Chapter Text
“Guys, guys! Settle down!” Mr. Harrington called, endlessly trying to quiet the teens in his care. It was a Friday, and nearing the end of Midtown's allotted after-school activity time.
The chatter droned on, and Mr. Harrington opted to start speaking over the noise. Peter’s senses picked up his voice easily, forcing him to listen even when he was trying to ignore everything around him.
Peter slumped down toward the top of his desk, his pencil scratching lazily over a random homework sheet he had due tomorrow. If he didn’t get it done now, it wouldn’t be done at all. He was patrolling tonight, which would eat up a good few hours. Not to mention he had to clean his room, get to the sparring session with Steve scheduled, and had to do his rounds in the labs.
His foot tapped on the linoleum in a senseless rhythm. Peter’s body was telling him to get up and move, but he refused to call any more attention to himself today until the bell rang. Face planting during lunch was enough nightmare fuel for the rest of his life. Not to mention how he very well could’ve avoided it, but that in of itself would’ve put him in the spotlight. Which he was trying to avoid.
Mr. Harrington started walking between the desks, passing out a few papers that Peter had almost no interest in. Until he tuned back in the moment ‘Stark Industries’ left Mr. Harrington’s lips, the man’s pointer finger gliding over the paper he’d just put down on Peter’s desk. His eyes widened as he zeroed in on the all too familiar words written across the top of the front page in big, bold letters.
He sat up, almost snapping his pencil in half as he grasped the paper with a sense of urgency flowing through his veins he never felt unless he was in a fight, scanning the paper quicker than anyone else could.
The words barely registered in his mind, his heart pounding so loud Peter couldn’t hear anything else going on.
Fucking fuck. The papers were forms for a field trip to Stark Industries. His house. They were going on a field trip to his house. How the hell did they even get clearance for this? And how had Peter not caught wind of it this whole time? This must’ve taken months to set up.
“Dude, are you serious?” Flash exclaimed excitedly, holding his paper up to the light like a spoil of war. Mr. Harrington was beaming like he just solved world hunger, leaning against the front of his desk to go through the usual field trip speel. Read the papers carefully, fill it out with your parents, blah blah. All things that Peter wanted nothing to do with.
He let his paper fall back onto his desk, lacing a few fingers through his hair as he resisted the urge to groan. He could see MJ in his peripheral sketching him in her crisis notebook while Ned was going on about how excited he was.
“Do you think we’ll get to eat in the caféteria? Oh my god, this is amazing!” Ned nearly squealed, flipping through his papers like a mad scientist. Peter’s brows furrowed, and he turned his head towards his best friend.
“Dude. You were at the tower three days ago. We just had dinner with like… half of the Avengers. What are you talking about?” He hissed in a hushed tone. Ned waved a hand dejectedly in Peter’s general direction, still too focused on the forms.
The teen shook his head. “That’s not the point! We’ve never been on a SI-sactioned official tour before, which means, Peter, we get to see the Tower in a completely different way. This is incredible. Nobody else has done this before!”
Peter let his head fall back against the desk, and MJ snorted under her breath. “Man, I should photocopy this sketch. You look downright miserable, Parker.” She smirked, and the sound of her pencil filled his ears as he focused in on her absently. He shot her a look, but she pretended not to see.
“Hey, Penis!” Flash called from the other side of the room, his cronies laughing already. Peter blinked tiredly, but sat up. He glanced over to Flash, perched on top of his desk like usual, waving the papers like a flag.
Peter knew he shouldn’t engage, but if Flash wasn’t picking on him, he’d go for someone else. So against his better judgement, he said, “What, Flash?” And didn’t bother to hide his bored tone. It had been too long of a day for anything less.
Flash made a face, but got that look in his eye he always did when he was either about to say something stupid or do something stupid. Peter almost wanted to gamble on which one it was, but Flash could be so idiotic, who the hell knew what he was thinking.
He flicked a hand towards Peter’s beat up backpack, a devilish grin crossing his face. Peter started to sweat a little, which he hated. “Better leave that bag home, Parker. They might kick you out for disgracing their lobby like that.” He said pointedly, getting a few chuckles.
That one actually stung a little, and not because he couldn’t afford a new one anymore. His current backpack was the last one May had bought for him. Peter was well aware how beat up it was getting, but he did his best to keep it nice. The wear and tear of his daily life was starting to show, though.
Peter did his best not to show it, but Flash noticed anyways. He always did, somehow. The glint in his eye turned malicious, and Peter braced himself for whatever came next.
”Awww,…” Flash’s fake mocking tone filled the room, ringing all wrong in his ears. He taunted, and his goons started hollering like that was the funniest thing ever.
Quietly, Peter sighed. He had to at least try and get Flash handled before the field trip, because if he was doing this in the tower? No telling who could hear or what could happen. And Peter wouldn’t be too fond of having his life uprooted by now just because someone couldn’t keep his mouth shut.
Across the room, Flash was still going. In a more hushed tone, just to his friends, but it didn’t matter for Peter. He could hear him clear as day, even though he really didn’t want to. “I mean, like, it’s so obvious to anyone with a brain that he doesn’t have an internship. Why the hell would Tony-freaking-Stark choose someone like that to be representing him? It’s such an obvious lie.” He spoke, with no regards to his volume. If anyone noticed they didn’t care, too busy nodding along with their teacher.
He actually didn’t care about that one, since technically his internship ‘finished’ when Tony Stark adopted him. Now, Peter did so much work around the labs and the IT department that the other technicians started calling him Junior or Mini-Boss. Plus, on the rare days that Tony, Pepper, and Happy were all out on business, it was Peter that got put in charge. It was hard to be upset about losing an internship when he had a master key.
But, in all fairness, that could be a problem. Everyone knew about Peter’s internship, but nobody besides Ned annd MJ knew the truth anbout everything else. However, everyone in the labs and in the lobby knew Peter, so any unassuming visitor (his debate team) would probably think he had one. Small mercies.
Mr. Harrington, oblivious and useless, was still droning on about… honor, or something? Peter was more focused on trying not to spiral.
“Now kids, this is an extremely rare opportunity. Midtown is the first school that Stark Industries is trying these tours with, so we have the honor and privilege of being the guinea-pigs, and the first members of the public to see some of this stuff. That is not to be taken lightly.” He said all dramatically, and some of the girls started nodding along like this was a serious matter.
Peter was running through all the spots that were approved from the tour. Nothing high level or top-secret, obviously. So the basic legal department and possibly some of the labs. Cool, yes, but nothing worth a whole spectacle. Though the cafeteria was pretty dope.
Mr. Harrington breezed past his desk again. Peter shoved his forms into his backpack and went back to his homework.
Tony, Pepper and Peter decided to keep his adoption a total secret, so Tony had pulled some strings to make Peter appear as a foster kid for the time being. Once Peter graduated they’d announce him as the heir to Stark Industries, but that was still a couple years away. It was just a lot simpler for him to be as unassuming as possible right now.
A paper ball flew towards Peter’s head, and he had to will himself not to dodge it or catch it out of instinct. MJ smacked it out of the air instead, giving Flash and his crew the finger, which garnered even more laughs.
Peter shot her a look, but she just shrugged and went back to sketching his hunched over form.
This was going to be a very long next two weeks.