So sorry this is so late. I got sick last week and I'm still far from well, but I got this edited enough to share.
Honestly? There was no real chance I wasn't going to try my hand at this particular fandom trope, friends. I hope you enjoy my version!
The song for this is "Goodbye" by SR-71, which is one of those truly great "buzz off, I don't need you" songs that just make you want to stand up and yell at somebody while dancing.
Enjoy!
Story 9: Friend or Foe: A Field Trip to Stark Industries
Tony looked up as someone pushed into the lab unexpectedly on a Saturday at...whatever time it was now, he had no idea. He wasn't too worried because this was the Compound, so the number of people who could enter without permission was pretty limited — but he wasn't exactly expecting company either.
Even less was he expecting it to be Happy.
"I thought you were driving the girls to that resort for May's birthday spa-a-thon?" he asked.
"I just got back," Happy said. "Look, Tony, we gotta talk."
Tony was plenty capable of ignoring Happy. He'd been ignoring Happy regularly for literal years. Happy could be overprotective at times, and his patience wasn't always the best and most of the time, Tony just tuned it all out.
But Tony also knew when not to ignore Happy. He'd learned that lesson the hard way with the Mandarin, along with all the other lessons. There was a face Happy made that said he meant business.
So Tony set down his tools and spun to give the man his full attention. "What's up?"
Happy grabbed a rolling desk chair that had clearly been stolen from somewhere else and dragged it over, dropping into it.
"Did you know Peter is being bullied again?"
Tony's tongue went dry. "He's what?"
"Being bullied. Right under our noses." Happy was scowling. "And he didn't tell us. He didn't tell me."
"Roll that back, Hap." Tony had already forgotten whatever he was working on. "Gimme the details."
Happy sighed. "Ned is staying over with Peter for the weekend while May is out of town. And since I had to pick up May anyway, I told the boys I was willing to give Ned a ride on my way and drop him off when I was picking up May."
"Ned's house isn't anywhere near being 'on the way' to the apartment," Tony said, and the teasing helped. "You're getting soft."
"You first," Happy shot back. "Anyway. The kid was weird from stepping out the front door. It is a literal miracle he's kept Peter's secrets this far. I could tell something was up, so I stopped and made him spill."
Tony figured that took one glare and about five seconds of awkward silence, probably.
"There's this kid that's been in class with them forever. He used to bully Peter in elementary school, and when Peter went to Astoria, he switched to Ned. But now he's back on Peter's case and it's, it's bad, Tony." Happy's hands curled into fists. "Ned told me some of it, and when I was on my way back from the girls' resort, JARVIS told me more."
Tony scowled. "JARVIS, why haven't I heard about this?"
"My apologies, sir. At first, I have gaps in my files regarding Master Parker at school, which I attribute to his use of King Odin's gift. Since he has stopped using it, I have witnessed nearly daily interactions between the student Eugene 'Flash' Thompson and the young Sir."
"How come I didn't get an alert?" Tony wanted to know.
"In each case, Master Parker asked me not to report it as he did not wish to encourage the behavior to escalate. In the rare instances where a teacher at the school was made aware of the altercations, Mister Thompson retaliated much more viciously afterwards, and often at Mister Leeds as well as young Sir."
"That shouldn't have kept you from telling me!" he yelled.
"Tony," Happy said. "I don't like it either. But the truth is that Peter can protect himself even if he gets shoved around —"
"He's been shoved?"
" — and Ned can't."
That brought Tony up short. "What?"
"Ned walks home from school alone a lot," Happy said. "Because Peter's coming here or the Tower or going out patrolling. This Flash kid, he doesn't touch Ned, but he's followed him halfway home yelling stuff. Awful stuff. Every time Peter fights back, he goes for Ned."
Tony rubbed his face. "And my noble, self-sacrificing, idiot of a kid convinced JARVIS that it was better to let this stuff go unreported than give the jerk more reason to target Ned."
"He did, sir," JARVIS said. "Master Parker's injuries have never lasted more than a few hours in the cases where Mister Thompson acted against him physically, and my protocols regarding young Sir's wellbeing are vague enough that simple bruises do not require an alert to you."
"Okay, we're going to talk about changing that," Tony said. "And, yeah, the kid can take a couple of hits better than I can even in the suit. But."
He looked up at Happy. "It sounds like the bullying isn't just shoving."
"It's not," Happy said. "Ned spilled his guts. Some of it is...Tony, you'd kill the kid. You would legitimately kill him if you knew it. Hell, I might kill him."
Tony sighed, bracing himself. "Lay it on me."
"Well, he calls him 'penis' instead of Peter, first off. He talks about how poor he is, how he's only at Midtown out of pity for being an orphan, stuff like that. Thompson is the person who overheard Ned talking about you, so that's where the internship lie started. He goes on about how Peter is too pathetic to get any kind of internship, let alone one at SI, and he's lying because a fantasy of hanging out with Tony Stark is the only thing that keeps him from…"
Tony leaned forward. "Keep going, Hap."
"You know." Happy's jaw was tight. "Killing himself." He swallowed. "He also says a lot of nasty stuff about May, and how Peter's uncle probably is glad he's dead and how May…" He trailed off and this time Tony let him.
Tony's vision was awash in red and it had nothing to do with possible exposure to Wanda's power.
"You were right the first time," Tony said, cold. "I'm going to kill him."
"Sir, allow me to advise you that killing anyone, but particularly an underage student, will not end well for you in any way," JARVIS said.
Tony knew that, and right then he didn't give the slightest of damns about it. He made himself take a deep breath anyway. It was either that or hunt the kid down and do something unforgivable.
Which made him pause.
"How is it possible Loki hasn't done anything about this kid already?" Tony asked. "Like, if anybody besides me has an overdeveloped protective thing going on when it comes to Peter, it's Loki."
He didn't really expect an answer, but JARVIS had one. "I have record of a conversation between Master Parker and Prince Loki regarding the subject. Master Parker wrested an agreement from Prince Loki not to interfere unless he explicitly requested the help after a great deal of negotiation."
"I wanna see that recording later," Happy said. "If the kid can talk down Loki, he's really upping his game."
Tony was not mollified. "So, basically, my kid is being bullied again, and nobody's doing anything about it. That stops now."
"How?" Happy asked. "Like in middle school, there's not a lot Mario Carbonell can do about it. And if the school isn't doing anything now…"
"Oh, they will. JARVIS, I need a full compilation of literally every nasty thing that guy has said to Peter or Ned. New York's a one-party consent state, and Peter's legal guardian — me — gave permission for these recordings. The school won't sit there doing nothing with this much stuff."
"I mean," Happy said, and he looked at his feet. "They might. It's nasty, Tony, but a lot of it could get brushed off as 'boys being boys.' You really think detention or even a temporary suspension will put a stop to it?"
Tony huffed and hated that Happy was right. After all, the kids in middle school had come after Peter outside of school hours, too, even after being disciplined by the principal. It had taken Nat and a lot of lawyers to get them to lay off.
"If I may, sir," JARVIS said, "something Master Parker said during the first incident on the first day of high school may be relevant here."
And he played audio clearly recorded off Peter's watch or phone.
"Flash is just a jerk with a big mouth. He's not going to do anything."
"Peter…" Ned began.
"No." Peter's voice was firm. "Nobody is telling Mister Carbonell about this. I'm not letting anybody's life and their whole family get ruined just because of mean words. I can handle it. What I can't handle is scorching the earth every time somebody says something out of line."
"Aw, kid." Tony shut his eyes. "You give people too many chances."
"He didn't learn that from you." Happy paused. "Or me, actually."
"Yeah, I know." He sighed, shaking his head.
"Tony, we gotta do something. I'm not going to let some little snot-nosed jerk cut Peter down and use Ned to hold him hostage. Either we do something, or I'm going to have an accident the next time I'm picking him up from school."
Tony looked Happy in the eye and knew he was dead serious. If Tony weren't so mad that someone was mistreating his kid again, he'd be touched. Happy didn't take to many.
"Okay. We need to do three things. We need to get the kid to lay off, we need to do something special for Ned for telling you and also for putting up with this shit for years, and we need to talk to Peter. In that order."
Happy looked at him. "You really think you can get Thompson to lay off them?"
"Well," Tony said. "I'll take a shot at it. If it doesn't work, I'm sure Nat wouldn't mind stepping up again. But you're gonna have to help me on this one."
Happy chuckled darkly. "Fair enough. What do you need me to do?"
-==OOO==-
Ned and Peter were in the same chemistry class, which was the only thing that made the last hour of Friday bearable. Even a double period of chem was fine if Peter was there to help him out. And after that — freedom!
The bell was due to ring in five minutes, and Ned was literally counting the seconds. It was either that or actually pay attention to Mister Cobbwell, and his brain was already gone. If he needed to learn whatever it was, Peter would just help him later. So Ned almost missed when Mister Cobbwell ended the lesson.
"All right," he said. "I have an announcement. The tenth grade has been granted an unprecedented opportunity. Next Friday, your whole grade will be going on a field trip together."
Ned immediately perked up and elbowed Peter in the side.
Peter elbowed him back. Field trips were awesome.
Suddenly there was shouting audible through the wall from the classroom next door.
"Looks like Missus Warren is faster than me at delivery," Mister Cobbwell said, chuckling. Ned wondered if they ever bothered Missus Warren, who was notorious for not allowing 'distractions' in her classroom. What if they blew up something in chem? Would Missus Warren keep teaching physics, or would she stop and come see what happened?
"It is my pleasure to announce that the tenth grade will be visiting Stark Tower in Manhattan next Friday!"
All around him, people started cheering. All except Peter, who face-planted on the table in front of him so hard he knocked his pencil to the ground.
Over the yelling, Ned heard Peter say, "You have got to be kidding me."
Ned didn't see what the problem was. "Peter, we're going to Stark Tower! On a field trip!"
"Yeah," Peter said directly into his notebook. "Where I live half the time." Then Peter turned without lifting his head up. "Why are you so excited? You've been to the Tower. A lot."
"Yeah, but not as a field trip!"
"Quiet down!" Mister Cobbwell said. "Now, I have a literal file of papers for each of you to take home for the weekend. You and your parents will need to review the rules carefully before your parents sign off on the trip. This info is due back to your homeroom teacher no later than Wednesday morning. If it isn't in your teacher's hands by the second bell on Wednesday, you're not going. Understood?"
Ned knew it was utterly useless to try to get the class to do anything but yell, and apparently Mister Cobbwell agreed because he just sighed, passed out the folders, and waited for the bell. Ned started flipping through the folder as soon as he got it, but Peter just jammed it in his backpack with the rest of his stuff.
As soon as the bell rang, Peter took off like a shot from the classroom. Ned had to run to keep up. The hallways were full of chatter, and everywhere the words 'Stark Tower' echoed. Ned's heart was pounding.
"This is going to be the coolest class trip ever!" Ned didn't even think about going to his own locker. "Like, what if the Avengers just show up? Or Mister Stark? Like, he could just get off the elevator and say, 'hi Ned, hi Peter,' and we would be cool forever."
"Or," Peter said, lowering his voice, "they could embarrass me and I'd never be normal again."
"Peter, you're not normal now," Ned pointed out.
"He's right." That was MJ, standing suddenly next to them. "Also, even if Stark gave you a car in front of the whole class, you'd still be losers." She smirked. "See you Monday. Peter, don't skip practice."
"I really think," Peter said, watching her go as abruptly as she'd arrived, "I'm never going to understand her. Like, at all."
"Anyway." Ned refused to be distracted. "Did you know about it? The trip? Wait! Did you ask Mister Stark to give us a trip? This is the best thing ever!"
"I didn't know, I definitely didn't ask for it, and this is a disaster." Then Peter froze and straightened up. "Uh oh."
"Hey, Penis Parker!" Flash was sauntering down the hall with a grin that made Ned very nervous. "How excited are you for the field trip? We'll get to see once and for all that you're a pathetic liar about the whole internship thing."
"It's not a lie," Ned defended him.
"It's a pathetic lie, and you're pathetic for believing it," Flash said. But his real focus was on Peter. "Hey, tell you what. If we do meet Tony Stark, I promise I'll tell him how badly you wish he knew you existed so he can tell you you're worthless in person. Sound good?"
"Back off, Flash," Peter said. He was looking away, but his shoulders were up. Ned knew that look. He was trying not to antagonize their bully, but he was also ready for a fight to break out. And if it did, he knew Peter wouldn't let Flash lay a hand on Ned. He'd take the hits aimed at Ned like he'd been doing all year — like he'd been doing their whole lives.
Ned hadn't quite gotten up the courage to tell Peter that he'd spilled all the beans about Flash to Happy a week ago, and he suddenly wondered if the field trip and that were connected.
Well, if they were, then he hoped Mister Stark and Happy knew what they were doing.
"I couldn't have planned it better myself," Flash said. "I am going to record every minute of your humiliation, Penis." He leaned on the lockers hard, boxing Peter in. "And when you have to admit that you're a liar, I'm going to record it and have Betty make it her headline story on Monday so the whole school knows that the great Peter Parker is nothing."
Flash snarled the last word directly in Peter's face, but Peter never flinched. He just waited.
Flash seemed to take that as victory and sauntered off. "Have a good weekend, Penis!" he yelled as a parting shot.
Peter let out a cough. "Flash eats too many breath mints during school," he said. Then he shrugged at Ned. "I better head home. I have somebody to talk to about this field trip thing."
"Okay," Ned said. He was bothered by Peter's change in mood; being annoyed was better than this giving up thing he did around Flash. "Hey." He offered the beginning of their handshake. "Whatever happens next Friday, it's going to be okay. I'm sure of it."
That won him a tiny smile. "Thanks, Ned." Peter finished their handshake and looked more like himself. "Catch you next week."
Ned spent his weekend trying to read all the pages in the packet himself, then again with his mom. He had to look up half the words, and even Google couldn't parse some of the legal stuff. But his mom shook her head and laughed.
"That Tony Stark. I'm sure you'll have fun."
Ned had never been so glad that Peter and May had introduced his parents to Tony Stark. It meant she wasn't at all worried about all this weird, scary legal language.
On Monday, there was no conversation in or out of class that didn't center on the tenth grade trip to Avengers Tower. Even though the official paperwork still called it Stark Tower. It would be Avengers Tower until the sun exploded as far as Ned was concerned. That actually came up in English class and they diverted from talking about Emily Dickinson to debate it for half the hour.
Meanwhile, Flash had taken it on himself every time he was vaguely in the same area as Peter to very loudly remind everybody about Peter's 'fake internship.'
"You know," MJ said at lunch when he was being particularly obnoxious, "the only person who brags about the internship is you, Flash. Peter and Ned never say a word."
"They're just trying to get attention," Flash snapped.
"No," MJ said, calm and unflappable, "that's what you're doing. Loser."
Mister Harrington had to ban all discussion of the trip for AcaDec practice, which was fine because Peter looked like he wanted to sink through the floor every time Flash so much as looked at him. The rest of the team was shooting him sympathetic glances, but Peter was too caught up in his misery to notice.
Tuesday and Wednesday were more of the same, although some other kids had started actually asking Peter about the internship after Flash's constant commentary. Peter took to running to his next class and burying his head in his arms until the teachers started teaching just to avoid having to talk to people.
Ned felt awful. The internship lie was his fault. And now Peter was being harassed. Some best friend he was.
But Thursday, Peter didn't show up to school at all. Ned texted him and, worryingly, didn't get a response.
So he texted JARVIS. "Hi JARVIS. It's Ned Leeds. Do you know where Peter is today? Is he okay?"
JARVIS replied at once.
"Hello, Mister Leeds. Master Parker was injured on patrol last night. He sustained a fracture to his jaw which required medical intervention, but not surgery. He will need a few days to recover fully and will not attend school until next week."
"Holy shit!"
Ned did not mean to yell in the middle of homeroom. But he did, and then Mister Dell took his phone for the whole day, which was really unfair. He barely noticed his classes, mostly leaning over people's shoulders if they mentioned Spider-Man to see what had happened.
The clip that eventually made it online was awful. Spider-Man had been dealing with a fire at a new construction site. He cleared a bunch of people out of the way, and then the really big crane at the site started to tip over — the comments on the video speculated that the fire was arson because those cranes don't fall accidentally, Ned didn't know enough to know either way and didn't care anyway — and Spider-Man swung up to keep it from hitting the nearest buildings.
And he succeeded, but the big lateral arm of the crane spun suddenly and clocked Spider-Man across the face, launching him two or three blocks away. Spider-Man's webs caught the rest of the crane and kept it from hurting anybody, but nobody saw the vigilante again after that.
No wonder Peter's jaw is broken. That's like getting punched by a spaceship going light speed!
When Ned finally got his phone back, he saw he'd missed a text from Peter.
"JARVIS said you were worried. I'm good. Can't talk or eat for a while. Healing fast." And a thumbs-up emoji.
Reassured that his best friend would be okay, he asked the other critical question. "Are you still coming on the field trip?"
Peter's answer was immediate. "Nope."
Well, that sucked.
Friday morning, Ned lined up with the rest of his homeroom to get on the buses. Besides Peter, a handful of people were absent or hadn't turned in their forms — and were looking out the windows pretty sadly. Ned heard Mister Harrington say that they had sixty-eight students on the trip but only five teachers. Ned was suddenly really glad to be in Mister Dell's homeroom. He was very chill about field trips.
On the other hand, Flash was in Mister Harrington's homeroom, and they were sharing a bus.
"Hey, Leeds! Where's Penis? Or didn't he show up because he knew he was going to get destroyed today?"
"Shut up, Eugene," MJ said, taking the seat across from Ned. "That's precious oxygen you're wasting. Go plant a tree to make up for it."
Flash looked like he was going to say something, but Mister Harrington called for people to sit down so he could do a headcount and Flash retreated to his seat.
"Thanks, MJ," Ned said.
"For what? Don't thank me for having common decency." She did look up from her book then. "Is Peter okay?"
"Yeah," Ned said. "Just not feeling well."
"Cool."
The drive into Manhattan took forever, but it gave Ned a chance to text JARVIS, since he figured Peter would probably be sleeping in.
"Can you tell me what will happen on our tour today?"
"I have been informed that it is a surprise. However, please rest assured that Sir has approved your itinerary and will ensure you have a successful event."
"That doesn't tell me anything!"
"You're welcome, Mister Leeds."
Ned shouldn't have been surprised that Mister Stark's AI was as snarky as he was, even if JARVIS was at least polite about it.
The buses pulled up inside the public parking area, not the one Ned knew from visiting, and they walked from there into the big main atrium at the bottom of the Tower.
Ned looked longingly over at the Italian restaurant. Whenever he came here to meet Peter and didn't get a ride from Happy, he used Peter's secret back way through the kitchen to get upstairs, and the nice people always gave him garlic bread and stuff to snack on. Suddenly Ned didn't want to be here without Peter. He didn't want to see cool SI stuff with his best friend probably at the Compound with his jaw wired shut.
(Looking up broken jaws online and how they were treated had been a bad call and he had dreams about mouth cages all night.)
The teachers did another headcount before they approached the actual main entrance to Stark Industries. Ned managed to hide alongside Missus Warren's group to stay away from Flash who looked like he was trying to elbow closer to Ned.
Oh this is going to be a long day.
Everybody received a paper wristband with their name and a QR code on it to be scanned at doors. Ned had never needed a real badge because JARVIS knew him and he was usually with Peter, so even he was a little excited about the Stark Industries official wristband.
"At least it's recyclable," MJ said, accepting her own.
Then she blinked at it.
"Why does my band say MJ and yours says Ned?" she asked him.
"Uh, 'cause that's our names?"
"No." She shook her head. "My legal name that the school puts down is Michelle and yours is Edward. There's no way Stark Industries knows about that." She peered at him. "I never really thought Peter was lying. This is proof enough for me."
"I wonder what Flash's says," Ned said. But he didn't actually want to get close enough to find out.
"All right!" Four people wearing Stark Industries branded polo shirts were standing together. "Well, now that you're all signed in, let's get this show on the road!"
Ned wasn't sure if he should be dreading the next six hours, or elated.
Either way, he was sure it was going to be interesting.
-==OOO==-
Tony had settled not in his lab, but in the Avengers conference room. Even though the team had officially relocated to the Compound, this was still his tower, and this floor really would never be anything but the hang-out space for the team.
And, today, it was his headquarters.
Tony was pretty proud of everything he'd thrown together in two weeks. Of course, he hadn't done it alone — Pepper and her two badass assistants were pretty instrumental in the tour stuff. And he'd consulted May and even the Leeds adults (not Ned, he couldn't keep secrets when he was excited or upset which was kind of always) for details, too. This tour thing was orchestrated more carefully than some of Steve's missions when they went against Hydra.
But, honestly, this mattered in a way those didn't. Tony wasn't going to let a single thing go wrong. Not today. Not for Ned, and not for Peter.
And, therefore, everything was going to go wrong for Eugene 'Flash' Thompson, bully and asshole who had chosen the absolute wrong kid to target.
"Sir," JARVIS said, "Master Parker has asked for a ride from the Compound back to Queens. His most recent x-ray suggests the fracture has healed though the bruising is still severe."
Peter attending his school's field trip had been the original plan before he'd taken most of a construction crane to the face — and Tony's soul had nearly left his body when he got that report from KAREN and JARVIS, the latter of whom immediately scooped the unconscious Spider-Man up in a retro-reflective version of the evac suit and beelined to the Compound for medical help — but now there was no real way for Peter to be part of the day. Tony had adjusted for that.
But he didn't want his kid sitting alone in Queens for the day, either. May was working the shift she'd swapped to sit with him on Wednesday night after the injury, and Tony just couldn't take sending his kid to recover alone in an apartment with his face black and blue.
"Bring him here, JARVIS," he decided. "But take him straight to the penthouse in the private elevator, no matter what he says. I want him up there to stay until his class is out of the building."
"Understood, sir. Agents Hill and Romanoff have offered to drive him."
Tony nodded. He'd be safe between the two of them, and Nat was already in on this whole field trip thing, so she'd be sure not to let Peter go anywhere he shouldn't.
"Tell the kid I'll bring him some lunch when he gets here."
"Very good, sir."
"Now." He cracked his knuckles like a maestro about to play a piano piece. "Let the game begin."
On the screens before him, Tony had about six different angles on Peter's classmates. He also had a direct line to the four tour guides through earpieces connected to JARVIS. The first thing he did was split the classes, keeping Ned Leeds and Jerk Thompson in the same half with their homerooms. The other group peeled off with their two guides for what Tony was mentally dubbing the B-side of the tour; they would do the A-side after lunch.
His primary targets then moved to the A-side and Tony's spying went with them.
The A-side's first stop was the arc reactor that powered the building. Pepper showed it off often enough to allies and military folks, so the space had been cleaned up from the vast empty room it started as. There were pictures of its construction, a few holograms that gave information about it — nothing remotely proprietary, of course — and a live feed of its power output on a big dramatic board to one side.
The students oohed and ahhed appreciatively over the whole thing, except Thompson who was playing a game of cat and mouse with Ned. Every time Ned moved away, Thompson tried to get back to him.
"JARVIS, tell Tour Guide Two to ask some questions. Specifically, questions Ned knows the answer to."
"Right away, sir."
Moments later, TG2 began quizzing the students closely about arc reactor technology. Thompson raised his hand, but his answer was wrong. Ned, on the other hand, had geeked out over the arc reactor at the Compound often enough that he could recite info about it off the top of his head. Which he did, to the obvious surprise of his classmates.
Thompson looked like he was chewing glass. Excellent.
Next there were two boring parts of the tour — the logistics and supplies, and the marketing department. Well, logistics and supplies could be exciting if you were an engineer looking for inspiration or a very random bit of raw materials. But for teenagers without vision, it was just a bunch of floors of stuff sorted according to an algorithm only JARVIS really understood.
Marketing was more fun for the students. The Chief Marketing Officer had literally jumped at the chance to have a pile of teenagers in her space for a workshop. The department set up their 'thinking room' specially for the day, complete with a banner welcoming the school and a table full of snacks.
(The banner aside, that wasn't too different from how the marketing 'thinking room' usually looked. Except there were typically more swear words written on the screens between the projects they were brainstorming and the cliche jar tally in one corner. They even had bouncy balls to throw at one another when they needed a break. Tony got that — he was a creative person, too. Just wired completely differently.)
With thirtyish kids piled into a room usually hosting twenty adults, the CMO introduced herself and started using the kids as guinea pigs for her top three outstanding projects. She showed them the ads and commercial ideas the team had already produced and asked for feedback. Some kids were more helpful than others, and Aisha had her assistant write down literally everything they said, especially the slang they used and the internet stuff they referenced.
Tony just knew that the next SI product launch was going to involve the word 'yeet' now and he couldn't even be sour about it.
Side-A had one more stop before lunch, and that was what Tony had deemed the 'unsolvables' area. It took up about half a floor now, with stuff jammed into the various vacant offices and such that had been part of the original design.
Tour Guide One gave the explanation, and Tony thought ze did a really good job.
"When you're developing stuff that's never been done before," ze said, "a lot of times you run into things that can't be answered. Maybe the tech doesn't exist yet. Maybe the math hasn't been figured out. Maybe science hasn't gotten far enough. And you have to know when it isn't your job to do that work. Maybe Mister Stark or Doctor Banner can deal with that stuff, but most of us aren't on that level. So, when we run into something we can't solve on our own, we leave it down here. And if someday the answer comes along, then the idea is here ready to be picked up again."
Sometimes Tony wandered down there, with or without Peter in tow, to see if anyone had stumbled upon an interesting problem worth his attention. Nanotech had lived down there for a couple of years until Tony absconded with it and everything related to it for his private research. One particular problem in the medical field he'd turned over to Peter, because they needed a sticky substance that didn't exist and Peter was an expert at sticky things.
Tony knew Pepper thought of the unsolvables area as kind of a graveyard for ideas that had died, but he saw it differently. These were challenges not yet met, ideas that could wither on the vine without help, the creativity of his people at their best. Even if every single thing in the area was a failure, the process that carried them all that far was not.
Tony could immediately tell which students got it, the beauty of the unsolvables. Kids who rolled their eyes and chatted amongst themselves had missed it, but others, including Ned and most (not Thompson) of the members of the AcaDec team in these two classrooms stared with wide, excited eyes. They would gather around one project or another, read over the notes attached, and chatter about whatever cool idea or mind-blowing problem at the root of it.
"Okay," TG2 said far too soon for half the kids and far too late for the useless ones, "we're all going to meet up again for lunch. You each have boxes waiting for you from what you selected from your tour packets. Follow me."
The teachers did another headcount, and although Tony would have been annoyed if they were keeping such a close eye on him, he appreciated the rigor to keep track of the students. Even if they didn't do anything about Asshole Thompson back at school, at least they were attentive to the kids in a strange environment.
The kids were led down to the giant conference room, the same one Pepper used at Halloween for the big party. Tables and chairs were set up by homeroom with everybody's meals already laid out for them. It was no accident this time that Thompson was set up as far from Ned as possible.
There had been one iteration of this plan in which Tony deliberately threw Ned into Thompson's path, just to make sure they had plenty of dirt on him. But then he thought about Ned and how much he would have been hurt by that and went the other way instead, keeping them apart, but on the same half of the tour so he could focus on watching them both at once.
Besides, he had all the evidence of abuse he needed with just Peter's recordings.
Tony did get JARVIS to pull an angle on Ned's face when he got his lunchbox, though. He watched, grinning, as the kid's face went slack, then pinkish at the hand-written note inside the box stuck to an Iron Man cookie.
"Sorry Peter's not here to keep you company. But I'm watching your back today. Relax and have fun. — TS"
Ned pulled out his phone and typed for a moment. A text popped up on Tony's a moment later.
"THANK YOU!11!"
"You're welcome, kid," Tony said aloud.
In the middle of the lunch break, Peter arrived at the Tower. Tony dashed up to see him and bring him some jaw-friendly food, settling him on the couch with every beverage and mushy snack known to humankind.
"Sorry I can't stay, figlio," Tony said. And he was. "But there's a couple of things that need my attention for the next few hours. JARVIS will watch over you, and I'll come up again soon, okay?"
Peter's jawbone itself had healed, but he was still thoroughly swollen, so talking seemed kind of painful. He gave a thumbs-up instead.
The sight of his kind, courageous, selfless kid with a black-and-blue-now-trending-to-yellow-and-green face only lit the fire in Tony's chest brighter. Thompson thought he could bully this kid?
He was gonna pay for that.
Back in his headquarters, Tony was just in time to see the tour groups separating, sending the B-side everywhere the A-side had already been.
"Okay, JARVIS. Look alive. Here we go."
-==OOO==-
Flash was having a pretty perfect day. He knew he wasn't supposed to take any pictures anywhere inside the Tower, but that couldn't really be a big deal, and his Instagram was getting a ton of hits. He'd gotten a couple of great selfies with the big arc reactor, he'd swiped a little box of mini Stark transistors from the big storage room, he'd definitely given the best answer to that Marketing lady, and he'd found one of the 'unsolvable' projects that he thought he might be able to fix himself.
And if he did that, then surely SI would have to pay him for fixing their problem. Maybe even give him a real internship. Not like Penis Parker's fake one.
The only thing that would have made today better was if he could have laughed in Penis's face about it. Or even Leeds's face. But Leeds was being a coward staying away from him, and Penis was probably hiding under his bed, too scared to admit that he was lying. Flash would have to teach him a lesson for not showing up.
Really, he was doing Penis a favor. The real world didn't work for people like him with no money, no connections, and a smug know-it-all attitude. If Flash could get Penis to realize that he just wasn't cut out for being on the top, he'd accept his place as a permanent loser and finally get out of Flash's way.
"All right," the tour guide named Briar said, "now's when you get to do the fun stuff." Ze grinned. "We're going to spend the rest of today on the R&D floors!"
Flash really wished Penis were here. This was his opportunity to throw it in his face so hard he'd make the guy cry. He hadn't gotten Penis to cry in front of him since before he moved away from Forest Hills, and Flash felt it was more than overdue.
He did try to get Leeds's attention, but Leeds was avoiding him again, practically hiding behind Mister Harrington.
Pathetic.
They crowded into elevators again and went up a bunch of stories in the Tower to an area marked in the elevator map in gold and labeled "Research and Development."
They got off the elevators and had to stand for another headcount. Teachers were so dumb.
"Now," the other tour guide said when Mister Dell came up with the same number of people he'd had all day, "we need to go over the rules before you set foot in any of these rooms. These are working labs and not only is what you're going to see highly confidential, but interfering with it or interrupting someone could be dangerous."
Flash immediately tuned them out. Instead, he spotted something along a wall at the end of the elevator lobby and made his way over to it. A door was standing slightly open.
Flash grinned and pulled out his phone. With a glance back to make sure nobody was looking at him, he slipped into the room ready to grab pictures of whatever he could see.
The room was dark and windowless, but big. He noticed that right away. He pulled up the flashlight on his phone to get a better look.
"Lame," he said, panning around the space. It was an empty lab. There were tables and cabinets, but nothing on them. No wonder the room was unlocked. It wasn't cool at all.
He turned to leave, and the door shut behind him.
"What the hell?"
Flash pulled on the door, but it didn't budge.
"Hey!" He pounded on it. "Hey, let me out!"
"You are in a restricted area," came a voice from above. "Identify yourself."
Flash was scared, but he put on his best scowl for the security people. "I'm Flash Thompson from Midtown Tech. You locked me in here!"
The voice with the British accent spoke again. "The appropriate authorities have been alerted. Please wait here for their arrival."
"Thanks," he said with heavy sarcasm.
Flash leaned on a table and crossed his arms, affecting impatience. Inside, he was trying to figure out how to spin this so that he wasn't at fault for snooping. Maybe he could pin it on Leeds. That would be great. If Leeds had pushed him in here and locked the door, that would work.
A few minutes later, the door opened.
Flash felt his jaw drop in shock as every thought in his brain went silent.
Tony Stark walked into the room, flanked by a big burly bodyguard. Who was kind of familiar, actually…
"Eugene Thompson," Mister Stark said. "You sure made it easy for me. I should thank you for that, but I'm not going to thank you for anything."
"Huh...wha…" Flash shook himself and pasted on a smile. "It's an honor to meet you, sir."
"Shut up."
Flash recoiled. He'd seen plenty of clips of Tony Stark in his Iron Man suit, and a few from when he was doing press stuff or arguing with Congress. None of those videos did justice to the fact that Tony Stark had really mean eyes. Like, the kind that promised violence.
"You broke the rules, Thompson," the bodyguard said, and where had Flash seen him before? "You think we wouldn't notice you posting on social media all day when we explicitly told you not to? Stealing from SI?" The bodyguard's smile was also mean. "You're in big trouble now."
"I'm...I'm so sorry." Flash quickly emptied his pocket of the box of transistors. "I saw it lying around and I meant to turn it in at Lost and Found or something but I forgot. The pictures, um…"
"Save it," the bodyguard said. "We've got you dead to rights. With that paperwork you signed, we can sue the ever-living crap out of your parents for breach of contract, and maybe a friendly DA will want to hear about corporate espionage charges."
Flash felt ice drip into his gut. "I can...I'll delete everything."
"You sure as hell will," Tony Stark said. "But honestly? That's kinda small potatoes for me right now. Happy has to care because he takes our security very seriously. But I've got another beef with you, kid."
Tony Stark took a step forward and Flash bumped into a table trying to retreat.
"Peter Parker."
Flash could only stare.
"Here's what's going to happen," Mister Stark said. "You're going to leave him alone. Forever. You're not going to call him 'penis,' anymore. You're not going to bully him. You're not going to touch him ever again. And maybe you'll get out of this with the hope of landing a job in the food service industry someday."
Flash cleared his throat. "I'm...I'm not sure what you mean, sir. Um. Peter Parker's —"
"Lemme stop you right there, kid." Mister Stark held up a hand. "JARVIS, exhibit A, please."
Suddenly a hologram burst to life in front of Flash, which would have been so cool except it was showing what looked like security footage from inside Midtown. To his horror, he realized it was footage of him confronting Peter on Friday the week before.
"That's just one," the bodyguard said. "You've been messing with him since school started. We have proof of all of it."
"You...you can't have that," Flash said desperately. "You can't record me without my consent."
"Check your law degree again," Mister Stark said, cold and furious. "We can, because Peter's legal guardian gave me permission."
The floor was coming apart under him. "Why do you care? Why do you care about stupid Peter Parker anyway?"
If anything, Tony Stark's expression got scarier, and his eyes wilder.
"Peter Parker," he said, "is my intern. He's also someone I respect and care about. And he deserves better than to be stuck with an asshole like you day in and day out. But he likes school so much, we invited your whole class here — first ever high school tour of SI. And look what you did with the opportunity."
The bodyguard's face was like granite. "Peter's got people in his corner. This is your one and only warning before we all start coming for you."
Flash couldn't see any way out, so he did the only thing left to him. "Look, I...I know I said some things to Pen-Peter. But I didn't really mean it. I, uh, I don't have a good role model at home and my dad only taught me that —"
"You think that having a shitty dad is any excuse?" Mister Stark's eyes were narrow and worse than ever. "Kid, I get it. I had the wealthy, distant dad who didn't give a crap about me except when I disappointed him, too. And you know what? It's no excuse. You choose to be an asshole to Peter and his friend Ned and anybody else you bully. That's on you."
"I…" Flash felt like crying and he hated everything so much.
"This is your intervention, kid," Tony Stark said, ignoring his feelings or choosing not to care. "If you never bother Pete or Ned again, if you clean up your act, we won't bring you up on charges for theft of company property or expose your behavior to everybody in your life. I'll even refrain from getting you kicked out of your fancy high school."
"But," the bodyguard said, "if you go after anybody ever again like you do Peter and Ned, you're gonna wish you were only expelled. You think Tony can't blacklist you from every college and university in the country? Give him a reason and he'll do it."
"Cheerfully," Mister Stark said, looking anything but. "It'll be the best day I've had in months when I get to ruin your life."
Finally something in Flash's brain connected and he figured out where he knew the bodyguard from. "You're...you pick P-Parker up from school sometimes. Leeds too. I've seen you."
"Yeah, I do." The bodyguard was looking at him like he was scum. "So trust me, if you screw with them, I'll hear about it."
"Phone." Mister Stark held out a hand.
Flash blinked at him. "What?"
"Your phone. Set it on the table."
Numbly, Flash obeyed. Mister Stark reached around him and picked it up. His fingers danced over the phone for a second and then he set it back down.
"Everything you posted, your pictures, it's all deleted. That's a freebie from me, so take it. But I can get all that stuff back in a second and have charges ready and waiting if you step out of line. Don't think you're safe."
Flash picked it up cautiously, as if it was a bomb, and put it in his pocket.
Tony Stark crossed his arms over his chest. "Now, I have officially wasted more time with you than you could ever deserve, and I've got a kid worth a thousand of you upstairs waiting for me. But before we go, I want to hear you say out loud that you understand. That the bullying ends right now, or there will be consequences."
Without meaning to, Flash latched onto something he'd said and blurted out, "Pen-Parker is here?"
"He's here a lot," Mister Stark said without missing a beat. "And that's none of your business."
The look on the bodyguard's face was getting worse, and Flash realized he needed to get out of this before they decided to ruin his life for real.
"I...okay. I promise not to bully Parker or Leeds anymore. And you...you won't tell my parents or the school about…?"
"That's the deal," Mister Stark said. "You get this one shot, and then I come down on you like a nuclear weapon. And, Thompson?" He smiled and it was cruel. "I might actually have a couple of those lying around. Don't mess with me."
Flash was sure he couldn't have been more scared or devastated or shaky if they'd beaten him to a pulp. But they hadn't so much as touched him. Not even to shake hands. Suddenly he was glad of that. They were both so mad, he didn't want to be anywhere near them.
"I'll take you back to your tour group," the bodyguard said. "And I'll be watching you. You hurt Pete or Ned and it'll be the last thing you do, and that's a promise."
Tony Stark didn't even bother to say goodbye. He just turned and left, and by the time Flash got his legs working to follow the bodyguard, Mister Stark was out of sight. Flash walked along with the bodyguard, feeling like he was going to break down at any moment.
"In here." The bodyguard opened a door and Flash saw the rest of his class gathered around a table.
"Mister Harrington?" the bodyguard called. "I found this student wandering around on his own. Does he belong to you?"
Mister Harrington's face fell. "Flash, that means detention. One week." He looked up. "I'm so sorry. The students all knew they had to behave."
"It's fine," the bodyguard said. "I gave him a warning, but detention is probably good, too." He looked down at Flash and Flash felt so small. "Stay out of trouble from here on out."
His throat was dry, but he managed to squeak, "Yes, sir."
And then the bodyguard left him to the field trip. Flash didn't really notice much after that. He stayed as far away from Leeds as he could get, and Mister Harrington was watching him like a hawk, but all he was aware of was the pounding of blood in his ears.
When they were finished and back on the bus, finally Flash felt like he could breathe a little without the threat of tears. He pulled out his phone, surprised to find a text that had appeared without an originating phone number.
"Here's a link. It's a resource center for kids in tough family situations like yours. Use it if you want. Not part of our deal, but if you decide to learn not to be an asshole for good reasons and not just because I'll destroy you otherwise, talk to them. Choice is yours."
-==OOO==-
Upstairs, Tony was sitting on the couch with Peter, working their way through the movie version of The Last Unicorn for old time's sake. He felt the vibration of his phone and pulled it out.
It was an alert from JARVIS. Thompson had already clicked on the link and was adding the center's phone number to his contacts.
"I never looked at you without seeing the sweetness of the way the world goes together, or without sorrow for its spoiling," he said softly.
Peter looked up at him. He gestured in confusion.
"I know it's not in the movie," Tony said, reaching over to very gently ruffle his hair. "I just thought of it is all." Then he added, "I really did become a hero to serve you and all that is like you, kid."
Peter made a lumpy smile and pointed back at Tony.
Tony smiled.
Shortly thereafter, Peter sat up and grabbed his phone. A text that arrived on Tony's phone a moment later.
"I forgot that the field trip was today. Do you think Ned had fun?"
Tony grinned. "Pretty sure he did. Want to invite him over for the weekend to tell you all about it?"
Peter nodded, then settled against the couch once more.
Tony sat back, too, but he never really took his eyes off Peter.
He'd let Ned be the one to tell Peter all about the R&D labs and how Ned was spontaneously asked a hypothetical question about coding which he could actually answer, impressing all the lab techs who then made a fuss about him for the next twenty minutes.
He'd let Ned explain to Peter about how one of the interns accidentally let slip "maybe Mister Stark would make an exception for you like he did for Peter and let you be an intern."
He'd let Ned gush about how after that admission, the interns had backtracked quickly and refused to confirm anything and never gave a last name, but that everyone in school was going to think maybe it was possible that Peter had been telling the truth all along.
Yes, it had been a successful day all around.
