Work Text:
Luck
Peter’s “Parker Luck” was kicking in, and he absolutely despised it. It was only Monday, and his week was off to a horrible start.
On Sunday, he forgot that he planned a trip with Aunt May to the Queen’s Zoo. They had barely spent any time together even though it was summer — Aunt May’s busy work schedules and Peter’s “internship” (and periodically real internship) often conflicted. So Peter planned for a day out that was “his treat”. But then he was caught up downtown with a series after series of events that needed taking care of. When he arrived back to their apartment that was a few floors above the main level (he took the door that time, thankfully), Aunt May was waiting and less than happy. But she still understood that his “internship” went overtime and promised that they could go next Sunday; Peter just hoped that his “Parker Luck” disappeared by then.
Then that evening, he realized that he only had enough web fluid for about a few shots, and then he would be out. The worst part was that all of his extras were currently stored at the Tower — something that he had stupidly done.
In the middle of the night, the power went out, which meant that their air conditioning turned off. The sweltering and muggy summer heat woke Peter up and opened his window to try to fix the issue. Something for him to remember: it didn’t work.
And then, in the morning, Peter had to get up early because he had a summer science course that was at the nearby community college. It wasn’t that he had to retake a course because he failed it, but he just wanted to get ahead in his classes.
Breakfast was great, though. His Parker Luck didn’t act up then. Aunt May, although tired with barely opened eyes, helped Peter make pancakes and bacon. They actually were able to eat together for once.
However, Peter had to take the subway to class, and that was just a big mess. The train lines had “traffic”, and his train was late, meaning that he was late to class. At that point, Peter was just ready for the day to be over.
Once class was over around noon, he decided that a sandwich at Delmar’s was definitely in order. This subway ride was much smoother than the last one, something Peter was eternally grateful for. A short walk out of the subway led him to his happy spot of Delmar’s.
“Hello, Mr. Delmar. How are you doing?” Peter asked cheerfully.
“Pretty good. How about you?”
“Well, you know how it is sometimes …”
“I know what will cheer you up,” Mr. Delmar gestured to the sandwich board, “Would you like your usual?”
“You know it. The number five with pickles and smushed flat.”
Peter placed a five-dollar bill down and then said hello to Murph, the resident cat, while waiting for his sandwich. As usual, Murph was calm and cool, and thoroughly enjoyed the attention he was getting,
Mr. Delmar placed Peter’s sandwich down on the counter, and Peter picked it up. As Peter walked out, he said, “See you around, Mr. Delmar.”
“See you, Peter!”
After another long subway ride, Peter finally made it to the Tower. If I have to go on another subway ride again today, I think I will cry. Peter thought. He was just so used to swinging around the city that he forgot the horrors of the New York subway system.
Peter walked up to the Tower’s entrance. Like everything else about the tower, it was over the top, sleek, and equipped with the latest — and often unreleased — technology. “Good Afternoon, Mrs. Rawles,” Peter said to the dark-skinned woman wearing a smart pantsuit who manned the front desk and checked in everyone who entered the building. Although Happy didn’t like to admit it, she was so skilled at her security job that she was as high as Happy in seniority despite only working there for less than two years.
“Hello, Mr. Parker,” She replied with her typical cherry deposition. “Up to the same floor as always?”
“Yep,” Peter said as he slid his identification pass across the counter to her, “Up to my internship.” Which isn’t really an internship, but oh well.
“How is your family doing?” Peter asked as Mrs. Rawles typed the information into the computer and processed it onto his pass.
“Rather well. In fact, Adrien just won an art award at school yesterday.”
“Oh! That’s great! Do you have a picture of the art piece?” Peter asked, as sociable and interested as always.
“I do, but I’ll show you next time. There’s a line forming.” Mrs. Rawles said as she passed him his pass.
Peter turned around as saw the people standing rather patiently behind him and blushed a bit over keeping the line long. He grabbed his pass, waved goodbye, and then entered the elevator.
As the silver elevator doors closed, he swiped his pass on the register and then pressed his floor. The elevator dinged and then began moving up. Hopefully, it would not take too many stops considering the number of elevators that could be used.
It seemed his Parker Luck was running out because the elevator took a shorter amount of time than usual, only stopping a few times. “Hello, Peter.” F.R.I.D.A.Y. said as he entered the level where Mr. Stark’s lab — and where Peter worked on his own projects — was, “Would you like me to notify Mr. Stark that you are here? He is in his lab right now.”
“Hi, F.R.I.D.A.Y. Could you tell Mr. Stark that I am here, and am going to get some supplies and maybe work on a few projects for a short while?”
“Of course, Peter. Have a nice day.”
“Thanks, F.R.I.D.A.Y.” Peter said as he began to head to the lab. Through the glass door, he notices that Mr. Stark is causally inputting data into the computer system.
“Hello, Mr.Stark.”
“Hi, Peter. What’s the occasion?”
“I, uh, actually ran out of web fluid, and I stupidly left all of my extras here. I need to pick some up and maybe make some more. I can’t leave the people out there hanging .”
“Okay, Underoos. When you’re done, I have something that you might be interested in, so come on over.”
“Okay, Mr. Stark!” Peter responded as he walked backwards towards the other end of the large lab where his supplies were stored.
It did not take long for Peter to gather up his supplies to bring home and chemicals to make a new batch. So, in about half an hour, Peter walked over to Mr. Stark to announce that he was done.
“So,” Mr. Stark started, “You know how Stark Industries hosts summer internships for high school and college students,” Peter nodded his head, “Well one of our interns who is just a bit older than you is working on this rather interesting project. I was thinking that if you have time, you could collaborate for a bit. I think you two will get together fine, and you haven’t spent enough time relaxing underoos.”
“I guess I have some time to spare,” Peter said while rubbing the back of his neck, “I can patrol after. Let’s head over.” Now that Mr. Stark pointed it out, he could see that he did need to do something else than patrol or school; maybe this work time will also help his Parker Luck disappear, at least for the time being.
Peter and his mentor walked over to the elevator and traveled down several floors to one of the main interning ones. As they went down the floors, Mr. Stark told Peter that the intern’s name was Daniel Fenton who was skilled in engineering and was an incoming college freshman. (Mr. Stark, however, did not reveal what the project was, exactly. Peter summed it up as wanting to keep it a mystery for the intern to share).
The elevator doors opened up to a floor arranged in a similar way to office buildings with cubicles, but instead of cubicles, it was workstations. The floor was brightly lit from the industrial lights and windows that covered the exterior walls (practically the only real walls since the Tower level greatly exhibited the “open floor concept”).
As Peter followed Mr. Stark across the room towards a workstation closer to the windows. It was a little odd how everyone was staring at Mr.Stark and Peter, in turn, as they walked by. At least Peter was used to it as Spider-Man; it was just a bit odd as Peter Parker. Although, one of the only people not invested in Mr. Stark appearing on the floor was a black-haired young adult in a NASA shirt who was focused rather intensely on a project at his station. It turned out that that was who they were heading to.
“Hello, Daniel.” Mr. Stark said to the young man.
He turned around, a bit surprised and a bit flustered, “Oh, hi, Mr. Stark. What brings you here today?” He said nonchalantly.
“I thought that Peter here, who is also an intern, would be interested in working with you on your project. With you two working together, it will probably be the best project on this floor. I’ll just leave you to it.” Mr. Stark gave a wave and headed out, leaving no room for questions.
“Well … Uh, hi. I’m Peter, but I guess you already knew that.” Peter said a bit uneasily over the fact that he was just left to collaborate with someone he only knew the name of.
“Nice to meet you, I know Mr. Stark said my name was Daniel, but I much rather prefer Danny,” He said with a winning smile, “You can sit down in that chair, and I’ll tell you about this project I’m working on.” Peter sat down on the chair to Danny’s left.
“So,” Danny started, “This project handles a lot of things, really. But overall, it is supposed to sense and analyze people’s signatures along with analyzing their vitals and levels. It is supposed to do all of this at a rapid pace and is portable. Oh, it also figures out, based on that data, how people should help that person if they are hurt. Like, if they suddenly passed out, it analyzes why and what remedy should be taken. If they need medicine, it will figure out what type and how much will be best for that person,” After each description, Danny became even more excited and more animated. He was clearly very enthusiastic about the project. “Oh! I can’t believe I almost forgot. It also compares and matches people with others so it can better analyze people and even figure out who unidentified people are. So, that’s about it,” Danny ended sheepishly.
“Wow,” Peter said in amazement, “I don’t even know where to start. It can really do all of those things?”
“Well, it should be able to when we finish it.”
“Do you know a lot about signature sensors?” Peter asked, “I haven’t really heard of that before.”
“I’m not an expert, but I do know some about it. The real experts are my parents who — well, it’s kind of hard to explain. I don’t know if you’ll believe me.”
“Try me.” Peter has seen a fair share of unordinary in his short life.
“They are ecto-scientists. They study anything ecto, and by that, I mean anything ghost. They developed a device that senses and recognizes ecto-signatures. Once you understand how that works, it’s not that hard to figure out how to redesign it to work on people … This is probably hard for you to handle, I mean, ghosts! Right?”
“Actually,” Peter said with an understanding look on his face, “After what I saw a few days ago, ghosts are pretty easy to believe.”
“Really?” Danny had a questioning look.
“Yeah, well, this ghost, Phantom, was helping m- Spider-man out with an issue with some supervillain the other day.”
“That was on TV?” Danny asked, a little on edge for some reason.
“No, well, at least I don’t think it was. I was near the area, so I saw it.”
“Don’t make a habit of that,” Danny said with a bit of a laugh (a total mood change, he might add), “Super fights get out of hand a lot. You know how it is, all of a sudden, there are no punches, and instead, they’re just kicking at each other.”
“Another Pun Master?” Peter said, referencing the phrase used by his ghostly ally from a short while before.
“At your service,” Danny smiled and did the best half-bow possible while sitting in a chair.
“This is going to be pun tastic.”
“Oh, yeah it is. So, should we get to work? We don’t want to pun out of time … Okay, that one wasn’t that good, but you get my puint.”
“Let’s get to it.” Peter was excited to work on the project, especially since he got to know Danny a bit more.
For the next few weeks, which were some of the last weeks of summer before school started back up again, Peter made sure to save time to work on the project with Danny. Who knew that meeting another punny person and working on a device would end the turmoil of Peter’s “Parker Luck” and bring about a new friend.
Now that Peter thought about it, he met two Pun Masters that summer who had similar personalities, but — no — it couldn’t be. Could it?