TW: mention of rape. There are no descriptions of it, though.
When he took that test, he didn't expect to pass. It was unimaginable.
After all, how would Peter Parker pass a test made by Stark Industries? It made no sense.
It was optional, just an old test model for an internship at SI to show students his age how a real test looks like. No one knew SI actually checked the results of those tests they lent the school. No one would have guessed, and certainly not Peter.
You can imagine his surprise, then, when he got an email from the billion-dollar-enterprise saying he had excelled in the test and therefore had been granted an internship.
•××ו
"Hurry up or you'll be late!" Aunt May urged Peter, who was eating breakfast.
"Yeah, yeah, okay!" Peter stood up, with a piece of bread still in his mouth. He quickly grabbed his backpack as he finished his food, kissing his aunt's cheek and leaving before he was late to his first day at the internship.
It was actually pretty early; it was 7 AM and the internship didn't start until 9 AM, but May didn't know that. So, as soon as he was approximately a mile away from his house, Peter went inside an alley and changed into his suit. He planned on making an early patrol and swing to the tower, and that's exactly what he did. With a lot of extra measures, Peter made sure he wouldn't get injured nor be late, all thanks to Karen, the AI he had created.
"Hi, sir, I'm here for the internship program," Peter said to the man at the lobby. The worker frowned slightly, looking at the teen in confusion.
"Sure, just show me your ID and the email sent by SI so I can scan the code in it and print you a badge."
Peter took out his phone and showed the man what he had requested, seeing a look of shock take over his face.
"Is anything wrong, sir?" Peter asked in concern.
"No, not at all, Mr. Parker. It's just the first time I've seen a high school student get an internship here. You must be exceptionally gifted," the man explained. Peter's eyebrows had shot up, and he was now opening and closing his mouth in hopes of getting his vocal cords to work, but he wasn't succeeding. The man simply smiled at him and indicated him where to go and who to talk to.
"Thank you, sir," Peter told the man before leaving to do as told.
The teen went through security and headed to the elevator. He took some deep breaths to try to calm himself down. "It's alright, it's alright. You're just the only high school student to ever be accepted. No pressure."
The elevator doors opened, three busy workers coming out of it without sparing him a second glance. Peter hurried to get inside, being followed by five other people.
"I'm telling you, if we do what you say, it will stop working," a very stressed man was telling a very stressed woman.
"No, the effects will be countered! I have a whole board with calculations that prove it." The woman ran a hand through her hair in frustration.
Peter watched with curiosity as the pair fought, eyeing the Stark Tablet in the man's hands and recognizing what he saw.
"You're trying to make a... machine that peals bananas and makes you a smoothie?" Peter asked in confusion, making both of the inventors' attention snap to him.
The man narrowed his eyes. "Yes. You are?"
(Just a warning: I have no idea what I'm talking about)
But Peter was far too concentrated on what he was seeing to actually hear her question. "Considering everything you already put in it, I'd say it wouldn't work unless you neutralize the reaction of these two materials when exposed to the temperature it's going to reach. Adding a good refrigerating system should be enough, but it'd have to be a good one since, by my calculations, it would reach a temperature of... 105°F. That also means you'll need to add a stronger battery to ensure there'll be enough energy to power everything." At this point, Peter was talking mostly to himself, too deep in thought to realize the five people in the elevator had turned to stare at him, no matter how busy they had seemed just a couple of minutes ago.
There was a silence that stretched for ten straight seconds, just enough for Peter to realize what he had just done and start feeling embarrassed for interfering in something that didn't concern him before he even reached his floor.
The silence was broken by the woman, who turned to the man and said, "I told you we needed a refrigerating system! The calculations I made in my board said the temperature would reach 105°F!"
"But you didn't say anything about the battery, so it wouldn't have worked!" the man said in return.
Another woman in the elevator shut them up. "Are you just going to ignore that this random teen just solved the problem you've been fighting about for a week now? And the fact that he did it mentally?"
The pair blinked. Peter sunk back into the corner.
"Oh, you're right," the man said with surprise, expressing both his and the woman's thoughts.
"Anyway, who are you?" the woman who separated the pair asked Peter, who nervously fidgeted before responding.
"I'm Peter Parker, ma'am. I'm here for the internship program." He turned away from her before noticing the look of shock crossing her features. "And sorry about commenting about your work, I shouldn't have interfered." Peter looked down.
"Are you serious?" The doors of the elevator opened in Peter's floor, which also seemed to be the floor where the fighting pair was headed to. The woman grabbed him by the wrist and yanked him out of the elevator. "You're coming with me."
"No, please, ma'am! I'm sorry!" He said in fear. "Oh my God, I haven't even started and I'm already going to be thrown out," Peter thought out loud.
The woman stopped dragging the teen and looked at him in the eye. "Relax, you oblivious genius." The man chuckled. Peter was just confused.
"Lyla! Hey, Lyla, I bring you a prodigy," she said to a woman as she pushed Peter forward, making his stumble a bit out of surprise.
The spiderling could only look back and forth between the pair and this woman named Lyla as they explained to her everything that had happened, giving him way too much credit.
"It wasn't that much, really," Peter tried to say, but it fell to deaf ears. Patiently and quietly, he waited for them to finish their conversation.
"That's impressive, Mr. Parker," Lyla praised him once the pair finished their explanation.
"Seriously, I just stated the obvious, I shouldn't have interfered with other people's work, I'm sorry."
Lyla raised a brow. "We've got ourselves a modest genius. We were lacking one of those." The people who had turned to listen let out offended noises.
"It's not my fault I can see I'm awesome," one complained.
"Shut up, Leonard," the man said. "We all know I'm much better than you."
Leonard snorted. "You wish, Hartley."
"Come on boys, we all know I'm the best out of all of you," the woman said. Seconds later, the whole floor was fighting over their own awesomeness, screaming and throwing papers left and right.
Lyla approached Peter in a resigned silence. "That's what I'm talking about." She sighed. "Anyway, come with me." She led him to a secluded office and closed the door, relief showing in both of their faces once the noise became muffled.
"The receptionist in the lobby told me I needed to talk to you so we could arrange my schedule and working place," Peter said nervously as Lyla sat at her desk.
"Yeah, you'll just come here half an hour after school and stay two or three hours, more if you're needed for anything in particular..." She explained to him all the system and then started telling him how they would be working the first days. "Today it's Saturday, but you won't be coming during weekends until you are more advanced. Considering what you achieved a minute after stepping into the tower, that won't be long. Anyway, today you'll have to stay here all day so you get used to the place and we show you have things work here." Peter nodded and thanked her, though he was internally worried.
He had to stay all day? But he had only patrolled for a couple of hours, he couldn't leave the city unattended for a whole day!
Following his boss' instructions, he headed out of her office and chose a desk to work in. It wasn't a coincidence that the desk he chose was beside a window.
•××ו
Peter had been helping around for a couple of hours now, not starting any project of his own, just practicing his magic and solving everybody's problems.
Then he got a notification in his phone, an alert from Karen, and he told the people he was working with that he had to go to his desk for a bit. He'd be damned before being aware of a bank robbery nearby and doing nothing about it.
Being as stealthy as his body allowed him to (which was very stealthy because of his spider powers), Peter jumped out to the other side of the window and put on his mask once he was sure he couldn't be seen by anyone, neither form the inside nor from the outside.
Stopping the robbery and webbing up the criminals was a quick job, nothing to worry about for Spider-Man, so he was done in a few minutes. He had to go back before anyone noticed his absence.
Silently and slowly, Peter was able to climb inside through the same window he had left from. He looked around nervously, making sure no one had seen anything, and his tense shoulders visibly relaxed once he saw all the crazy interns were still screaming at one another and not paying any attention to him.
Fixing his hair, Peter went back to work.
•××ו
The next time it happened, it was a vocal alert. Karen only said Peter's name with urgency, not revealing any information, but it was enough for him to understand he had to go, and fast.
"Hey, what was that?" Hartley asked him when he was broken out of his concentration by Karen's voice.
Peter, already ordering everything he had been using, answered, "My AI."
"What?" A nearby intern asked in shock. "You made it?"
"Her. I made her." Without turning around again, Peter started leaving towards his desk once again. "Sorry, Leonard, I'll help you finish it later, I have to take care of something urgent. Sorry."
No one thought much of it, leaving him do whatever he needed to do and trusting he would be back soon.
Repeating the process he had done before, Peter left through the window to save a girl from being raped.
It was quick, too; it had to be. No sassy remarks were done, the man didn't deserve them, and Peter didn't leave the girl's side until he knew she was safe at home. The rapist hadn't been happy about it, though, so as soon as Spider-Man had turned around to check on the girl, he had struggled against the webs that held him and managed to get a dagger out. The weapon embedded itself in the hero's shoulder, but he didn't pay it any mind, still making sure the girl was alright.
Peter was intelligent enough to take out the dagger from the back of his shoulder and bandage the wound before going back to SI, but he couldn't risk his identity nor his internship by getting medical attention, so he didn't.
•××ו
The next alert he got happened at a very convenient moment.
"So, if we put it here, it should start- OH MY GOD PETER YOU'RE BLEEDING!"
Peter's head snapped up towards the person who had spoken. He muttered "shit" before frowning and playing dumb.
"Am I?"
"Yes, you are!" another intern shouted in concern. Looks like they had attracted unwanted attention.
"It must be nothing," Petr dismissed their panic, playing it cool. He almost didn't feel the dagger wound anymore; it was no big deal.
"It's not nothing!"
"You should get help!"
"Lyla, come here right now and get this child to the infirmary!"
Everyone was screaming again, Peter's head was spinning, he got an alert.
"I'll just go to the toilet," Peter said as he picked up his backpack from the floor and headed towards the place he said he'd go. People backed away, thinking he was going to take care of whatever wound he had in his back, but Peter had other plans.
Like jumping out the hallway's window, for instance.
•××ו
Turns out the alert was about a giant telepathic gorilla trying to destroy the city. It took around twenty minutes, but Peter finally took him down.
He was sweaty and a bit bloodier than expected, but he still had to go back to the internship. So he did, going in through the window by his desk and sitting back in his chair as soon as he was inside.
"Success," he muttered while he covered his face in tiredness, only to move his hands and find himself the center of the attention of many open-mouthed geniuses. "Shit."
("Rebecca, it's not what you think!" Peter told an intern in a desperate attempt to make his secret identity remain secret.
"I won't hesitate, bitch!" Rebecca said in return, taking out a water gun and firing it at Peter's face.)