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The historical exhibition floor kept the Decathlon team distracted for a solid forty minutes, which gave Peter exactly enough time to stop sweating through his hoodie. He spent most of it gently pulling Ned away from the security lasers protecting Tony's old Mark II armor, all while Flash glared at him from across the room like Peter had personally coded the entire universe to spite him.
"Alright, Midtown!" Chloe called out, her digital tablet clutched tightly to her chest as she gathered the group near the center exit. "Next up is the Applied Sciences sector on Floor Twelve. This is an active R&D floor, so please keep your hands to yourselves and stay behind the yellow safety lines."
The elevator ride up to Floor Twelve was significantly louder than the first one. Now that the initial shock of Peter's AI greeting had worn off, Flash had successfully rallied a few of his friends into a quiet, intense whispering campaign about 'forged credentials' and 'glorified coffee boys'. Peter just leaned against the glass wall, his super-hearing picking up every single word while MJ casually sketched a remarkably detailed drawing of Flash falling down a garbage chute.
When the doors slid open on the twelfth floor, the atmosphere immediately shifted. It didn't look like a museum; it looked like a playground for mad scientists. Robotic arms were swinging back and forth behind reinforced glass panels, sparks were flying from half-assembled engine blocks, and tech-specs were floating dynamically in mid-air.
"Wow," Mr. Harrington breathed, adjusting his glasses as he nearly tripped over a wandering vacuum drone. "This is truly... cutting edge."
"Now, over here," Chloe began, leading the class toward a massive, open-concept communal workspace, "our entry-level engineering interns are working on optimizing the power grid for-"
"Hey! Look out!"
The sudden shout came from a nearby lab cubicle, followed immediately by the high-pitched, terrifying whine of an over-charged plasma battery. A thick cloud of bright pink chemical smoke billowed out into the hallway, setting off a localized hazard alarm.
The Decathlon team scrambled backward in a panic, Flash pushing his way to the back of the crowd while Mr. Harrington tried to shepherd the students away from the smoke.
Through the pink haze, a frantic young man in a white lab coat stumbled out, frantically waving a tablet. "The cooling cycle failed! It’s cascading! Does anyone have the override code for the sub-station dampeners?!"
Chloe looked terrified, her fingers flying across her tour tablet, but her Level Two clearance was already flashing an access denial screen. "I—I can't bypass the grid from a visitor terminal!"
Peter didn't even think about it. His spider-sense wasn't screaming danger—just an annoying mess if that battery blew—and his brain instantly defaulted to workshop mode. He stepped right past a stunned Mr. Harrington and strode straight into the pink smoke toward the sputtering console.
"Kid, wait! You can't go in there!" Chloe yelled.
"FRIDAY, drop a localized isolation shield on grid section four-B," Peter called out, his voice sharp and completely devoid of his usual high school stutter. "And run a thermal vent through the secondary ceiling ducts."
"Shielding deployed, Peter," FRIDAY’s calm voice echoed down from the ceiling. A thick, transparent blast barrier instantly slid down from the roof tiles, trapping the pink smoke inside the workspace and away from the class. "Thermal venting is at eighty percent. The battery is still registering an unstable thermal spike."
Peter reached the primary diagnostic console, his fingers moving across the holographic interface with the exact same high-velocity fluidity he had used at two in the morning. He didn't have his platinum badge, but the console's optical sensors recognized his face instantly.
"Bypass the feedback loop, override the manual safety pins, and vent the excess voltage directly into the building's grounding rod," Peter muttered to himself, dragging a cluster of red warning variables and slamming them into a green safety partition.
The whining sound peaked, groaned, and then died down into a harmless, soft hum. The hazard lights stopped spinning.
Peter exhaled a long breath, wiping a smudge of pink chemical residue off his forehead. He turned to the wide-eyed lab intern, who was staring at him like he had just witnessed a wizard cast a spell. "You need to offset the dampener variables by zero-point-three percent whenever the high-velocity stabilizers engage," Peter explained perfectly, gesturing to the screen. "Otherwise, the loop kicks back. Mr. Stark and I literally just fixed that last night."
"Right. Yes. Zero-point-three," the intern stammered, nodding rapidly as he scrambled to type it down. "Thank you, Mr... uh..."
"Just Peter," he said, offering a weak smile.
He stepped out of the cubicle as the isolation shield lifted. The pink smoke was gone, but the entire Decathlon team was still rooted to the floor, staring at him in dead, horrified silence.
Ned was grinning so hard his face looked like it was going to split in half. MJ just gave him a slow, single nod of approval.
Flash Thompson, however, looked completely hollowed out. His mouth was open, his skin was a sickly shade of gray, and his hands were trembling against his Level One visitor pass. There was no coming back from that. No errand boy knew how to command Tony Stark's personal AI to drop blast shields, and no coffee boy could reprogram an active R&D plasma matrix in twelve seconds flat.
Mr. Harrington broke the silence, his voice trembling slightly. "Peter... did you just... save us from an industrial explosion?"
"Uh, no, Mr. Harrington," Peter said quickly, his face turning bright red as he reverted right back into an awkward teenager, rubbing the back of his neck. "It was just a battery pop. Super common. Total rounding error. Can we check out the next floor now?"
Chloe looked down at her tablet, then back to Peter, her professional composure completely shattered. "Yeah. Sure. Next floor."
As the class began to shuffle toward the elevators in a daze, FRIDAY’s voice chimed smoothly over the speakers once more. "Peter, Boss has just reviewed the security footage of that grid stabilization. He says your form on the holographic bypass was sloppy, and he is threatening to text May about your lack of situational awareness if you don't eat your burrito within the next ten minutes."
Peter groaned loudly, burying his face in his hands as Ned let out a loud laugh. "Tell him I'm eating it, FRIDAY! I'm eating it right now!"
The journey to the next destination took them up to Floor Twenty-Two: Consumer Technology and Advanced Bio-Metrics. By this point, the dynamic of the Midtown High Decathlon team had completely shifted. Flash Thompson was trailing at the absolute back of the group, staring blankly at the floor as if trying to figure out how to fake a medical emergency to get sent home. The rest of the students were no longer treating Peter like their classmate; they were treating him like an unexploded bomb, constantly leaving a polite four-foot radius around him whenever he walked.
"Alright, everyone," Chloe said, her voice now possessing a distinct, nervous tremor whenever she looked in Peter’s direction. "This is our consumer tech floor. This is where we scale down Stark Industries industrial tech for commercial use. Medical monitors, smart-home grids, and-"
"Hey, look! They have the prototype Stark-Glasses!" one of the students shouted, pointing toward a sleek glass pedestal in the center of the room.
Inside the case sat a pair of seemingly ordinary, dark-rimmed sunglasses. A small placard underneath read: E.D.I.T.H. Framework – Tactical Awareness Display (Prototype Phase).
"Oh, man," Ned whispered, his elbow immediately finding Peter’s ribs. "Dude. Are those...?"
"No," Peter muttered under his breath, his eyes widening slightly as he looked at the display. "No, those are definitely an older build. Mr. Stark dropped that specific chassis because the weight distribution on the nose bridge was giving him migraines. He threw three pairs into the scrap bin last Friday."
"Fascinating," Mr. Harrington said, leaning in so close his nose almost touched the glass. "To think, a piece of wearable technology capable of processing billions of data points per second. Flash, what do you think? You’re always talking about the latest tech upgrades."
Flash jumped slightly, clearing his throat. His bravado was severely dented, but the sight of a locked glass case seemed to give him a tiny surge of his old confidence back. He looked at Peter, then back at the glasses. "I mean... it's cool. But obviously, they keep the real stuff locked down. Anyone can look at a prototype. It's not like some people have access to active military hardware just because they know the receptionist."
Before Peter could even sigh, the glass pedestal hummed.
A small holographic scanner blinked to life at the base of the display casing, casting a red grid over Peter’s face as he accidentally stepped too close to the sensor perimeter.
“Biometric scan initialized,” a smooth, computerized voice announced from the pedestal. “User recognized: Parker, Peter. Clearance level: Absolute. Status: Primary Beneficiary Prototype Access.”
With a soft, pressurized hiss, the heavy security glass didn't just unlock—it automatically retracted completely into the floor, leaving the priceless, high-tech military prototype completely exposed and sitting open right in front of Peter’s hands.
The entire room froze. A security guard at the end of the hall instantly snapped his head around, his hand dropping to his belt, before he saw Peter standing there, sighed, and went back to checking his phone.
"Peter," Chloe whispered, her tablet dropping a few inches as her hands started to shake. "The security protocol for that case requires a Level Four executive override from Miss Potts herself. Why did it just... open?"
"I didn't touch it!" Peter said defensively, raising his hands in the air as if he were being arrested. "I swear I didn't touch it! FRIDAY, why did the display drop?"
“Mr. Stark updated the local UI parameters at 2:45 AM, Peter,” FRIDAY responded instantly from the ceiling speakers. “He noted that you kept losing your regular safety goggles in the workshop and authorized your biometric signature to access any wearable optical tech in the building so you wouldn't 'accidentally blind yourself with a laser cutter again.' His words.”
"I don't need the glasses, FRIDAY, please put the glass back up," Peter pleaded, his face burning a fresh, hot red as MJ let out a muffled snort behind him.
“Closing display. Please ensure your fingers are clear of the automated seal.” The glass smoothly rose back up, locking into place with a definitive click.
Flash looked like he was about to have an aneurysm. He opened his mouth, closed it, and then quietly stepped behind a large corporate pillar to avoid being seen by anyone.
"Right," Mr. Harrington said, his voice reaching a pitch only dogs could hear. "Well! That was... highly educational. Let's move along to the communal cafeteria area for our scheduled lunch break, shall we? I think we all need some... neutral space."
The Stark Industries executive cafeteria looked less like a school lunchroom and more like a five-star organic restaurant that happened to have a view of the entire East River. Chefs in immaculate white coats were preparing fresh sushi, artisanal pizzas, and complex salads behind sleek marble counters.
The Midtown High students scattered to the various stations, clutching their corporate meal vouchers like golden tickets. Peter, Ned, and MJ grabbed a table near the massive floor-to-ceiling windows. Peter had barely sat down when a small, three-wheeled delivery drone—shaped exactly like a sleek, metallic trash can with a little orange flag—came whizzing down the center aisle of the cafeteria, completely ignoring the other tourists.
It stopped dead right next to Peter’s chair, chirped happily, and popped its top lid open with a puff of pressurized air. Inside, sitting on a heated tray, was a massive, foil-wrapped breakfast burrito and a small, chilled plastic cup filled with raw celery and carrot sticks.
"What is that?" Ned asked, leaning in.
"My lunch," Peter groaned, pulling the burrito out.
At the very bottom of the drone's compartment was a small, sticky note written in sharp, messy handwriting: IF I SEE THE CARROTS IN THE TRASH, I’M TELLING MAY. EAT YOUR GREENS, KID. - T.S.
"Wow," MJ said, reaching over and casually stealing a piece of celery. "The billionaire Avenger is weaponizing corporate logistics to force-feed you vegetables. That's a solid seven on the dystopian scale."
"He's completely serious, too," Peter mumbled, taking a massive bite of the burrito because his enhanced metabolism was currently screaming for calories. "If FRIDAY reports back that I didn't finish the carrots, Janice is actually going to call my aunt, and then I’m grounded from the lab for a week."
Across the cafeteria, Flash Thompson was sitting alone at a small two-person table, staring miserably at a plate of chicken tenders. He kept glancing over at Peter's table, his eyes darting between Peter’s foil-wrapped burrito and the high-tech delivery drone that was currently waiting patiently by Peter's side like an expensive mechanical dog.
"Look at him," Ned whispered, nodding toward Flash. "He looks like his entire worldview just got deleted by a virus."
"Good," MJ said, not looking up from her book. "Humility builds character. Or in his case, it might just cause a minor existential breakdown."
Before Peter could answer, his spider-sense gave a tiny, familiar prickle at the back of his neck. It wasn't the 'duck-and-cover' kind of warning—it was the specific, low-level vibration that usually meant something incredibly loud and disruptive was about to happen in his immediate vicinity.
A second later, the heavy glass doors at the main entrance of the cafeteria slid open, and a sudden, sharp hush fell over the entire room.
Mr. Harrington swallowed hard, his throat clicking in the silence of the cafeteria. He smoothed down his corduroy jacket, adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses twice, and stepped away from the teacher’s table. He walked over to Peter’s table with the cautious, slow-stepping hesitation of a man approaching an unpredictable jungle cat.
"Uh, Peter?" Mr. Harrington cleared his throat, his voice cracking slightly on the first syllable.
Peter looked up from his half-eaten breakfast burrito, still crunching on a carrot stick. "Oh. Hey, Mr. Harrington. Is everything okay?"
"I... well, I was going to ask you that, Peter," Mr. Harrington said, his eyes darting nervously to the heavy platinum card sitting right next to Peter’s paper napkin. He cleared his throat again, leaning in slightly so the rest of the class wouldn't hear him whisper. "Peter, that very... intense security gentleman. The one who just... left. Was that... was that Harold Hogan?"
Ned’s mouth fell open. "You know who Happy is, Mr. Harrington?"
"Of course I do, Ned," Mr. Harrington whispered frantically, his hands fluttering in front of his chest. "I watch the financial news! He’s the Head of Global Security for Stark Industries! He was Tony Stark’s personal bodyguard during the Iron Man reveal in 2008! I’ve seen him on television next to the Secretary of State!"
Mr. Harrington turned his wide, panicked gaze back to Peter. "Peter, why did the Head of Global Security just personally deliver a platinum badge to our lunch table because you forgot your laundry?"
"Oh, uh..." Peter stammered, his mind racing for a plausible explanation that didn't involve his secret identity. He felt a bead of sweat roll down the back of his neck. "Well, you see, Mr. Harrington... the internship is... it’s really hands-on. And since I’m in the main lab a lot, Happy—Mr. Hogan—is technically responsible for my safety protocols. He’s just... very strict about the paperwork."
"Strict about the paperwork," Mr. Harrington repeated flatly. He looked down at the platinum card, which was currently casting a faint, expensive glow onto the laminate tabletop. "Peter, he said your absence triggered a 'security anomaly.' He mentioned a tactical team."
"He exaggerates!" Peter laughed nervously, the sound a bit too high-pitched. "Happy loves a good tactical team. He threatens to call them whenever someone uses the wrong coffee mug in the lounge. It's like a running joke. Right, MJ?"
MJ didn't look up from her sketchbook, where she was currently adding a tiny, angry Bluetooth earpiece to her drawing of Happy Hogan. "Totally. Last week he threatened to tear-gas the breakroom because Ned left a half-empty soda on the counter."
"I didn't mean to!" Ned chimed in quickly. "The fizz was gone!"
Mr. Harrington blinked rapidly, his brain clearly trying to process a reality where his quietest, most academically gifted student regularly rubbed elbows with international security executives over soda cans and laundry logistics. "Right. Well. It’s just... Flash was quite convinced that you were simply fetching coffee, Peter."
"I do fetch coffee sometimes," Peter offered weakly, trying to throw Flash a bone so the guy wouldn't completely lose his mind. "The machine in Lab 4 has a really complicated interface."
"He reprograms the interface," MJ corrected casually, her pencil scratching against the paper. "Because the espresso crema wasn't at the right atmospheric density for Mr. Stark."
Mr. Harrington looked like he needed to sit down, preferably in a dark room with a cool washcloth over his eyes. He stared at Peter for three more seconds, opened his mouth to say something else, and then apparently gave up entirely. "Yes. Well. Fascinating. Just... please make sure you finish your vegetables, Peter. We wouldn't want to cause any more... international incidents before the 2:00 PM presentation."
With a stiff, dazed nod, Mr. Harrington turned and walked back to the teachers' table, nearly colliding with a automated tray-return robot on the way.
Across the room, Flash Thompson was still staring at his broken plastic fork, his eyes completely hollow as the realization of his own utter insignificance washed over him in waves.
Flash’s chair scraped against the linoleum floor with a sharp, aggressive screech that made several students look up. His face was a dark, blotchy red, his jaw clamped so tight the muscles in his cheeks were visibly twitching. He left his lunch tray completely abandoned and stormed across the cafeteria, his boots slamming heavily against the floor.
He didn't care that Mr. Harrington was watching. He didn't care about the corporate rules. He was completely consumed by a toxic mixture of humiliation, jealousy, and sheer, burning spite.
He slammed his hands down onto the edge of Peter’s table, leaning over until he was staring directly into Peter’s eyes.
"Alright, cut the crap, Parker," Flash hissed, his voice dropping into a low, venomous growl. "What kind of sick game are you playing?"
Peter didn't flinch, but he did drop his half-eaten burrito back onto its foil wrapper, his shoulders tensing up. "Flash, I'm just trying to eat my lunch. Leave it alone."
"Leave it alone? You’ve been running this fake, elaborate con all morning!" Flash’s voice rose, thick with desperation and malice. He pointed a trembling, angry finger at the brushed-platinum Level 5 card sitting on the table. "You expect me to believe this? You expect anyone here to believe that a pathetic, friendless loser from Queens is somehow the golden boy of a multi-billion-dollar tech empire?"
"Flash, back off," Ned said, his voice dropping its usual cheerful tone as he glared up at the bully.
"Shut up, Leeds!" Flash snapped, not even looking at him. His eyes remained locked on Peter, practically boring holes into him. "I know how you operate, Parker. You’re a charity case. That's what this is, right? Your aunt probably begged someone in HR, or you found some bleeding-heart corporate program for underprivileged kids, and now they let you sit in the corner and play with their scraps so they can put you on a brochure."
Peter looked down at his hands, a tight, familiar knot forming in his stomach. He hated this. He hated that he could literally throw Flash through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows if he wanted to, but instead, he had to sit here and swallow the insults to keep his life from falling apart.
"It's just a normal internship, Flash," Peter said quietly, keeping his voice entirely level, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a reaction. "I work hard. I help out in the labs. That's it."
"Don't lie to me!" Flash barked, leaning in closer, his knuckles turning white against the tabletop. "Normal interns don't have the Head of Security running their errands! Normal interns don't have the primary AI unlocking top-secret military prototypes just because they walked past the glass! You hacked it. Or you stole something. Tell me the truth, Parker! Who are you blackmailing? What did you do?"
MJ slowly closed her sketchbook with a deliberate, echoing thud. She leaned back in her chair, her dark eyes locking onto Flash with a freezing, deadpan stare. "Flash. You're barking at a table like a golden retriever that saw its own reflection in a microwave. It’s embarrassing. Pull yourself together."
"I'm talking to the liar, Jones!" Flash sneered, though he instinctively stepped back an inch from MJ's glare. He turned his attention back to Peter, his teeth bared. "You think you're so smart, don't you? Sitting there, acting all quiet and humble while you trick everyone into thinking you’re special. But you're nothing. You're still just worthless Peter Parker. And the second this tour is over, I’m going to find the real directors of this department and expose whatever scam you’re running."
Peter raised his eyes, looking directly at Flash. There was no fear in his expression—just a profound, exhausting sense of pity. "Go ahead, Flash. Ask whoever you want. I don't have anything to hide."
Flash stared back at him, his chest heaving as he searched Peter's face for a crack, a stutter, a sign of panic—anything to give him a victory. But Peter just sat there, calm and completely unbothered.
It was deeply, profoundly unsatisfying. Flash’s hands balled into tight fists. He hadn't gotten the confession he wanted. He hadn't proven Peter was a fraud. He just looked like a manic, screaming bully in the middle of a high-end corporate cafeteria.
"This isn't over, Parker," Flash spat, his voice shaking with unresolved rage. "You're going to slip up. And when you do, I'm going to be right there to watch you lose everything."
He whipped around and stormed off toward the exit, his posture stiff and radiating pure, toxic humiliation.
Ned let out a long, whistling breath. "Wow. He is... losing his mind. Like, completely detached from reality."
"He's a fragile ecosystem built entirely on daddy's money and low self-esteem," MJ said smoothly, reopening her sketchbook. "You puncture the bubble, and the whole thing collapses into a screaming fit."
Peter just sighed, picking his burrito back up, though his appetite was completely gone. He glanced down at the platinum badge. "He's right about one thing, though. The afternoon is going to get way worse."
The lunch hour wrapped up with Flash sulking in a corner and the rest of the Decathlon team whispering furiously every time Peter took a sip of his water. Chloe, who had clearly chugged a very large iced coffee during the break to soothe her shattered nerves, gathered the group back into a neat line.
"Alright, Midtown," Chloe said, her voice bright but tightly strained. "We are heading up to Floor Thirty-Four: The Stark Tomorrow Initiative Lecture Hall. This is where our primary recruitment and educational outreach takes place. You will be getting a special look at our standard internship evaluation parameters."
The elevator ride up was quiet. Even Ned was staying relatively still, mostly because he kept staring at the solid platinum Level 5 badge now safely pinned to the front of Peter's hoodie. It gleamed like a small sun under the elevator lights.
When the doors opened, they were led into a sleek, stadium-style university lecture hall. Instead of desks, each seat had a glossy, black glass panel embedded into the armrest—a localized holographic interface.
"Please take a seat anywhere," Chloe instructed, gesturing to the rows. "To give you a real taste of what it takes to work here, we have set up a mock Engineering and System Diagnostics entry quiz. It's the exact same logic test we give to undergraduate applicants from MIT and CalTech. Don't worry, it's not graded for your school, but let's see how Midtown stacks up against the curve!"
Flash immediately scrambled to the front row, his posture stiff as he booted up his terminal. He gave Peter one last, venomous glare from across the aisle. This was his territory. Flash might not have a platinum badge, but he had the highest GPA in their grade, and he was determined to absolutely crush Peter on a standardized test.
Peter slouched down into a seat in the back row, flanked by Ned and MJ. He tapped his glass panel, and a holographic prompt blinked into existence: START EVALUATION.
He scrolled through the first three questions and instantly choked on his own spit.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," Peter whispered, throwing his head back against the headrest with a soft groan.
"What?" Ned whispered excitedly, his fingers already flying across his own screen as he tried to calculate a complex algorithm for kinetic energy dispersal. "Is it super hard?"
"No," Peter muttered into his hands, looking completely miserable. "It’s not hard. It’s... Mr. Stark and I wrote this. Well, he wrote the questions because he wanted to weed out 'boring people,' and I had to code the actual grading matrix three weeks ago because he got bored and started playing guitar instead."
MJ snorted, not even looking up as she casually picked random answers on her screen just to see what would happen. "So what you're saying is, the system is rigged."
"I literally know the answer key by heart, MJ," Peter hissed, staring at a question about quantum tunneling frequencies that had a very specific typo in option C that he distinctly remembered forgetting to fix.
Down in the front row, Flash was sweating through his polo shirt. His forehead was creased, his calculator app was open, and he was muttering formulas under his breath like a man trying to solve a ancient curse.
Ten minutes later, a loud, cheerful chime echoed through the lecture hall speakers.
“Time is up, candidates,” FRIDAY’s voice announced smoothly. “Submitting all test data to the local grading matrix.”
Chloe stepped down to the main podium, a proud smile on her face as she looked at her master tablet. "Alright! Let's see how we did. Wow, the class average is actually in the top fifteen percent of all visiting high schools! Excellent job, Midtown. And looking at the individual leaderboard..."
She tapped the screen, and a massive holographic leaderboard projected itself into the air above the podium for the entire class to see.
RANKINGS:
- PARKER, P. — 100% (Time: 0:42)
- THOMPSON, E. — 74% (Time: 9:55)
- LEEDS, N. — 71% (Time: 9:48)
The room went dead silent.
Forty-two seconds. Peter had finished a ten-minute, university-level engineering matrix in forty-two seconds, with a perfect score.
Chloe stared at her tablet, her mouth opening and closing like a fish. "Peter... did you... how did you even read the questions that fast?"
Before Peter could invent a lie about being a really fast reader, FRIDAY chimed in once more, her tone dripping with what sounded suspiciously like automated amusement.
“Correction noted in the grading server,” FRIDAY stated. “User Parker, P. has been flagged by the system creator. A voice memo from Mr. Stark has been attached to this specific test submission. Playing audio now.”
A sharp static pop echoed through the lecture hall, followed by the distinct, unmistakable sound of Tony Stark tinkering with a wrench in a metal workshop, a classic rock song playing faintly in the background.
"Hey, kid," Tony’s recorded voice echoed through the room, sounding thoroughly unimpressed. "If you're seeing this, it means you're taking the tour quiz instead of doing your actual job. First of all, forty-two seconds is embarrassing, I could have done it in twelve. Second of all, you helped write the answer key for the thermal dynamics section, so getting a hundred percent isn't a victory, it’s just plagiarism. Get out of the lecture hall and go eat your burrito before I tell May you’re slacking off. Stark out."
The audio clicked off.
The holographic leaderboard slowly faded away.
Flash Thompson sat entirely motionless in the front row, his eyes fixed on his 74% score, looking like a man who had just watched a god descend from the heavens exclusively to tell him he was bad at math.
The afternoon sun glared firmly against the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Stark Industries lecture hall , casting long, stark shadows across the rows of empty desks.
Flash Thompson sat frozen in the front row, his terminal screen glowing with a humiliating 74% score, while the lingering echo of Tony Stark’s voice note still seemed to vibrate in the air.
Mr. Harrington stood by the main aisle, his mouth slightly open, blinking as he tried to reconcile the quiet, hoodie-wearing teenager in the back row with the person who apparently co-authored the facility’s entrance exams and was on first-name nagging terms with the CEO.
"Well," Mr. Harrington squeaked, his voice cracking twice before he managed to find a professional register. "That... concludes our academic demonstration for the afternoon. Peter, truly an... exceptional reading speed."
"Thanks, Mr. Harrington," Peter muttered, his face burning hotter than a plasma torch as he shoved his phone and the platinum badge into his pocket. He didn't look at Flash. Looking at Flash right now felt like kicking a puppy that had just realized it was made of papier-mâché.
Chloe slammed her recruitment tablet shut with a sharp, plastic snap that signaled her nervous system had reached its absolute processing limit. "Okay! Moving on. Final stop of the day is the West Wing balcony and the Level One observation lounge. No heavy machinery there. Just nice, quiet views of the river. Please line up by the double doors."
The Decathlon team moved like sleepwalkers. The high-spirited whispering from the morning had evaporated into a heavy, bewildered silence. Nobody dared to walk within three feet of Peter, who looked as though he wanted nothing more than for the floor to open up and swallow him whole, much like the E.D.I.T.H. display case had.
As they filed out into the wide, pristine corridor of the upper level, the automated ceiling sensors clicked softly above them. FRIDAY’s voice drifted down, crisp and completely conversational.
“Peter,” the AI chimed. “Boss is off a conference call and wants to know if you've complied with the carrot protocol. He says if you throw them in the employee compost bin, the cameras will see it, and he is fully prepared to send Happy to your physical address in Queens tonight with a tupperware container.”
Peter groaned aloud, dragging both hands down his face as Ned muffled a snort into his jacket sleeve. "Tell him I ate the carrots, FRIDAY! I ate them! They're gone! My body has processed them!"
"We heard you, Peter," Chloe whispered ahead of them, her back rigid as she marched toward the exit without turning around. "We heard every word."