Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry. I was feeling super not motivated on this story, and I started writing another, and so I had just kinda accepted that I wasn't going to finish this. But now I've got so much time on my hands and so I'm going to try to finish this.

Chapter 7

The lobby of the Avengers Tower was really quite what you'd expect. Tall ceilings, various extravagant light fixtures, the occasional water feature. Lots of glass, lots of desks, lots of people. Most of Peter's team stared at the daunting ceiling as they walked in and he watched as wonder filled their faces. Flash's especially, although he tried to hide it, Peter knew of Flash's love for architecture. He was observant, he had to be in order to be Spider-Man, and he had seen the way Flash acted in their Architecture class, he had noticed the way the teens eyes lit up when someone brought up engineering or design. He could practically watch Flash's gears turning behind his calculating gaze.

The group's gazing was interrupted by a voice from ahead of them:

"Hi, excuse me, Midtown?" The small woman in a sweater and skinny jeans in front of them continued after Mr. Harrington nodded. She had short, curly hair and light brown skin, and her face was extremely friendly.

"I'm Meghan, or Meg. I'm going to be your tour guide today. Welcome to Stark Industries," She gestured with her arms, "Oh, hey Peter, I didn't know you'd be on this tour." The laughter in her voice was genuine which led Peter to believe that she wasn't in on the plans to embarrass him, although he did wonder what the odds were that out of thousands of employees at SI, their tour guide just happened to be someone Peter had worked with on multiple occasions.

Ned elbowed him in the ribs and pointed over to Flash, who was looking confusedly from Peter to Meghan.

"I wonder if he'll be able to wrap that thick brain of his around the fact that you do work here. After weeks of denying it, I think he's started to believe himself." MJ said as she pulled out her notebook to quickly sketch Flash's dumbfounded expression. "I've got an entire section in here dedicated to Flash's faces on this trip. Not going to lie, I'm a little excited." Her voice was almost giddy, or about as giddy as Michelle Jones would ever allow her voice to get.

Peter felt a shiver down his arms and looked down to see goosebumps. He ignored it.

"Ok, now I need you guys to pay attention. I'm going to hand out your visitor passes. Now, it's very, very, very important that you don't lose these. These don't have specific names on them and we don't want them just laying around for anyone to use." She began handing out white badges with bold black lettering that say VISITOR.

"I noticed you have a different colored badge" Betty Brant said, in reference to Meg's Blue badge. She had her spiral notebook out and her reporter face on. "Could you explain the clearance levels?"

"Of course" Meg laughed, clearly amused by Betty's interest. "Well you all have white badges which are temporary. They're used for tour groups and press mostly. Then there's black badges which are for Sanitation workers and security. Red badges are for lower level interns and people who work on the more business-y side of Stark Industries. Yellow is for higher level interns and business workers. And then blue," she motioned to her badge "is for lab interns and scientists".

"If you're a scientist, then how come you're giving school tours." Cindy asked

"Ah yes… well there's a jar with a bunch of names in it, you see," the teens all laughed, "so typically someone draws a few names out and those people give tours. Actually, though, I'm just covering for someone else today, my boss asked me to."

Aha, Peter thought.

"Is your boss Tony Stark?" Abraham asked excitedly.

"No, haha, no, there are multiple labs upstairs, each one working on something different, and they're all managed by someone. We'll see the labs later, but we'd better get a move on now if we want to." She started moving towards the checkpoints and the group followed close behind.

"So what about the Avengers, where do they live? Do they have a clearance level?" Betty asked, pen poised.

"The top ten floors or so are where all the Avenger and high level Stark Industries stuff happens. Silver badges are for the big business people who need to meet with Stark personally or frequent visitors of residents. And then gold badges are exactly what they sound like: Tony Stark and Pepper Potts of course. And all the Avengers and a few other residents and personal assistants." She spoke as she tapped her badge against a scanner and from the speaker below Friday confirmed:

"Meghan Manning, Blue Level, No new messages" The teens looked on in excitement.

"Alright, come on now, let's get going so we can start this tour. Peter, I assume you've got your own?" Peter's cheeks felt hot and he could feel his peers' stares on him.

"Uh, yeah… so do Ned and MJ" he said, sticking a thumb at his friends behind him.

"Great, you can go ahead and go through first" She said, gesturing for Peter to walk through.

He could feel the dread in his stomach, how could he have been so stupid as to forget about this? He doesn't even need Tony here to embarrass himself. His spine shivered as he walked forward and placed his card against the scanner.

Friday's voice rang out again:

"Peter Parker, Gold Level, Two new messages: Angela Brown said you left some papers in lab 3, and Boss wanted to know if you wanted Chinese or Pizza for movie night tonight."

He walked through the gate slowly and turned around to see the looks on his classmates' faces. Some looked confused, some people had sudden understanding plastered on their faces as they remembered Peter's claimed internship, most looked simply dumbstruck. Flash, however, looked angry. The boy's eyes got even darker when Ned and MJ swiped theirs.

"Ned Leeds, Silver Level, One new message: Ms. Potts would like you to know that if you and Ms. Jones wish to stay here after your tour with Mr. Parker then she's sure that can be arranged."

"Michelle Jones, Silver Level, One new message: Ms. Potts would like you to know that if you and Mr. Leeds wish to stay here after your tour with Mr. Parker then she's sure that can be arranged."

At this point Meghan had noticed the rest of the class's faces and deduced that she was going to have to keep them moving.

"Alright, alright, come on now, let's not dawdle" The teens were ushered through by Mr. Harrington and Mr. Dell. Each of their badges swiped with a clear: "Visitor, Tour Group, Enjoy your visit to Stark Industries!"

After they had shuffled through the gates, each student turned to Peter, Ned, and MJ.

"Peter, while we walk to the elevators, do you want to tell your friends about what you do here? They all seem very interested." Meghan suggested, not truly understanding the impact of her words. All of the AcaDeca teams' eyes lit up with curiosity, spare Ned, MJ, and Flash. Peter could hear his heart beating in his ears.

"I, uh, I'm Ton- Mr. Stark's personal intern, so I- I help him in his lab and ya know, get his coffee and stuff. I'm over here a lot, hence the, he held up the gold badge, "high clearance level."

"So you're telling me you actually work here? But why would he pick you? How'd someone like you even get on his radar?" Flash asked smugly, finally rebounding from the initial shock of finding out Peter did, in fact, work here.

"Um, clearly you haven't worked with Peter Parker here," Meghan said with a tone like she was joking, but there was definitely a warning there, "'cause I have only a couple times, but from what I've seen and heard, he's probably smarter than half the scientists here." She had crossed over to put an arm around Peter. He smiled at her, grateful that she was defending him, but stressed knowing this was not going to end Flash's torment.

"Let's move on shall we?" Betty moved up next to Peter as they walked.

"So Peter, just how close are you to Tony Stark? I mean you're having movie night with him? And he asks for your opinion on food? How often are you here? Is the internship why you're so often late to AcaDeca? What do you help Tony Stark with? Have you ever worked with the other Avengers? Have you ever worked on their suits? Have you met Spider-Man? Are you just going to stand there or are you going to answer?" Reporter-Betty was definitely scary. On one hand he wasn't really sure if he wanted to answer all this or not, seeing as this could really only get him more attention for all this. On the other hand Peter was tired and Betty was persistent and if he got all this info out of the way now, there'd be less surprises later.

"Um let's see, we'll I'm his personal assistant so I'm around him a lot, he's sorta my… uh mentor. Yes, I am having movie night with him, it's something we do every now and then. Morgan, Tony's daughter started it. He does ask for my opinion about food, he's not as selfish as he seems. I'm here 3 to 4 times a week. Yes, I sometimes have to miss Decathlon practice because of my internship. Uh… I help him with anything he's working on, which I'm really not supposed to talk about, sorry. I, uh, have worked with Avengers occasionally, sometimes I work on their suits. And no, I've never met Spider-Man." He took a breath. The last answer was easy, he had decided not to go around telling people he knew Spider-Man. Seemed easier, and safer. When he finished they had reached the elevator, and he realized most of his classmates were listening as well, including a fuming Flash.

"The first floor we'll be going to is the 10th, to see and talk to some of the early college interns about what they do here."

"This may be you next year, so think of some questions to ask!" Mr. Dell reminded the group, as Betty nodded and began scribbling in her notebook. Meg pressed the 10th button and the elevator took off.

"And off we go" Peter tried to ignore the falling feeling in his stomach

I'm much happier with this chapter then the res, too, especially now that we're getting into the good stuff. I'm going to try to stock up on some chapters before I publish them so it will be harder for me to fall behind. Comment are appreciated of course! Until next time, which will be soon!