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When May found out about Spiderman she went a little crazy. Like make Peter call Happy who passed the phone to Mr. Stark and then screamed at a billionaire kinda crazy. It was a wild call, one that gave Peter whiplash just listening to it, but by the end of it Peter and May had Mr. Stark’s direct number and Peter had a genuine Stark Internship… three days a week even! So every Monday, Wednesday and Friday Peter was picked up from school and driven to the newly repurchased and redesigned Stark Tower.
The months flew by as Peter got situated within Stark Tower. He had an official badge which Happy was insane about, he had the opportunity to meet the other interns who were college students or grad school students. Ms. Potts made sure that he saw all of the company from Security to HR to R&D. But the best part of his internship was the time he got to spend with Mr. Stark in the man’s personal lab. The time with his mentor was precious to Peter and the pair had grown rather close over the last few months… inside his head Peter had even taken to calling Tony and Pepper, Dad and Mom, instead of Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts… not that he would have the courage to say that to their faces though.
Peter had a lot of nicknames around Stark Tower, from mini boss or little Stark by the interns, junior by R&D, “the future is bright” by HR and Marketing, “Trouble” by security and many more. Happy called him kid, Pepper called him baby, Rhodey called him “Tony's Karma” and Spider-baby. His favorite nicknames came from Tony though, such as underoos, spiderling, kid, kiddo, Pete, and in the quiet moments “bambino”.
May and Pepper had become fast friends bonding over their respective “disaster geniuses” with “too big hero complexes”. When Pepper learned that Peter would stay home alone while May worked night shifts, the redhead offered for Peter to stay with them at the tower. May couldn’t turn down a chance for Peter to have a home cooked meal, company and help on his homework so she agreed. In light of this Peter now had his own room in the penthouse and found himself spending the occasional weekend having science binges with his father figure, watching trashy reality TV with Pepper to decompress, playing cards or video games with his “Uncle Rhodey” and taking fighting lessons from Happy.
Ned had lost his mind when he had first heard about the internship being real this time and got excited every time that Peter had something new to share with his bestie about the “Iron Fam”. Peter protested that he wasn’t a part of the “Iron Fam” but Ned just told him he was being an idiot. MJ, who had figured out his secret crime-fighting identity, had been read in on the situation as well. While she wasn’t the biggest fan of Tony Stark's early days and the company’s time in the weapons industry; she was a major Pepper Potts fan and was proud of the work Tony had done to turn his company and life around and how he was making the world a better place.
The first time Peter introduced his friends to Tony and Pepper was on his birthday. May was hosting a small party for his sixteenth birthday and had invited the “Iron Fam” to celebrate over some delicious Thai food and an embarrassing Spiderman cake. Ned had almost passed out when he shook Tony’s hand and MJ actually babbled while in the presence of the absolute goddess that was the Iron Queen Pepper Potts.
Life continued on though and Freshman year was drawing to a close. Peter and his friends were at Academic Decathlon practice one afternoon when Mr. Harrington came in excitedly announcing big news.
“Guess what everyone! Because of us winning this year’s Academic Decathlon competition the school has agreed to sponsor a congratulatory field trip to… drum roll please…. Stark Industries!”
The students all gasped in various stages of shock and excitement.
“At least it’s not to Oscorp again… that field trip was boring” said Betty.
“Yeah so boring” agreed Peter rubbing the back of his neck where he felt the phantom spider bite.
Mr. Harrington passed out the permission slips instructing them to have their guardians sign them and return them before the trip next Friday. Peter was trying to think of ways that he could get May to ground him and not let him go on the trip for the rest of the class period.
When the bell rang dismissing them to lunch Mr. Harrington called out for Peter to hang back. Ned shot Peter a worried look, but Peter just waved him off to go join MJ at their normal lunch table.
“What’s up Mr. H?”
“Hi Peter, I just wanted to check in with you before the field trip, given your internship…”
“I swear it’s real!” exclaimed Peter, it was… now.
“I know it is, I’ve seen the paperwork from the HR department filed in Principal Mortia’s office. I was just wondering if you had any restrictions due to your status at the company”
“Not that I know of” said Peter, he was pretty sure nothing was off limits to him at this point. He’d literally had chocolate cake in the CEO’s office two weeks ago while they brainstormed birthday gifts for Tony.
“Perfect! I am looking forward to seeing where you work and hopefully you’ll be able to tell us a bit about what you do, the non-confidential stuff of course!” smiled his favorite teacher.
“Thanks Mr. H, yeah it’ll definitely be an interesting trip” smiled Peter awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck. Mr. Harrington dismissed him then, letting Peter escape to the anonymity of the bustling cafeteria.
“What did Mr. Harrington want?” asked Ned as Peter plopped down in his normal seat between his two best friends.
Peter opened his lunch box and took out the protein bar that Tony had made for him to make sure he got all the nutrients and calories his spider metabolism needed. “He wanted to know if my internship would affect our tour”
“You are so pathetic Parker. Are you really continuing to lie about an internship at Stark Industries? They don’t hire high schoolers” scoffed Flash as he walked past their table. “You’re such a liar, and soon everyone will know that too”
Peter just kept his head down and didn’t engage, knowing that would just make it worse.
“At least Mr. Harrington believed you” said Ned encouragingly once the bully had walked away to join his cronies across the cafeteria.
“Yeah,” sighed Peter.
“It’ll be cool to see where you work,” said MJ. “Maybe we’ll run into Ms. Potts”
“God I hope not” groaned Peter. He just wanted to get through the trip with as little acknowledgement and embarrassment as possible.