"Everyone please- sit down! Sit down, class! Please enter the building collectively, politely, and maturely. We are representing our school here today, so please show that when you enter. Also! Stay close and stay safe. We don't want another D.C. debacle. It's a wonder the school still lets us go on field trips after the past two…" Mr. Harrington said, looking off sadly and regretfully.

"And have fun!" one of the chaperones added cheerfully.

"Yes that, too. But safety comes first." His last words were drowned out by the students standing up and leaving the bus noisily.

Peter's nerves started to take over. He rubbed the sweat of his palms off on his jeans. He bounced on his heels anxiously. It seemed to take hours for him to get off the bus. It had gotten colder since the walk to the bus stop that morning and now the snow was sticking. It came down hard and covered Peter and his classmates. They all ran to the doors. Everyone crowded together in awe as they noticed Tony Stark and Pepper Potts standing together in the lobby. Flash pushed past Peter, Ned, and Michelle to get closer.

"Ouch, hey!" Ned whispered at him.

Mr. Harrington could never get the class to quiet down, but Peter and Tony could silence them just by existing.

"Come in, everyone gather around!" Pepper called out. The crowd surged forward. "If you don't know me, I am Pepper Potts, the CEO of the company. I run everything here. And this is Tony Stark. He invents most things." Tony raised his hand in greeting.

"They know who I am," he said. Pepper glared at him. Peter smiled at Tony's usual antics.

"We're splitting you into five groups. Each will start on a different floor with a different guide. The guides have all been handpicked by Tony and I. Anything to add before we split them up?" Pepper looked to Tony, who in turn pointed at Peter.

"You have snow in your hair, kid." Peter turned red and glared fiercely at Tony who laughed at him, but he did brush it off his head. He was hoping to prove Flash wrong, but not this soon, or in this way.

"Tony…" Pepper scolded.

"What? You made me promise to behave and I am. Look, I even have a clipboard," Tony replied. Pepper forcefully whispered something that sounded like 'be professional.'

"Anyway," she continued, "let's split into our groups, shall we? When your name is called, go up to the the table right over there where you'll get a little button to attach to anywhere on your clothes and a sticker name tag you have to put on your shirt for everyone to see. The button is for Friday, the AI that runs the place, to read so that you don't accidentally set off any security systems." She rattled off the first few names and their guide, then the next and the following. Peter barely listened; he was planning his revenge on Mr. Stark. "Next group is Edward Leeds,Talia Miller, Carmen Olson, Peter Parker, Thomas Reed, and Eugene Thompson. Your guide is Dr. Amanda Smith. Please follow her to elevator number 7 where you'll go to floor 4. Please stay together."

Peter and Ned looked to each other and grinned. The alphabet is usually on their side. Their smiles faded, though, when they heard 'Eugene Thompson.' Peter assured himself that Flash wouldn't be a problem, despite his better judgement. You can't dwell on the things you can't change, so the two boys found their way to the table. They were handed their stickers and their buttons. Peter stuck his to his pocket and Ned followed. They then walked to elevator 7 where Dr. Smith was waiting, a genuine smile on her face. Peter recognized her. She had helped Peter get back at Clint after an especially evil prank. She's pretty chill.

"Did you see Flash's face when Mr. Stark spoke to you? It was priceless. Do you think one of the security cameras caught it? Do you think you could ask Mr. Stark? Or maybe I could hack it. Actually, no, I don't want to go to jail," Ned whispered to Peter as they headed over.

"Ned, sh." Dr. Smith looked over to them and realization crossed her face.

"Pete, right?" she asked.

"Uh, Peter. Peter Parker."

"How's Clint been to you?" she wondered with a mischievous smirk.

"Better," Peter laughed. Flash looked between the two with disbelief. Peter thought that was what he wanted, but now he didn't like the attention. It was sure to go south at some point.

Amanda turned to address the group. "We'll be starting on level four. We'll have 45 minutes on each floor plus a 45 minute lunch. That'll be plenty of time on each floor, don't worry." The elevator doors opened and they all entered. Amanda tapped the number 4 and the doors slid shut. Flash looked to be making an evil plot in his head. There was no way this was going to be an easy day. Tom and Talia looked around in wonder. Ned was nearly shaking with excitement, even though he'd been to level 4 before. Peter was just hoping the day'll go quickly. There was a ding and the door slid open. Amanda led the way out and across the hall.

"Are all the Avengers here?" Ned asked.

"I don't know," Peter told him. "A few are, I'm sure of that, and we'll be seeing at the very least Tony and Bruce."

"Bruce?" Tommy said excitedly. "Like, Bruce Banner?"

"Yeah, Bruce Banner."

"Oh, so you know Bruce Banner aka the best scientist of our time now?" Flash demanded.

"Uh, yeah. I mean, I've been with him a few times." Flash scoffed. Hearing it, Amanda cleared her throat.

"So this is lab 43. It's focus is rewriting genes so that one day anyone with a superpower they don't want can have it genetically removed."

"Why would anyone want to get rid of a superpower?" Flash asked, in a way that implied that anyone who'd want to get rid of powers is stupid and less than him.

"Many don't. Not all powers are good, and not everyone can handle the stress of a hero, or the guilt of not being one. It can also be hard to control powers so a good person could end up hurting other good people, or a bad person could accidentally be given powers that could kill people. Many people don't ask for powers but it happens through accidents or experiments gone wrong or by someone forcing it onto them," Amanda informed him. Flash turned away, embarrassed. Amanda seemed satisfied, so she proceeded in her speech. "We are still years away from our goal, maybe even decades. We're trying something few people have tried before us, and we're trying it before all of the right technology even being invented yet. Thanks to a few Wakandan scientists we are on our way to the tech of tomorrow. Any questions?"

"Yeah, I have one," Talia piped up. Dr. Smith nodded to her. "If you can splice and rewrite the genetics of mutants and take away their power, could you also change an average person's genes? To like, give someone straight hair or green eyes or something?"

"In theory, yes, but that isn't something we're striving to do. Once we can perfect the science, other labs outside of Stark Industries can do something of the sort. Anything else?" Carmen raised her hand. "Yes?"

"Why won't Stark Industries do that? I'd imagine it'd bring in quite a revenue," she said.

"It probably would, but here we aren't going to use our scientists to invent ways to alter someone's appearance, we feel that our resources are better spent helping people as a whole. Make sense?" Everyone nodded. "Alright! Then if you'll follow me, our next stop if the nano tech lab. Please refrain from touching anything." She led the way out of the lab and down the hall past a few closed doors.

"Do you know what's in there?" Ned asked.

"Uh, I think that's broom closet," Peter told him.

"Oh. You know, we should really go to the labs more often," Ned informed Peter.

"Ned, sh!" He scolded, glancing around to make sure no one heard Ned. They didn't need to know that he practically lived there over each weekend and that Ned came over for playdates.

Ned lowered his voice. "We rarely leave the private section."

"Okay, okay. Next time you come over we'll go to a few labs."

"That's this weekend," Ned reminded him.

"Right. This weekend." When he looked back up, he saw Dr. Amanda Smith had stopped in front of an ajar door.

"In this lab, you're going to be able to walk around and see all of the different tests, experiments, and prototypes. I believe that Mr. Stark's initial nanosuit prototype is in here, which I will be sure to point out." All of the students exchanged excited looks. "Well, without further ado…" She pushed open the door and walked dutifully into the lab. There were desks and tables in neat rows with less neat papers and laptops strewn about. The walls were lined with glass cases, showcasing various projects with labels except for the back wall. That one was covered in metal, metal alloys, circuit boards, wires, and blueprints everywhere. "All of the scientists present are willing to explain their current project so feel free to ask around, or you can read about completed projects on these three walls and study blueprints on the back wall. You have 20 minutes. Have fun! Oh, and the Ironman suit is right over there, it's in the dormant state and looks like an arc reactor."

Flash strutted over to a young scientist, trying to flaunt his superiority over the others, namely Peter, by showing how he can talk to Stark scientists. Ned pointed it out to Peter and they laughed at him.

"What an idiot," Ned mused. "Let's look at the showcases first."

"Okay. Nano tech is really interesting. You obviously can't expand a piece of solid metal, so they need to make a sort of fabric of metal and air for when it expands that is as strong as solid metal, or something like that."

"We should make something with it for the next science fair! Something cool, not just like an expanding duck or something, maybe like a hat."

"A hat?"

"Okay, that's stupid. We'll come up with something better." Ned and Peter were looking around at everything between an expanding square of metal to an expanding shield.

"It's a prototype of what is potentially going to be my new shield," someone said behind the boys. They both of course recognized the voice and turned to see everyone, students and scientists alike, staring at the one and only Steve Rogers. "Hey Peter, Ned. I didn't realize you two would be here. Sam sent me to get the blueprints for it. He said Tony told me to, though I now realize that he was hoping I'd run into you to you and embarrass you. I might as well, I mean I'm here, so why not?"

"Oh god no," Peter whispered to himself. Steve chuckled.

"I'm kidding. Maybe later. See you around." He waved to everyone and addressed the other students. "Stay safe kids, don't do drugs, do your school work, be nice to everyone."

"Didn't you take a whole bunch of experimental drugs and haven't stopped killing people since?" Peter asked.

"That's different."

"How?"

"I'm Captain America." Peter rolled his eyes as Steve left the room. Once he was out, Flash's mouth started running.

"Why am I not surprised that out of all of the cool superheroes Parker knows the worst one. Seriously, he's a bad role model and he's such a dweeb."

"Kindly shut the hell up," the young scientist he had been talking to previously said. Flash glowered and stalked over to the other side of the room. Ned, Peter, Carmen, Tom, and Talia all burst out laughing.

"I think it's time to move on to the next lab," Amanda said suddenly. "Any objections?" No one had any, though Peter thought it was because everyone was afraid of Amanda. She does keep a stern countenance while at work, but he knows of how immature she can be. As the students exited the room, Peter made sure to check out the badge of the young scientist, which read 'Dr. R. Yang.' Peter repeated it a few times in his head to make sure he remembered it and vowed to find her over the weekend and thank her.

Hi! First off, thanks for all of the amazing feedback! It was great to read your comments and watch the hits rise. Second, I have to be honest, I don't love this chapter. It does have its redeeming qualities so I hope you can look past its faults lol. I know I said I'd have it out yesterday, but I underestimated how busy I'd be over the weekend. Sorry! Luckily my hockey practice got cancelled so I was able to finish it for today. Please comment any comments you have, I love any ideas you have and if you have suggestions I am more than willing to incorporate them into future chapters, though I do have the next few mapped out. I hope you enjoyed the story so far

-Sam