Chapter Text
Shuffle filled the room, snapping Peter out of his migraine-induced daze. With a look around, he noticed his classmates packing their bags, starting to do the same thing himself. He was in the middle of trying to shove his Dynamics and Control textbook in his backpack without ripping the cover clean off when a voice rang out over the speakers.
“All engineering students please proceed to the Kresge Auditorium, I repeat engineering students to the Kresge Auditorium. This is a mandatory assembly.”
A chorus of groans filled up the auditorium as the students realized that they will not be getting home for at least another hour.
With a sigh, Peter shouldered his backpack and went looking for his friends, who should also be heading to the assembly hall. After several turns and almost getting lost twice, the auditorium finally showed itself, and so did his friends who were chatting animatedly by the entrance.
He smiled at Ned’s excited wave and snaked himself in between some people with zero spatial awareness, eager to catch-up with his friends.
Ned was quite literally buzzing with energy, meeting Peter’s extended hand with practiced ease and mindlessly completing their signature hand-shake, while MJ looked at them as amused as she ever was when witnessing their “cheesiness” as she called the notion of friendship.
“So, any ideas what this is about?” he asked, at which his friends just shrugged their shoulders.
MJ picked up her bag from its place on the ground, taking a step towards the doors “All I know is that if we don’t get in there right now, we will be sitting on a very dirty floor”. The boys followed her eagerly, finding themselves a couple of seats in the back.
After several minutes of waiting, three professors took the stage. The one Peter recognized as professor Len Renthenghem, his study track supervisor stood to the microphone, clearing his throat, which rung out throughout the room, followed by a scratching whine from the microphone, making Peter’s migraine bloom into overpowering white-hot pain.
He quickly covered his ears, cursing himself for having forgotten to charge his noise cancelling earbuds.
When the noise stopped making him want to rip his ears off, Peter slowly focused on what was going on. The professor was congratulating them on finishing the year, saying the same cheesy scripted lines they said during the welcome week. He promptly tuned the speech out, focusing on whether he was about to fall asleep or pass out, and trying to do neither, until he felt his best friend grab his arm in a vice grip.
“As everybody here certainly knows, Stark Industries is one of the biggest sponsors when it comes to lab equipment. As less people might know, they also welcome us every year on several field trips. For those who didn’t pay attention during welcome week, the top 20 students across all engineering majors from every year, are chosen to go on an all expenses paid field trip to Stark Industries for a full day.” Ned’s grip on his arm was slowly becoming painful as the trio took in the information. Peter’s mind became a mess of begging every god out there for 20 people with better grades to materialize and cursing himself for all the effort he put into his exams.
“Now, I will announce the students going on this year’s field trip. And before everybody freaks out, yes, the list is the ranking of students, I could not be bothered to scramble this, god knows I don’t care enough about your feelings. If you hear your name, stay behind once we’re done. If you’re not on the list, try to hold in your tears until after you’ve exited the auditorium.”
Peter saw the other two professors pointedly roll their eyes, obviously exasperated by their colleague, as they handed him a stack of papers and continued his prayers.
“We are going to start with the first years, as they will be opening the week of tours. On the 24th of May, I will be joined by the following people” Peter took a deep breath and braced himself for a healthy dose of Parker LuckTM .
“Lawrence Fowler - Biological Engineering, Frazer Yang- Electrical Engineering and Computer science, Peter Parker – double major in Chemical and Mechanical Engineering” Peter’s mind blanked. For a good second all he could hear was white noise as he cursed at his grades.
“Michelle Jones – Aeronautics and Astronautics” his arm was definitely going to bruise from the amount of pressure Ned was squeezing him with. “Jennie Mcallister – Chemical Engineering, Ned Leeds – Electrical Engineering and Computer Science”
Yep, definitely was going to bruise.
He tuned out the rest of the names, rather thinking of what excuse he could give to not go. He could call Mr. Stark and beg him to pull him out early. It’s not like they would be doing much in the last week before summer break. Worst case scenario, he could break his leg or something. It would heal in time for his trip back to New York anyway.
By the gods why did he have to be this smart.
A pull on his arm pulled him out of the spiral. A few blinks later, Peter noticed that the auditorium was now mostly empty, only about 60 people remaining and slowly making their way towards the stage. He stood up, blinking the black spots out of his vision and following his friends down the stairs.
As they got closer, Peter recognized the other two professors. One of them was teaching Organic Chemistry and absolutely hated his guts, even though Peter could not recall her name, aside from the fact that it might start with an E. The other one was Mr. Zack Holden, who taught thermodynamics and was pretty chill.
He tuned back into what was being said trying to focus on that rather than the pounding pain in his head.
“So, congratulations, the lot of you deserved this. If it’s not your first time going on this trip, you probably already know what I’m about to say. To those who don’t know, I will hand out a stack of papers that you need to sign. If you are under 18, they must be signed by a guardian, if you’re older, I don’t care who signs them, but I need them back the morning of the field trip. As there are absent people, I will be sending out an email will all the details later, but in short, a bus will pick us up from Westgate at 6 AM sharp. If you’re late, we’re leaving without you.”
He clapped his hands, looking around with a proud smile while the other professors handed out all the paperwork. “Congratulation guys. You deserve this.”
Once everybody had their suspiciously thick stack of papers, they were shooed out of the auditorium.
Peter walked forward, trying to avoid any possible collision to spare his already overwhelmed senses. Once he reached a somewhat person-less spot in the courtyard he turned around and waited for his friends, who were catching up with overly smug smiles on their faces. If he didn’t know any better, Peter would’ve thought that they reveled in his suffering.
Oh wait.
They did.
“I don’t know what you guys are so smug about. This thing is about to ruin my ‘innocent nerd’ reputation” he waved the stack of paper around for dramatic effect before shoving them forcefully into his already full backpack.
“Dude this is so cool though” of course Ned would be the optimistic one “You would’ve gone to New York anyway in a couple of days. Maybe we can ask Mr. Renthenghem to let us just stay there, I would rather get a ride home from the tower than from here.”
Okay when you put it like that.
Maybe he could surprise the family too. That would be fun,
“Aaaaand we finally get to meet your boy toy” oh so helpfully added MJ, resulting in Peter’s smile dropping.
Peter shook his head, starting to move towards the dorms, his friends’ laughs sounding in the background.
It was about time for his friends to meet Harley, they’ve been dating for almost 6 months now, but it didn’t mean that he dreaded it any less. Although the chances of it going well were much higher than the other possibility.
That was probably the main reason for his dread. He did not need more people ganging up on him. And he certainly did not need MJ and Harley to team up. That was nothing less than a disaster waiting to happen.
Anyway, that was something for future him to worry about, now he just needed to focus on getting to the tower without accidentally blabbing about it to somebody. Oh, and not passing out from this insistent headache.
He really needed to ask Steve for some pain meds.