Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Daren Anderson wasn’t looking forward to this particular Saturday. He appreciated a predictable schedule, and was a creature of habit, as much as that was possible as an executive assistant at Stark Industries. He didn’t work every Saturday, but enough of them that it was part of his normal schedule. But he wasn’t sure what to expect today, and that bothered him. And his sister had been a little annoyed he was working at all, since she had wanted help setting up for her holiday party. Daren had been almost sincere when he sent his regrets to that particular invite. They always clashed horribly on design opinions, and working together in that way was best avoided, in his opinion.

Teenagers in general weren’t really his thing, either, as much as a certain super-powered high school senior had grown on him, and as used as Daren had gotten to having Peter Parker’s two best friends around the Tower as well. But they were still maybe better than playing "family decorating committee."

Speaking of Peter, he was there in the conference room, looking much more nervous than Daren. 

“Hey!” the boy said, half standing up from where he’d been working on his laptop. “I’m glad you’re here! I mean,” Peter said, visibly taking a steadying breath, “not like you’re late or anything. No one else is even here yet. Why are you so early, actually?”

“I might ask you the same thing at 8 AM on a Saturday morning,” Daren said, unruffled. His relationship with the teen was comfortable enough that he didn’t stress Daren. Well, as long as he was here, relatively safe in the Tower, instead of using himself as bait for human trafficking rings or throwing himself off buildings, that was. 

“Tony was going to do the intro and get everything started, but he’s running a fever this morning,” Peter said, sighing unhappily.

“And Ms. Potts is in Malibu,” Daren said, suddenly understanding. Why hadn’t anyone notified him that Mr. Stark was ill? Though, with Pepper on the west coast and probably not even up yet, this was probably Daren’s “notification.” 

“And the intern director?”

Peter shook his head. “This isn’t really her project. It’s mine. And it’s just people from my school for this beta test. It’s not a big deal,” he said lightly, his anxious expression at odds with his offhand tone. 

Daren pursed his lips at Peter’s back as he turned away. The teen rearranged a few things on the refreshment table which some of the floor assistants had set up. His hand paused over the selection of danishes, then passed over the juice to grab a Dr. Pepper. Daren was just about to speak up as Peter moved to open it when FRIDAY beat him to it.

“Peter, you consuming those amounts of caffeine and sugar at this hour is on the “Do Not Fly” list,” she said primly.

“Additionally,” JARVIS said, “your heart rate is already such that any caffeine is inadvisable.”

Peter set the soft drink down with a sigh. “Who gave you access to the conference room, J?” he asked. “I definitely don’t need two AI’s keeping tabs on me.”

Daren raised a sardonic eyebrow at Peter, and the teen gave him an innocent look, which was far too practiced. 

Daren pulled his tablet up into ready position. “What can I do to assist?”

Peter did an almost comical double take. “Assist… me ?”

“I have nothing pressing, I am one of SI’s executive assistants, and at the moment you are acting in place of Mr. Stark. So I think it’s completely appropriate that I assist you this morning with the orientation.”

“Oh! Um, okay, I guess so? I need to run through the presentation with FRIDAY. Could you... could you possibly check in with the different mentors we have set up to make sure they’re good to go?”

“Of course. What else?”

Peter looked a little startled again and seemed to consider. “Could you go down to the lobby in about twenty minutes to meet the students who are coming in? I was going to do that part, but I think I’ll feel more ready for the presentation if I can stay up here and go through it one more time.” Peter seemed a little uncertain, as if it was a big ask. Please. Daren had been an EA at Stark Industries for several years now. The things he’d been asked to handle? This didn’t even scratch the surface.

“Of course, Mr. Parker.”

Peter side-eyed him. “Mr. Parker?” His mouth sampled the words as if they were a new, strange food.

“If you’re acting as an executive today, you’ll be treated as such. Think about that before the student interns get here. This morning they’re not your friends; you’re here to set them up for success in their internships,” Daren reminded him.

“Oh, yeah. I guess you’re right?” Peter said, still unsure. Then more confidently, “Okay, yes. I can do that.” As Daren turned to head to his office, he saw the teenager's posture had improved, and he had a determined look on his face. Good. 

           ┈┈┈┈┈┈🕸┈┈┈┈┈┈ 

Fifteen minutes later Daren was waiting in the lobby as the teenagers trickled in. They were expecting ten, and seven were already present. They had four more minutes before Daren would judge their time management skills.

He surveyed the children who were present so far. MJ and Ned were the only two who appeared at ease, and MJ was just in her nice street clothes. Ned was tugging at a particularly ugly tie, which was paired with a light blue button-up. Daren made a mental note for Peter to let his friend know that there was no need for that. A few of the other boys wore dress clothes as well, and the girls were a mix of pantsuits and business casual outfits, accessorized with anxious-but-excited expressions. They mostly looked like they were trying a little too hard, but that was to be expected in their position. 

One boy with caramel-colored skin and tightly slicked back dark hair was on a phone call and he looked frustrated. Since a large part of his job included reading the room and being aware of issues before they came up, Daren casually moved over a little closer and it seemed like the kid was talking to a parent. There were a lot of “I am!”s and “I will!”s and even a “I am not gonna screw this up, okay?” Daren frowned. Someone needed to take all of this a little less seriously. These were high school kids. Of course they were going to screw up here and there. The boy noticed Daren paying attention to him, glared a little bit, and quickly ended the call. Hmm.

Finally the last three students hurried in the door and they were ready to begin. 

“Hello, beta testers for the Stark Industries High School Intern program. My name is Daren Anderson, and I’ll be escorting you to your orientation this morning. Mr. Stark was hoping to be here to welcome you personally, but he is indisposed this morning and has left Mr. Parker and myself in charge of getting you squared away. 

Several of the students glanced up in surprise, accompanied by a few whispers. 

Daren noticed Michelle rolling her eyes at whatever was being said next to her, while Ned was just grinning proudly, though he looked surprised, too. Had Peter not told them he’d be at least nominally in charge? 

“All of your paperwork is in order, so if you’ll just please step up to this desk over here with your photo id’s, we’ll get your security cards. These are to be worn in clear view at all times in the building, and they’ll automatically admit you to areas you’re allowed in. You’ll also use them in the upstairs food court for one meal per shift.”

More whispering commenced, this time with some excitement. Daren supposed that teenagers were pretty easy to please, with free food high on the list. Each teenager presented some kind of id at the security desk and was issued their badge, at which point Daren led them to one of the larger elevators. He noticed the tense-conversation kid sizing him up at one point, then glancing away dismissively. Daren was used to much worse, and he had to suppress a smile. This kid wasn’t the first to think of Daren as “the help” with “assistant” in his title. It was too bad Happy wasn’t here to glare at them all indiscriminately, but he was in California with Pepper. That would have been entertaining. 

  ┈┈┈┈┈┈🕸┈┈┈┈┈┈ 

Daren stood in the back of the room, keeping an eye on everything and carefully maintaining a pleasantly professional expression. But he had a funny feeling inside as he watched Peter going through the presentation while his schoolmates snacked happily on the snacks they’d set out. His voice (and maybe his hand that he was gesturing with) shook a little at the very beginning of his spiel, but just a few minutes into it, he was steady and engaging, getting the information out in an efficient manner while still being interesting enough for a group of his peers. It kind of felt like this when he’d watched his nephew finally figure out how to stand up on his own after weeks of trying. Was that… pride that Daren was feeling? 

He had known this particular teen for less than two years, but the amount of growth Peter had gone through in that time was quite amazing. He’d been awkward but brilliant in their first meeting, surprising Daren with his sass towards Mr. Stark and leaving the EA reeling trying to figure out where his boss had acquired a kid. At this point Daren had spent countless hours with Peter Parker, in so many circumstances, that few things surprised him anymore. (That happened pretty quickly once he realized his boss’s young protégé was also a superhero, and an enhanced superhuman at that) But today he was a little surprised. Peter was right on the edge of being not a kid, but a young adult, and Pepper or Tony would both be beaming if they could hear him handling this group of teens. Would be, when FRIDAY sent them the footage. A group of kids his age, from his own school, was arguably a scarier audience than the board, which Peter had also spoken in front of several months ago. 

Peter was finishing up. “Okay,” he said, breathing out deeply in apparent relief, “any questions before you go meet with your project mentors?” 

A hand shot up.

“Yes, Jason?”

“Can we really get anything at all for lunch?”

Peter tilted his head, pursing his lips. “Um, yeah. I mean, if the food court has it. Lunch will be varied times though, depending on who you’re working with. Anything else?”

The kids all just kind of stared at him. Peter looked at Ned, and his friend shrugged minutely. “Okay, then. If you’ll head out the same door you came in, FRIDAY, the building’s AI, will direct you further.” 

Daren remembered they had debated having the mentors come down to collect the interns, but in the end, Peter thought it would be good for them to practice having FRIDAY’s help to navigate, and most of the mentors were busy with projects.

“If you need anything else today before your first shift is over at 2:30 or 3, your project mentor is your first point of contact, and if they don’t know the answer, it’s me. You’ll all debrief for fifteen minutes with me when you’re done.” 

There was awkward silence, and as a group they started shuffling back towards the door, but then a different hand crept up reluctantly. It was phone-kid, and he still looked like he had a chip on his shoulder. What was his name? Thompson? Daren had looked through the teens photos and stats, but it had been a few days.

“Yes, Flash?” Peter asked, an odd tone in his voice. 

Flash? What kind of a name was Flash? Daren didn’t remember seeing that on any of the paperwork. 

Oh. He had heard that name before. Sometime last year, and with some frustration from his boss. This is the kid who used to give Peter a hard time, and Daren remembered Pepper’s eyes snapping in annoyance at Tony’s refusal to step in at that point. His gaze narrowed at the back of the boy’s head. 

“My orientation packet still says ‘TBA’ for my mentor. Where am I going?” he asked warily. 

“Oh.” Peter frowned and looked down at his smartboard. “Um… you’re in Organizational Management, so… with Andrea?” Peter looked up at Daren, a question on his face. Right, Peter hadn’t been there when Andrea had offered to deal with the high school kid. She had her own teen at home, and would have no trouble shepherding one around.

“Actually,” Daren said, "Andrea’s busy this morning. Mr. Thompson will be shadowing me."

  ┈┈┈┈┈┈🕸┈┈┈┈┈┈ 

The look of surprise and dismay on Thompson’s face had been entertaining. Peter had looked just as surprised, knowing Daren hadn’t planned to be part of the mentor process, but Daren just smiled tightly. 

“Only if that’s acceptable to you, Mr. Parker?” 

Thompson seemed to be carefully avoiding a double take at the whole conversation between the two. Good. Nothing wrong with being a little unbalanced.

“Um, yeah, of course,” Peter said. “I need to, uh… oh, FRIDAY? Did you notify the mentors that their interns are incoming?”

“Of course, Mr. Parker,” FRIDAY spoke up, playing into Daren’s intentions seamlessly. “They are all en route.”

“What the…” he heard under the other boy’s breath.

“Okay, then. I guess I’ll just…” Peter looked a little adrift. 

“If you have time, sir, Marketing has those new campaigns that Mr. Stark wanted you to give opinions on,” Daren said helpfully.

Peter gave him a strangled look at the “sir,” but nodded. “Oh, right. Yeah, I’ll, uh, do that, unless something comes up. Should I… I mean, I’ll probably hang out in the cafeteria in a couple hours, too, just to help if any of them need anything.”

“I’ll take Mr. Thompson here and get to some of the prep work for next week, unless you find that you need something,” Daren assured. Then, when Peter still stood frozen, and Thompson wasn’t looking his way, the EA gave a meaningful head tilt, eyebrows raised in amusement. 

That did it. Peter flashed him a grin, and disappeared quickly out of the other end of the room.

Daren turned and faced “Flash” Thompson (his given name was Eugene, apparently) and assessed what he was working with today. The boy’s eyes seemed uncertain, but his jaw was jutting out with false bravado and he crossed his arms as he shifted his weight to one side. 

Daren didn’t say anything.

Thompson uncrossed his arms and leaned backwards slightly, his eyes flashing worriedly towards the door where Peter had left.

Daren smiled tightly. Oh, they were going to be just fine.

“Shall we?” is all he said, turning and leaving the room, not looking behind him to see if “his” intern was following.

The next few hours passed quickly. The “Command Center” (as they jokingly called it) was on the main executive floor, and Daren checked in quickly with the other EA. There were usually three of them, but Corinne had recently been tapped to head a department in their European branch, and Pepper hadn’t found someone for the vacant spot yet. 

“Hey, this is the new high school intern, Eugene Thompson,” Daren introduced. “I’m going to have him shadow me for a shift or two, then possibly he’ll work with you.” he said for Thompson’s benefit. He’d already texted Andrea about his decision, and why. 

“Nice to meet you Mr. Thompson,” Andrea said pleasantly, reaching out to shake his hand, then immediately returned to her screen. 

“Um, thanks?” the kid said, a confused look on his face at the immediate dismissal. He’d looked like he was gearing up to… charm? her, but it was wasted effort. From the look on Andrea’s face, she was deep in some kind of scheduling puzzle, which meant they were lucky she broke her hyperfocus long enough to even greet them. Those complicated scenarios were common with SI’s influence and sheer size these days, and some had been as hard as any Calculus problem he’d ever encountered.

Daren moved to a workstation nearby and started in on their regular weekend tasks, gesturing for Eugene to take a seat next to him. The boy huffed a little bit, but didn’t actually express anything, so Daren ignored him, and he finally sat down.

He brought up SI’s scheduling software (he was still getting used to the new version FRIDAY and JARVIS had collaborated on, but so far he was loving the changes) and went through Tony’s upcoming week, rescheduling several less-important things in the next couple days in case he didn’t feel better, handling several requests for input or appearances company-wide for the next several months, and setting up some meetings for Pepper when she got back in a few days. 

He effectively ignored the sullen teen next to him other than to quietly narrate everything he was doing, and why. 

“So here”—he tapped the screen—”Marketing is asking for Mr. Stark to record something to promote the Starktech conference in June, which he will probably do, if they’ll be patient. I’ll tentatively put it in for January 18th. These two requests, however, are not a good use of his time, and I don’t think he’d do them anyway.” He swiped them into a different folder on the schedule. 

There was silence and stillness from his left, and Daren glanced at Thompson, but the kid looked like he was trying to make sense of something, and that he was biting back a comment or question.

“Something you’d like to say, Eugene?”

“Why do you get to decide that stuff?”

Daren raised his eyebrows and tilted his head, waiting for clarification.

“Shouldn’t Mr. Stark decide what he’s going to do, not you? Aren’t you just his assistant?” the boy finally asked, obviously feel annoyed and possibly feeling a bit superior to the lowly “assistant.”

Ah. There it was. Daren turned in his chair and pushed back a bit. “And why do you think Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts have executive assistants?”

Thompson looked elsewhere, looking a little cowed at Daren’s stare. “Um, to do stuff for them. Get them coffee, remind them of their appointments, get their dry cleaning. Stuff assistants do. Duh,” he muttered, rolling his eyes at the obviously-pointless question.

Another little lightbulb went off. If that was his opinion of what Daren and Andrea did, no wonder he had an attitude at being assigned to them.

“Let me show you something.” Daren turned back to the screen and brought up the internal job posting (it would also go public in a few days, but SI liked to give their own first view/shot at things like this). “There are usually three of us, but we are down one executive assistant right now. I want you to read that job description and requirements.”

The teenager scooted forward as Daren moved out of the way, and he peered at the screen, looking even more confused. His eyebrows lifted as he went through the executive assistant’s duties, and then shot into his hairline as he started looking through the requirements and qualifications. 

“You have an MBA?” he asked incredulously, swiveling his head back to Daren. “How old are you even?”

“I do. And that’s a bit personal, but I’m 27,” Daren replied, rolling his own eyes just a bit.

“But couldn’t you be making way more money somewhere else, and have a better job than this?” Thompson asked, sounding more interested in what Daren had to say now than he had all afternoon.

“I like my job, and I’m good at it. It’s challenging, seldom boring, I get to travel all over the world, and the benefits package is amazing. Also, I probably make quite a bit more than you think. And if I ever did want to move to another department, as long as I was qualified, there wouldn’t be a problem.”

“Oh,” the teenager said, seeming to reevaluate life for a moment. “So, what is one of your favorite parts of your week then? What’s one of the more difficult things you’ve had to do this month, and what is it really like following Tony Stark around?” 

Apparently Thompson had gotten over his silence strike. Daren grimaced internally.

“First of all, I’m usually far too busy making things work to just ‘follow anybody around,’ but at certain times I’m not with Ms. Potts, and I do, and it’s always an adventure,” he said dryly.

Thompson seemed to be mulling that over. 

Daren carefully read through the message that had just come in on his phone, and quickly stood up. “Now, I need to put my tablet away, and then we’re headed downstairs, because there’s a… situation in R&D.”

The kid followed Daren into his office and stared around at the walls in interest while Daren put a few things away in his desk and wondered (not for the first time) if he should invest in protective gear for things like this. 

“Dude! You got your MBA from Harvard ?”

Chapter Text

“What in the actual—uh, world is going on in here?” Daren asked rhetorically as he walked into chaos. They were in the second robotics lab of R&D, and all of the mobile projects seemed to be doing their best to climb the walls and get to the ceiling, while ones with flight capabilities zoomed around aimlessly. He couldn’t see much damage yet, but that could change quickly.

Daren ducked as a tiny double-bladed helicopter he knew Peter had been working with (“to deliver little packages in the Tower!”) narrowly missed his head. Eugene also ducked just in time, and his resulting expression was a mix of horror and glee. A teenager would. Daren sighed, and carefully dodged his way over to where Ned and another kid were standing to the side, dismay painted across their faces, while the lab head was typing furiously into a console.

“FRIDAY?” Daren asked. His earpiece came to life. “I’m sorry, but Mr. Leeds did something that locked me out,” she said as frostily as an AI could. “He maintains it was an accident and I’m sure we’ll have control again in just a few moments, Mr. Anderson, but someone tripped over and broke a physical connection at the same time, and it ‘jammed the code issue neatly into place,’ according to JARVIS.”

“Ah.” Daren said, swiveling to find another lead who wasn’t actively working on the problem.

“Was the AI just talking in your ear?” the kid asked, far too close to Daren’s face for his liking. 

“Yes, but right now we need this handled.” Daren raised his hand to get Dr. Traeger’s attention. “Has someone called Mr. Parker?”

“Mr.—Oh! I heard Stark was sick today, but I hadn’t considered that. Can we do that? Is he here?” Traeger brandished a metal clipboard as a shield against the same flying robots that had tried to take Daren out.

“He is. FRIDAY?”

“Mr. Parker is on his way,” FRIDAY said loudly enough for everyone to hear over all the noise of 40+ small machines running amok. Alarmingly, (but not unexpectedly) a small fire erupted in the far reaches of the room, but techs worked quickly to extinguish it.

Thompson made a squealing noise and jumped to the side as a larger robot trundled through the space he’d just been in. “Is it safe for us to be in here?” he asked nervously.

Out of the corner of his eye, Daren saw Ned lean against the wall and drop his shoulders a bit. He wasn’t sure if it was relief or dismay that his friend was going to try to fix this mess, but yes to both of those emotions.

By the time Peter arrived just a few moments later, they’d dodged, and headed off, and trapped a large number of the robots. Daren and “ Please, Mr. Anderson, call me Flash! ” had helped build a small barricade of desks to at least isolate the wall-crawling attempts (though maintenance was going to have some drywall repair to do—not uncommon in R&D) and most people had found makeshift shields to fend off the flyers. Nonessential personnel were in the process of being evacuated to cut down on the chaos and potential for injury.

“Parker! Any thoughts?” the lab lead asked hopefully as Mr. Stark’s young protégé hurried over. 

“Ned, what the heck did you—”

“Dude, it wasn’t even my fault. Malik here tripped over the wire just as I had put in some sample code that I wanted to try, but I accidentally put it in the regular window instead of in the sandbox, where it couldn’t affect stuff for-reals, and I don’t know what happened, but—”

“Seriously, you’ve only been here like an hour,” Peter muttered under his breath, looking stressed as he took the other man’s place at the keyboard. “FRIDAY? Override Alpha-Gamma-8-10-21. Let me into where that rogue piece of code is. And bring up the sequence of events on this holo table, ending with working connections in green. Isolate the issues and show the affected sections, and identify if there’s any continuing infection.” 

Daren assumed FRIDAY did whatever all that was, but he could tell Peter was still having trouble accessing the broken command line from the frustration on the boy’s face.

Just then, a very disheveled Tony Stark strolled into the room. He was wearing dress pants, the same black t-shirt from yesterday, (now wrinkled) and fuzzy leopard-print slippers. Somehow, he still managed to look good and like he was dressed exactly as he should be. It was a gift that Daren didn’t fully understand, but wished he could bottle and market.

“What happened here?” the man asked, his eyes glassy as he took in the partially controlled bedlam. “Pete, did you do this? Not again !”

“Not me, just a series of unfortunate events,” Peter clipped, glaring lightly at Ned, who was still flat against the wall with the other student, both looking guilty. Peter’s tone modulated, approximating respect as he looked back at Mr. Stark and sighed. “Last time wasn’t actually my fault, either, sir, if you remember correctly. It was a joint effort… And why are you here, out of bed? You have a fever!”

“Do not. J said it’s down.” Unconcerned, Tony moved over to look at the holo display, but didn’t seem very steady.

“Well, that’s the ibuprofen talking.” Peter’s tone was deteriorating and his hands found his hips. Uh oh, Daren had seen that body language before, and with Tony not in top form, it was about to go down.

“FRIDAY, give me an exploded view.”

“FRIDAY, do not give him an exploded view,” Peter snapped, moving quickly towards his mentor. “The only view you should be seeing is the one from the couch, sir,” Peter said tightly, turning the older man and propelling him firmly towards the door. His grip looked light, but Daren could see how inexorable their progress was despite the older engineer’s noises of protest. Spider-man wasn’t pulling any proverbial punches.

“Don’t touch anything while I’m gone,” Peter warned the remaining people over his shoulder. “FRIDAY, you guys keep working on that with the access code I gave you.”

He exited, pushing Tony ahead of him, and Dr. Traeger looked at Daren in confusion. 

“If we’re not supposed to touch anything, who else is working with FRIDAY?” she asked curiously. 

Daren just rolled his eyes and sighed. They’d kept JARVIS’s recovery pretty quiet, but that wasn’t going to last long if his boss and the mini-boss weren’t more careful. 

There was a slight throat clearing, and Daren glanced over at Flash, whose eyes were wide. “Uh, does stuff like this happen often here?”

“More often than it should,” Daren said mildly. Like he’d said, his job was rarely boring. But it was true that he wasn’t usually involved in the hijinks in R&D. So this was actually kind of fun, in a weird way. He didn’t think he would have thought that way even a year or two ago, but he’d had a lot more experience since then, and somehow everything usually worked out.

Flash opened his mouth again, but before he could speak, Daren jumped forward, using his clipboard to bat another flying projectile away from the boy’s head. The last thing they needed was a medbay visit for any of the minors on their first day of the program.

Flash looked past him at the robot, who was now struggling to fly straight, then back at Daren in shock.

His earpiece chimed. “Call incoming from Ms. Potts.”

Seriously? How had she already heard about the chaos? Or maybe she was calling for another reason? He really hoped she was calling for another reason. 

He tapped his ear piece. “This is Anderson. Is it possible for you to hold for about 30 seconds, ma’am?”

“Okay,” she said doubtfully, but he could hear amusement in her voice. It wasn’t the first time he’d needed to put her on hold, but thankfully she quite understood the volatile nature of his job, especially when he was left with Tony.

More quickly than expected, Peter returned, looking a little calmer than before. Daren made eye contact with him and Peter detoured slightly to come talk to him. 

“Hey, he’s back in bed and I locked down the apartment, but he could override it if he thinks hard enough. Solutions?”

“Ms. Potts is on the line. Would you like me to have her add her override to yours?”

Peter smiled in relief. “Oh, right! That should do it.”

Daren hesitated, but he really needed to take the call. 

Peter understood immediately. “No, go. I’ve got this. We’ll get it figured out.” Then he looked to the side at the Thompson kid, and his smile changed, but didn’t disappear. “Having fun yet, Flash?”

“Uh, yeah. It’s, um… chill.”  Flash had suddenly found something in an upper corner of the room really interesting, and crossed his arms a little defensively. Teenagers were so strange sometimes.

Peter looked puzzled, but was still smiling. “Right. Okay. Gotta go!”

Daren hurried out of the room as he tapped his earpiece again. “Hello, Ms. Potts. What can I do for you?”

“Oh, I think you’re already doing it. I’m just seeing if you need any back-up.”

“I think Peter’s got it under control, ma’am. But he would appreciate your double override on the penthouse lockdown to ensure that Mr. Stark continues to rest until things are wrapped up for today.”

“Oh no, what did he do?” she sighed. “No, don’t answer that. I’ll talk to FRIDAY. You’re sure it’s all handled?”

“I’ll let you know we need anything, but I’m sure it will be fine.”

“As fine as it ever is, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You’re a gem, Daren. Hang in there.”

“Always.”

Daren treated himself to a long, steadying breath. 

“You really weren’t kidding. Your job is way more interesting than I thought!”

Flash looked more enthusiastic than he had all day, walking next to Daren  and almost outpacing him, instead of dragging behind. With all the chaos, his hair had escaped its rigid style, and the slight smile made him look more his age instead of giving tightly-wound-crime-boss. Escaping the immediate danger of being brained by an out-of-control robot probably helped, too.

“You really think Parker is going to fix all the crazy in that lab?” Flash asked curiously. “Does he really work there sometimes?”

Daren gave Flash his full attention. “He does at times, when they need his input. He’s more often found in Mr. Stark’s personal labs, working on his own projects, but tries to help out when he can.”

“Oh. I… That’s pretty cool, I guess,” Thompson said, his eyebrows drawn together. He wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer if all of this surprised him about Peter, but he was coming around.

“Yeah, it is. He’s an amazing kid, and I look forward to working for him someday.”

“Wait, what? What are you—”

Daren allowed himself a smile now. That should give the kid more to think about, though from what he’d seen today, he doubted Flash was still giving Peter trouble like he used to.

“I said what I said. Kid’s going places. Especially if Mr. Stark has anything to say about it, which he does.”

“Oh. Wow.” The boy chewed on that for a moment, then his gaze cleared. “So what kind of stuff do you guys have to do after things go wrong like that? There’s gotta be a ton of paperwork to cover the company’s butt, right? Are you in charge of that?”

“Not directly; that’s legal. But yes, I have my reports to fill out, because of Mr. Stark and Mr. Parker’s involvement, and someone has to make sure legal gets thorough information. The EA’s often get the ball rolling on that.”

“Can I see how you’d do that? And how does the AI decide when to be involved in stuff? If Peter can fix stuff like that, why hadn’t she already called him? Is there some kind of chain of command in small emergencies like that? And what would happen if someone had gotten hurt?”

Flash stopped abruptly, his mouth snapping shut as his expression dimmed. “I mean, uh… sorry, sir,” he apologized, wincing as if he’d done something outrageous. “I don’t need to know all that stuff. I’ll just watch.”

Daren lowered his eyebrows, wondering why the kid thought there was anything wrong with intelligent questions. Those were weird things to be interested in, but Daren got it. He got a lot of satisfaction tying up loose ends and making sure nothing important was overlooked in all parts of his job. Maybe the kid was in the right place today, after all. 

Daren smiled encouragingly at Flash. “No apologies for good questions. Let’s get back upstairs and get started on all that.”

  ┈┈┈┈┈┈🕸┈┈┈┈┈┈ 

Two and a half hours later most of the kids had gone, and even Peter had finally disappeared up to the penthouse. FRIDAY had reported that Tony’s fever was back up, but he was just delirious enough to be difficult, refusing to drink anything but “that little juice blend we got in Versailles in 2012” and he'd  needed some handling. 

Daren was downstairs coordinating with the security lead about a small event later that week when he noticed Flash still waiting for pick-up. Daren decided to hang around and keep an eye out. 

The teenager had been scrolling happily through his phone, but his demeanor changed as soon as an angry-looking man entered the lobby and approached him. 

“Eugene, I messaged you that I was here. Why didn’t you come out? Do you know how impossible it is to find parking out there? I’m in a tow-away zone, and if I have to deal with that, you’ll regret it.”

“Oh! I… he looked anxiously at his phone. Sorry, dad, I forgot to turn off ‘Do Not Disturb,’” Flash said anxiously.

“That tracks. Why can’t you be more responsible? Are they even going to let you come back? And why couldn’t your mother or Grant pick you up? Do you know how busy I am?”

Daren had watched Flash’s confidence leach away with each sentence, and the sullen, cowed boy he saw now was identical to the one who’d arrived that day.

Yeah, no. Daren walked forward quickly. “Mr. Thompson, I presume?”

The older man turned and sniffed at him. Daren could tell where Flash had gotten that cold superiority he’d seen pieces of in the first hour.  “Yeah?”

“I had the privilege of mentoring your son today, and—”

“What’d he do?” Thompson senior asked, shooting narrowed eyes at Flash.

“Uh, exactly what he should have, sir. He did quite well for his first day. We’re looking forward to working with him over the course of the internship.”

The man sniffed, and looked at his son, who had managed to square his shoulders again at least. 

“And who’d you say you were?” Senior asked a little suspiciously. “What do you do here?”

“Daren Anderson, sir. I work in Executive Administration with Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts.”

“Oh,” Flash’s father finally looked a bit impressed. “And he’s going to keep doing… that?”

“Of course. His skills were well matched.” Daren looked at Flash, who he swore was hiding a smile. He turned his head a little and winked at the teen on the side Senior couldn’t see. “See you next week,” he promised gravely. 

Flash nodded, smirking briefly at their sudden inside joke. Mr. Thompson gestured tightly towards the door (and the hopefully untowed car), and the kid turned and followed with cautious confidence. 

Knowing what Flash actually needed out of this internship, Daren started composing notes in his head, both for himself and Andrea, and for anyone else who would be working with him. He thought the teenager might still have a bright future, despite his parents. Some natural curiosity, intelligence, and attention to detail, coupled with some actual encouragement, and a few people believing in him for a while, could definitely improve his trajectory.

Speaking of, Daren was also excited to send his notes on how well Peter had done today to both of his bosses. The kid had a natural flair for leadership and crisis control, but it had obviously been nurtured by Tony and Pepper and his experiences here. And probably with his, uh, extra-curricular activities as well. He was going to be something special in whatever role he eventually chose.

Daren grabbed a chai from the beverage cart and stepped onto the elevator as he mused. “Exec level, FRIDAY.”

No, Daren Anderson didn’t care much for teenagers. But seeing what people could accomplish with the right kind of support? That was good stuff. And, now that he thought about it, why he loved his job so much. Bring on all the teenagers if a little support could make such a change in a kid like Flash in just a few hours. Definitely not the worst way to spend a Saturday.