Peter glanced up from the math book when he realised Ned was talking to him.
"Sorry, Ned, what did you say? I was just finishing this up."
Ned smirked and shook his head.
"Nothing too important, just that Mr. Harris posted the class trip information."
"Class trip … ?" It took Peter a moment to realize what he had missed. "Oh! Oh, the trip! Where are we going this year? I hope Harris didn't take Flash's suggestion seriously!"
After the rough month that Peter had he just wanted to do something fun with his friend for once.
A huge grin spread across Ned's face as he turned his laptop to face the other teen. Peter looked over the school website until he saw a picture of Mr. Harris then the write up.
It took a grand total of two seconds to read the paragraph and suddenly feel his stomach tighten.
Stark Industries.
Peter looked up to still see Ned beaming.
"This is going to be so cool! You can finally show me where you work!"
Peter smiled. Things had gone back to normal mostly with Mr. Stark, and his training with the Avengers was going strong. He enjoyed his time there but mixing his personal life with school just didn't feel like a good idea.
"Yeah, yeah I guess I can!"
His internship at Stark Industries wasn't a secret to any of the employees at the tower but since he was hired by Mr. Stark himself it wasn't a common piece of knowledge outside the building.
As a result, only Ned believed that he worked there. The winners of the Junior internship that he had originally applied for had their pictures plastered over several science publications and people liked to point out none of which were him. It bothered him only because he was being labelled as a liar, not because he was looking for some sort of validation.
The next couple of days were rough with Flash harassing him every chance he got about the trip, even Mr. Harris` had made some off-hand comments that struck a nerve with the teen.
Finally the day of the trip arrived.
"So please everyone, be on your best behavior! Very few people have been granted a tour of Stark tower and we want our school to be invited back!" Mr. Harris yelled as students started to pile into the bus.
Peter went to climb aboard when a shoulder shoved him forcefully out of the way. Of course, he could have held his ground, but for the sake of keeping his secret Peter went with the motion and fell to the side.
Flash grinned widely as he stepped onto the bus.
"What are you doing here anyway, Penis? I figured you would skip today, you know since you see Stark tower all the time." He drawled. A few students around them snickered.
"You're holding up the line Flash," Mr. Harris said without much conviction, "And leave Peter alone. If I may quote 'A lie takes care of the present, but it has no future.' Wise words to remember. Everyone on the bus!"
As Peter took his seat, he couldn't help but scowl. He was used to being bullied but not by the teacher as well. He had half a mind to text Tony and ask for some grand gesture to prove he was not lying, but that seemed so petty on his part that he just sighed and slumped down in his seat farther.
Ned flopped down beside him, and it didn't take long for his excitement to have Peter smiling again. They watched funny vines and played games on their cell phones until the two buses pulled up outside of Stark Tower.
The building was still as magnificent as the first time he walked through those front doors. He couldn't help but smile, this building was really his second home and he didn't need that validated by anyone.
"This is so cool! Oh my god, I can't wait to see inside!" Ned gushed.
"I doubt they will let us, but you should see Mr. Stark's lab on level seventy-two. And Mr. Banner's lab on fifty is impressive as well! Ooo, or the testing lab on forty, it looks like a war zone with burn marks and exploded parts all over the place." Peter told him. He was happy to at least share this with Ned.
"Alright everyone. Line up here for a moment while I give you some ground rules!" Mr. Harris waited until everyone was gathered around him. "Not to sound like a broken record but everyone needs to be on their best behaviour in here. We will be splitting up into two tour groups, so we aren't clogging up their work stations. Listen to your tour guides! I can not stress this enough! Anyone misbehaving will be sent back to wait on the bus, no warnings, straight back! Alright, here are your groups!"
Peter moved forward to look at the sheet. To his absolute dismay he was not with Ned, or even M.J. Instead he was stuck with Flash, some of Flash's posse, Mr. Harris, along with a few people he didn't know that well.
There was nothing that could be done. Peter watched as his two friends left with the other group, Ned giving him a little wave, M.J. flipping him off.
Giving in to his sulky attitude Peter followed his group inside to wait by the reception desk to start.
A young man soon appeared with a box of name tags in his hand.
"Hello everyone!" He greeted. "My name is Nathaniel and I will be your conductor for today! Stark Industries usually does not allow tour groups into the tower, but our brillant CEO thought it would be nice to invest some time with the next generation! See if we can encourage the future great minds to join the winning team!"
His beaming smile was genuine, and it was hard to wallow in self pity when someone, so bubble was around. Peter didn't know him, but if he was a university intern that wouldn't be weird. The regular interns were mostly on the lower labs and it was rare for Peter to find himself down there.
"I am going to start off by handing out these security badges. You must keep them on at all times, and where they can be seen since Mr. Stark's AI F.R.I.D.A.Y. periodically scans the halls for anyone that is out of place."
Nathanial passed cards to everyone including Mr. Harris. As Peter started to pin his to his hoodie his spidey-sense blared then he felt a sharp elbow dig into his back.
"What are ya doin' Penis? Don't have your own badge? The man who works here doesn't recognize you, maybe you should speak up, tell him you are an intern?" Flash sneered to the delight of his cronies.
The teen tried to ignore him. He had never gotten a tour of the building and he was sure there was going to be lots of stuff he had never seen before, so he didn't want to be sent back to the bus for fighting with Flash. As for his badge, it was safely tucked in his pocket, the gold card with his picture would have gotten him access to anywhere, but he was with his class and he felt he should abide by the same rules they had to.
"Alright! Everyone have their passes? Great, if you will all follow me, we are going to start with the exhibition room here on the main floor. It is a collection of some of Howard and Tony Stark's greatest inventions."
As they entered the room it felt like a museum, large glass cabinets behind velvet ropes lined all the walls and big information boards dotted the open floor.
"This display is on the main floor because Mr. Stark likes people to see where it all began. How little ideas can snowball and eventually form the top technological conglomerate of modern history!"
Peter had to admit Nathanial talked a good game and he was right of course, the items displayed here were the start of some of the biggest breakthroughs the company had ever had.
"I will give you guys a few minutes to look around here, read the boards, then we will head up to our first stop, the theoretical labs, where we have several teams working on inventing the next big thing!"
The super teen wondered away from the group and looked at the displays with interest. It was when he found the first prototype for the arc reactor that he paused to read the board. It detailed how Tony had made the thing in a cave while being held against his will. How the little device was first used to keep shrapnel out of the billionaire's heart, then to power the first Ironman suit.
Peter almost sighed out loud when his spidey-sense went off again. Flash and his followers pushed his roughly out of the way before crowding around the glass that he had been looking at.
This was starting to get old quick, but the teen let it go and wandered to another display.
Eventually they made their way up a couple floors to the labs the older Intern had been talking about. He showed them the different brain storming tools they incorporated and the simulators they had to run numbers for them.
By the time they made it to the testing labs on level forty Peter was thoroughly annoyed. No one seemed to notice that he was being shoved, tripped, and mocked almost continuously. At one-point Peter was sure Mr. Harris had looked right at him when Flash called him a particularly nasty name but turned away without comment.
Out side the testing lab, an older Engineer was talking to them about the safety measures in place before they could continue. Once he finished, he led the group through the big double doors to a huge open room. At first it seemed pretty boring until some new inventions were introduced. One wouldn't work at all, one fizzled for a moment then shot out a puff od black smoke, then another exploded with a loud pop.
Peter took this opportunity to step back out the doors and use his gold badge to enter an adjacent office that was currently unoccupied.
"FRIDAY?" Peter asked the ceiling.
"Hello Peter. Why are you not in school?"
"I am on a field trip with my class. I figured I should be using a visitor badge since I am technically not working." He explained.
"I understand. Though you should be aware, my biometric scans told me of your arrival, the pass is not needed. The Boss has you as one of my top priority guests, so if you should need something in a hurry, I can bypass certain security measures."
That made sense, seeing as sometimes he came in through the helipad entrance wearing his Spider-man suit, and that thing was way too tight to clip a pass to.
"That's good to know FRI. Is Mr. Stark here today?" He wrung his hands a bit nervously as he asked.
"Not yet Peter. The Boss will be in later with Ms. Potts to end the tour with a presentation."
Peter felt his chest drop a bit.
"Oh, ok FRI. Thank you."
"Is there anything I can help you with Peter?"
"No, it's ok FRI. I just wanted to run something by him."
Peter left the office and joined the group again. He was not thrilled when Mr. Harris grabbed his upper arm and pulled him to the side.
"Where did you go Parker? I said to stick with the group. You will not embarrass this school with any of your disappearing antics!"
"I was just …" Peter started but was automatically cut off.
"I don't want to hear it! You can keep the excuses and what ever story you were going to give me to yourself! Just do as your told!"
Peter felt about an inch tall. He had never lied to anyone about his work or anything else for that matter, so he couldn't figure out why he was being treated like a delinquent.
This was a horrible day.
Steve, Bucky and Natasha almost jumped out of their skins when the overhead speaker blared FRIDAY's voice.
"Mr. Rogers, are you available for a moment?" The AI inquired.
"Sure FRIDAY, go ahead." Steve answered. The trio was going over some intel they had received on a possible Hydra base, but it was old news seeing as Bucky had already wiped it off the map not two weeks ago.
"Mr. Stark has left me with instructions to contact you with anything pertaining to Peter Parker."
Steve gave a confused look to Natasha.
"Yes, that's fine FRIDAY. Is something wrong?"
"Mr. Parker is in the building with his classmates for a school excursion. He contacted me a moment ago looking for Mr. Stark and his vitals were slightly irregular indicating stress."
"Did he say what he wanted?" Bucky asked.
"No, when I told him Mr. Stark was not in the building, he ended the conversation. Forty-five seconds later his vitals spiked again."
"FRIDAY, show us the video of Peter when his vitals spiked." Natasha said.
A hologram popped up in front of them with a clear picture of the young Spider. The three adults watched as Peter was taken aside and they heard the teacher's words.
The scene only confused them more since they knew Peter well and couldn't understand why he was being spoken to in such a manner.
"FRIDAY, show all the other clips of Peter when he seemed under duress." Steve ordered.
As the videos played, with sound, Natasha could feel her shoulders tighten and her fingers started to tap a slow march against her arm.
"I think we need to go speak with our little Spider-baby," she stated, the last words being in Russian, "Find out why he is being bullied, and why he is taking it."
Steve and Bucky exchanged a concerned glance.
"Maybe we should go down, in casual clothes, and find out what's going on first," Steve suggested.
"Agreed," Bucky nodded, "I don't think Tony would appreciate a minor being stabbed in his tower!"
Natasha glanced down at the black dagger that had basically materialized in her hand. Reluctantly she slid it back to it's hiding place.
"Fine." She snapped. Though her facial expression still showed that she was thinking about skewering a bully.
