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Peter yawned and rubbed his eyes. Tomorrow – or later today? – was the national science fair.
He'd worked on his project, a spider web-like material that was resistant, sticky, and elastic at the same time, a few hours every day for the past few months. Peter's mission handlers at Hydra proposed to lend him some equipment for his project, but he refused. He wanted to go at it fair and square, and lost many hours of sleep hoping that it would be enough.
Last week, his project won against hundreds of submissions at Midtown. He had to go up on a stage in his school's lecture theatre, and display his spider web fabrication process, derivatives of with varied resistances and stickiness, and different applications of the web. He even made some during his talk using catalysers and quick and precise movements while he talked, which had made his chemistry teacher swoon.
Many other students also spent a lot of time on their projects, but eventually the level of detail and the practical uses of Peter's project made him win. His class – baring Flash, who kept sneering at him at every occasion, making Peter roll his eyes – had cheered loudly, and Ned had followed him around all day, making "thwip, thwip" sounds while doing some elaborate hand gestures that were supposed to make webs come out of his wrists like a real spider. Peter had heartily laughed at that, and told Ned he would be a very cool spider-man.
Peter was enjoying himself at Midtown high, and the prospect of going back to his isolated life at the base at some point in the near future was becoming more and more daunting. Over the last month, Ned and he had become closer friends, and Ned often asked questions about his life in "Canada". Peter was confident that he had successfully dodged any suspicions for now but he wished his friend would get the hint and stop asking. He knew that his mission handlers were not pleased about Ned, but they couldn't really do anything about him because Peter's cover had to be maintained.
Peter stopped reminiscing, and rubbed his eyes, yawning. One look at his alarm clock told Peter that it was almost 2am, so he turned off his laptop with a sigh. Although he was very happy to have been selected – both on a normal high schooler's perspective, and because it meant he didn't have to go back to the Hydra base just yet -, he was increasingly anxious about Stark Industries. His mission handlers had told him multiple times that he had to impress SI and convince them to offer him an internship, and Peter hoped that his presentation would be good enough. But there was no use stressing out about it right now, and what he really needed was to rest. Surprisingly, sleep came to him very rapidly, and he woke up with a jump at 6am because of his alarm.
The fair was taking place at the American Museum of Natural History, near Central Park, and Peter had to change trains a few times to get there. He was becoming increasingly anxious, and it took him all of his years of training not to just stand up and leave. He finally reached the right station, so he got off the train, and walked up the stairs into the museum, showing his school ID to the security at the entrance. They gave him a name tag, a lunch ticket, and a bottle of water, before showing him to his small stall.
Many teenagers were already there, anxiously whispering to each other. Peter sighed and told himself to focus. His mission was becoming more daunting with each passing minute.
He quickly set up his demonstration – his small-sized building model, held in place by webs, his chemistry equipment ready to make more webs, and some strength calculations on his laptop screen – before brushing his palms against his black dress pants – lent to him by Hydra – and checking his phone for the time. Two minutes and the visitors would arrive. He was so tense that he felt like he would jump all the way to the ceiling if someone so much as tapped his shoulder. Telling himself to relax again, he looked around at the other students.
A girl, around 18, was setting up her project at the stall on his left, and was almost in tears. Peter didn't hesitate, and asked her if he could help. Apparently, her groupmates were going to be late, and that one of their robots, a miniaturised rover, similar to the ones on Mars, was malfunctioning. She had been the one writing code to make them move, but didn't know how the mechanics worked. Peter nodded, quickly looked at the robot, and asked her for a screwdriver, before taking off running through the museum, looking for one, when she said that she didn't bring one to the fair.
It turned out that the security people at the entrance have a very complete stash of screwdrivers, and Peter thanked them profusely before running back to the stalls. Behind him, the doors opened, and people flooded the rooms.
The girl hurriedly gave him the small rover, her face flushed and her eyes flicking at her phone every few seconds.
"Thank you so much, Peter", she said, looking at his name tag. "My friends are on their way now and should be here in 15 minutes, but if you could try to look at my robot beforehand it would be great."
She looked like him with a smile, but he could tell that she doubted that the younger teenager could fix it. He smiled at her.
"That's no problem, miss Hannah. I'll look at it now."
With that, he took the robot and unscrewed the lid hiding its mechanics. A few minutes, and some rotor twisting and tests later, the robot was back on Hannah's stall, who mouthed "thanks, but how?" at him while he walked back to his stall.
A few seconds later, representatives from Pym Tech greeted her and she started her presentation. They listened to her with interest, asking her to find them later when her groupmates arrived, before turning to Peter.
"Hello, could you explain your project to us?", said the woman leading the group. She had a no-nonsense face, but laugh lines around her eyes and mouth.
"Yes, of course ma'am. I've been working on developing a chemical formula for a material that has very useful properties: it is flexible, resistant, elastic, and adherent."
He held out for them a lab tube containing some of it, and pulled out a string with small tweezers.
"I first got the idea when I was looking at a spider web in one of the trees outside of my high school. Imagine what we could do with such a material, in many situations. It could be used on different scales, from band-aids to holding buildings together after an earthquake."
He gestured at his small buildings, made of Lego bricks, and proceeded to apply some of his web between them to show that the different bricks couldn't be pried apart due to the web's resistance. After that, they looked mildly impressed.
Out of the corner of his eye, Peter saw Stark Industries' representatives listening in from a few meters away. One of them was wearing sunglasses and a strongly familiar goatee. Peter swallowed down, and kept as calm as possible, ignoring years of Hydra conditioning to prepare him for the Avengers. He still couldn't help but rub his left ear, which gave a throb. Iron man's repulsors were no joke. Focusing on his project, he continued, his voice wavering slightly.
"Here are some calculations I have done to assess the real-life use of my web. A single strand is enough to hold up a truck, and is flexible enough to expand by fifty times, and twist at will. What is also really promising about this material is that you can make it relatively easily if given the right ingredients, and you can compress it and store it for months without any alteration of its properties. A single push of a button can release a couple of cubic meters of webs, so it it is very practical in terms of transportation and use. Now if you would..."
Tony Stark had been having a great night/morning session in his lab when he got Pepper's call. He winced, and picked up.
"Tony, where are you right now?"
"Um, in the lab, why?"
Somehow, Tony knew that this wasn't what Pepper wanted to hear, but he couldn't remember where he was supposed to be.
"Today is the national high school science fair. It's 9:30am right now, and you agreed to go to give a speech at 10. I know that you have cancelled public events like this at the last minute in the past, but this time it would be really good if you went. The press will be there, and the last images of you that the world has are from Sokovia."
Tony closed his eyes, rubbing his face.
"Of course, Pepper, sorry. I'll be there in 20. It's at the history museum, right?"
She confirmed it, surprised that he remembered the location. He reminded her that he was a "genius inventor, with quirks" and ended the call. Tony threw on a new shirt, a jacket, and sunglasses, and walked out of the Stark/Avengers Tower, Happy close behind.
He made it to the museum with almost 15 minutes to spare, and keeping his sunglasses on for a semblance of discretion, walked around the stalls displaying the high schoolers' work. A few of his employees were following him, making him look like one of the PR pelple walking around to look for the best candidates for their companies' internship programs.
A few projects looked interesting, but one really caught his attention. It was presented by a boy, younger than his peers by at least three years, who was discussing the properties of a spider web-like material with Pym Tech people. Seeing him standing alone and talking about advanced science strongly reminded Tony of himself decades prior, making him pause and want to listen to the kid's rehearsed speech. The boy clearly had done the whole project by himself, and the equations displayed on his laptop were by far worthy of university-level work. The kid himself was rather short, with bright green eyes and unkept brown hair, and his facial features strongly reminded Tony of someone he knew. Not Banner, not Clint,…
His musing was interrupted when the kid addressed him directly, asking, with a bright smile and slight challenge in his voice, which of Pym Tech or Stark Industries he should aim for. Tony was under the strong impression that the kid had recognised him in spite of his disguise and was humouring him.
The Pym Tech people started to tell him that their company had strong chemistry and material science research teams, but Tony interjected and asked him what he knew about robotics and mechanical engineering. The girl presenting at a stall nearby heard his question, and brought over a mini rover that looked NASA-worthy, saying that Peter had fixed it that morning and that it was moving more smoothly than ever before.
Tony raised his eyebrows and nodded at his employees. As they extended an internship application form to Peter, he told him, taking his sunglasses off for the dramatic effect, "Congrats, you have an offer from Tony Stark himself."
The girl gasped, while the kid gave him a smile, that Tony noticed, from years of living with spies, didn't quite reach his eyes. However, he was called onstage for his speech before he could find out what was up with him.
For some reason, maybe because of the kid's familiar face, or brilliant mind and quick wits, Tony felt like it was his responsibility to figure him out.
Hewould have plenty of time at the tower for that though. Pepper surely wouldn't mind if Tony invested himself a bit more in SI's internship program.
I hope you liked this chapter and please ignore the messed up timelines in this story. Also don't forget to review :)