Peter's POV
The aftermath of Uncle Clint's outburst made way to Emma attempting (read failing) to quieten the class. My unsuccessful efforts to persuade the earth to swallow me whole honestly just made everything worse as I received sympathetic glances from Ned and Emma. I hate pity. After May died, all anyone could do was give me the tilted head 'Are you ok?" It made me feel like a debilitated little baby. At least no-one was questioning me as much as they were excited about meeting an Avenger. The drone of individual conversations had reached an excruciating volume that made me want to curl up in a ball and cut myself off from the entire world. I couldn't keep my wavering facade up for much longer, sensory overload was just around the corner.
The students were chattering and fangirling about their latest endeavour on the already 'amazing' field trip.
"Oh my god! That was Hawkeye."
"He's so hot…"
"Did you see how he left? It was so cool."
"Wow, I can't believe it! We met an Avenger!"
"Dude, Hawkeye spoke to us. He might recognise me now…"
"QUIET!" Emma yelled over the agonizing din of noise that had emanated from the excitable teenagers.
"Listen to Emma, class." Mr Crooks facilitated.
"Alright. Now that I have your attention, can I ask for five minutes of your time to explain the next few hours of the tour? Thank you. Ok, so from here we will… Mr Thompson, stop talking and have the same courtesy as your other classmates please."
Emma singled out Flash who had ignored her completely and continued to converse with the other mindless jocks. Her previously sweet and kindly tone morphing into a sharp blade of accusation laced with subtle venom. Flash visibly paled, remembering his less than stellar experience with Hawkeye.
"Sorry, Emma…" Flash gulped and quickly shut his mouth.
"As I was saying, from here we will visit some of the higher up 'Research and Development' laboratories otherwise known as the R and D labs. These spaces will be much more delicate and temperamental than the interning labs so we will proceed with extra caution." Despite Emma's clear warning, Flash's disregard for rules was bound to cause issues in the foreseeable future.
"The next floor up houses the spare labs that we use for workshops and business prototype demonstrations for investors. This is where we will be participating in a workshop and competition. You will receive more information once we arrive."
As the class filed out the door after Emma and Mr Crooks, Ned and I hung back for one last look at my very own display in the museum.
"Man your life is epic."
"I know Ned. I know…" I said reminiscently as we quickly raced out the door to catch up with the class. Racing down the corridor to the elevator, we caught up to the class as the doors closed on the first group of students ascending the tower to the R & D labs. Of course, just my luck that Flash had waited for the second group.
Flash pulled me aside, to the opposite side of the group from Mr Crooks, and whispered in my ear,
"How much did you have to pay Hawkeye to get him to pretend he knew you?"
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"Or did you do him a few favours. You know that's disgusting that you're living up to your name Penis. Your lie isn't worth it. No one believes you anyway."
"Please just leave me alone."
Flash glared at me, his cold, dark eyes searching mine for the evidence of lies. He stalked off, leaving me alone before Ned caught up to me.
"What'd he say this time?" Ned worried.
"Nothing Ned. Don't worry about it." I shrugged him off, trying to force the unwelcoming and downright horrific images that Flash implied, from my brain.
"Peter…" he tried again but to no avail.
With a small, 'ding', the elevator doors opened to bring us to the next section of our tour.
The class piled into the elevator as Mr Crooks, who had learnt how to use the elevator since the last ride, told FRIDAY to head to the correct laboratory floor.
…name the baby time skip…
As the doors slid open and the class filed out, I recognised the unmistakable voice of Bruce Banner. I double-checked the lab number, number four. The fourth lowest lab there is. Bruce never comes down here, this is the robotics lab.
Oh no. Bruce is never down here… this must be one of their plans to embarrass me. Crumbs, I'm so screwed if he calls on me. Please, please, please any god or deity of any kind, don't let me be embarrassed right now. If Thor has another brother who's the God of Embarrassment I pray that my cause of death is not embarrassment in five minutes.
As we entered the lab, I used my classmates as human shields, protecting myself from the view of Uncle Bruce. If he sees me, he will definitely call on me, and I will die. Hiding behind Ned, and pulling my hoodie over my face, I was hidden (partially) from sight. I noticed Bruce scanning the crowd, no doubt spotting me in the process. Curse the fame of the Avengers, who else would want to hide from superheroes? Villains maybe?
I hesitantly gave up on my terrible disguise, my eyes silently pleading for him not to call on me.
Obviously, he called on me anyway.
"Peter, can you help me with this code? I've been working on it for hours but I can't seem to get rid of the bugs in the system." Bruce rubbed at his eyes below his glasses with a yawn as my class all turned to stare at me in shock.
"How much sleep have you had?" I asked inquisitively, ignoring the multitudes of accusatory glares from Flash and his lackeys and the surprised gapes of the other students (Ned included though he was more at the fact that Bruce Banner, the famed scientist was less than five metres away from where he stood).
Bruce can't have gotten more than three hours in his state, even if he's had coffee...
"Hey, I had a good eight hours…" Yeah right, Bruce.
"Over how many days?"
"Five…" Thought so.
"I will look at this code..." I said as I slowly made my way to Bruce's table at the front of the group. The class parted like the Red Sea as I walked through. "... if you promise me that you will actually get some sleep today." I bargained for his health. Hey, it's important to get a good night's sleep.
(A/N It really is you should try it)
"Fine," he said dejectedly as I set to work on fixing the bugs.
… look at that. Another time skip …
As I finished the code, the class who had been astonishingly quiet for the short duration it took to fix the bugs, exploded into a million questions.
"What was wrong with the code?"
"Can I help with something?"
"Can you turn into the Hulk right now?"
"Why was Peter asking you about sleep? Does he know you or something?"
"Why was Parker chosen to fix the code? I could have done so much better than him."
The last one came from Flash (of course), causing Bruce to whirl around on the spot and stalk over to the now trembling boy.
"I chose Peter to fix that code since he is familiar with it, as he wrote the original code with Tony. And I definitely doubt you could have done any better, Peter is a genius and unlike you, is not a spoiled, egotistical brat." Bruce spat his response, his eyes flashing a dangerous and vibrant shade of green, an emerald tinge creeping up his neck. Swallowing his anger, Bruce turned around and walked back to the table as I rejoined my class.
Emma chose that moment to intervene and continue with our lagging schedule.
"Right, so this is one of the lower robotics R & D labs, which basically hold all the robotic inventions in the first stage of construction and testing. Quite a bit coding is also done in here. Everything in this lab is delicate so do not touch anything."
The class spent five minutes wandering the lab, talking to the scientists and asking questions about their projects, while I sat with Bruce and went through the schematics of the newly bug-free code.
"Ok Midtown." Emma interrupted, "I'd like to introduce you to Dr Harvey Lee, our head scientist in the Robotics division of 'Research and Development'. He will lead your workshop alongside Dr Bruce Banner here. Over to you." Emma introduced as she handed the class's rapt attention over to Dr Lee.
"Yeah, so as Emma said, I'm Harvey, and I will be taking you lucky people for your workshop. Now if you could please get into pairs…" Dr Lee started.
"Um, excuse me Harvey, but we have an odd number of students here so there will have to be one group of three." Mr Crooks said nervously.
"That's fine sir. I've been told that one of your students is Peter Parker so he can just help others out with some of the projects." Harvey just shrugged while Mr Crooks blanched.
"Ok, so now that's all sorted, if you follow me to the workshop space, I will give you the task and you can start on your project for the competition."
… Hi, I'm Fred the time skipping genie …
"Alrighty, everyone. Gather around so I can hand out the task sheet and explain what you have to do. Take one and pass it on." Harvey said as he handed a stack of papers to the small kid next to him.
" So, the aim of the task is to create a robot from the parts given to you. I'll have you know that all the boxes of parts are different so you can't copy each other, and it is possible to build a robot with each set of parts." Harvey clarified.
"At your station, there will the aforementioned box of parts, and a computer through which you must create a code that once uploaded will make your robot a beneficial asset to society. Good luck, you have one and a half hours."
Each pair raced off to find a bench and get started on the project. Ned gave me a sad glance has he partnered up with another kid from our decathlon team. Will was nice, smart, but nowhere near as good as Ned with a computer, so he was designated to building the robot. I watched in amusement as Flash disregarded his partner's ideas, refusing to let him help and insisting that doing it himself was in the best interests of the team.
Throughout the competition, I wandered around the teams, giving snippets of advice and answering questions, neither of which was received particularly well. It seemed as though my class either didn't believe that I was any help, so I went to the corner, to the scrap parts pile, and began to create my own robot. A small spider drone that connects to Karen in my spider suit. I will ask Tony later for a way that I could store the drone in my suit, maybe have the drone fold into the chest piece?
As I finished downloading Karen into the computer chip of my new reconnaissance drone, I noticed that the time was almost up. Packing up my bench, I wandered back over to where Harvey was standing.
"Ok class. Time's up. Please bring your creations to the demonstration bench so that we can judge."
Five of the robots were basically carrier servants, tall platters on wheels that could carry drinks, papers and whatnot, responding to various vocal commands. Six of them were dancing robots that were said to provide entertainment for children in hospitals. Ned and Will's robot was a transforming robot that could be used for spy activities. It could be moving surveillance or reconnaissance camera, and it could transform itself into a box, that can only be unlocked with a specific vocal command. Flash's robot was said to be a flying drone, but it never really left the table, it's propellers breaking off and leaving the drone to fall to pieces on the floor.
"Ok, so the winners of this competition are Ned and Will, with you spy robot! Very clever design boys you should be very proud. Also as your prize for winning you get a free pass to lunch in the cafeteria where you are going next. It is all-you-can-eat so enjoy!" Harvey said with a smile. "It was lovely to meet you all, have an enjoyable rest of the day. Goodbye!"
"Bye Harvey!" Everyone chorused back.
As Harvey left, Ned bounded over to me.
"Did you see our robot! Oh my gosh, I didn't think it would work."
"Hey, you are awesome at programming. Of course, it was going to work."
"What were you making, I noticed you working away in the corner."
"Oh, nothing much, just a drone for my suit."
"Nothing much? Nothing much? Of course, to you, a drone is nothing much. Is it connected to Karen?"
"Yeah. I'll use it for reconnaissance and scouting out areas. A bit like yours."
"Sure. Hey before I forget, what's the best thing to get in the cafeteria? I don't want my all-you-can-eat pass to go to waste."
"Umm. I don't really know." I said as we followed our to the elevator to head to lunch.