Chapter 2: The Phone call
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"May! May, is this shirt too wrinkly? I I didn't know if I wanted to go for the maroon one, but this one has a collar."
"No, no, go for the one you have on, navy suits you." May smiled at Peter, he gave a sheepish grin in return, nervous about the following afternoon. Today would be Peters first day as a personal intern for Tony fracka lackin Stark. He still couldn't believe it.
And yet it seemed it was happening, because him and May had rushed around for the past hour, applying hair gel, aftershave and rummaging through his closet to find a decent outfit. They went out earlier in the day to get some new pants for him, beige trousers.
So, after all their hard work, Peter and May both stood in the bathroom, looking at the mirror, with May still tugging at Peters shirt, straightening it out further.
Peter had on a blue plaid shirt, collared, with a white shirt peeking underneath, brand new trousers and the nicest shoes he could find, black dress shoes.
"Im so proud of you!" Peter rolled his eyes, yet still comforted by May's words.
"Im going to go grab the camera."
"No, no May, its ok! Please don't-" but it was too late, May had rushed into the other room.
When Mr Stark had asked him to intern for him, he was definitely surprised. After his incident at the ferry, he was sure that spider-man and his dream of becoming an Avenger had resolved itself to dust (lol, you see what I did there), and yet, here he was, going to Avengers tower, to be an intern, sorry, a personal intern for Tony Stark, supposed to report to him on Saturdays and Thursdays.
Yeah, Stark tower was still in Mr Starks possession. After Peters little stunt with the Vulture Mr Stark, much to Happy's dismay, decided to keep the tower. Why, he still did not know, Peter blamed it on a change of heart.
"Peter! The car's here!"
His heart rate spiked, here it goes.
"Wait, wait, wait." May ran up behind him with her camera.
"Stand here, big smile!" Peter gave a nervous thumbs up.
"Ok, go! Good luck! Tell me everything when you come back!"
"Ok, bye!" Peter rushed out the door, and was greeted by a black Audi, its sleek exterior shining in the midday sun.
He climbed in the back, savouring the leather seats as he put on his seat belt.
"Hey, kid." Peter looked up at Happy, surprised to see him.
"Happy! Didn't know you were still gonna be my driver!"
Happy rolled his eyes, "Yeah, Tony thought it would be funny, said he was demoting me back to driver or something." Happy growled, then went silent. Touched a bit of a sore spot there.
Peter walked into the lobby of Stark tower, people pushed past him, with colourful I.D cards and binders. He spun around in a circle, staring at the polished floors, large glass windows and high ceiling.
Peter had never been inside the tower before, and it was incredible, its shiny interior took his breath away.
Happy had already rushed somewhere, having other work to do and advised him to go to the front desk.
He stood in the centre of the room, unsure of what to do next. Mr Stark just said to arrive at the tower, but didn't give him anymore instructions.
He stumbled up to the front desk, the pretty blonde receptionist had already looked him up and down and stared at him disdainfully.
"H-hi, Im Peter, um, Peter P-parker, Im supposed to be meeting Mr Stark today…"
"Im sorry Peter, but Mr Stark doesn't have any scheduled meetings with a 'Parker'. I'm sure you would love to meet him, but he is a very busy man, and doesn't have time for fans."
He blushed bashfully, and nodded. Peter walked over to a chair on the side of the room, deciding to wait. He dodged other people rushing by, a school field trip strolled excitedly past him. He finally reached a plush couch, and sank into it.
After a few seconds however, Peter had already started to panic. What if Mr Stark was joking and he just made a fool of himself? If he wasn't joking then what would they be doing? What if Mr Stark didn't like him as an intern and fired him on his first day?
What if he was taking his suit away again?
Before he could ponder further, the receptionist rushed towards him.
"Mr Parker! I am so sorry for my rudeness, as you can imagine we have quite a few fans try their hardest to acquire a meeting with Mr Stark."
"Oh, i-its alright."
"This is your identification, you must have it on you at all times, otherwise our head of security, Mr Hogan will take measures to have you escorted out."
He wasn't too sure that Happy would make an exception with him.
She gave him a lanyard with an ID on it. The photo they used, damn you Mr Stark, was his freshman year. Peter had stupidly listened to May's advice on fashion, who had stuck his hair up with gel, and called it 'trendy'. He thought he had destroyed all copies of that photo.
Despite the photo, the ID had a red outline, with the SI logo imprinted on the front. 'CLEARANCE: RED' boldly stood out on the front.
Peter looked up at the receptionist to thank her, but she had already rushed off to do her other duties.
He looked around, hopefully to find some directions.
"Excuse me- Sorry, could yo-." No one paid him enough attention for him to answer his question.
He bashfully glanced around, maybe to find someone who had the same 'red' clearance as him, obviously if Mr Stark had given him 'red' clearance, it was where he had to go. As much as he looked at the other workers ID's, he could not find any reds. There were lots of greens, they looked like people fresh out of college. There were a few blues around, they looked like more important people, supervisors maybe, and then the yellows, who it seemed, ran the place. There were also a few white cards around the necks of the high school students who were touring.
Still persistent, Peter went over to a screen on a pedestal, obviously meant for visitors. The logo stared up at him. He tapped the screen, to find a model photo of the tower, giving facts such as how many floors there were, where Mr Stark lived, Avengers floor and the different labs that were used.
He saw a subtitle that said, 'clearance guide'. Finally, he thought, knowing that this would tell him where to go. He tapped on it, the model building lighting up with different colours, specifying how far the different colours could go up in the building. Obviously the higher the clearance, the higher in the tower you could go.
As he scrolled upwards he saw, the layout of the building. He was on the ground floor, reception, there was a museum above him on floors 2-3. Floors 4-32 were reserved for the green clearance workers, 33-54 were the blue people, 55-68 were the yellow people labs and 55-68 were yellow clearance offices. People with black clearance were allowed up to floor 89, only the Avengers had that clearance. And red… red was allowed up to all 93 floors of the building.
All 93?
Why would Mr Stark do that?
His breath hitched as he read that only Mr Stark, Pepper Potts, Colonel Rhodes and Happy Hogan had red clearance. And Peter. Peter had red clearance.
His phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out, squinting at the cracked screen to see a message from Happy.
'Forgot to tell you, go up the private elevator. It's the one to the left of the normal one.'
He looked to the left and sure enough, a fancy elevator that had a sign on it.
Peter swiped his ID on the scanner that stood next to it, and quickly stepped in, cringing from the stares he got as he walked in.
The door slid shut, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
"Hello Peter."
He jumped, looking around at the empty elevator in confusion.
"Um… hello?"
"I am FRIDAY, Boss's personal AI assistant."
"Wooow, that's so cool!"
"Indeed."
The elevator door opened, and instead of going into a lab, he arrived in a lounge area, with a kitchen and plush sofas.
"Um, FRI?"
"Boss is running late, he requested you stay up here and finish your homework before he arrives."
"Ok, thanks FRI."
He sat onto one of the kitchen stools, and grabbed his math homework, starting on his algebra. After 10min, his stomach started to growl uncomfortably.
"Hey, FRIDAY, do you think Mr Stark would mind if I had something to eat?"
"Not at all Peter, there is cereal in the pantry and milk in the fridge if you would like."
"Thanks!" Peter opened the cupboard, and was greeted with shelves of food, he was starving.
He looked at a particular shelf, and noticed boxes and boxes of cereal, Lucky Charms, corn flakes, oats, cheerio's and cinnamon toast crunch. He picked up the cornflakes, his cereal of choice, and noticed a label, Along with a unicorn sticker, the name "Capsicle" was visible.
Peter looked at the other cereal boxes, reading "Legolas" on the Cheerios, "Strongest Avenger" on the oats, "Double Agent" on the cinnamon toast crunch and "Point Break" on the Lucky Charms.
Frowning in confusion, he grabbed the milk. He found a bowl and a spoon by rummaging around in the drawers, and sat down to eat.
After eating 2 bowls, he refrained from pouring another bowl. Peter was still pretty hungry, but he didn't want to eat everything they had.
The elevator opened behind him, and he jumped up in surprise.
Mr Stark walked through wearing a faded Led Zeppelin shirt and jeans, casual.
"Hey Pete, sorry for the wait, had to meet with Rhodey about something."
"O-oh it's alright. I had some cereal, I didn't eat all of it! Don't worry, I would never-"
"Underoos, its fine, you look like a walking stick anyway, eat as much as you like."
Peter nodded.
The man laughed at him, "You even got dressed up for me, didn't you? Those look like new pants."
Peter stuttered.
"Y-yeah, May wanted me to wear something nice."
Mr Stark chuckled. He looked tired, with bags under his eyes.
"Come one, I'll take you to the lab, I wanted to show you a new design I had."
In reality, Tony had lied, he had not been late due to Rhodey, but had spent all afternoon arguing with Ross.
As much as he had ignored Ross's phone calls, he finally had to face the man, as he was spending the weekend in NYC to work on the accords.
"You destroyed Leipzig-Halle airport!"
"I paid for that!"
"Yeah but Germany is still up our asses that you fucking destroyed it! Now their tourism is going to go down because of this! And people have lost their jobs! So yeah, you paid for the airport but the economic repercussions are still there Stark!"
"Bullshit Ross, that is the shittiest excuse I have heard. And I don't see how this has to affect the enhanced, the UN promised that they'd make sure your hands wouldn't touch the enhanced," Tony shouted. He had tried so hard to prevent enhanced registration, there couldn't be that much control in Ross's hands.
"Yeah well when your buddy Cap and you just 'found' some enhanced individuals, the UN was able to be persuaded. You just 'happened' to know some super people and use them for your personal use, the UN deserves to keep track of these people! And the fact that the fucking king of Wakanda was a freak? Yeah, registration is going to become a thing whether you like it or not."
"They are not fucking freaks Ross, you better watch your tongue."
"Are you threatening me Stark? Because if you are, I can haul your ass to the raft, you won't even be able to say bye to Virginia."
"You keep her out of this."
Tony prickled at the mention of Peppers real name, knowing Ross had used it to fuck with him. Of course, he didn't care about being in the raft, but Peter needed him, if they made registration a law, Peter would be in Ross's hands. He couldn't let that happen.
"And what will you do once all the enhanced are in your pocket? Experimentation?"
"If needed, suitable candidates will be chosen, and under the supervision of the UN, they will be trained to serve the world from extraterrestrials and any other beings that might pose a threat."
"So you're going to create super soldiers who can be controlled by you, that replace us. And what if they don't co-operate. What if these people don't want to become killers? Huh?"
"It's not their decision."
"Its not their decision? Yes it fucking is!"
"People who are enhanced are subhuman, they aren't the same as regular people, and if they are given free reign they will be a threat, just like Cap, and everyone on his team."
"I'm through with you Ross, get the fuck out."
"You cant just-"
"This is my building, so yes, I can."
Whoops sorry it took so long, going through test block! Hope yall liked it! Next chapter will be longer!
Batman111893: oooof i guess u gonna seeee