Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Peter's fingers drummed against his desk in boredom as he looked out the window. The skies were clear, as they usually were during late winter in New York, and he boredly watched as a bird jumped across a small tree branch before taking to the skies. His eyes left the bird to linger on the distant skyscrapers of Manhattan. He could just about spot Stark Tower in the distance, and even half-way blocked by other smaller buildings, it still managed to appear tall and imposing.

The Tower had gotten yet another remodel, this time as a result of the Avengers's "civil war" as the media dubbed it half a year ago (though Peter had a feeling it had to do with the incident during Homecoming and Harley agreed with him), and it was once again sporting the Stark name on it instead of the stylized Avengers A. It now stood as Stark Industries's headquarters, and despite the events that happened the last time he'd visited a major science and tech company, Peter hoped that Mr Harrington somehow scored a field trip there for the Academic Decathlon team.

After all, Mr Harrington had somehow managed to get a field trip to Oscorp, which was only a tier or two below SI.

(If you had asked him two years ago, Peter probably would've said that Oscorp's biochemical engineering and progress on limb regeneration made them equal with Stark Industries’s green energy and neurological prosthesis engineering (though Harley would've disagreed since he was the more techy type of the two), but he kind of changed his mind after the whole got-bit-by-a-spider-and-nearly-died episode. And even though he and Harley became Spider-Man out of it, he was a little bitter. That and the whole Green Goblin fiasco a month or so ago. He and Harley both got pretty hurt in that one…)

The back of Peter's neck buzzed slightly and he caught a glimpse of Harley tossing a small crumbled ball at him. Peter looked up at his foster brother, who nodded subtly in Mrs Warren's direction. As teachers often did, she was looking around to make sure that everyone was doing their classwork. Just as Mrs Warren turned in his and Harley's direction, Peter picked up his pencil and filled in a question on his worksheet. There was a slight prickling on the back of his neck, telling him that Mrs Warren was looking at him, but it faded swiftly after she looked away.

The worksheet was on something that Peter had more than enough knowledge on—pendulums—due to his "job" as Spider-Man. He was out there six times a week (three days a week as well as three nights) and he often did pendulum swings for fun. The worksheet was boring, but Peter continued to fill it in because he knew that Mrs Warren would comment on it otherwise. He, along with Harley, had skipped more than a few classes when they first started out as Spider-Man, and not to mention simply not paying attention in class, and that had led to some trust issues and disappointment amongst their teachers.

After a few more minutes—and a completed worksheet which led to Peter staring at the skyline again—Harley nudged Peter's foot again. When he looked over, Harley tapped on his old watch and Peter glanced up at the clock, letting out a sigh of relief. There were only a few more minutes left of class.

Harley, easily spotting his relief, quirked his lips up in a slight smirk. Peter rolled his eyes. He was bored and wanted to get out of school already, so what? It wasn't as if Harley wasn't itching to get out, as well. He knew as well as anyone that his foster brother would rather be outside (even in the cold) than sitting in a classroom. It was too bad that they weren't even halfway through the school day. Peter had Spanish next class—which wouldn't be too difficult as Aunt May had taught him Italian and Spanish wasn't too far off from it—and then lunch, but there were four more classes after that before school got out for the day.

A minute before class was due to end, Mrs Warren gathered everyone's attention. "Bell's going to ring everyone so whatever you didn't finish is due on Monday," she informed them all. Peter huffed a breath of amusement as more than a few people let out relieved sighs. He knew that this was AP Physics and all, but this stuff was easy.

Though they knew it was coming, both Peter and Harley cringed when the bell rang loudly with a nasally buzzing sound. Where the bell had been an annoyance before his spider bite, it was now almost painful. Their senses were dialled up to eleven and they often got sensory overloads, which they had to work through since they couldn't miss any school, and the bell was one of the highest annoyances there were.

As he started to put away his stuff to leave, Mrs Warren called out, "Peter, Harley, can you two hang back for a few moments?"

Peter hunched in slightly on himself as Flash sniggered on his way out the door. He couldn't help the way his hands trembled slightly. Were he and Harley in trouble? The last time they skipped had been a few weeks ago, they were careful about that now, so she couldn't be worried about their attendances, could she? And they've been on top of their homework ever since they got their patrols levelled out. Where Peter patrolled during the day, Harley patrolled during the night, giving them both ample time to do their homework.

"Yeah, sure," Harley answered Mrs Warren for them both, his southern accent completely gone. Harley had been in the city since he was twelve, he was sixteen now, and he'd had enough time to completely smother any bit of southern drawl he had. He'd been bullied for it, Harley had told Peter when he first caught Harley slipping, and so he did his best to hide it.

Doing his best to calm his nerves, Peter shoved his Physics binder into his beaten backpack. He'd lost his older one during patrol and Ned had been kind enough to lend him an old one. Peter had gotten into trouble after that since all of his homework, including an English essay, had been in it. There was no reason to be nervous, Peter tried to tell himself. It was just Mrs Warren! She was a good teacher, a fun one, and she was kind enough to not call on him often, not forcing him to speak.

Peter rarely ever spoke freely much these days since his aunt and uncle's murder and the trauma he experienced in foster care, the only people he truly spoke to being Harley or Ned, and sometimes a word here or there for MJ (they were mostly apologies for stupid things). He tended to stay quiet unless he was talking to Harley alone or if he was on patrol; the rest of the time he didn't talk.

It was a common coping mechanism for him, and it wasn't new.

When his parents had died when he was four, Peter had stopped talking. It had taken some (read: a lot) coaxing from May, Ben, and his therapist, and some dance classes, to get him to start speaking again. It had happened again when he was around eight when Skip had—when he'd had Skip as a babysitter and he—well, when Skip was his babysitter. Ned, who'd he'd befriended at the time because he didn't bully him and didn't force him to talk, had been the one to get him to talk that time.

He'd slipped back into the habit when May and Ben died two years ago. His foster homes hadn't cared—in fact, they loved not having a mouthy kid—but some of his teachers hadn't been that accepting. They'd given him some leeway due to his twice-over-orphan-ness, but he'd still needed to do presentations and answer questions. He'd tried but most of the time he just couldn't force the words out. The words got stuck in his throat. It wasn't until he'd met Harley the summer before freshman year did he manage to work up the courage to speak. He still didn't talk that much in public, and he didn't speak much at home, but Harley had managed to break down his walls to the point where he could speak to teachers if needed.

(There was also Spider-Man, but when he was Spider-Man he wasn't Peter, the nerdy orphan, he was a bad-ass crime-fighting hero, and a chatterbox. Spider-Man talked where Peter didn't. That's how it worked and he was comfortable with that.)

Taking a breath to calm himself, and reminding himself that Harley wouldn't leave him, Peter stood up and slung his backpack over his shoulder. Everyone was out of the classroom at this point beside him, Harley, and Mrs Warren, and Peter knew that it was Mrs Warren's break so no one should be coming in for anything. It both relieved him—because if he and Harley had done something wrong and were getting in trouble, then no one would be there to see the epic scolding they were about to get, Peter knew that personally—and worried him—because if they weren't in trouble, then what did Mrs Warren need to talk to them about, and in private, too?

"Are we in trouble?" Harley asked in his usual quiet voice. Mrs Warren looked up with a kind smile that had Peter relaxing marginally.

"No boys, you're not in trouble this time," she said. "I actually wanted to ask for your opinion on something." Peter's brow furrowed and he exchanged a puzzled look with Harley. Mrs Warren pulled open a drawer in her desk and she pulled out a packet of some kind, handing it to Peter who was the closest of the two. He glanced down at it with Harley peering over his shoulder—the jerk had the gall to be taller than him—and blinked stupidly at the logo on the top left of the page.

"Stark Industries?" Harley blurted as Peter stared at the packet in surprise.

Mrs Warren was beaming at them. "Yes," she said. "Stark Industries is holding a competition at their company as a sort of entrance exam for high school interns. Every STEM school in the area received five forms each to pick for a student and I was wondering if you two were interested? You're both very intelligent, and despite the troubles you've had recently," Peter was chagrined at the mention of their recent dip in attendance and their grades, especially paired with Mrs Warren's stern look, "I believe you two have the chance to win the competition together."

"Wait, two?" Harley said, "as in both of us, and together? Is that even allowed? And ma'am, there's only one packet here and you said only five students per school were chosen."

Mrs Warren's answer was to pull out another packet from her desk. "Yes, both of you, Mr Keener. Two people are allowed to team up, and despite the poor attendance and the missing assignments both of you had a few months ago, you both made up the work and you're grades and GPA are some of the highest of your year. And I know for a fact that you two are capable of the work Stark Industries is looking for. I've spoken with your STEM teachers and you two are bored in class. And Mr Hapgood went as far as to show me the projects you two are working on in shop class. Your projects are very intuitive and creative, even your potato gun, Harley."

Peter felt a blush creep up his ears at the praise, it'd been a while since anyone had genuinely complimented him, and Harley grinned sheepishly.

"Thanks, Mrs Warren," Harley said. Peter nodded to show that he felt the same and he ducked his head at Mrs Warren's amused grin.

Peter flipped through his own packet, eyes skimming the information on the contest, before he looked at the last page with the permission form on it. His lips quirked down slightly. They needed a parent's or guardian's permission to enter the competition and Peter wasn't sure if their faster father, Dan, would allow them to participate. They already had to beg him to continue Academic Decathlon a few months ago, and he'd forced them to quit their other extracurriculars (band and robotics club for Peter and the soccer team and robotics for Harley) because of their absences and the steep drop in grades got him in trouble with their social workers. And even if Dan allowed them to participate, there was no way that they would be able to afford materials to even create something of their own.

Harley must've been thinking the same thing because he asked, "Do we have to buy the materials ourselves?"

Mrs Warren, who knew their home situations and that they couldn't afford brand new, expensive materials like the rest of their classmates, nodded sympathetically. "I'm afraid that the school won't be able to provide either of you with materials because then the school would have to be able to provide every student participating with materials, and the school doesn't have enough funds to cover everyone's projects and provide the materials used in our tech classes. However, students will be allowed to use the workshop's tools and anything bought in bulk—like wiring or screws, for example—and the computer labs for coding."

That was better than nothing, Peter thought. Harley's lips thinned, Peter was sure he was thinking on the glass half empty side rather than the glass half full, and he nodded.

"Now, you two don't have to say yes right away," said Mrs Warren. "Take some time, talk amongst yourselves, talk with your foster parents, figure things out. The competition is in a little more than a month—not long, I know, but a part of SI's competition is making a fully working project in a limited space of time—but knowing you two, you should have enough time to whip something up. I do need an answer by the end of next week, though, okay?" They both nodded. "Good, now let me get you two some passes so you can get to class."

Mrs Warren swiftly filled out some hall passes for them and they were on their way.

Peter and Harley walked slowly down the hall, both preoccupied with their own thoughts. Peter flipped back to the front of the packed he'd been given and he read the information a little slower. Just like Mrs Warren said, the competition was for high school students at STEM schools, and that specialists and other people at SI would more or less be grading their project—their idea, presentation, and how well executed the idea was—for a chance to become an intern at the company. There was also a bit about how SI would sponsor and-or donate to the schools where the interns were chosen from, which was intimidating to think about because that meant that Mrs Warren thought they were worth representing the whole of Midtown to Stark Industries for future interns to be chosen from. He swiftly shelved that thought and read the rest of the paper. Oh! The internship was paid, too. That was nice and would help a lot. Still, he came back to the same thought earlier.

"Do you think Dan will let us compete?" he murmured. He didn't bother speaking at a normal level; Harley had the same enhanced senses he had, which meant that he'd be able to hear him whisper from all the way across the school.

Harley frowned at his own packet. "I honestly don't know," he said. "Dan hasn't been stressed lately and we've been careful to keep our grades up so he hasn't gotten any more worrying calls from the social workers. I'm more worried about the fact that we won't be able to buy anything brand new. I know we've got some money saved up from helping around the neighbourhood and our part-time jobs, but we're saving that for stuff we need like extra food and first aid supplies."

"Dumpster diving, then?" Peter suggested quietly. "Not like we haven't done it before."

Harley snorted. Almost everything they owned (or created) was thrifted or pulled from dumpsters. Their laptops, their phones, an old tablet that they'd neglected because they've been so busy making up work and doing homework and patrolling, and even some clothes. Even their webshooters were made from stuff out of dumpsters, their wires coming from broken DVD players and various other parts coming from lighters and other trash that they'd found.

"Look at the schools competing," Harley pointed out, gesturing to a section on the form. "These are all schools, most of them being private schools, where a lot of rich kids go to. Hell, this is a school for rich kids and the only reason we got in was because of that entrance exam we took and they made a special case because we both got the highest grades and we're orphans. Everyone competing will have the money for expensive parts and we'll be entering with literal trash."

"Doesn't matter anyway," Peter muttered, shoulders slumping. "Not like Dan'll let us compete."

Harley whirled around in front of him, stopping him in place by clasping both hands on his shoulders. Instead of flinching away from the movement, Peter leaned into the steady hands of his foster brother. He and Harley had been together for a year and a half, they'd been in similar shitty situations, and they felt like they were brothers in all but name and blood.

"Chin up, Parker," Harley said reassuringly, tipping Peter's head up with a slight nudge to his chin. "We've been good little boys and Dan doesn't have to know that materials won't be provided. Quindi smettila di preoccuparti, capisci?"

Peter smiled slightly at the casual use of Italian. He'd grown up speaking it with Aunt May and it was a way to remind him of her. Harley had overheard him speaking to himself in it while doing homework not long after they met and he had all but demanded that Peter teach him it. Peter, after a little prodding, had agreed to do so. He surprisingly loved teaching Harley how to speak his aunt's native tongue; there wasn't much to do in a small apartment and pointing out the names of everyday things to Harley got his mind off of things. Harley had slowly but surely picked up the language, probably out of boredom and daily use, and he often spoke to Peter in it. He wasn't completely fluent in it yet, especially since Peter's lessons faded when their workload picked up, but he'd no doubt realized that Peter calmed when he heard the language.

"Si, I understand," Peter murmured. Harley clapped him on the shoulder before steering Peter in the direction of his next class and Peter said, "Ci vediamo a pranzo con Ned e MJ."

It only took a second or two for Harley to translate and he smiled. "Yeah, see you at lunch," he confirmed. He saluted Peter before spinning on his heel and heading back down the hall to his class.

Just as Harley rounded the corner, someone from behind him said, "Señor Parker, as much as I admire your ability to speak Italian, this is Spanish and you're late." Peter jumped slightly and spun to face his Spanish teacher.

"Lo siento, Señor," Peter apologised quietly, easily switching from Italian and English to Spanish. "I got held up in Physics."

Señor Mendez merely raised a brow, took his hall pass, and waved him to his seat. With his enhanced hearing, Peter could hear Harley snickering to himself at Señor Mendez's comment.

***

"You're so mean," Peter huffed as he plopped down next to Harley, his lunch tray clattering against the table. Harley merely smirked at him, easily knowing what he was talking about.

"What'd he do?" Ned asked.

"He got caught speaking Italian with me in the halls when he was supposed to be in Spanish," Harley told him.

"You two didn't try to skip again, did you?" MJ said from a few seats away from them, looking up from her book, which was on the Black Dahlia murder. Harley scoffed in offence.

"No," he huffed. "We got held back in Physics. Mrs Warren wanted to talk to us about something."

"What for? You guys didn't get in trouble, did you?" Ned said in worry. He didn't know that they were Spider-Man but he was aware that they got in trouble a few months ago for skipping school a lot and not turning in any assigned homework. He hadn't been able to wiggle any information out of Peter, who he'd known longer than Harley, and Harley was better at keeping secrets or lying, not that Peter wasn't getting up there in skill.

Harley fished through his backpack for the permission form, slapping it on the lunch table for Ned and MJ to read. Ned gasped. "You're getting an internship at Stark Industries!?" he squealed, causing a few heads to turn their way.

Peter shushed Ned loudly. "No! It's a competition for an internship," he said, tapping the title of the document, which read Stark Industries Internship Competition.

"Oh…"

MJ just rolled her eyes at them, refocusing on her book.

"Basically," Harley began to explain, putting his form back in his bag, "a bunch of these STEM schools were given five forms each to give to five students to compete. We each have to make a project to present to the 'esteemed heads' and specialists at Stark Industries. They'll be grading how it works and stuff and they'll decide who gets an internship."

"That's so cool! What about Peter?" Ned asked, turning to glance at Peter. "Did he get a form, too?"

"Mine's in my bag," Peter said after swallowing a bite of his food. Ned grinned widely at them.

"Out of five of the forms, both of you got one? OMG, guys, that's so cool!" Ned was loud again but Peter didn't bother shushing him this time, despite the attention on them. He was grinning at Ned, who'd been one of his best friends for years, because his friend was so excited for them. In fact, Ned was all genuine. He didn't even look remotely jealous or upset that they'd been chosen over him.

"You're not upset?" Peter asked suddenly, voice quiet. "That you didn't get one?"

"Well, I'm jealous, yeah. I mean, both of you guys are going to be interns at Stark Industries!" He ignored Harley's correction that they were going to get the chance to be interns at Stark Industries, that they weren't already interns. "Like you get to work with some of the best minds and you might even get to see Tony Stark! Iron Man! How could I not be jealous?"

"But you're not… mad?" Peter was nervous. He didn't want Ned to be mad at him for getting picked over for a chance at winning an internship at Stark Industries. Ned was super smart and he'd idolized Tony Stark just as much as he did, though Peter had to admit that Ned idolized the Avengers, the superheroes, more than Tony Stark and his company itself.

"No! You've always been better at that stuff than me, you know that. All I do is code and make robots. Stark Industries makes, like, medical equipment and stuff. And dudes, when you start your internship, tell me all about it! I want to live vicariously through you."

Harley chuckled. "Ned, we don't even have an idea yet."

"Well, what about a drone?" Ned suggested. "Even though Stark Industries doesn't sell the military weapons anymore, they still provide them and the police with other types of tech. You could make a small drone for search and rescue missions?"

"It would have to have some extra stuff on it," Harley mused. "SI is already working on drones. What about something with a thermal camera or some type of scanner? The military could use drones to search for landmines, couldn't they?"

"If I was you guys, I'd be tempted to make R2D2," said Ned.

Peter smiled slightly at the idea of making something from Star Wars. His mind whirled with different types of things they could build for the competition before an old idea flickered through his mind. He rifled through his backpack and pulled out two notebooks, a new one he'd gotten recently and one that was for ideas like his webshooters or robots rather than schoolwork. He hadn't been able to come up with any ideas during Spanish, he'd been too worried about the fact that Dan might not even let them complete, but Ned and Harley had sparked an old idea he'd had. He flipped through the pages, looking for the idea that he'd come up with a few months ago when he and Harley first became Spider-Man and one of them got really injured without the other knowing.

Ned and Harley had stopped talking when he'd pulled out his notebook and began flipping through it. Without bothering to tell his friend and foster brother what he was doing, Peter began to scribble in his notebook, occasionally glancing over his old notes to make sure he was writing down the correct information.

Harley leaned over to read the scribbles as Peter began to jot down ideas and a few chemical compounds. It didn't take Harley long to make sense of his notes.

“A pressure sensor?” he asked.

Peter nodded, and after glancing at Ned—who was watching him idly, used to his idea frenzies—and MJ who was ignoring them—said, “I came up with the idea a while ago. It's a sensor to detect injuries based on different pressure ratios. It could be used in clothes or something. Could also probably send the information remotely with a program, maybe."

Harley blinked in surprise, easily realizing that he was thinking of a Spider-Man suit that could detect what injuries they had, as well as tell the other what injuries they gained. Peter knew it was something that Harley would like, because while Harley didn't hide injuries from Peter, Peter didn’t want to worry Harley and so he hid when he was hurt. It usually backfired on him, though, since Harley could see through him easily, but Peter still tried to hide his injuries. But with a suit that could detect injuries and also transmit them remotely? Harley wouldn't even have to try and get Peter to tell him he was hurt, he would know immediately.

“I like this idea,” Harley declared, making Peter snort. Harley pulled Peter's notes over to him and read them over. “Would something like this work, though?”

"The sensors are easy to make," Peter murmured, "and we have that old tablet and free run of the computer labs. We're both pretty good at coding, so that would work."

“We can’t just show up at a competition with a multimeter if sensors are this easy to make,” said Harley with a frown. His eyes flicked over Peter's notes before lingering on a chemical compound he wrote down. "What's this?"

Peter tapped a section of notes, specifically the word Cloth??? that was circled, and made a hand motion—it was the one they used for shooting webs, though to anyone else it would look like he was signing "I love you" with his hand down. Harley's lips formed an O.

"You're going to try and make cloth out of them?" Harley asked, making Peter nod. "Make sure they don't dissolve then." Peter winced at the thought of their project dissolving mid-presentation and made a note to add a stabilizer to the mixture. He would have to end up testing various amounts of stabilizer, along with different amounts of chemicals, to make sure that the cloth would hold up.

The rest of the school day was spent with Peter and Harley swapping notes on what they wanted to do for the project in their shared classes or when they passed in the halls. Harley was already working on the coding for the app and ideas on how to fix the tablet they had. They would probably have to go dumpster diving or go to pawn shops for parts, though. Peter was scribbling down various chemical compounds as they came to mind, all of them based around his web formula. He would have to find a way to get the chemicals; half of them weren't cheap or available on their own and he didn't feel comfortable stealing that much from the school. He had a make-shift chemistry lab in an abandoned building where he and Harley had originally practised Spider-Manning (and still did, sparring was fun), but he would have to still buy various cleaners to separate some of the chemicals needed.

As it was Friday, Dan got home from work early, so Peter and Harley didn't have any time to set up their makeshift lab. They'd stashed a lot of their Spider-Man stuff there, along with a lot of the electronics and tools they had gotten from thrift stores or dumpster diving. There was no room in Dan's apartment to store anything—and the man didn't want any of their junk lying around—and they had no access to the roof unless they wanted to use their spider-powers, which they both agreed was a dumb idea to use in broad daylight. Due to Dan getting off work early, Peter and Harley also couldn't patrol during the day, so they ended up doing their homework, discussing their ideas a little, and doing chores.

Out of all of their chores, Peter disliked cooking the most. Cooking reminded him too much of May and Ben; Ben had been the chef of the house, and he'd taught Peter how to cook, and May had been a terrible cook. She'd often burn the noodles she tried to boil for her mother's Carbonara. But it had been endearing and something he loved about her. However, as Harley didn't know how to cook anything past PB&J (Peter was slowly teaching him when they had free time before Dan got home), he had to make the dinner tonight.

He didn't bemoan this chore, it beat cleaning the bathroom, and he instead made the best damn spaghetti he'd made in a while to butter Dan up. While Peter was nervous about telling Dan about the competition, Harley had argued that it was best to tell Dan about it tonight. The man should be in a decent mood—because he was never in a good mood—since he had work off tomorrow.

They were just finishing cleaning up and setting the table when they heard Dan walking down the hall. He wasn't a very quiet walker, instead his steps were loud and echoed in the apartment, and the sound of them instinctively had Peter's heart speeding up. Dan was an average man—he was five-ten, probably weighed around a hundred and sixty pounds, and he had dirty-blonde hair and boring brown eyes—and there was theoretically nothing intimidating or threatening about him.

But, there was this thing about Dan—he wasn't nice.

Oh, he could play nice for the neighbours or for their social workers, but he certainly wasn't nice to them. They'd live with Dan long enough (a year and a half), that they'd experienced almost every single emotion that the man could express. And most of that was hate or anger. And violence, especially towards them.

Peter could remember numerous times where a beating had started with loud, thumping footsteps.

"Calmati," murmured Harley under his breath, taking the wet pot that Peter was rinsing off before he'd frozen. Peter let out a slightly shaky breath before taking in some slow calming ones. The doorknob rattled before twisting open, revealing Dan. Peter's eyes followed Dan as he moved throughout the apartment, kicking off his shoes and loosening his tie, hanging up his coat on the coat rack.

Peter took his eyes off Dan and put away the pots and pans he'd used, keeping tabs on the man with his ears. Dan came out of his room after a few minutes and stood near the table.

"What's for dinner?" he said gruffly, sitting in his usual seat.

"Spaghetti and garlic bread, sir," Harley answered politely, his voice quiet. Dan liked the quiet and so dinner was the only time to talk to him. He tended to work a lot of overtime, probably in hopes of getting a promotion at work, and so he was often tired when he got home. Peter and Harley had to be quiet when moving around for school and after dinner, since that was the only time Dan got to relax; it was that or aggravate Dan, which led to getting punished. They'd only made that mistake a few times.

"Smells good," said Dan grudgingly, plating himself some.

"Thank you," Peter thanked him. Usually, he wouldn't talk at all during dinner, but he figured being polite should give him some points. Dan just grunted. When plating their own food, Peter and Harley made sure not to give themselves too much. Their metabolisms ran much higher than they'd done before, meaning that they had to eat more to stay healthy, but if they started to eat more than expected, then Dan would get suspicious and-or grouchy that they were "eating him out of his house." Both of them had lived with foster parents who didn't want to waste money feeding them much and so they took what they could get without complaining. They used their spare money to buy protein bars and those kept them full enough.

Dinner was quiet for the most part. The only sounds were the sounds of them eating, their forks scraping across their plates, and the downstairs neighbours fighting like they usually did. They were a few floors down so Dan couldn't hear them, but Peter and Harley could. They had a toxic relationship as they could go from screaming threats at one another to acting lovely dovey, but there was nothing either of them could do about it. Calling the police about a noise complaint hadn't helped.

When Dan was sharing signs of finishing his dinner, Peter and Harley shared a swift glance.

"Sir?" Harley said, setting down his fork. Peter did the same and brought his hands to his lap, fiddling with his hoodie sleeves nervously. He watched from beneath his lashes as Dan looked at Harley and grunted, which Harley took that as permission to speak. "Our Physics teacher held us back in class today and—"

"You didn't skip or anything did you?" Dan said harshly with narrowed eyes. "You remember what I said would happen if you got in trouble again, right?"

"Yes, I remember, but we didn't do anything wrong!" Harley rushed to say. "In fact, our teacher actually held us back to tell us that our grades are so good that we've got an internship opportunity."

"An internship," Dan deadpanned, setting down his fork and giving them his attention. Peter wasn't sure if having Dan's full attention on them was good or not. He hoped "good."

"Yes, sir," Harley said, bobbing his head. "The top STEM schools in New York were given permission slips for a competition at Stark Industries. The competition takes place next month and depending on what you make and what the specialists at the company say, you could end up with an internship. Sir."

"It's a competition?" Dan said with a frown. "Not an actual internship? And you two want to compete?" Peter kept his expression neutral when Dan sent a glance his way, but his fingers tightened around his sleeves.

"S-Sir," Peter jumped in to help Harley. "E-Each school was only given five forms. Since Stark Industries will sponsor the schools who they choose the interns from, the schools will pick only the, um, best students?" Peter winced slightly at his wording but continued speaking despite the slight shaking of his voice. "S-Sir, Harley and I both got forms. W-We're some of the best students in our grade, w-we wouldn't have been chosen to represent Midtown if we, uh, weren't capable?"

Dan's lips thinned as he thought. "What is this competition, exactly?"

"Each student is supposed to create and make a prototype of working tech, sir," said Harley, taking Dan's attention off Peter. "It's the same type of thing we're doing in shop class so it wouldn't be too difficult. The school is allowing us to use their computer labs and materials after school—" There was no need to tell him what those materials were, exactly. "—and we'd still be able to do our chores and homework. We'd just have to stay at school for an extra hour or two to work on our project in order to get it done for the competition."

"When is the competition?"

"In a month, sir. Transportation to Stark Industries is provided." That was a lie but there was no reason to tell Dan that they had the extra money to pay for a train across the city. Or the fact that their project would be small enough that they could just swing to the Tower if they needed to.

"Both of you are competing?"

"Yes, but we're allowed to work on the same project and enter it together," Harley clarified.

"And this internship, how many hours after school would you be gone? I can't have your grades dropping and making me look bad."

"Only a few hours a week, I think," Harley said. "We could probably ask, but I don't think the workload would be too much since we're only high school students and they know we go to demanding STEM schools."

Dan was silent for a few moments. Peter resisted the urge to fidget, instead choosing to dig his nails into his arm to distract him. Below him, Mr and Mrs Fights-A-Lot were getting into another row that Peter was sure would either end up in one of them storming out to the bar or in hot, angry, cringe-inducing sex. He'd rather it be the former rather than the latter since there was only so many sex sounds that he could listen to without it making him want to curl up in a ball, vomit, or both. He just hoped that he was asleep before it happened, if it happened at all.

Dan let out a gusty sigh. "Well?" he demanded. "Are there permission forms or something?"

"Oh, uh, I-I'll go get them, sir," Peter stammered out, stumbling to his feet. He ran into the edge of the table in his haste to get out of the room and tensed in preparation for a reprimand that never happened. Peter and Harley had put their forms on their shared desk just in case Dan allowed them to compete, so he was back in the kitchen not twenty seconds after he'd left. He also provided a pen and Dan signed off on both forms with a glance to make sure what he was signing was actually a form for an internship and not something else.

Not long after, Peter and Harley cleaned the dirty dishes before being dismissed to their room for the night.

Peter laid up in the top bunk of the bunk bed, staring up at the watermarked ceiling, his through whirling loudly through his mind. He couldn't believe that Dan was actually allowing them to compete. Now all they had to do was actually make their project and they only had a month to do it! What if it wasn't good enough? What if it wasn't original? What if someone made a better working one? What if it didn't work?

And, what if they won?

Chapter Text

"Ugh, disgustoso! I'm gonna puke," Harley gagged, recoiling away from the dumpster and making the lid fall with a clang. Peter chuckled to himself and sent an amused glance at his foster brother, glad that he was upwind from the dumpster. He could still smell it from clear across the alleyway—not only had his sense of smell become enhanced with the spider bite, but everything was smelling so fresh due to the snowfall earlier today—and he was glad that he didn't get the brunt of the smell like Harley.

"Stop laughing!" Harley hissed, shoving his tattered scarf against his nose. "Penso letteralmente che qualcosa sia morto lì dentro." Peter grimaced at the imagery. With their luck, something probably did die in there at some point.

"Tell me about it," he muttered as he nudged a suspicious-looking box. "I fell in there last night."

Harley winced. It had been Peter's turn to patrol last night and he had literally come home smelling like a dumpster; now he knew why. They'd ended up having to throw away his suit—a pair of old sweats and a stained hoodie—because the smell of garbage had also been paired with a six-inch gash along the side and a rip in the pantlegs. Until they completed the suits they were working on (hand-sewing was not a fast process and they were rather rubbish at it, so that lead to a lot of start-overs), Peter would have to share Harley's. It was that or use his old dancing clothes, and he was too attached to them to risk them being burnt, ripped, or blood-stained.

Harley wasn't too happy with that as that meant that they would have to clean his suit twice as often and risk Dan finding out, but it wasn't like Peter could just throw on a random pair of joggers. Their suits had to look the same because they had agreed that there would only be one Spider-Man, and they intended to keep it that way unless there was a big fight that required more than one person to show up. So far there hadn't been any big fights that they couldn't handle on their own (though Harley argued that Peter should have told him about Toomes), and it also meant that if one of them happened to get kidnapped, the other would (hopefully) be able to find them without getting the police involved.

Last night, Peter had ended up getting tossed in the dumpster during a fight and he had spotted some junk electronics that had been thrown out. He hadn't anticipated it snowing while they were at school so now they had to dig around to find the boxes he'd seen and he wasn't even sure if anything was salvageable. He hoped that since it hadn't rained and that everything was more or less frozen that nothing had gotten water damage.

While Harley rifled through some boxes next to the dumpster, muttering Italian swears under his breath that Peter had taught him, Peter toed at a box flap and nudged the box away when all it held were old newspapers covered in what he was sure was cat or dog piss. He wasn't sure where the boxes full of electronics he'd spotted last night were since he'd only gotten a glimpse and things had been tossed around during the fight.

Peter and Harley made some light conversation in Italian, though Peter had to correct some of Harley's pronunciations and fill in the blanks when Harley struggled with a word. While Harley was decent at the language, he wasn't fluent since he still struggled to translate sometimes and it wasn't automatic like Peter, and they hadn't taken much time recently to converse in it to make sure the language stuck, so Harley was a bit rusty. They mostly stuck to easy subjects like school; they had a History test in a week that they had neglected to study for—it's not that they were bad at history, it was just boring sometimes, and who had time to study when you could be catching bad guys?—and they talked some about their shared English project—they might be able to easily read complex algorithms or equations, but they still struggled with reading Shakespeare—and the conversation eventually tapered off as they tried to find the electronics so they could get back to the apartment.

It was freezing out, and ever since the spider bite, Peter and Harley had struggled to keep warm. Even though he wore two pairs of gloves and multiple layers of clothing, Peter's teeth were beginning to chatter and his fingers were starting to get numb. From the corner of his eye, he spotted Harley shivering and he was just about to say that they should come back later—it was supposed to get warmer tomorrow—when Harley hauled up a box with a successful cry.

"L'ho trovato!" he crowed. "It was buried under a few other boxes."

Peter stumbled over and looked in the box Harley was holding effortlessly. It was full of what looked to be DVD players and radios and some other things, some of which looked like someone had taken a hammer to them. He reached in and pulled out a circuit board with some frayed wires attached to it.

"Could be useful," he muttered, dropping it back into the box. "Let's go, sto congelando!"

Harley shivered, no doubt agreeing with his statement.

They got back to the apartment in record time and swiftly changed out of their damp clothes, which they promptly shoved into the washer. They had only hung around the alley for a total of twenty to thirty minutes before leaving, but the stink of the garbage managed to saturate their clothing with its stench. Peter was pretty sure that their stuff stank so bad that even someone without enhanced senses could smell it. While Harley hopped in the bathroom for a quick shower, Peter got the washing machine running and began looking through the box of stuff they managed to recover.

As he'd seen earlier, there were a few old DVD players and some radios, but there were also some circuit boards and some random electronic parts like what looked to be a fan motor, as well as some remote-controlled cars, too. He sorted the items into different categories; parts, repair, useful, not useful, and trash. Some of the DVD players or radios could be fixed to sell for some extra cash, but some of them were too old or were too broken that they could be taken apart for parts. The same could be said for the circuit boards and random electronic parts; some could be salvaged for future use while others were trash. The remote-control cars were staying, even the broken ones. The motors and controls could be used for webshooters or just be something to tinker with if they got bored or anxious.

It didn't take long until Peter heard the shower shut off. He pushed some of the stuff out of the way so that Harley could have some space to manoeuvre and he grabbed his own shower things and clothes.

"I tried to be quick but hot water seems to be broken," Harley announced as he walked into the room, towelling his hair.

Peter mentally groaned, hoping that the water would at least be lukewarm. "I'll see if I can fix it before I shower, if not Dan's gonna be pissed," he sighed before pointing at a pile. "In the meantime, you strip those for parts and double-check the trash pile."

Harley looked at the assortment of items on the ground, taking in the various piles Peter had made. "Will do," he muttered, tossing his towel into the hamper.

By the time Peter finished showering and checking the water heater—one of the valves got stuck and the relief valve was loose—Harley was already a good two-thirds of the way through tearing apart the "parts" pile. The trash pile was gone, having been thrown in a grocery bag or two and tossed down the floor's trash chute, no doubt.

Peter finished drying his curly hair—it was long enough to cover his ears as he hadn't gotten it cut in a year, though Harley's wavy hair was longer, long enough to pull up into a small bun—and quietly joined Harley in pulling apart the rest of the DVD players and radios. Neither of them bothered to speak and as Peter focused on the meditative task of what he was doing, his senses began to fade. It reminded him somewhat of dissociation, and while that may not be healthy, he was relieved at the reprieve. That meant it was less likely that he'd get a migraine or even a sensory overload. It also meant that he could easily ignore the cars down below or the neighbours talking, and he enjoyed the quiet atmosphere that was only unsettled by the sound of the DVD players or radios being taken apart and moved around.

Eventually, they finished taking everything apart and moved onto completing their homework. While Peter knew that they should probably discuss their project for the Stark Industries Internship Competition—it was only a few days after they'd gotten their forms, but they only had a month to make a working prototype—he didn't want to ruin the peaceful silence and it didn't seem like Harley wanted to, either.

That calm feeling soon faded as the days wore on.

The next week was full of Peter and Harley studying frantically for their history test, scrambling to finish their English essay, as well as studying for almost all of their subjects as they all seemed to be finishing units at the same time meaning that they had large tests. There was also patrolling and working on their internship project; they were staying up later and later, and instead of working together, they had to split up the project into different parts to work on individually.

The only thing that stopped Peter from going crazy was the fact that Dan was on a two-week-long work trip, and he was willing to bet that Harley was feeling the same. They didn't have to worry about staying quiet in the evenings, they could take longer showers, and they also didn't have to commune to the old, no doubt freezing office building where their makeshift workshop was. Instead, they could work in the comfort of the living room and they could even stay after school to get the coding done without worrying about time. So long as they kept everything clean and made sure to put away their tools before Dan got back, they were golden.

The second week into Dan's absence was much more successful than the first week, though no less stressful. Now that their tests were completed and their essays were turned in, they could focus completely on their project. The coding turned out to be more complex than either of them had been anticipating and Peter ended up having to order some chemicals online that he needed. He sent them to a P.O. box—because there was no way in hell was he risking Dan finding out that he was buying stuff—but couldn't afford the express shipping, which meant that he drove himself crazy coming up with various chemical formulas and ways to make the "fabric."

They ended up having to take multiple breaks via Spider-Manning and focused on the actual construction of their project to get rid of the stress, even going as far as sparring in the warehouse which led to the destruction of an old, crumbling wall. The tablet that would display the injuries was an easy fix as it just needed a new battery and screen, which were bought at a cheap parts store, and they managed to figure out how the pressure thing was actually going to work. Usually, someone just stretched the cloth while it was attached to a multimeter (amongst other things, but that was the simplest explanation), but they planned to have something that was worn and got stretched often so that idea was out. They also planned to monitor vitals, as well, which would be difficult if they were using a multimeter.

They did, however, use a multimeter on their first attempt. Peter basically attached a crap ton of wires to an old t-shirt and pressed on it to make sure it worked. (Spoiler alert; it did. He was a genius.)

By the time the first prototype was complete and some of the complex coding was done, Dan had returned and Peter had received his chemicals and had begun making the cloth in their makeshift workshop. The original idea was to make strands like his webbing and weave them together, but then he realized that he didn't have an industrial loom to weave the webbing, and so he decided to make something that was latex-like by pouring it in a mold like resin. The first few test batches weren't particularly successful (one came out sticky, another was stringy like cheese, and the other turned rock solid instead of the stretchy rubbery substance Peter wanted) but he ended up with something he figured was decent enough. It wasn't his best work, and if he'd had access to SI's labs or even a loom it would've done better as a cloth, but he figured it was decent enough for a prototype.

Coding and programming everything and then testing it for bugs was as difficult as Peter and Harley expected. They had to more or less create numerous algorithms for injury identification, and they also had to find out what types of pressures and vital signs equalled what type of injury. They stuck with blunt force trauma as it was the easiest to test. It unsurprisingly took a lot of pressure or trauma to break a bone (while Dan had barely managed to fracture or bruise some ribs on his usual blows, they'd been beaten on pretty badly in their starting out days as Spider-Man, even with their spider-sense to aid them (though Harley's spider-sense was less fine-tuned, for some reason)). As they would have had to do a lot of extra programming and research to know how much force broke a certain body type along with what vitals would look like at that part in time, Peter and Harley only had their pressure ensure catalogue injuries for a grown man's forearm.

By the time they managed to complete the project and make (and practice) a presentation, it was the day of the competition.

***

"Calmati," Harley muttered, nudging Peter's bouncing knee with his own. "We've gone over the presentation a dozen times since last night. Non preoccuparti."

Peter had stopped jiggling his knee at the nudge and instead began to fidget at his dress shirt cuff. Harley self-consciously smoothed down his own dress shirt. Both of them had been thrifted for pretty cheap but they hadn't fit properly, so they'd gotten the old lady down the hall to do it for them in return for them fixing her broken water heater. It was a common, if new, arrangement they had with the woman; if Peter and Harley helped her with whatever housework she needed to be done, she gave them some amateur sewing lessons in return. She'd also allowed them to use a plastic sewing machine she'd originally bought for her granddaughter, but hadn't allowed them to take it from the apartment, which meant that the old lady gave them some odd looks for making what looked like leotards.

Because Peter used to dance, he'd managed to convince the woman that they were making costumes, but that was only after he showed her a (rather sloppy) saut de chat. He used some ballet moves during Spider-Manning (mostly split leaps) but he hadn't been able to properly stretch or even dance in so long. Harley, after learning that he could dance, had managed to convince him to teach him a few moves, but they hadn't taken the time to do anything more in-depth since they were so busy with homework and Spider-Man.

Of course, even after the display, the old woman still looked like she didn't believe them for a single minute. But Peter was pretty confident she didn't know that they'd taken her lessons and had used them to make themselves super suits and to sitch up their own wounds if they ended up getting shanked, (which happened more often than either of them cared to admit).

Still, she'd been kind enough to tailor their shirts for them. They still didn't fit properly—they were too baggy around the middle and somewhat tight around their shoulders and chest—but they looked better on them than they originally had. They hadn't been able to buy any dress pants in their size that were cheap enough, so they currently wore their best pair of jeans. Both were black and Peter thought they matched pretty well. Well enough that they might even be mistaken as brothers, though that was wishful thinking.

Peter had always wanted a sibling when he was younger, but May and Ben had been unable to have children. Harley was the closest thing he had to a sibling and he didn't care that they didn't share the same blood. As they were only foster brothers, however, one misstep from either of them could get them separated, and that thought filled Peter with anxiety. He'd latched onto Harley as the first kind person he'd seen since his aunt and uncle died and he knew that Harley had latched on just as tight.

The doors opening caught their attention and Peter looked up from his shirt sleeves to see who entered. The room they were in was packed full of people from the surrounding tech schools so it wasn't a surprise that he'd been unable to hear any approaching footsteps, and there was also the fact that he'd been so nervous that he hadn't been focusing on his senses too much.

Peter let out a surprised noise and stood respectfully as the CEO of Stark Industries, better known as Pepper Potts, entered. He hadn't known that the woman would show up and it made him tug on his clothes self-consciously. He noticed Harley doing the same.

"Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Stark Industries," Ms Potts said, causing everyone to quiet immediately. Peter was a little awed at how swiftly she managed to get the room to quiet, though he supposed that was due to being the CEO of SI and an extremely powerful businesswoman in her own right. "As I'm sure you all know, you've been invited here as a part of the Stark Industries Internship Competition, where only a select few of you who meet our specialists' criteria will be chosen for an internship here at SI.

"If you've read the permission forms you were given, and I truly hope you have, then you will know that any future interns will be given the chance to refine their project under the watchful and helpful eyes of your superiors, who will advise you in the inner workings of a tech company."

Peter glanced around the room. A good half of the projects he could see appeared to be robots—albeit cool ones—but that didn't look like they properly represented what SI worked towards, which was not only phones and computers and such, but also medical equipment, prostheses, clean energy, and equipment for the country's top authorities; mainly the military, police, and fire departments. The other half appeared to have gone for some type of prostheses or drones, though they didn't look nearly as advanced as the recent prostheses SI had shown to the public. Still, for high school kids that went to the city's top tech schools, the prostheses were pretty advanced. The only real competition Peter saw was the kids who had gone for something challenging like they had, most looking to be medical related.

Peter glanced at his and Harley's project, which suddenly looked so small and mediocre compared to all of the big robots around them. While he knew that making robots wasn't too difficult (he'd made plenty when he'd lived with May and Ben, and he'd competed in robot-building competitions with Ned and Harley before the two of them had to quit robotics club), all they had to show was a piece of cloth and a second-hand tablet. He hoped that the programming they'd come up with and their idea was enough to earn them some brownie points.

"If you would please turn your attention over to here," said Ms Potts, gaining his attention again. She gestured to a group of several men and women, most of whom were dressed in lab coats or office-wear. "These are our heads and specialists in our Research and Development departments. They will be in charge of grading your projects and proposals. As we only have a limited number of specialists compared to how many of you there are, please be aware that not everyone will be able to present right away."

Peter counted just under twenty men and women, and compared to the number of kids he'd counting, that meant that there was something like a three-to-one ratio here. The number seemed daunting. Only a few people would get selected for an internship out of around fifty to sixty students.

"I know it may get tedious to present more than once, but all interns at SI are well acquainted with this, so please be patient," Ms Potts continued explaining. "If you need to leave for any reason, please tell our head of security Mr Hogan. He will write down your name so we can get in contact about presenting at another time."

She gestured to a man who Peter had noticed earlier. He stood silently and stared them all down, brown eyes flickering over all of them with distaste and like he was assessing them. It made him nervous to have such calculating eyes on him, but Peter knew that he'd be dealing with plenty of eyes on him once they began presenting, so he tried his best to shake it off.

"Thank you all for coming here today."

And with that, Ms Potts checked something off on her StarkPad and left, her heels clicking on the tiled floor.

Chapter Text

The only reason Tony remembered that the internship competition was happening today was because he had been flicking through the Tower's security cameras in boredom and got curious when he saw a bunch of kids roaming around one of the empty intern levels. Friday, when he'd asked her, had helpfully informed him that the competition that he'd agreed to a month back was happening. To be fair, it had been over a month since Pepper had brought up running the internship competition for good press—which Tony, and therefore the company, needed after the plane holding all of the Avengers's items crashed near Coney Island—but he probably should have remembered due to the number of reminders Friday said he had been given.

(Spider-Man, who had stopped Toomes from stealing his plane, was still swinging around but Tony had yet to find out the man's identity. He'd considered finding him for some extra help in Germany but had been unable to track him down. His curiosity over the vigilante hadn't yet diminished, but had been buried under all of the shit that had happened since then.)

When Pepper had originally brought up the idea of accepting high school interns from the local STEM schools, he'd been reluctant to accept. Stark Industries had only ever taken college interns and there were a number of reasons as to why accepting high schoolers, people between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, was not ideal. There was the fact that they were young, inexperienced, and most likely couldn't keep up with the other high school interns, for example. (Of course, SI could've just had them as assistants, people who got coffee and answered phones, but that would've completely ruined the idea of getting good press by offering high schoolers an opportunity to actually do tech work for Stark Industries.) But there was also the fact that once the internship ended upon their graduation (as SI was sponsoring the school through their students), they could go to a different tech company and tell them all they learned. And, while this wasn't as important as the other point, there was a chance that the high schoolers weren't intelligent enough to keep up with SI's college interns and the other employees, wasting the company's time and resources and giving them the potential to ruin projects that they needed to get out.

There were, however, as Pepper had so graciously pointed out, also benefits of hiring high school interns that Tony had to consider. Giving a high schooler the opportunity to use SI's labs and research could give the kid a good career in the future, and Tony wasn't one to deny the fact that more minds in the technology field was a good thing. The internship could also set them up to have a paid internship during college, as well as a college scholarship that SI often provided, which often led to most of those interns getting accepted for various job positions after graduation. This could also make them loyal to Stark Industries, which was valued and needed in future employees. Stark Industries was one of the top tier tech companies in the world, and as they developed a lot of revolutionary tech and provided for the military, that meant that they also had a lot of secrets.

But most of all, which Tony often focused on, the internship helped the kid further their intelligence and experience with tech which gave them the possibility of changing the world for the better. It was at that point that Tony signed the form, both out of guilt for what happened to Charlie Spencer, and because it reminded him of the September Foundation, which was a program that wasn't connected to SI that funded schools and prodigies to further education.

Even after all of the thinking that Tony did after signing the form (such as working with others in the company about how the internships would happen, as well as how the kids should get their internships), he only remembered when he came across the kids in the usually empty intern lab and Friday informed him of the competition.

Tony idly watched as the teenagers wandered around the room, some chatting with each other and some focusing on setting up their projects. Happy was standing in the corner, looking decidedly Not Happy, which made him chuckle to himself.

"You think I should visit Happy before he becomes Grumpy?" Tony asked Friday, glancing over his workbench. He'd surprisingly gotten a lot of work done this past month (it was better to bury himself in work rather than drink all day—he hadn't touched alcohol in months and he didn't intend to break his sobriety anytime soon, he'd only just gotten Pepper back) and so he was fiddling with a project he started ages ago but never completed.

"I believe he would appreciate the distraction," Friday said, something like amusement in her tone, "but he would probably dislike your version of 'distraction', Boss."

Tony smirked at the thought of making a big show of going down there and Happy's reaction to it—though he wasn't going to do something like that as he wasn't in the mood for having a crap ton of eyes on him and he didn't want any of the kids to get distracted—and he stood, saying, "That settles it, then. Let's go see if I can turn that frown upside down." Though Friday didn't say anything, Tony got a sense that she was chuckling. It had been over a year since he'd installed her programming and she was becoming more and more human-like every day, forming a personality that was all her own. She was snarky like him, brazen like Pepper, kind and open to those Tony trusted, but cold and reserved to people he didn't know or like, such as Secretary Ross. That always brought a smirk to his face.

Instead of heading down to the intern lab, Tony headed up to the penthouse to shower and change in something that wasn't an old band t-shirt and a pair of oil-stained jeans. By the time he finished dressing in a pair of slacks, a shirt, and a blazer (as well as a pair of glasses, he didn't want to be completely noticeable), all of the specialists and heads from R&D who were "grading" the high schoolers' projects were walking around the room.

Tony lingered outside of the lab that the kids were in, watching as they presented their projects to various senior engineers that SI employed. He'd worked with most of them at one point or another, and he often spoke with some of them during R&D meetings (while he was no longer CEO, he still had a high position in the company as CTO and COB), so he trusted their judgement on the kids' projects.

Quite a few of the projects didn't really resemble anything that Tony felt that Stark Industries was looking for or currently working on. There were some robots and drones, but SI already made drones, and the same was could be said about prostheses. They were mostly arms, though Tony spotted what looked to be a poorer, tinier version of the exoskeleton leg prostheses he made for Rhodey. He made a mental note to look at the recordings for those presentations since Pepper had asked him to judge some of the projects, which was one of the real reasons he was down here (though potentially annoying Happy was certainly a plus). While they weren't particularly advanced or impressive, what was impressive was the fact that those students (some appeared to be in pairings) had managed to create prostheses or drones in a month while going to school, doing homework, going to work, and other similar things.

Another glance led his eyes to a corner of the room opposite Happy. There were two kids presenting what looked to be a piece of cloth. The one holding it, the one with mousy-blond hair, spun the fabric around to reveal wires. A tablet sat on the workbench they were near and the shorter kid was making exaggerated hand movements much like Tony did when he was explaining something. The other kid, a brunet with curly hair, was gesturing to the tablet and made a chopping motion in the direction of the fabric.

Their project didn't look anything special—in fact, it looked particularly underwhelming compared to all of the drones and robots around them—but that intrigued Tony.

"If you stare any longer someone will notice you, Boss," Friday said out of Tony's StarkPad, making him jump slightly. "Mr Hogan already has."

"Thanks for the warning, Fri," Tony said as his eyes jumped to Happy, who was staring in his direction with a raised brow. Tony nodded to him before slipping into the room, hopefully unnoticed to everyone except Happy. Most kids were too preoccupied presenting their projects or preparing themselves to present their projects to notice someone slipping through the front door.

He made his way around the room, taking in bits of pieces of everyone's presentations. The room was cluttered enough that he went mostly unnoticed and his casual clothes and glasses didn't exactly scream "Tony Stark" to anyone. He walked around with his own StarkPad (an upgraded version, of course) taking notes of the presentations which interested him and the names of those kids. It not only partially hid his face from view and made him look like any other employee, but he was also curious about the projects and he wanted to get an in-person feel for the presentations to give his notes on.

Tony eventually made his way to the two kids he spotted earlier and he lingered a few feet away at an empty table as they finished their presentation. They shook hands with one of the senior employees that Tony recognized and had worked with, a Michael Wilkes whose grandfather had worked with Howard, and Tony walked up to them before anyone else did.

Both were whispering to each other but looked up as Tony approached. They obviously recognized him by the widening of their eyes.

"Hey," Tony said easily, giving them what he hoped to be a reassuring please-don't-yell-that-I'm-here smile.

"Hi," said the blond one faintly. The brunet's jaw worked like he wanted to say something but he settled on an awkward wave. The taller one spoke again. "Uh, sir, not that I'm complaining or anything, but what are you doing here?"

"Thought I'd stop by," Tony said with an easy shrug as he ignored Happy's eyes on him. The man had watched his procession around the room, but now that he was actually speaking to some kids instead of watching their presentations from a distance, he could feel his friend's gaze become more intense. Tony ignored it and nodded towards the kids' project. "Your project caught my eyes when I first came in, I want to hear about it."

"O-Of course, sir," the brunet stuttered slightly and Tony's press-ready smile softened slightly. While people who stuttered annoyed him at times, the kid's nervousness was endearing. He drew in a breath and gestured to the cloth-like substance that the blond was holding. "This is our Pressure and Injury Sensing System."

Tony blinked as his mind automatically made an acronym of the name and he smirked slightly. "So, PISS," he joked, hoping to lessen the kid's nervousness.

It worked somewhat. The brunet's face turned bright red and the blond snickered to himself. "Peter, I told you we should've named it something else."

"Harley, zitto!" Peter hissed to Harley, and Tony smiled at the casual use of Italian in amusement. Peter glanced at Tony and groaned to himself when he spotted his amused smile. "I couldn't think of a different name and no one's commented on it so far!"

"Yeah, you're going to have to change the name if you end up getting an internship here, kid," Tony said. "So, what does your Pressure and Injury Sensing System do?"

Harley looked like he was going to make a deadpan remark, something like "It senses injuries," but he let Peter take the lead as he allowed Tony to examine the cloth they made.

"A-As the name implies, our project senses pressure and injuries. Um, as you can see, the cloth we made is both durable and stretchy, so a simple multimeter wouldn't have worked. Instead, we lined the cloth with wire and programmed an app to detect the differences in pressure via Bluetooth," Peter began to explain, starting off shaky in nervousness before his voice became more confident as he began to make hand gestures between the cloth and the tablet.

Tony peered at the cloth and stretched it slightly. As Peter had said, it was durable and stretchy, easily bouncing back into place, and he wondered where it had come from since he didn't recognize it. He focused on the wiring, which was exposed in some areas so it was visible to the judges, and followed it up to a little microchip that Tony was pretty sure came out of a Bluetooth mouse or something similar. He glanced at the tablet, which displayed a section of the human arm.

Noticing his gaze, Harley said, "It would've taken too long to code the app to any part of the human body so we only coded it to an average human arm—the ulna and radius, in particular."

"Huh." Tony had similar technology—in fact, he'd originally thought of making something similar when he'd first considered recruiting Spider-Man—and he knew personally how much coding that would take and how difficult the algorithms would be to code. It was pretty impressive for two teenagers to do in a month, at any rate, since they had to start from scratch. "What type of trauma did you code it for? Blunt force?"

"Yes, sir," Peter said before explaining, "We originally came up with the idea for soldiers or policemen, so we wanted to code it for, like, puncture wounds but that would've been too difficult to figure out in a short timespan. It could be a part of their uniform and it would inform whoever has the tablet—or a computer—what types of injuries they're going. That way if soldiers are injured in battle whoever's in charge of emergency medical care could be informed of their injuries ahead of time."

"What about vitals?" Tony asked in interest. He pressed on the fabric a little and a corner of the tablet informed him in newtons how much pressure he was exerting.

"We planned on making a ballistocardiogram sensor but we didn't have the materials for it, sir," Harley said awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. Tony could tell that he felt uncomfortable saying that—based on their clothes, the kids probably came from less-than-fortunate homes—so he didn't prod, just nodded understandably.

"This material," Tony said instead, messing with a swatch of the fabric that had been lying on the table, "who manufactured this? I've never seen it before. It's pretty incredible and looks pretty resistant so far."

Harley jerked a thumb at Peter, who smiled shyly at the praise.

"What's it made of?" Here Peter bit his lip and shrugged, making Tony lift his eyebrow. "Ah, keeping it a secret, I see. Reeling me in and then once you've secured my interest, you leave that little bit dangling to make me want it even more. I get it." Tony smiled to let Peter know that he was joking, but he really was interested in the fabric. He'd never heard of a kid making their own type of spandex or kevlar before, which it resembled.

Peter looked like he was going to say something before his eyes flickered to the side. Tony turned and spotted one of the R&D intern lab directors, John Richards, that he'd often spoken to concerning intern projects.

"Hello, Mr Stark! Decided to see which kids are going to be SI's new interns?" Richards asked.

"Yep," Tony stated plainly before turning Richards's attention to Peter and Harley. "Have you met Peter and Harley, yet? They're interested in making technology for our fine country's deployed soldiers. They have this little prototype that senses pressure and cross-references it with force to determine an injury someone can acquire. And this tablet here displays the possible injury."

"This prototype was programmed for injuries to the forearm," Harley told Richards, no doubt feeling odd that Tony was explaining their project for them. "The app I coded should display the amount of force in newtons as well as whether or not you're in danger of breaking the bone or not."

"Interesting," Richards murmured, examining the sensor that Tony had left on the table. "Can we test it out?"

"Of course, sir," Peter said, his voice more subdued than it had been earlier. Tony blinked at the difference, surprised that the kid was so reserved now that Richards was here. "Just place it so the wires are down and hit it." Richards did as told and struck the sensor. The action made both Peter and Harley twitch and eye him suspiciously. It looked like they thought Richards would hit them, but then Tony remembered that a lot of people flinched if someone hit something near them, so it must've been that. He watched as the screen displayed the force of his strike as well as the possible injury, a bruise.

"Friday, how accurate is this?" Tony said.

Friday's voice came out of his StarkPad's speaker, "My resources determine that a strike with that amount of force correlates to a mild bruise. Mr Parker and Mr Keener's sensor pad appears to be fairly accurate."

"Is that an AI?" Peter asked, his eyes lighting up.

"How does she know our last names?" Harley asked, eyebrows furrowing as he looked at Tony's tablet.

"Friday's my AI, she knows everything," Tony said, waving his hand dismissively. "She has access to all of SI's records, including the information you entered onto those participation forms."

"That's kinda creepy, man," Harley commented. "Useful, but creepy."

"Parker and Keener, huh?" Richards asked from where he was messing around with their sensor. "I'll have to write that down, see what the others think of your project. This project could be extremely useful for the military." The man then looked up at Tony with narrowed eyes and said teasingly, "You're not going to steal these two for yourself, are ya', Mr Stark?"

Tony blinked slightly in surprise. He hadn't really considered getting an intern himself since he only ever worked in his private labs. He knew plenty of senior engineers who said that their own interns helped a lot but he'd always thought that they would be in the way. But, he did have a lot of incomplete projects in his workshop and labs and he'd been oddly bored recently.

"Hmm…" he hummed, looking at both Peter and Harley. Both seemed extremely bright and intelligent—it was clear due to their project; the app, the sensors which looked like they were made out of junk materials (and they probably were), and the fabric itself—and they probably wouldn't have trouble keeping up with some easy projects or grunt work that he needed to be done. If they could make something this sophisticated from junk, then it would be interesting to see what they could make with brand new materials. Plus, even though he'd just met them, he kind of liked them.

"Maybe, maybe not. I've never really considered having interns, I'll have to talk to Pepper about it," Tony said with a shrug. He nodded to them, told Peter and Harley that they had an internship-worthy project, before taking his leave.

As he walked away, he heard a stunned, "What?" that made him hide a smile.

Tony didn't stop at any other projects, though he saw a few more that he liked—individual finger prostheses and a robotic arm that moved with your own movements—and he eventually got to Happy.

"Enjoying babysitting duty?" he said as he approached the man.

Happy snorted. "I can't believe Pepper wants me to stand here for a few hours," he said. "So far all I've seen was a few kids run to the bathroom down the hall sick out of nerves. Friday kept an eye on them for me. What about you? I thought you didn't like this type of stuff."

Tony shrugged. "I was bored and made a promise to Pepper. We only just got back together and I don't want to upset her," he admitted.

"I saw that you stopped at one of the tables," Happy said after a few moments, glancing at Tony as they watched the proceedings. "What was that about?"

"These two kids made this really cool injury sensor from scratch. I saw them before I came in and it interested me since they were one of the few kids who didn't make a robot or anything. Turns out that they programmed their own app to detect injuries, probably scrapped the materials they used to make the sensor itself, and the one kid made the material, didn't just buy it. It's really cool, too. Durable and stuff, doesn't tear when I pull on it. Here, feel," Tony said, taking the swatch of fabric he'd taken from the table. He didn't think the kids would mind, they had a few dozen swatches left.

Happy raised a brow and took it. He tugged on the spandex-like material, twisting it and pulling it. It didn't stretch and bounced back to its original position. "Huh. Feels like spandex or stretchy kevlar. Should I try to cut it?" Happy suggested curiously.

"You got a knife on you?"

Happy responded by pulling a knife out of the inside of his jacket. He did a few cuts on the edge, applying more and more pressure each cut. The first few just dented and only the last two cut. He then cut longways along the face of the fabric which also dented and cut slightly. It was only when Happy tried to stab it with a lot of force did the knife go through completely.

"Wow," said Tony in surprise, taking the fabric back as Happy put his knife away. "That's really durable for something so thin." It wasn't the thinnest fabric since it was around the width of a piece of cereal box cardboard, but it held up pretty well against the knife. He touched the cuts and squinted when he saw that the dents on the edges had smoothed out.

"You said they made that?" Happy asked, looking at the cloth appraisingly.

Tony nodded. "Yeah, but the kid wouldn't tell me how. Think I should run some tests on it?"

"Did he give you permission?"

Tony shrugged. "No, but I might give the kid and his partner an internship with me, so I think it's okay."

It took Happy a few moments to process what he'd said. "Wait, what?"