Chapter 9

The next part of the tour was supposed to be very similar to the morning's lab tour, however after enjoying his time in the gym, Tony decided to further derail the tour and lead the students into a lesser used workshop instead. He spoke up to explain the plan to the class. "Now, as I'm sure many of you are aware, here at Stark industries, we offer internships for gifted individuals each year. The idea here is you can make or invent something to impress me. No rules, no guidelines, go crazy! Come up with something clever, something incredible and perhaps you can get a head start on an internship application. Help yourself to anything in this room. Come up with schematics, code, or build something, wherever your skills lie. You have 2 hours only. Go!"

With that, everyone scrambled to different work stations, grappling over pieces of paper and different tools. Peter, Harley, Ned and MJ calmly headed over to a table, discussing different ideas. Ned and MJ decided to build a new communications device, inspired by what they needed when they were being Peter's people in the chair.

Harley and Peter decided to build an AI. They had been toying with the idea already in their private lab, but had never seriously done any work towards it. This was because Tony was the King of AIs and they didn't want to step on his toes, but the boys had wanted an AI to share between them, perhaps in their suite of rooms. Tony wandered over to listen to what they were taking about, and started laughing. "Sorry boys, I know you're good, but there's no way you can code an AI in two hours."

"Sounds like a challenge old man." Harley smiled.

"Don't forget who has created all the AIs in this and every other building I own."

"And we've learned from the best!" Peter replied sweetly.

"Ok, let's make a bet. I bet you can't code a complete AI in 2 hours. When I win, you two have to admit to the whole tower that I am a Genius and you could never compare!" Tony's smile gave away the fact that he didn't believe the second half of that sentence and that he was joking.

Both boys looked to each other, having a silent conversation, using mainly eyebrows, before both turned to Tony with matching grins. "Deal! But we will decide our prize once we win."

"Ok, best get started boys." Tony turned to talk to some of the other members of the class as the boys reached for their stark pads, opening a joint programme to be able to work together on the overall AI, but target separate small sections, so that they could work at double speed.

Their fingers were a blur across their screens with the speed of their typing. They would occasionally throw out different ideas to each other, or suggestions of extra qualities to add. Ned and MJ kept throwing them confused, concerned and impressed looks in turn.

Meanwhile, Tony was circling the room, giving encouragements to different students, trying to figure out what they were working on. There were a few decent ideas floating around, but also some that looked like they came out of a sci-fi show, and that was coming from the owner of the world's leading company in almost everything! But he'd wait to see if any of them managed to turn it around by the time 2 hours were up. He gave advice to those who asked, but tried not to interfere too much; a novel concept for Tony.

Perhaps an hour had passed when he heard his name being called, and headed back towards Harley and Peter. "What's the matter boys, are you stuck? Worked out you couldn't bring an AI to life in such a short amount of time?"

"I think you'll find I am very much alive Mr Stark," replied a snarky English voice. Both boys smirked as Tony choked on air, his eyes flitting between the boys and their tablets, which they had connected together to project a hologram of a woman.

"You- you actually did it!" Tony managed to get out through his shock. "And you gave her a body. Even Friday doesn't have a body!"

"Perhaps you should get on that sir." Friday chirped in.

"Don't worry Fri, we can work on it for you, since your dear ol' Da obviously isn't smart enough!" Harley replied, cackling at the look on Tony's Face.

"Thank you Harley, I would like that, I think."

Throughout the exchange Tony had just been standing by, mouth slightly open in shock and his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. He knew his boys were smart and they should've been able to create an AI eventually, but definitely not in an hour! And he would never have imagined them surpassing him and being able to create a body for said AI. That was something even he had never achieved.

"But how…" He trailed off.

Peter chimed in happily, "Well the coding for the AI was simple, so we thought we'd make it a bit harder for ourselves before we called you over."

"But you shouldn't have been able to do this. Even I don't know how to do… this!" Tony exclaimed, hands flapping in the general direction of the hologram.

"I guess you're just not smart enough anymore old man. Now stop being rude and say hello to our AI!" Harley joked.

"Of course, my apologies sweetheart, now who are you?"

"My name is ASPHERA -Apartment Security, Peter and Harley's Encoded Response AI"

"Pleasure to meet you ASPHERA! But Harley, Pete, you can't put an acronym within an acronym! That's not how it works."

"Ok, so maybe naming isn't our strong suit. But we liked the name ASPHERA, it's pretty, like her; we just couldn't work out what it stands for." Peter rambled.

"Well maybe it doesn't have to stand for anything. Do you like your name ASPHERA?" Tony addressed the visual representation of the AI being projected from the tablets.

"Of course Mr Stark- it is who I am." The AI answered honestly.

"Asphera it is then. I like it. Welcome to Stark Tower. I'd imagine you'll be installed in the boys quarters and all electronic devices soon. Make sure you look after them for me ok? You can speak to Friday any time you like. She can help you with anything you may need."

"Thank you Mr Stark. I will always protect my creators. It is part of my protocols after all." Asphera replied.

"She's a learning AI, like yours. She can learn and grow into something amazing." Harley chimed into the conversation.

"Well with you two, I'm sure that she will be learning sass and sarcasm in no time." Tony replied. "Why don't you two work on integrating her into your phones and gauntlet watches too, whilst I go around the room again to see if anybody has come up with anything even remotely interesting?" After receiving agreeable nods from both boys, Tony made his way over to another group of students who were arguing over what their invention was actually supposed to do.

"I can't believe you actually did it! You built an AI! She's incredible. And you impressed Mr Stark! That's crazy!" Ned was an excitable ball of energy once again, bouncing up and down as he spoke to Peter and Harley, gazing at their new AI.

"Thank you Ned, it's lovely to meet you!" Asphera turned around in her hologram and spoke directly to Ned. "You too MJ." She added, with a warm smile flashed in MJ's direction.

"Hello Asphera," MJ answered the AI, whilst Ned was busy squealing about how "Omg she knows me! You guys told her who I am!"

Peter and Harley laughed at Ned and were both also buzzing with happiness at how their AI was treating their friends and how they were treating her in return; like she was a real person.

"Of course she knows you and MJ. You guys are both important to us and now so is she. We want you to get along." Peter spoke to his two best friends.

"She will also be able to help you two out when you are being our guys in the chair. Help you keep Peter safe." Harley said, looking at Peter with love and concern in his eyes.

"And Harley too." Peter added. At Harley's look Peter rolled his eyes.

"What? If you're allowed to be worried about my safety I can be worried about yours too! At least I've been at this longer than you."

Harley opened his mouth to reply, but before the two could get into an argument about who was the better superhero, or who cared about the other more (who knew with these two, they could argue about anything, but it always basically broke down into who loved the other more) MJ spoke up "Yeah, yeah, you both love each other, we get it and your sappiness is disgusting." Both boys burst out laughing.

Then Asphera decided to join in, "It's ok, I will keep you both safe. I have enough processing power to look after both of you," she stated, in a matter of fact voice. Peter's eyes got misty. He looked at Harley, who just nodded to him and hugged him into his side, sharing his pride in their creation.

"Come on, let's add her to our phones and then we can help MJ and Ned with their device." Harley said quietly.

The remaining hour passed quickly, the group of four friends working diligently to finish creating the new comms device, with the occasional input from Asphera. Tony continued to flit around the room, overseeing projects or helping students when needed. It allowed him to see which students had the talent and brains to be a potential intern in the future, and which ones had talents that lie elsewhere.

Peter disappeared off by himself for a little while, telling Harley and Tony that he had forgotten something and he'd come back soon. Within half an hour he was back by Harley's side and helping his friends once more, telling them not to worry about it when they asked where he'd been.

Tony decided to have everyone do a short presentation on what they had come up with, so that all of the students could learn from each other and give them the chance to give suggestions and improvements. It was supposed to be a learning experience after all and this was also a process that all RD designs went through, so if they were going to become interns, they would need to get used to this process and also know how helpful constructive criticism can be.

Many of the students designs weren't great, but beyond a couple of laughs, everyone was mostly polite when presented with their peers' ideas. Everyone listened to the plans or looked at the prototypes and then when they could, gave suggestions for improvements. Tony tried to be encouraging, even when most of the designs would never make it past RD's criticisms. The handful of students that had come up with a drone were probably the most impressive, but even then Tony's joy at finally seeing a decent set of blueprints was dimmed by the fact that they clearly had pretty much just tried to copy a project that they must have seen in the RD labs earlier in the day.

Then it was Ned and MJ's turn. They obviously couldn't present it as a communications device for when they were helping Spider-man, so they made it out to be an idea for the CIA or other special agents to use. It was easily the best thing that had been presented to the class and even the regular bullies couldn't really find anything to criticise, especially once Tony had praised them for their genius and reminded them in front of the whole class that they had jobs waiting for them as soon as they were done with their education, making Ned spluttering shock, despite the fact that Peter had passed this message on to him several times from Tony. MJ just smiled slightly and told Tony that she wasn't sure if it was something she was interested in pursuing, or whether she would go become one of those artists sitting in Times Square all day, to which Tony just mock-glared at her before moving on.

Peter and Harley had been left till last because Tony knew that no-one else would have come up with anything anywhere near as impressive. He called the boys up, who took their Starkpads with them, but hid Asphera away for now. Tony introduced them by letting the class know that they had come up with something that even impressed him.

"So we created an AI, I guess." Peter said quietly, his confidence waning being in front of his classmates.

"Yes, you did Boss," Asphera spoke up. "Hello everyone, my name is Asphera." The entire class gasped hearing the English voice coming from the boys tablets.

Most of the students couldn't fully grasp how impressive it was to create an AI, as it was far beyond any of their abilities and the complex processes were only really able to be understood by an incredibly smart computer programmer.

Flash seemed to at least understand that it was a complex process though because he of course had to pipe up, just to try to tear Peter down. "The only one who can code an AI is Tony Stark, they clearly cheated. Harley isn't even in school, so he shouldn't have been working with Peter. And clearly they just bribed Tony Stark to do it for them and they are just taking all the credit for it."

"Are you suggesting that I take bribes Mr Thompson?" Tony asked, dangerously quiet.

"N-n-no, Mr Stark, of course not Sir. I'm sorry!" Flash whimpered.

"I should hope so Mr Thompson." Tony replied. "I'll admit when the boys told me this was what they were going to be working on, I laughed at them. But they have proven me wrong. Not only have they created an AI, they managed to do so quicker than I ever have." There were disbelieving gasps sounding throughout the room.

"Yes, I know; you come for a tour of my company and then find out that I'm not even the smartest man in the building. Because not only have they created a learning AI quicker than I ever have, but they have taken it a step further. Show them boys." Tony gestured to them with his arm, indicating that everyone's attention should be redirected to them.

Harley and Peter connected their Tablets and projected the image of Asphera for the class to see. "Everyone meet Asphera." Harley said proudly.

"Hello everyone!" Asphera said, with a happy little wave.

A few of the politer teens waved or said hello back, bemused smiles sat upon their faces.

"So we finished rather early, right, so like, I said to Harley, why don't we make her a body too." Peter rambled nervously. Where had all of his confidence gone from earlier, he wondered, but couldn't help the slight tremble in his fingers at having to stand up in front of his class and present his latest creation. He figured it was because he was waiting for everyone to tear into him like they normally would. But more than anything he didn't want Asphera to have to hear their criticisms; she was wonderful and didn't deserve to be knocked down just because people didn't like one of her creators. Luckily, Tony decided to step in, not allowing anyone to dare say a negative word about the newest AI, or her creators.

"You did brilliantly boys, and now you are showing me up even more. You can show me how you did it later and then Friday can have a body too." Tony said, smiling all the while, showing Peter especially, that he was happy with what they had achieved, so that his insecurities didn't convince him that he needed to start spewing apologies at a hundred miles a minute. As it was, he still looked like he was going to apologise, so Tony shook his head, smiled and whispered to Peter "Well done Tesoro (my treasure), you did well." Peter beamed in response, no matter how long he was around Tony, he still had the innate need to impress him, needing to feel like he earned his place in Tony's life, despite Tony's reassurances that he loved him regardless.

Peter and Harley went back to Ned and MJ and Tony spoke to everyone, telling them that they were done here, congratulating everyone on what they came up with, and letting them know that they would be moving onto one of the conference rooms for the final part of the day. He winked and told them to look out for some familiar faces, before he swept out of the room.

Emma reappeared out of nowhere, to lead the class to their final destination of the day and everyone followed, talking excitedly and fangirling over Tony Stark.