Chapter Text
“You don’t have school today, bud?” Sam asks when he sees Peter enter the tower early on a Friday morning.
“Today’s a field trip day,” Peter replied, providing no further explanation.
“Yay!” Clint exclaimed from somewhere unseen on the other side of the couch; “Sam was just about to give up on beating me in Mario cart.”
Sam crossed his arms and laughed. “You do know the objective of the game isn’t to fall off the road, right?”
Peter laughed. “He just wants to fly, like you.”
“Ah, that explains it.” Sam chuckled.
Clint’s head popped up above the horizon of the couch. He narrowed his eyes at Peter, but Peter could see the humor in them. “Traitor,” he calls the boy. Peter laughs.
“Is that the Spider-baby I hear?” Tony entered the kitchen, heading straight for his usually first stop at the coffee maker.
“Yeah, Spider-baby’s here,” Clint called, making a face at Peter. Peter stuck his tongue out at Clint before turning back to Tony.
“Hey, Mr. Stark!” Peter said in his usual young, excited voice.
“Playing hooky, I see? Are we being a bad influence on you?”
Peter laughed, “nah, it’s just field trip day, so I didn’t go. The places they go are pretty lame. And technically, since no field trip is as interesting as coming here is for me, I really am keeping my education as my top priority.”
He heard Sam snicker. “Well, Clint finds Mario Cart interesting, but that doesn’t make it skipping-school-worthy.”
“Hey!” Clint defended himself, “then why do I school you every time you play?” The group laughed.
Tony turned back to Peter, smiling. “Alrighty, so let’s go start making up for your field trip day, why don’t we. Where was the destination, anyways? We don’t want your classmates knowing something you don’t.”
Peter shrugged and followed his mentor out the door to the lab. “I honestly don’t even know, but last time we went to OsCorp, and let me tell you it was like Walmart to Gucci compared to here.”
Tony’s chest swelled up in pride. “I’m glad you’ve got good taste, my young protégé. I’ll help you with whatever project you want, just because of that comment.”
Peter grinned. “Even a Boba Fett jet pack addition for my suit?”
Tony glanced at him sideways. “A jet pack? Yes, but only because I’m true to my word. But as for it being an addition to your suit...” he trailed off, clearly being against it. “Spider’s don’t fly.”
Peter laughed. “Okay, a Peter Parker jet pack it is.”
They worked in the lab for hours, not working on the jet pack but rather on making some adjustments to the material so that Peter wouldn’t be so susceptible to getting stabbed. Making the material denser made it more difficult to maneuver, so they had decided to concentrate the reinforced material in the waist and shoulders area, as that’s where Peter had the most experience getting stabbed, a problem Tony was more than happy to address.
Peter’s stomach interrupted their work.
“Whatcha say we go get lunch?” Tony asked, already setting down his tools and turning off the holograms in front of them.
Peter shrugged. “Sure,” he said, said he had a choice. “Can we see if Sam and Clint want to go?”
“Of course, though you might want to decide where we’re going before we run into them or lunch’ll be delayed while they argue over it.”
Peter chuckled and sent them a text, telling them to meet them at the elevators if they wanted to go to the pizza place with them.
And that’s how Peter ended up being stuck in the middle of a play fight between Sam and Clint, stuck in Clint’s rear choke hold while Tony was calling the pizza place with one finger over his open ear, trying to request the back room for them over the sound of Sam, Clint, and Peter yelling at each other, when the elevator doors opened in front of Peter’s entire class.
Time slammed to a halt as Peter and nearly all of his classmates immediately saw and recognized each other, but the other Avengers didn’t realize the frozen scene they were interrupting; “FRIDAY, close the doors!” Peter exclaimed over Sam’s loud threats, “let him go! Let him go or I’ll call my sister to come beat you up!” and Clint synonymously yelling, “no no no! Admit I beat you in Mario Cart fair and square or I’ll make a truce with Peter!”
The doors slid together, closing in front of Peter’s wide eyes, his expression almost as shocked as the ones he saw on his classmates’ faces in front of him.
A split second before the doors touched, Tony’s hand reached out to stop them. The motion was almost slow motion in Peter’s mind. He turned to look at Mr. Stark, who didn’t notice Peter’s exasperated face, much less the scene that was playing out in front of him. He looked confused. “This is the right floor,” he said to Peter, and led the group out. The arguing duo finally quieted and released Peter as they turned to leave the elevator, and they were met by the gaping faces of Peter’s class. Not that they knew they were his class.
“Children!” Clint exclaimed excitedly from behind Peter.
“Shut up, you’ll scare them,” Sam retorted.
“Welcome to Stark Industries,” Tony said from next to Peter, “I apologize for my two embarrassing coworkers behind me, it’s past their nap time so they’re a little-“ he made a pointing-circling crazy motion next to his ear.
“Peter,” the class’s teacher said, and Peter felt the dynamic change within the Avengers surrounding him.
“Hi Mr. Harrington,” he replied quietly, feeling his face turn pink.
He could physically feel the moment the realization clicked for the Avengers. Sam and Clint both started laughing behind him, not helping Peter’s predicament.
Mr. Stark raised an eyebrow at Peter before he turned back to the class, resuming his loud, CEO-confident aura. “Thank you, Mr. Harrington, for letting me borrow Peter this morning, especially since he’s already taken the tour back with all the other interns.”
“There are other interns?” Peter heard Clint ask Sam excitedly, at a level only Peter could pick up.
“Um, yes, of course, sir,” Mr. Harrington replied, “thank you sir,” he said before turning his head to look at Peter. “Peter, I won’t mark you as absent today, considering you’re, uh, here.”
Peter gave a weak smile, still trying to process the scene in front of him. “Thanks Mr. Harrington.” He made eye contact with Ned and MJ, who were at the back of the class; Ned’s face was scrunched in laughter, his hand covering his mouth to keep it silent; MJ mouthed the words “sup loser,” and gave him the middle finger, followed quickly by a smile.
Peter smiled back.
After the four of them made it through the class — Peter was stopped for questions while the other three stopped for pictures and autographs — they escaped and made it to lunch.
“Oh, so they always go ‘someplace lame,’” Tony quoted back to Peter.
“I didn’t know!” Peter objected, “I didn’t even read the slip!”
“He didn’t ever mention it in class? Or your friends?”
Peter shrugged. “I was probably doing my schoolwork in class and not listening. And Ned did ask me if I was going to Stark Industries today, but I thought he meant what I’m doing now, like I normally do.”
Tony laughed. “So, you ready to answer all their questions next week?”
“No.” Peter dug his wrists into his eyes. “I haven’t even been on the tour.”
“What?” Tony sounded surprised.
“I haven’t take the tour!” He said, “not that I need to, anyways.”
Clint and Sam chuckled next to him. They knew Tony wouldn’t let this pass. “No,” Tony said, proving them right, “you’re definitely going. You need to, now!”
The next day, Tony made Peter go on an official Stark Industries tour (‘I’ll even cover the cost for you,’ he’d said), smiling as he told him that him he wasn’t allowed in the lab again until he did so.
Peter obliged begrudgingly, moping as he got in the elevator to go back down to the lobby. Clint and Sam were waiting for him in front of the check-in desk, disguising themselves as terribly flashy tourists draped in bright Hawaiian button-up shirts. Clint even carried (and using) binoculars, and Sam insisted on taking pictures of Peter at every spot the other tourists were taking pictures of their kids at.
And although Peter would never admit it, he enjoyed every second of it.