"Boss, you should see this," FRIDAY said, interrupting the loud music playing in the workshop. It was about time for lunch, but the three present in the room had been caught up in their projects and hadn't noticed. Pepper would probably be disappointed, as would Grandma Tracy, but that was neither here nor there.

Alan had abandoned the coding, giving the chip back to Virgil, and had started in on what was practically an arts and crafts project. He'd, with Tony's blanket permission to use what was in the lab, had fashioned decorative metal caps for the raptor teeth and was now making them into necklaces. Mostly out of boredom, to be honest, and a bit of morbidity on his part.

Virgil had put HEMERA back together and already one little light was glowing its green light. Now Virgil was working on incorporating the two large toe claws into the design. He'd strengthened them with dark red resin, which had filled in any cracks or imperfections, but had also made them look disturbingly blood-slicked. That aside, he was now working on making it so that with a specific move of Alan's wrists, the two claws would spring up and be able to be used as a weapon. At almost nine inches long each, and deadly sharp (he'd also sharpened the blasted things, and it was giving him all sorts of heebie-jeebies to be honest, his leg throbbing the entire time he handled those things) they'd offer a good bit of defense to his younger brother. When not in use, they would lie flat against his forearm, crossed over each other.

Alan wasn't sure if the idea of the claws was badass or terrifying. Tony assured him it was both.

Tony, for that matter, was working on some frankly beautiful bowie knives with bone handles. He didn't often foray into weapons such as these, but it was a skill that was clearly one that he had. He looked up at FRIDAY's declaration, though. "See what, baby?" he asked.

"Peter's field trip was to here, Boss," FRIDAY answered, a hologram popping into existence. It showed a sped up view of a class of teenagers taking a tour of the building. "He asked that I not bother you, but I am not happy with the harassment he has been getting."

Tony frowned as he watched Peter being shoved, tripped, prodded and jeered at by one specific classmates, while no one other than Ned stood up for him. Peter seemed to mostly ignore it, and FRIDAY hadn't added any sound to the videos, but it wasn't hard to see that Tony was upset. "What's all this about?" he asked, his voice sharp.

"A Eugene Thompson does not seem to believe Peter about his internship," FRIDAY responded. "Despite Peter having an ID card and knowing many people in the building. He is convinced that Peter is bribing them to help keep his 'lie', and Eugene is determined to prove it to the rest of the class."

"Where are they now?" Tony asked darkly, looking ready to storm down there himself.

"Fiftieth floor cafeteria," FRIDAY replied. "They are stopping for lunch."

Virgil pushed himself to his feet, only giving the slightest of winces. He held out a hand and gave Tony an easy smile. "Allow me," he said, knowing that Tony going down angry would end in a possible lawsuit. He'd seen it happen once when someone had hounded Alan at work and made Scott angry. There was a reason Gordon was the head of HR now, after all, and it was mostly due to his people-person personality. (Scott wasn't allowed to intervene in HR issues anymore, unless absolutely necessary.) "I need a break anyway."

"Bring back pizza?" Alan called after him as he stiffly strode to the door. His limp was getting less noticeable with each day, but he was still far from fully healed. In fact, he probably wouldn't be for the next world or two. Virgil flipped his youngest brother the bird, grinning at the resulting laughter, and asked FRIDAY to take him down to Peter.

"I'm confused, Flash," he heard Peter say upon coming near his table in the cafeteria. The boy's voice was one of a person who was just done. The two boys were standing next a table filled with other teenagers, all of which watching the exchange in eager anticipation. Either they thought that this Flash kid was going to destroy Peter, or that Peter was going to annihilate Flash. Whatever happened, though, it would probably be worth watching. "You're always going on about how I'm nothing but a poor, broke loser, but now you're insisting that I somehow have enough money to bribe nearly everyone in this building into pretending to know me. So, what am I, Flash, poor or not?"

"You're a liar!" Flash snapped back, going red in the face. "There's no way you have an internship here because I've tried to get one and keep getting turned down. You're nothing but a worthless orphan charity case at best!"

"Make fun of orphans often?" Virgil asked, stepping up next to the two. He folded his arms across his chest, knowing full well that he looked intimidating to smaller people when he did that.

Flash jumped at the intrusion, scowling and giving Virgil a once-over. "Who the hell are you?"

Virgil raised an eyebrow, not impressed by the attitude. He knew that he didn't look overly professional, wearing a dark green t-shirt and jeans with his leg brace and work boots to add to the ensemble. But honestly, that kid had some serious lack of manners. Virgil was kind of tempted to answer with a smarmy, "wouldn't you like to know weather-boy?" but Peter answered first.

"Dr. Tracy," the boy said, blinking at him. Alan had told him about the miscommunication of titles due to HEMERA and they had both found it pretty funny. Peter had then taken to calling Virgil Dr. Tracy whenever he could, because despite being shy and sweet in the beginning, the kid had turned into a snarky little demon when exposed to too much of Alan. (They got along a little too well, and both Tony and Virgil were afraid for the integrity of the Tower at this point.)

Virgil used it, though, and gave him a smile and a nod. "Peter. Dr. Stark was wondering if you had worked on that problem we were having?"

They hadn't wanted the nanobots to run off the quantum-energy that was charging HEMERA, so they'd needed a way for the bots to sustain themselves without an arc-reactor. They'd put Peter to the task of figuring it out. "Oh!" Peter said, swinging his bag off his shoulder and rifling through it. Beside him, Flash was staring, jaw slowly getting more lax. "Yeah, I fixed it. Here," he said, handing over a thumb drive.

"Are you coming by this afternoon?" Virgil asked, taking the drive and tucking it into his pocket. "I know its not your usual interning day—" he was totally guessing on that, but since it was a Tuesday, he figured he had a good shot at being right about it.

"I'll be there," Peter said. "I was kind of hoping I could just stay here after the trip, and Aunt May even gave written permission, but my teachers…" he trialed off, his cheeks going red as he looked sheepishly to the ground.

Virgil sighed. "They don't believe the internship either?" he asked. At Peter's nod, he rolled his eyes. "Tony will take care of it." And, in a move that screamed big brother, he grabbed Flash by the collar of his shirt and brought him around to face him. "I don't know what your problem is aside from a nasty case of jealously, but you need to stop taking your problems out on others. People watch, kiddo, and they remember. If you want to go anywhere in life, then drop the attitude, stop the bullying and most of all, leave Peter alone. Capiche?"

Flash stared at him for a long moment, a mix of anger and fear on his face, and then he nodded, slinking away to the end of the table. Peter gave him a hesitant smile and Virgil returned it, nodding to the others at the table, that were all watching him in absent shock. And then Virgil turned back towards the elevators, rolling his eyes. He was so very tired of bullies.

"You forgot the pizza," Alan groused playfully when he returned to the workshop. The boy grinned at him, all light eyes and bounciness. It was great to see after the stress of the last world.

"You forgot your brain," Virgil snarked back, very maturely sticking his tongue out at his younger brother. Tony snorted and told FRIDAY to have some pizza sent up. Virgil stepped over and set the thumb drive down on the table, already aware of Tony's aversion to being handed things. "I assume you heard that?"

Tony scowled at him. "I'll take care of the teachers," he grumbled, clearly unhappy with the situation. He was muttering under his breath about the uselessness of paperwork if the teachers weren't even going to look at it. Apparently, they'd gone above board with the internship, so nothing should be in question.

"Try not to embarrass Pete," Virgil said, gingerly sitting himself back down at the table he'd been at before.

Tony shot him an aghast look. "I'm not embarrassing!"

"Dude," Alan piped up. "Everyone gets embarrassed by their parental figures. It happens!"

Tony, speechless for once in his life, gaped, jaw flapping for a moment. "I'm not his dad!"

Alan shrugged, unbothered. "And Scott's not mine. Still super embarrassing though."

Virgil snickered "I'm so going to tell him you said that."

Alan narrowed his eyes. "Don't you dare."

Virgil grinned. "Or what?"

"Or I'll tell him who really ate the last of his chocolate peanut butter cheesecake." Tony let out a low whistle, clearly knowing the importance of cheesecake.

Virgil's face twisted into a wry smile. "Fine. You got me." Being the youngest seemed to give Alan an advantage when it came to blackmail. Probably because he was at such a disadvantage with the rest of the family pecking order. It didn't stop Virgil from pulling Alan over into a headlock and giving him a noogie.

Tony sighed, waving away the holograms that he'd been studying. Peter was, as always, a genius and had figured out not only the powering issue for the nanobots, but also a safeguard against HEMERA blowing out anymore circuits should she try to force the charge again. (Alan had pretty much forbidden her from doing so, but he had already realized that he couldn't force HEMERA to do anything she didn't want to do.) "I'll go handle the teachers," he said, and at the twin puppy-eyes that looked up at him, he rolled his own and gave an exaggerated grown. "And I won't even embarrass the kid."