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Peter parker slouched in the back of the bus. His hands were stuck deep into the pocket of his hoodie and the hood itself was drawn up over his head. He didn’t want to be here, he didn’t want to have dumb flash and the rest of his class to tease him because Stark industries didn’t let him have a badge.
To keep it brief, he was pouting.
The whole class had known about his internship with Stark Industries because for some reason the principal had decided to announce is over the intercom and let the whole school in on his business. If that wasn’t embarrassing enough, Flash saw that as a huge red bullseye that was suddenly placed on Peter’s head and given him even more content to work with, as far as bullying was concerned. On one hand Peter was thankful, because Flash finally got some new content to work with and he didn’t have to hear the same godawful contrivances he had gotten into the routine of, but on the other hand it meant the whole school now thought that he was lying about his internship.
That was fine, he had initially thought. He didn’t really care if people thought it was real or not. The problem really started when the teacher announced the class was going to visit Stark industries. Flash had, of course, started making even more of a rumpus about his “fake” internship and upped the ante to an almost embarrassing degree. Slamming him against lockers, shoulder checking him in the hallway, and as always, calling him Penis. Peter couldn’t walk 5 steps without Flash mentioning genitalia--it was TRUE suffering. It almost felt like Flash was following him around through the school day just to mock him. Ned and MJ tried to stand up for him but really, it almost made it worse.
To make it even worse than that, Peter had desperately called Happy and asked if there was like, a badge or something that could just prove to everyone that he had special access and show them he was legit, but Happy said that kind of thing didn’t even exist at Stark industries. And no, he said, we couldn’t just make up one for you. Peter was also only ever in the few upper floors of the tower so he didn’t even know what went on in the part they would be touring; he even had a nightmare the about having to ask someone where the bathroom was. Peter groaned and buried his head in his hands. Ned turned from his conversation with MJ to check up on his friend but was so rudely interrupted by a loud voice from the seat in front of them.
“WHAT’S WRONG PENIS? Worried, now that the whole school is going to know that your little fakey fake internship is fake?” Flash jeered. He had turned around in his seat and stood on his knees, and from Peter’s bent angle he could just see Flash’s little beetle eyes peeping over the gray fake leather of the bus seat.
“He probably just has a headache from having to overhear your rat ass the whole ride,” MJ piped up. Flash shot her a dirty look and Ned shot her a high five. Flash opened his mouth to retort again but was cut short by the teacher barking at him to sit down.
“This isn’t over, Penis,” he remarked as he lowered himself back into his seat.
“Is it ever” Peter groaned.
By the time the school bus pulled up to the front of Stark Industries Peter was beside himself with anticipation. This is his reputation they’re talking about. It already wasn’t very good! To be outed as a liar on top of already being the biggest dork in school? Peter shivered at the mere thought. Once it reached time for the back of the bus to get out Peter felt Ned’s hand clasp his shoulder. He turned to look at his friend and received a supportive, curt nod of encouragement. For a second, Peter thought he could do this.
The confidence stayed with him as he exited the bus and peered up at the looming tower of Stark Industries and kept him going all the way up until they entered the large, glass doors. Peter took one step in and realized how many people were there who wouldn’t recognize him, and how all the people were in badges. What the hell, Happy? He could just hear Flash’s voice in his head all like Hey Penis? Why don’t you have a badge, Penis?
Oh, he heard it in his head because Flash was real time in front of him saying that out loud. Peter sighed, and he shrugged. “I guess Mr. Stark didn’t see any reason for me to have one.”
“In a high security building like this? Seems SKETCH, but sure Jan,” Flash mocked. Peter almost outwardly cringed. He noticed several of their classmates had stolen quick glances at him and looked away as soon as he met their eyes, only to whisper something and look back again. God, it was going to be a long day.
Once on the other side of security (Visitors have to take off their shoes? Really?) The class was greeted by a smiling woman with bouncy curls.
“Hello everybody! Welcome to Stark Industries! My name is Riri Williams. I’m a college intern here, and I will be acting as your tour guide today!”
Flash took no time in raising his hand.
“Yes, young man?”
“You HAVE to be a college student to intern here? Like, there are no high school interns working here right now?” Flash asked, obviously trying not to look at Peter.
“…..No? Not that I know of?” Riri answered, obviously trying not to act like that was a weird and kind of pointless question.
Flash turned his dumb grin back to Peter and muttered under his breath “Penis.” and walked towards the front of the group. Peter gave Ned and MJ a series of speechless hand signals. They gave him deep, understanding nods in return.
The tour guide led them to a large room full of pictures of Tony Stark. She began talking about the history of Stark industries and Tony’s parents. She gave them the spiel about how it used to be a company for weapons and now it is a company For Peace—all stuff everybody knows. She ended her rather animated talk next to a large, framed oil painting of Iron Man that she gazed up to admiringly. So did the rest of the class, though. Iron man is freakin cool.
“No pictures of Peter in sight.” Flash muttered under his breath, flicking his eyes to the boy in question.
“oh my GOD, literally shut up about it” MJ snapped. “Nobody cares about your obsession with Peter’s penis.” A few kids in class snickered and Flash looked away, beet red. Peter hoped he’d keep his distance after being put on blast like that.
After the Tony Room, Riri took the class to several other rooms with cool sciencey things. Big machines, small machines, some machines Peter helped tinker on and some he only saw from a distance. Every once and a while Flash would hover back to say something stupid, but got scared away at MJs icy glares.
As they exited the room about “The Science Behind the Tesseract, from the perspective of Tony Stark” by Tony Stark, a deep rumbling came from overhead. The whole class looked around curiously, but the tour guide seemed unaffected to say the least.
“A little bit of rumbling here and there is normal in Stark Towers. With so many large, powerful machines running and being tested on it’s completely expected to have a little shaking here and there. Just be careful if you do your paperwork in pen!” she laughed. Someone in the group coughed.
“Alright, now onto the next part of our tour, the part you’ve all been waiting for, the Arc Reactor!” the tour guide announced, starting them off into another hallway.
The hall had large, ceiling to floor length glass windows that overlooked the city skyline. Peter strolled at the back of the pack to have a bit better of a view, since Mr. Stark’s labs didn’t have any windows at all. It really was nice to be able to see the tower from a different perspective than he usually got.
As always, though, Flash strayed back with him just to make his life difficult.
“Staying back so no one has to look has to look at your liar face, Penis?” Flash started. Someone at the front drew Peter’s attention with a loud exclamation and pointed arm, and his eyes followed to see a strange shape coming towards them. As more people noticed there was a mad dash to scramble out of the way- right as the shape came hurdling through the glass and slid across the long hallway floor. Peter recognized the bright red and gold metal in an instant-
“Iron Man?”
He grunted and pulled himself up from the shattered glass on the floor. He stretched his arms and looked over to Peter. The front of his helmet slid up to reveal a sweaty Tony Stark underneath.
“Oh, was your thing today?”
Peter stepped towards him. “What’s going on?”
Tony looked up towards the broken window. “Some freak got the idea to combine parts of each Avenger to create the ultimate super soldier. Imagine Frankenstein’s doped up cousin but uglier.
“It’s perfect that you’re here though, Friday isn’t programmed in the new suit yet and I need everyone to evacuate the building. I need you to go to one of her modules and put in the code to get people out of here.” The Iron Man mask dropped back over his face. “Thanks kid!” he called as he took a running jump out the window. “And don’t get any ideas! I’ve got it handled!”
“Wait!” Peter called as Tony left. “Where is the module??”
“By the bathrooms!” Came the faint reply.
Peter stood in the middle of his shocked classmates and turned to the shocked tour guide.
“So uh, where are the bathrooms at?”
The whole class stood outside of Stark Tower, looking up at the several floors of shattered windows. They were out a little earlier than planned and combined with the dozen cop cars now stopped outside it was going to take a hot second for the bus to get there. MJ turned to Peter and elbowed him lightly.
“So I guess beetle eyes has no choice but to know your internship is real now” she said.
“More or less,” Peter shrugged.
“I wonder if Iron Man’s gonna come down to check on you? On us?” Ned spoke up. A few classmates echoed his curiosity.
Peter opened his mouth to reply but was interrupted by his phone pinging in his pocket. He looked at the screen to see a text message from Mr. Stark. He had sent his Bitmoji with a colorful “Good Job!” written at the top.
“Probably not” Peter chuckled to himself.