and was very pleased with the finished result, he was also glad that his best friend seemed to enjoy the game as well.
“Your life is so cool,” Ned sighed, not looking away from the game, “you get to say things like, oh I just had Tony Stark look over the coding for the app I made for school … Dammit,” he cursed under his breath as Spider-Man hit a tower crane. The screen displayed his current score along with the high score and the option to play again.
Peter chuckled and grabbed his phone back from his friend. “Only about a thousand points away from my score,” he teased. “You beat Mr Stark though, and you’re only just below MJ’s score.” Peter started up a new game but was interrupted halfway through by a text notification.
“Dude!” Ned dragged the word out, hitting Peter’s arm excitedly when he read who the text was from.
The bar that slid down from the top of his screen read “ Mr Stark: Hey kid, how’d the mobile app thingy go?”
Peter opened up the text conversation and quickly sent a message back, “Haven’t presented it yet” he followed up quickly with another text, “It’s due in my next class”
It took a few moments before Tony sent a response, “Tell me how it goes.” Another message followed shortly, “Oh and BTW I’m sending Happy to bring you to the compound after school, want you to do a field test with the new suit that you didn’t want.”
Peter winced at the last part of the message, “I still can’t believe you turned down THE Tony Stark,” Ned mumbled. “You could have been an Avenger dude! And you could have gotten a super cool new suit!” he whispered. After a beat, he added, “Not that your current suit isn’t cool. It’s awesome, but I’m sure the other one is a lot better. Do you think it’s more like an Iron Man suit, like with repulsors and stuff?” Ned let out a soft gasp, “Do you think it can fly? Or maybe it’s bulletproof, is your current suit bulletproof?”
“I don’t know, Ned. But I don’t think I want to find out,” he chuckled like he always did whenever his pal asked a crazy question about his extracurriculars. The bell had already rung while Ned was rambling and Peter had collected his things to set off towards his next class with his friend; nervous but excited to present his app to his class. The two boys took their seats towards the middle of the classroom and pulled out their devices that held their projects.
The final bell to signal the start of class sounded off and their teacher, Mr Simmons, stepped up to the front of the room. “Alright everyone, today’s the day! The day you’ve all been waiting for; presentation day!” The class let out a mix of different reactions, some groaning and some feigning excitement. “Contain yourselves people, I’m sure you all are just itching to subject yourselves to the harsh criticism of myself and your peers,” Simmons sarcastically drawled. He began calling students up one by one in alphabetical order, effectively taking roll in the process. “Next up: Peter. Dazzle me, kid!” Mr Simmons jokingly demanded. Peter opened up his app on his phone as he walked towards the front of the class. He took his time finding the end of the adapter cable to hook his phone up to the projector, trying to give himself time to calm down and get his nerves in check. Once his phone screen was displayed on the projector screen, he could hear faintly impressed and intrigued murmurs from his classmates. “Gorgeous design, very clean,” his teacher complimented, “The floor is yours, Mr Parker.”
Peter gave a small smile under the praise, subconsciously wiping his slightly sweaty hands against his pants. He cleared his throat before he began speaking, “Uh yeah, so… Hi, my name is Peter Parker, and today I will be sharing with you a mobile game that I made.” Peter pressed play to showcase the game’s mechanics and explained what went into each aspect of the app. His classmates were ensorceled by the gameplay, as was his teacher. “And for the animation, I used a simple—” Peter and his game were both interrupted when he suddenly got a phone call. His device displayed “ Incoming Call from Mr Stark ” on the wall behind him for all of his class to see. Accompanying the call notification was a photo of Peter and Tony smiling at the camera, the beautiful architecture of Berlin acting as a backdrop. Whispers broke out amongst the class and Peter could hear the disgruntled snort Flash let out. “I uh, sorry,” Peter apologised. Before he could decline the call and move on, his phone put the call through automatically, the same way his suit would.
Gasps and murmurs could be heard throughout the room as the face of THE Tony Stark appeared on the screen before them. “Hey, Pete. Just wanted to let you know there’s a slight change in plans.”
“Mr Stark I—” Peter tried.
“I just got off the phone with May, and we decided it would be best if you just slept over at the compound to avoid the long back and forth,” Tony continued, not hearing Peter’s quiet plea.
“I… Okay, but—”
Tony cut him off again with a raise of his hand “I already asked your aunt to pack an overnight bag and I told Happy to grab it on his way to pick you up, so you don’t need to worry about a thing. What do you feel like having tonight, I was thinking Italian but if you—”
“Mr Stark!” Peter exclaimed, effectively shutting Tony up. The older man stared back at him through the phone with a surprised look on his face. “Sorry, could we just talk about this later?”
Tony’s expression changed from shock to confusion. “I’m sorry, am I interrupting something?” he asked with a slightly arrogant tone.
Peter ducked his head and kept his voice down as he replied, “I’m in the middle of a presentation.”
“Oh,” Tony faltered but quickly recovered, “Wait, is that the one for the mobile app you’ve been working on?”
“Yes,” Peter mumbled his reply.
“How’s it going so far?” He asked, a smug grin on his face. Tony began laughing as Peter just gave him an unamused and slightly annoyed look. “Alright, alright. Nice meeting you, Peter’s class,” he called with a wave to the camera. “I’ll see you after school, Petey!” and with that, Tony ended the call and Peter’s phone screen returned to his game from before, now paused.
The boy slowly looked up to meet the awestruck gazes of his classmates. Even Mr Simmons practically had his jaw on the floor. “Uh, thank you for your time,” Peter muttered then quickly unplugged his phone, mentally kicking himself for not doing so sooner, and hastily made his way back to his seat next to Ned.
“Uh, right. Very good, Mr Parker. Um, Cassidy Payton, you’re up,’ Their teacher announced, finally snapping out of his stupor.
Ned patted Peter’s shoulder consolingly; the latter hid his face in his arms that rested on the desk before him. “At least Flash can’t say you’ve never talked to Mr Stark before?” he tried but his efforts only gained him a quiet groan from his distraught friend.
By the time school had gotten out, word had spread about Peter’s presentation mishap and he had gotten dozens of classmates asking him if it was true that Tony Stark had called him during class. He did his best to keep his answers short and vague, as well as completely dodge any questions regarding the Avengers. Once he exited the building, Peter practically dove into the car through the door Happy held open for him, earning an eye roll from the older man. “You the star quarterback now or somethin?” Happy asked as he slid into the driver's seat.
Peter gave him a confused look, “What? No.”
Happy looked at Peter in the rearview mirror and continued, “Everyone’s lookin at you like you… Well, like you’re Tony Stark.”
Peter chanced a look out the tinted window to see Happy was right. His peers were all excitedly talking with one another while looking and pointing at the car he sat in. “I’ll explain on the way,” Peter mumbled, sliding down in his seat as if that would hide him more than the darkened windows already did. As the car began rolling forward, Peter felt his phone vibrate in his pocket.
“ Mr Stark: So…” Peter opened his phone to their text log. He was about to respond but the little bubble in the bottom corner told him that Tony was typing. “How’d your presentation go? ;-p”
Peter couldn’t help but chuckle at the message and sent one back, “You’re such a jerk…”
“ :-) ”
- End -