Lunch finished a couple minutes after Nat left, much to Elliot and Peter's dismay.
Friday came over the intercoms in the cafeteria, "Alright MidTown high students, the tour is about to continue. Please throw away any trash on your tables and head over to the elevator within 10 minutes". She then repeated this one more time.
Elliot and Peter grumbled, Ned looked ecstatic, Mj smirked at Peter while Penny tried to console Elliot.
They threw their trash away and headed over to the elevator. It only took a couple minutes for everyone to get there, they're probably excited.
"All right class" Mr Herrington started "Craig will tell us where we are going next so please give him your attention."
Craig cleared his throat "Thank you, alright class we are going to go to some of the labs. We may be going to the lower intern stations but it is still important to not touch anything. Keep in mind they are working on things that are available to the public so you may recognize some things."
"You hear that class, don't touch anything you may get injured or break something." Mrs Bernard said firmly.
"Not to mention power tools you guys have probably never even touched before." Mr Herrington continued. Peter and Elliot gave each other a look after that one. "We want to have future field trips here but won't be able to if you guys don't behave."
"Ok I think we are all set to get moving" Craig said as he scanned and opened the elevator door.
The elevator ride was quite silent, just a couple quiet comments between friends but other than that it was peaceful. Flash did not harass them since there were 2 teachers and a tour guide within the small space.
The door opened up to see a couple rows of halls. Each hall had quite a few large rooms that had a lot of tech to build stuff then had a smaller room to test out the products. Some of them are currently being occupied by light blue interns but sometimes people can rent out these rooms to either work on personal projects or test out prototypes.
Peter and Elliot sometimes did this if they were working on a personal suit item, when Bruce and Tony had a big project in their labs so they couldn't enter, or even if they wanted to surprise their mentors with a present.
They would try to get rooms in the dark blue interns lab but those were full more often. Both floor's labs had basically the same equipment so they didn't mind too much. That being said Elliot and Peter knew a couple of the light blue interns by name and were even friends with a couple.
"Alright kids, we are going to head into this room." Craig said while pointing at a room with 8 light blue interns hard at work and one dark blue intern supervising. "Remember what I said before, do not touch anything. Also the interns in here will maybe look up for a couple seconds and go back to work so try not to be too loud as to not disrupt them." he waited for the grunts of understanding to die down a bit to open the door.
Craig swipes a card and enters a short 4 digit code to open up the door. And he was right, the interns just looked up to see who entered and went back to their wook. One intern that Peter and Elliot knew quite well, Robert, waved at them and went back to trying to solve a problem with an arm prosthetic.
The dark blue intern who was talking to a younger intern who was working on a leg prosthetic looked up and headed over. "Hello you guys must be the midtown high students on tour correct, my name is Olivia and will be answering your questions and showing you around the lab." she said with a smile.
She was scanning the room of high school students when she laid eyes with Elliot and Peter. "Say you 2 are Mr starks and dr banners personal interns aren't you?" she said kind of excitedly. That snapped Elliot out of train of thought and Peter nodded awkwardly from the attention he's gained. " That's really impressive, especially because of you guys' young age." They took the compliment even if it was the millionth time they've received it. "Thank you Olivia , of course your accomplishments are just as impressive. I mean you get to run your own group of interns." Elliot said in attempts to shift the attention from them back to Olivia .
It seemed to work because Olivia went back to talking "Of course" Olivia said , bumping her head with her palm. " Can anyone tell me what it looks like this team is working on?"
"It looks like they are working on the stark line of prosthetics" Betty said with her hand half way up.
"Yes you are correct, but can someone tell me what exactly they are doing?" Olivia asked, the smile not leaving her lips.
Flash raised his hand with a smirk on his face "they are working on the mistakes the prosthetics have." be said it in-a-matter-of-fact tone making Peter roll his eyes.
"Close but they aren't working on fixing mistakes, just improving features in the prosthetics. This includes rotation capabilities, conferability, power, durability, etc." She said pointing at each station "I will let you guys roam at each station at arms length. Observing what they are doing each intern is assigned a feature I listed above for either an arm or a leg. When we come back I want you to be able to guess who is doing what." At that they were dismissed.
Elliot and her group went to say hI to Robert first. "Hey Robert, whatcha working on?" Peter asked with a smile on his face. "Oh hey Peter, hey Elliot, long time no see, you guys haven't had time to visit the underdogs in a while huh." Robert said with a playful tone. " Oh come on Robert, we don't think of you guys as underdogs, but you're right we haven't had time to go make our own projects in a while." Elliot reassured, she knew Robert was joking but she didn't wanna seem rude, her words were true anyways.
Peter looked behind him to see Penny, Mj, and Ned just standing there. "Oh Robert, let me introduce you to our friends." Peter said not wanting them to feel left out. "This is Mj, Ned, and penelope. You guys, this is Robert." Mj cracked a smile and waved, Penny waved and smiled more animatedly, and Ned waved even more enthusiastically.
"Dude it's so nice to meet you, it's so cool that you're an intern here, you probably get to do a lot of cool stuff." Ned said being his usual fan boy self. Robert blushed a tad bit not being used to someone being so happy at his static. "Oh, you know it's not all cool, I mean your being all energetic about me being a light blue intern when you have 2 friends who are thee tony stark's and thee bruce banner's personal interns. My stuff ain't that cool in comparison." he said rubbing the back of his head.
"Oh come on Robert, your stuff is cool and important, don't talk yourself down like that." with that penny just showed how contagious her smile really is, cause Robert started smiling again. "Oh Elliot, you work with Dr. Banner, meaning you work in the more biological field." Robert started. "I'm trying to make the power on this thing be able to spread around more easily when the person flexes, can you look over at what i've done to see what I can do to help." He asked kind of shyly. Robert always feels awkward to ask Elliot or Peter for help since they're younger than him and all.
"Of course Robert, I've been itching to work on some stuff like this for a while now anyways." Elliot replied in a don't-worry-about-it tone. Ellio put the panel back on briefly and put the arm on a stand to simulate someone flexing to see the prosthetic in action without adjustments. But as she was doing that Ms burnard came to check on them.
"Elliot Cano, didnt Ms Olivia tell you guys to stay at arms length from the stations?? Were you not paying attention??" She asked in a rightfully stern voice. "Oh I'm sorry Ms. I just wanted Elliot to look over the prosthetic to see if anything could be adjusted. I understand if she isn't allowed to work right now, she's in school hours after all." Robert explained quickly so that Elliot won't get in trouble.
Olivia came over, "you know both Elliot and Peter are allowed to work and help on stuff on this level, every level to be exact. Only exceptions are projects Mr Stark and Dr Banner manually locked. She placed a hand on Ms. Bernard's shoulder to reassure. "We just don't want anyone to break anything. The school might face backlash because of it." Mr Herriongton said joining the conversation.
Ellio just stayed there not moving til she was told what she would do next. "Elliot, if you want to help you can help, it's your choice though." Olivia finally confirmed. "Ok. It would technically be after school right now anyways" Elliot tried to joke. 1 her teachers didn't seem in a joking mood right now, and 2 her face was red from all the attention that was on her right now.
She opened that panel while the arm was still flexing to see what was actually moving inside. "I yeah I think I can tinker with this area a bit to increase the efficiency of the flexibility this arm has." she said and all her classmates leaned in a bit making her even more nervous.
"Do you mind doing it? I'll watch closely and record exactly what you do." Robert said not skeptical, but excited to see if Elliot is right. "Yeah sure I don't mind, hand me that small circular electric saw, and put the pliers and soldering iron at right hand's reach." Elliot said as she put on some safety glasses.
She took the arm off the flexing simulation stand, and locked it on to the working stand. Once she got the small electric saw from Robert she started her work. When she started working and the arm went limp for a while Ms Bernard, and Mr Herington both visibly tensed up.
After some tinkering Elliot took off her safety glasses and put the tools back to their places. There were murmurs and looks coming from her classmates. "Do you think that did the trick? Penny asked Peter quietly. "It probably did but there's only one way to find out." Peter replied in hopes it did.
Elliot took off the arm from the work stand and put it in the simulation simulation stand. Mr Herrington and Ms Burnard were holding their breath, praying one of their students didn't just mess up a whole Stark line prosthetic.
"What were the levels the arm had before I fucked it up?" Elliot asked with a laugh only making her teachers sweat even more. "Finger flexibility was at a 6, wrist flexibility was a 5, and the grip was at a 5 as well." Robert replied, flipping back a few pages in his notebook. "Also dont say you "fucked it up" your only making your teacher pale more." Robert said, letting out a chuckle.
Elliot looked up from programming the simulation to start from at least 3 and build up. When she saw her teachers were looking pale, almost green, all she could say was "Sorry." and waved her hand slightly in the air apologetically.
The arm started to move. First the fingers then the wrist then it was given a stress ball that was connected to the computer to grip. A couple minutes went by of Elliot going up a level til each was maxed to the arms new capability. She turned off the machine and all her pears looked at her waiting for the results.
"So what are the arm's new levels?" Olivia asked curiously and the teachers were nervose to find out the answers. "Let's see." Robert said, looking at the screen. "Finger flexibility is now at an 8, wrist flexibility is now at a 7.5 and the grip is at a 9. We might actually have to dumb it down a bit." Robert said jokingly and happily, all her classmates ,except flash, cheered, and her teachers let out a breath of relief.
Robert clapped Elliot on the shoulder. "Thank you very much Elliot, you helped a lot." he said in a smile. "Oh it was nothing" she said with a bright red tin from all the attention she's getting. "Now Elliot "don't talk yourself down like that" this is going to help a lot of people, and you know it." Robert said, quoting a very obvious someone. Penny started playing with the fabric on her shirt and looked down. If Nat hadn't told Elliot about how Penny shows emotions through body language, she probably wouldn't have noticed, but she did so Elliot looked away slightly more embarrassed. Robert raised a brow at that but didn't say anything.
"Alright kids," Olivia started with a clap. "Since you guys were distracted, looking at Elliot's work I will give you guys more time to roam around, then we'll have a Q and A with the remainder of our time." With that everyone went to the different stations right away.
"Alright, step away from whatever station you're at and come here." Olivia said, waiting for everyone to reunite with her. "You guys dont have alot of time here left so why don't we have a small Q and A for the rest of your time." The ball of kids started getting visibly excited that their questions will be answered.
"Ok, ok, we'll go the old fashion way. Raise your hand, talk one at a time, please don't talk over each other, start."
"How can you get an internship to work here?"
"You can get one by applying or another more rare way is that you do really good and Mr Stark comes to you"
"Do people with internships here get paid?"
"Yes, and the higher your badge color the higher your salary."
"How do you rank up?"
"You rank up like any other job promotion, do your best for a couple years and you'll be rewarded."
Elliot honestly started zoning out. She already knew this information, plus if she ever did have a question, she could just ask Bruce. All that she could think about was Nats warning, what was going to be announced? Also what was going to happen? Probably something embarrassing like a prank but what could it be? The rest of the time were just those questions repeating over and over in her head.
At some point someone taped her on the shoulder causing elliot to jump out of thought. Elliot also jumped physically, she was honestly about to drop kick who ever tapped on her just out of instinct. Elliot's face flushed a bit realizing it was just Penny. "Sorry, Sorry, didn't mean to scare you." She grabbed Elliots arm to reassure its was just her. "No-no your good" She said waving a hand in front of her red face.
"Whats up, I was zoned out for a while." Elliot rubbed the bridge of her nose a bit. "Yea you zoned out for almost the whole Q and A, Craig said that it was time to go we're headed to the elevator." Penny said it in such a soft, kind voice. "Oh, where are we going?" "I'm not sure yet he said he'll tell us when we get closer to the elevator in the halls." "Well I guess we better get moving." Elliot said gesturing at the fact they were getting left behind."
