Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Peter Benjamin Parker was a mild-mannered genius kid from Queens. Both of his parents had died when he was little, and his Uncle Ben joined them years later. All he had left was his Aunt May. They lived in this little apartment, surviving paycheck to paycheck, barely making ends meet. On the weekends and after school, Peter had an internship at Stark Industries with the Tony Stark himself.

Except Peter Benjamin Parker didn't exist.

Yes, Midtown High saw him in their halls every school day. Yes, that name was written on many documents. Yes, he was in yearbooks and clubs.

But that person wasn't real.

Who was real? Well, that would be Peter Anthony Stark.

Peter Stark was the genius, snarky, confident son of genius inventor Tony Stark and Stark Industries CEO Pepper Potts. Peter lived in the penthouse of Stark Industries, a far cry from the tiny apartment people thought he lived in as well as the company he was the heir to. The most kept secret of all was that Peter Stark was Spider-Man.

It was one uneventful, joyfully slow, normal day, as Peter headed toward his locker at the end of the school day. One one side, Ned ambled, talking Peter’s ear off about the Star Wars Lego set they were planning to make this weekend. On the other walked MJ, nose deep in a book but somehow still avoiding bumping into anyone —or anything— in the crowded hallway.

Peter was having a perfectly good day.

That was when Flash came right along just to ruin it.

“Hey, Penis!”, Flash sneered. He was yelling at one of his thugs but crossed the hall when he saw Peter. “Whatcha got there?”, he says, taking Peter's bag and dumping its contents on the floor.

"Piss off, Flash. Go back to your thugs where no one can hurt you,”MJ replied, glancing up from her book.

“Now why would I do that when it's so much more fun over here with you nerds?”

“This is literally a gifted kid school. We're all nerds.”

Flash started to respond but was interrupted by Jason, one of his friends calling him over. “Okay, well, I'm leaving this time, but it's not because of you!”

Together, Peter and Ned picked up the bag's contents with no change in their expressions and headed out to the pickup line, waving goodbye to MJ on the way.

"So I'm coming over to the Tower at 4 tomorrow, right?", Ned asked, pulling Peter back into the conversation.

"Yeah. Then we'll have plenty of time to start on the Lego set before dinner. Uncle Steve's cooking tomorrow, pasta, I think? Maybe we can head down to the lab too, I built something I think you'd like."

"Pasta made by Captain America. Never thought my life would reach this peak," answered Ned, speaking way too loud for something that's meant to be kept as a top tier secret.

"You were there last week when Uncle Clint made barbecue."

"Yeah but that's totally different. He's Hawkeye and it's barbecue. It would make total sense for Captain Rogers to make barbecue. Pasta is a whole other level."

Peter rolled his eyes and waved goodbye to his friend as they parted ways.

Now who was at the pickup line, standing in front of one of Tony Stark’s less conspicuous cars, if not Harley Keener himself. He wore a motor oil-stained tee shirt and faded cargo pants, Peter noticed when he caught sight of him and ran into his boyfriend's arms.

“Hey darlin’. Thought I'd come get you since Happy got called to drive Pepper to a very important meeting in New Jersey and your dad is hiding in his lab. That man probably hasn't showered in days and is likely living off coffee and fumes at this point.”

Peter tried to reply, but his words were cut off by a surprise attack from Flash again.

“We meet again Penis Parker! Who's your little friend here?”

“None of you business Flash.” Peter's face tensed up.

“Whoa whoa whoa, just wanted to know who the filthy creature is that you're embracing oh-so tenderly.”

And that was when Peter snapped. “‘Filthy creature?!’ For your information, this is my clean, handsome, perfect boyfriend Harley.”

"Whoa Penis, didn't mean to strike a nerve there," Flash rolled his eyes sarcastically.

"Just shut up! Why are you such a jackass all the time? He's much better than you, with your too much cologne and obnoxious personality."

By then, Flash had been stunned into silence. He wasn't used to his victims talking back.

At that, Peter grabs his boyfriend by the wrist, leads both of them into the car, and speeds off toward Stark Tower.

Harley trained his blue eyes onto Peter. “Who was that?” he asked, confused.

“No one, just this kid, Flash. He's been tormenting me for years. He doesn't believe me about the Stark internship and knowing Spider-Man. Well, I mean, yeah the internship is fake, and I don't know Spider-Man because I am him, but he denies that I even know my own dad. I try to ignore him, but when he poorly insulted you it really struck a nerve.”

“You're saying he's been bullying you for years, but one insult aimed at me and you snapped? You need to get your priorities straight darlin'.”

“Maybe I will, but I'd prefer getting revenge first. Something dramatic. Something that will humiliate him.”

“Well I believe I've got just the thing. You said he doesn't believe you've got the Stark internship right?”

"Yeah..."

Chapter Text

And that's where they exact their plan.

:/ (This is Rick, he’s my time skip indicator for when I'm lazy and don't want to write through the whole scene.)

By the time they'd arrived at the tower, the boys already had an outline. They decided to organize an overnight field trip to Stark Industries for Peter’s science class, which Flash was in, as well as Mr. Harrington, who didn't believe Peter about the internship either. “Two birds with one stone,” Harley had called it.

They headed inside and went to find Tony to consult him on what they could do. Of course they'd have to run everything past Pepper, but she was still away at the meeting and wouldn’t get home for a couple hours yet.

Peter and Harley went up to Tony's lab.

"Hey, dad?", Peter asked.

"Yeah underoos?", the engineer replied as his AC/DC playlist turned down about 90 percent, not looking up from the car he was tinkering with.

"Remember Flash? That kid who always picks on me at school? About 5'6", brown hair?"

Tony finally looked up from the engine. "Of course I do."

"Well, today he picked a fight with Harley and we need to exact revenge."

Tony perked right up at that. "Oh?"

Harley interjected, "it wasn't really picking a fight as much as trying at an insult and not sticking the landing, but hey, if it gives Peter an excuse to humiliate a bully, I'll take it."

"Nothing deadly, just a field trip here where he'll be humiliated out of his wits."

"That's doable. I'll do you one better though and make it look like an accident."

"Then you'd be in jail and I'd be without a father."

"True but it'd satisfying as hell."

At that, Tony dropped a very heavy-looking very high-tech glorified wrench onto his foot. Peter took that as a sign that it was no longer safe to let his sleep-deprived dad stay in his lab any longer.

"C'mon Dad. You haven't slept or eaten or showered today," Peter quipped.

"Now who's the responsible adult here?", Tony quipped back.

Peter rolled his eyes, Tony ruffled his dark curls with his grease-stained hand, and they moved on to the details of the scheme.

It would start just as they were coming in, simply with the badge system, and Peter, along with Harley, wouldn't have to do anything extra. Peter wouldn't receive a badge like the others, and wouldn't use his own badge either. He'd simply walk through the scanner and FRIDAY would recognize him. Sure, that wouldn't work for a regular intern, but it’s good to keep everyone guessing just how high up in the company Peter was.

Within the first few minutes in the Avengers museum, Peter would get called out to make an emergency fix to Bucky's arm. The fix was already needed, but scheduling it right then and there would display how vital Peter's presence was to the Avengers and the company. They'd be sure to have FRIDAY announce it over the speakers too for dramatic effect, of course.

Throughout this portion of the trip they'd be in and out of the lower labs, where not everyone knew Peter, but he would likely bump into a few people he did know who would come over and say hello.

At lunch, Natasha would come to the cafeteria, “discover” Peter sitting there, and have a conversation with him about some piece of tech in her arsenal. All the workers in the cafeteria already knew him, so he'd make sure he had a friendly chat with a couple of them too.

After lunch they'd head up to Dr. Banner’s lab where they'd see some of the unclassified projects and create something themselves.

After that would be free time until the next morning in which they'd have breakfast followed by going to the Avengers gym. This would be more of a fun stop than anything, but would also be a good opportunity for Peter and Harley to show off.

They'd finish the day off with heading to Peter's lab, the final nail in the coffin that is Peter's internship.

They'd have Clint camping up in the vents the whole time ready if mass chaos and confusion were needed.

Clint agreed immediately, to Natasha's concern. She volunteered to supervise him on the cameras (yes there are security cameras in the vents, this is Stark Tower for crying out loud). No one wanted to say no to her.

Now how would this all humiliate Flash in a dramatic way?

By the end of the trip, Flash would inevitably make a big scene. Once that happened, FRIDAY would set off the silent alarms. Clint would come down from the vents in a big show and would let loose an explosive arrow. Flash would scream in fear like a little girl, only to be absolutely doused in glitter.

Was it dramatic and over the top? Yes.

Would it go wrong in some way? Most definitely.

Is that what NDAs are for? At Stark Industries, yes.

:/ (Rick is sorry for the severe lack of dialogue here. It'll get better, he promises.)

Pepper was surprisingly cool with all of this, so it was planned for Friday, a week from then because they'd get plenty of time to make the precautionary NDAs that, knowing Tony and Peter, would almost definitely be needed.

With Pepper’s final, “let's get to it,” they dispersed for the last hour before dinner, and Peter shot a quick text to Ned.

Spoder: Ned were doing a thing

Guy in the chair: ooh what?

Spoder: three words: revenge field trip

Spoder: so you know how Flash torments us daily?

Spoder: well today he insulted Harley and i kinda snapped

Spoder: so we're going on an overnight SI field trip to humiliate him

Guy in the chair: wait we're going to SI??

Spoder: Ned you've been here hundreds of times you're literally coming over for a sleepover tomorrow

Guy in the chair: yeah but this is totally different

Spoder: sigh

With that, Peter went to finish up his homework on the couch, cuddling in his boyfriend's warm embrace until dinner, satisfied with his plan.

Chapter Text

:/ (Rick is sorry we can't time skip right to the day of the field trip just yet.)

Peter strode into his science class on Monday trying (and failing) to hide his excitement for what's to come.

Over the weekend, the PR department got a hold of the school and invited the science class to have the field trip. Today they'd receive the permission slips, which were clearly out on Mr. Harrington's desk, ready to be passed out.

Mr. Harrington practically jogged into the room. "Everyone, attention please, sit down. I have an announcement to make."

The class gradually made their ways to their seats without much fuss but there was still a low hum of conversation.

"Now," Mr. Harrington began, "we have a very significant opportunity for an overnight field trip this Friday. We are going to…"

A drumroll started up throughout the class.

"Stark Industries!"

The class erupted with cheering.

MJ leaned over toward Peter's desk. "Did you know about this?", she asked.

"Know about this? I organized it!", replied Peter.

"Why?"

"Elaborate plan, there's not enough time to talk about it now. I'll tell you later."

MJ shrugged and returned to drawing in her notebook.

Flash stalked toward Peter's desk. "Now, Penis, everyone will know you're lying. They'll all know you don't have an internship. They'll definitely all know you don't know Tony Stark," he snarled.

Peter didn't reply. He was too busy trying to hide his smile.

"What? Cat got your tongue?", Flash asked, annoyed he hadn't riled a response out of the teenager.

Mr. Harrington interjected, asking everyone to return to their seats.

At that, Flash gave up and went back to his seat.

:/ (Rick is getting tired of this.)

Peter and MJ sat down in the cafeteria.

"Okay, what's happening? What's the plan? What do I get to do?", MJ asked.

"Flash insulted Harley and I'm exacting revenge. We're going to humiliate him on the field trip. You get to kick his ass in an engineering competition and show him up at the Avengers gym. Simultaneously Mr. Harrington and the rest of the class won't be able to doubt that I have an internship at SI," Peter replied quickly.

"Cool! Serves him right."

Ned sat down. "And what exactly are we doing on this trip other than proving a point?"

"We're going to go to the museum, lower labs, and Uncle Bruce's lab, where we'll do a hands-on competition. The next day we'll go to the Avengers gym and finish up in my lab if all goes to plan," Peter replied, pausing to remember the itinerary.

"Nice! So basically a tour of the whole tower!"

"Just what's not as classified. You've been to all of these places."

"Yeah but with this we'll get all the history and everything!"

MJ rolled her eyes in derision.

On that note, the bell rang and the three headed off to their next class, math, which they happened to have together.

:/ (Rick is breaking the fourth wall to say I wrote this part at 2 am so the quality could go either way. Good luck.)

Friday morning came to Peter with a jolt. He woke to FRIDAY blaring "Good Luck, Babe". His dad must've changed it to tease him about the field trip. Regardless, Peter was excited and a bit smug. He didn't exactly want to get up though, with Harley snuggled into his side, providing much-needed warmth. He technically had a different bedroom right next door but often slept over. Tony thought he slept on the floor.

"Get up love. FRIDAY won't stop if you don't get up and I've got until you get back to be ready," Harley said, sounding surprisingly awake. He'd be the guide for the trip but Peter had to go to Midtown and back before he had to be down in the lobby.

"I don't wanna. Comfy."

"Me too but you'll be late."

"Mmmff." With that Peter kissed Harley on the head, rolled out of bed, and webbed to his desk on the ceiling. When Tony realized Peter spent so much time up there he drilled the desk to the ceiling and installed artificial gravity to its top so nothing fell off. Peter grabbed his phone, then went down to his wardrobe, grabbed some clean clothes, and high-tailed it out of there.

By the time he was in the kitchen Steve and Bucky had been up for hours. The husbands had a lavish spread of eggs, bacon, and pancakes out on the kitchen island and had sat down together to eat with Natasha.

"Good morning, Маленький паук (little spider)." Nataha greeted him warmly, eggs half hanging out of her mouth as menacingly as eggs can hang out of a mouth.

"Good morning мама паук (mother spider)," Peter replied sleepily as he filled a plate, "good morning Uncle Bucky. Good morning Uncle Steve."

"Mornin'", Bucky replied. "How you feeling about today?"

"Pretty good," Peter replied. "I think it'll work out as long as it doesn't get crashed by aliens or robots or anything like that."

Steve answered that one. "Knowing our luck, that'll probably happen."

Peter shrugged. "Honestly probably, but it'll be fine regardless. We'll humiliate Flash and be done."

"Sure, if Clint doesn't fall through the vents and Bucky doesn't kill anyone," Natasha quipped.

"There are NDAs for both and we can handle the lawsuits." Pepper made sure Peter would be prepared with NDAs and other contracts for everything. Aliens, murders, bombings, accidental tech unveilings, everything. There was next to nothing that could get past them.

"Hey, if I take care of Flash you won't have that problem anymore," Bucky reminded Peter.

"Dad offered the same and no."

"Buck, you can't just murder your problems away," his husband reminded him gently.

"Yeah but I can definitely murder Pete's problems away."

"Okay moving on," Peter interjected,"I've got to go. You have your assignments, right?"

Steve and Bucky nodded in unison.

"Meet you in your lab at 9 for arm maintenance" Bucky remembered.

"Then I'll join you for lunch," Natasha added.

"Then all of us tomorrow in the Avengers gym," Steve finished.

"Great!" At that, Peter noticed the time and ran to the elevator.

"FRIDAY, take me to the parking garage please."

"Of course, mini-boss," FRIDAY replied in her Irish lilt as the elevator sped toward the ground.

"Have you been updated on what's going on today?"

"Yes. Harley informed me of the field trip."

"Good." Peter was relaxed. Everything was set up to go.

Once he got down to the garage, he thanked FRIDAY and got in the car, greeting Happy.

"Hey Uncle Happy! Did Pepper tell you about today?"

"Of course. I'm the head of security. All of this had to go through me," Happy replied, slightly irritated as always. "You know you should wear a badge still."

"I don't usually wear a badge, why start now?"

"Maybe because you should always be wearing one. Everyone should wear one. This is a security risk," Happy was sounding more and more agitated.

"Okay, okay, I'll wear my badge." Peter rifled through his bag. "Or I would if I had it. It's probably on my desk."

"I've got it. Or a fake version at least." Happy handed over the badge. It read: "Peter Stark. Personal intern. Full access." Peter didn't read it though or he would've noticed Happy's error.

"Thanks," Peter stuffed the badge into his bag. He definitely wasn't going to wear it.

"Wear it."

"Okay, okay." Still not wearing it.

By then they'd driven the short distance to Midtown. Peter got out of the car, waving goodbye to Happy on the way as he walked inside.

He was immediately accosted by the sound of hundreds of high schoolers rushing to their lockers and classes. He was trying to pick out just two voices, two heartbeats: MJ and Ned.

After a moment he found MJ when she peeled herself from the stampede of teenagers to come stand by him.

"Hey! You excited for today?," she asked.

"Very. What about you?", Peter asked back.

She shrugged. "Kinda. I'll get to draw Flash's face when he finds out you were telling the truth this whole time!"

"Good. We need that moment immortalized. Framed. I'll make a specialty plaque."

"Good idea. I can see it now. 'Flash's Worst Nightmare. Graphite on notebook paper. Artist: MJ Watson.'" MJ gestured with her hands, as if reading off the imaginary plaque.

At that they headed to Science, where they'd gather before they got on the bus back to SI.

When they arrived Ned was already there, acting jittery.

"Hey guys! I'm really excited. For one we're going to Stark Tower, and for two we're finally getting back at Flash." Ned was shaking even more like he'd had way too much caffeine or was about to explode.

MJ rolled her eyes. "Ned, calm down," she hissed. "You're going to implode, or worse, let Flash on to what's happening."

"Right, right. Calming down," Ned took a deep breath.

On that note Mr. Harrington strolled into the room, looking even more excited than some of his students, including Ned. He clapped to get the students' attention.

"Alright class, right after attendance we'll go out to the bus and get to Stark Tower. I know you're all excited but you need to be on your best behavior." He looked at Peter. "All of you."

He took attendance and as they were heading out pulled Peter aside.

"Peter, I don't want you pulling your usual stunts on this field trip. No running off, no lying, none of it. Understood?"

Peter tried to protest but Mr. Harrington interrupted him.

"Understood?"

"Sure." Peter tried and failed to hide his sarcasm. "But I must tell you that the internship is real. The school has paperwork for it and everything."

"There will be none of it, Mr. Parker. None."

Oh, there will be all of it, Peter thought. All.

Peter returned to the group without a word and they boarded the bus.

By the time they were on the bus Ned had returned to his excited demeanor, "I can't believe this is happening!"

He, Peter, and MJ had moved to the middle of the bus, where Ned and Peter sat on one seat, MJ alone in the seat directly behind them.

"Good. Keep that up. It keeps us inconspicuous," MJ remarked.

Ned followed her instructions, causing the suffering of both Peter and MJ for the duration of the drive, but keeping Flash from coming up to them to be a problem.

The bus eventually reached the Tower Peter had left not an hour ago.

They left the bus, the three friends in the middle of the crowd, and went inside.

That's where everything went awry.

Chapter Text

One of the receptionists, Carly, came up to see the group and was immediately absorbed in conversation with Mr. Harrington about what the class would have to do before the field trip could begin. She was cut off mid sentence when she caught sight of Peter, who like most of the staff, knew he was a Stark.

"Mini-boss! What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be in school?", she asked.

Nonono she called me mini-boss and everyone heard didn't they? Oh no oh no oh no the plan already went south.

"Oh yeah this is my field trip. Technically I am in school," Peter responded, trying not to sound panicked. This was his turf. No one would ask questions, right? They probably didn't even hear her.

"Uh, Peter?" Betty asked, "why did that woman call you 'mini-boss'?"

Ned answered that for him, which was not good because he would probably fumble. "He's just a really good intern, that's all." Yep that definitely won't raise a million more questions.

Luckily, MJ came in with a save as always. "He practically runs the R&D department under Mr. Stark and handles a lot of important meetings. Plus he's a personal intern so that puts him on a different level from the other interns."

"Sure, that makes sense," Betty gave up, still not entirely convinced.

Carly returned to her conversation with Mr. Harrington and soon enough began to explain some ground rules. Harley was supposed to do this but must have been running late.

"Okay, ground rules. First, no taking photos in confidential areas. We'll know. Second, no touching anything unless we specifically tell you that you may. Third, listen to the staff. By this we mean all of the staff. They know what's best and if you don't listen you could be in danger. Explosions are frequent. Understood?"

Murmers of agreement were heard around the room.

"Good. Your tour guide should be here soon. Have you heard from him, Mr. St-"

Peter cut her off as quickly as possible. "Not since early this morning. Should I call him real quick?"

"Yes, if you'd be willing."

Peter walked off to make the call, much to Mr. Harrington's dismay.

"Mr. Parker! Do not walk away from the group! None of this!", he shouted out.

Carly looked at him, confused. "He's just helping. His boyfriend is the tour guide. He's calling him."

Mr. Harrington was confused. "Boyfriend? How could that-"

Carly cut him off. "Let him take care of it or you won't be able to have a tour today."

That shut him up well.

At that, Peter pulled out his phone and called Harley. It rang four times and went to voicemail.

"Hey, FRI, is Harley alright?" Peter asked through his watch, which had the building's AI built into it as well as Karen and a nanotech version of his suit.

"Harley's vitals seem to be fine at the moment, if that's what you mean. On the way down he was intercepted by General Williams and he is currently trying to shut him down on a weapons proposal, as the general has blocked the way to the elevator," FRIDAY responded.

"Ugh. We all told him we don't make weapons anymore. Tell Harls I'm coming to save him."

Peter practically ran back to the group. "He got stopped by General Williams, who kinda pinned him in and won't let him leave. I'm going up there to take care of it."

"Great, boss! Thank you so much!"

"Yep!" At that Peter sped to the elevator and asked FRIDAY to take him to Harley.

As the door closed he heard the yelling of Mr. Harrington for him to get back there and the mutters of surprise and confusion from most of his class. He didn't care though. He was in boss mode. However he was a bit bothered by the kink in his plan and how entitled the general acted.

The elevator got to the floor in no time and Peter heard General Williams practically yelling at Harley.

"We need those weapons and you know you'd be paid handsomely-"

"That's enough," Peter cut him off. "We've told you no a million times. Now please get out before I call security and have you escorted from the building."

"But-"

"But nothing. Go. My boyfriend has better things to attend to."

At that General Williams gave up and left, finally. Peter turned to Harley.

"Are you okay?," he asked, planting a kiss on his cheek.

"Yeah. That man's just extremely entitled. It's fine. Now let's go, we're already late!"

At that they rushed down to the lobby where everyone was still waiting. The class had finished with their shock and had started asking questions about why he knew Harley and how he got through the barriers, where the guards had just greeted him as he ran past. He ignored the questions.

"Alright everyone, I'm Harley Keener and I'll be your tour guide for today. Sorry for being late but I got accosted by a client on the way so Peter had to come save me. Let's get started!"

He brought out a box of name tags. "Okay, I'm going to call your names and one by one you'll come up, take a card, and walk through the scanner to the other side. Not even an idiot could mess this up. You'll get to keep these at the end as souvenirs."

Harley walked through the scanner. "Harley Keener, aka spud-slinger and 412 other nicknames. Adopted son of classified. Level gold. Welcome home, unwilling adoptee."

"Thank you FRIDAY." He walked back through the scanner to hand out badges.

"Who wants to go next?"

Betty raised her hand. "I'll do it!"

She took a badge and went through the scanner.

"Betty Brant. Level white. Welcome Betty.

Everyone went through pretty much the same way except for Flash, who strutted through and earned himself hostility from FRIDAY.

When the box was empty, only Ned, MJ, and Peter were left. MJ took out her badge and went on first.

"Michelle Jones, aka MJ, aka Scary Michelle. Friend of Peter. Level red. Welcome back, MJ," FRIDAY read in a kind tone similar to how she had welcomed Harley.

"Thanks FRIDAY!", MJ replied in a kind voice.

"Anytime!"

A collective gasp was heard from the rest of the group as MJ sauntered over.

Next came Ned as he pulled out his badge too.

"Edward Leeds, aka Ned, aka classified. Friend of Peter. Level red. Welcome back, Ned," FRIDAY read similarly to MJ's.

Ned squealed and skipped to the group as they gasped another time.

Finally, Peter came through the scanner without even putting on his badge.

"Peter classified, aka Underoos, aka Kid, aka classified, aka 473 other nicknames. Welcome home Boss."

"Thanks FRI," Peter thanked the AI, trying not to panic at the welcome home, which he didn't anticipate but probably wasn't heard, and heading to the group as they gaped at him.

"Wha-how did you do that?", Flash demanded.

"I work here and have high clearance. I'm over here enough for Ned and MJ to be around a lot too, so Da-Mr. Stark just gave them badges." That was actually true.

Betty raised her hand. "Uh, Harley, would you mind explaining what the different levels mean?"

Harley was unsurprised by the question. "Sure! White, which you have, is for tour groups. You only have access to the bathrooms without someone of higher clearance letting you into places.

Next is black, for the press. They can only access specific conference rooms.

Past that is green, for receptionists, lower interns, and other employees who don't have to go past the thirtieth floor.

After that is blue for employees from floor thirty-one to Tony Stark's personal floors.

Then there's red for Avengers who don't live here full time, like Sam Wilson, and friends of the Avengers and the Stark family.

Finally is gold for people who live here. Red pretty much has full access aside from Tony Stark's personal lab and gold has full, complete access."

Before anyone could ask more questions Harley started leading the group toward the elevator. They boarded and headed to the Avengers museum.

Once they arrived Harley let them disperse, coming over to Peter, Ned, and MJ.

"Okay I should get called to fix Bucky's arm any minute now," Peter exclaimed.

"Great, great. Then you just go up to the lab, take care of it, amaze a couple kids, and come back," MJ recalled.

Just in time FRIDAY came on the speakers. "Peter, Mr. Barnes needs you in your lab. His arm is malfunctioning and he needs it to be fixed right away."

"Of course FRI. Get the elevator down here please and tell him I'm coming!"

Peter was just about to rush off when his spidey sense went off as Mr. Harrington grabbed his arm tightly. This was not part of the plan. Peter could twist out of his grip easily given his superpowers but kept himself in place.

"Mr. Parker, I told you there would be no running off on this trip. What part of that is not clear to you?"

"All of that is clear. However, I'm not running off. There's an emergency right now that needs to be attended to. I'm the most qualified person to do it, especially since the only other person who can do it is currently in a meeting with the military.

I suggest that you please let go of me before Bucky decides he's had enough waiting and comes down here, because the result of him seeing you gripping me so would not be a pretty sight."

"Now I don't understand how you managed to get that to play over the speakers, or how you got the elevator to come down, or how you were able to get through security without a badge, but you aren't going anywhere. You'll be staying right here with me."

"Excuse me?" And that was when Bucky arrived.

Well this is going to be fun.

Bucky stalked toward Mr. Harrington, getting very close so he towered over the smaller man, very intimidating even without his metal arm.

"Let. Go. Of. The. Kid."

Mr. Harrington released Peter's arm immediately.

"I-I'm sorry. I thought he was lying. He's made up these delusions about being an intern here even though that's impossible and-"

"Have you ever considered that maybe he does work here? That maybe, because he's a good, smart kid, that he was able to land an internship? Did that ever cross your mind? And even if he were lying that gives you no right to put hands on him! C'mon Peter, my arm's in the lab."

Peter followed without protest and they remained silent until the elevator doors closed.

"Thanks. I told him that would happen but he didn't listen."

"No problem. He should've just let you go. All of that would've been avoided."

"Yep. I gave him reason and explained the situation."

They landed on the lab floor, which was set up for Tony and Peter to work on their projects. There were two sets of work desks in the center of the room set up with computers and hologram drawing boards. Around that were various projects.

Bucky and Peter went to one particular table with a metal arm on it.

"So what's wrong with it?" Peter asked.

"It's moving very jaggedly. The other day I tried to bake cookies and it kept stopping and going and got flour everywhere."

"Oh that's an easy fix."

Peter had it taken care of in no time. He put it back on Bucky, said goodbye, and headed back down to the museum floor to rejoin his class.

When he arrived down there Mr. Harrington was still fuming. Peter thought he probably wouldn't talk to him about it for a while yet and went to see Ned, who was gaping at the Spider-Man display.

He pointed at one of the fun facts. "Look! It mentions me! See? 'Tony Stark makes most of Spider-Man's suits and tech, but he also has a 'guy in the chair' who makes many improvements and alerts him to some crimes as they happen'. Tony Stark knows about me!"

"Yeah he knows about you, for one he's my dad and for two you had dinner with him last weekend!"

"Yeah but he knows about me in that context!"

Peter sighed as they moved on to the next exhibit, this one being Captain America. It had his first suit which Stark had bought from another museum, a replica of his shield, and a list of fun facts.

Unexpectedly, it also had a certain super soldier sitting on the nearest bench.

"Uncle Steve!," Peter hissed, "what are you doing here?"

"Just coming to check in. Buck said your teacher was giving you trouble," Steve responded in a whisper.

"Yeah but he took care of it. Thanks for coming to check though."

"Of course! If he becomes a problem again let me know." At that he rushed back to the elevator before anyone else could recognize him.

Peter and Ned moved on to the Hawkeye exhibit. Peter had helped set this one up by providing a prototype of a bow and disabling part of an explosive arrow so it could be displayed. Like the others, the exhibit displayed a replica suit and fun facts.

Peter heard a faint clanging above him and looked upward to spot Clint through the vent grate.

Peter aimed him a small nod of acknowledgement. "Hey! How is it in there?"

Clint shifted. "Not bad. I'm up here a lot so I've got a nice setup to people-watch in this part."

Ned jumped at the sudden voice coming from the ceiling. MJ gave him a small wave. Harley greeted him and went to check on some of Peter's classmates who were getting a little too close to an exhibit.

"Good. Are you having fun?" Peter asked.

"Very much so. There's a severe lack of need for chaos though."

"Trust me, we'll need it soon enough."

At that Clint nodded as he retreated further into the vents for now.

Chapter Text

The class went through the rest of the Avengers part of the museum without much more excitement. Next up was the history of Stark Industries itself.

Peter was hoping nothing else unplanned would happen for a while yet. That hope was crushed quickly.

Harley started out by explaining the future of Stark Industries. They'd work backward from there all the way to Howard Stark, Peter's grandfather.

"In the future, Ms. Potts will eventually retire as CEO. Because of that, we will need someone to replace her. Luckily we've already found that person and they have been named as heir to the company. Their identity will be revealed once they turn eighteen.

Mr. Stark will also eventually retire, or most likely die knowing him, and someone will replace him in the R&D department. We've also found that person and they will be revealed along with the CEO in training.

The future CEO and head are perfect for our future, are as close as Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts, and most importantly, have a long time to be trained."

This tidbit caused a murmuring to spread throughout the class about who these people could be. Of course they were Peter and Harley, but the group didn't know that and couldn't know that.

Peter picked out Flash's voice amongst the conversation, "the heir has to be Harley, doesn't it? Did none of you hear the nickname for him in FRIDAY's system? It's unwilling adoptee! That must mean something right? The Starks don't have any kids, and he has gold clearance, meaning he lives here! He has to either be, I don't know, Spider-Man, or the Starks' adopted kid, right?"

Jason spoke up. "Dude, you're saying some crazy stuff. Why would that make any sense? If the Starks adopted some kid it'd be all over the news."

Flash decided to keep his mouth shut for then.

Peter was amused by that whole spiel, but that positive feeling was interrupted quickly.

FRIDAY came over the speakers. "Peter, we have a code red in the lower labs, floor twenty-three. Third in command protocol engaged. Hurry."

Peter inwardly groaned. Code red could mean three things. Either something was about to explode, something already exploded, or someone was wreaking havoc and might as well have exploded. Whatever it was, it was bad and now he would have to deal with it.

"I'll be right there FRI."

Peter ran off to the elevator for the third time that day. Mr. Harrington kept screaming at him but this time had the forethought not to touch him lest a super soldier come down and start yelling.

"Alright FRIDAY, what's going on?" Peter asked once he'd reached the elevator.

FRIDAY answered as they rocketed toward floor twenty-three, "it appears that General Williams never left the building. He's blowing up at Ms. Platt, the head of the chemistry department. You need to diffuse the situation and get him out of the building."

Peter sighed. "Of course he couldn't just leave as asked. Okay, I need a suit for this. Run me up to the penthouse please."

FRIDAY rocketed the elevator to the top of the building, not stopping for anyone on the way. Peter got off and ran to his room.

He booked it to his closet, where he had a few business suits he used for situations like this as well as meetings he had to be apart of as heir.

He chose the first one he saw, a crisp navy with a white undershirt, threw it on, and ran back to the elevator. FRIDAY immediately took him back down to floor forty-three and he got off to immediately hear General Williams' yelling.

"I don't care about the contract we've got now, we want to change it!"

Ms. Platt calmly stood her ground. "For one, that's not even my department. For two, practically everyone in the building has told you that we no longer make weapons." She stopped when she saw Peter march out of the elevator.

"Peter, what are you doing here? You're supposed to be in school!"

"We're on a field trip here and FRIDAY alerted me. Technically I'm not supposed to leave the group but getting this man out of here is more important. I should've escorted him out the first time."

Ms. Platt raised an eyebrow. "First time?"

Peter nodded. "Yes. I had to come get Harley from him earlier when he cornered him. It made the field trip start late."

"Then this is his second offense."

"Yep." Peter turned to General Williams. "I'm going to ask you to leave one more time sir."

General Williams stuttered. "I'm not leaving until we get this contract."

"Well you're not getting the contract, as we've told you and your colleagues a million times." Peter was done with this. He briefly considered webbing the man to the ceiling, but that thought was cut off by the elevator opening and Happy stepping out.

He spoke into his earpiece. "Found him. Floor twenty-three." He then turned to the general. "Please get in the elevator so you can be escorted out by myself and the the team that will be here shortly."

That just angered the general more. "Not until someone will talk to me about the proposal!"

"Someone has talked to you. Several people actually. Myself, Ms. Platt, Harley, and about a dozen other people who work here. All of us have suffered through your spiel and all of us have said no," Peter said angrily. He was done with this and had been for a while.

"I mean an actual executive. Someone who actually matters to the company and makes the major decisions. Not some kid or woman."

Oh, so he's sexist and a jerk. Got it. "For your information, all three of us are executives. Ms. Platt heads this department, and you know that. Harley and I are both heirs to this company and make major decisions when my parents are not available. Now I'm done being professional. Get in the elevator, you ass."

Williams was taken aback from both Peter's being the heir and swearing at him. He was further taken aback when the elevator opened and Pepper stepped out. She wore a crisp light blue blazer.

Behind her stood Clint. He wore a dusty T-shirt and faded jeans, a stark contrast to Pepper's attire. His quiver sat on his back, bow compacted next to it.

Pepper spoke first in a calming voice. "General Williams, we meet again. As my son and head of security have told you, it's time to leave. Mr. Barton and Mr. Hogan here will escort you out."

Clint took out his bow in an attempt to look intimidating. Happy made his way over to Williams. Williams tried to shove him away. His getting physical set off FRIDAY's alarms, plummeting the lab into further chaos.

Happy grabbed the general's arm mid-shove, twisted him facing away, and bent him to the ground. "Okay, now you're blacklisted," he snarled.

General Williams didn't speak but dramatically cried out in pain. It really shouldn't have hurt very much and he was definitely exaggerating for empathy.

Clint stalked over, pulled Williams up, and started to lead him to the elevator. Happy followed, whispering something to Clint, causing him to exit the elevator and Happy to enter. The doors closed and the elevator began its descent to the security office.

Peter went to his mother and hugged her. "Thanks for coming. He wasn't leaving. He cornered Harley earlier too."

Pepper hugged him back. "I know. FRIDAY told your dad and he told me. He's keeping an eye on you and considers it peak entertainment."

Peter feigned being upset. "He's entertained by my suffering? Some kind of dad he is!"

Pepper pulled back. "He's entertained by Flash's suffering. His ignorance too."

"Okay, yeah, that is entertaining," Peter admitted.

"Anyway you better get back to your class before they start asking questions. Do you have different clothes down here?"

"No, I'll have to go up to the penthouse."

Unfortunately, Peter didn't get the time to go to the penthouse. The elevator doors opened again, revealing his class standing there, Harley in the front of them.

Clint yelped and leaped into the vent system, scrambling to safety as quickly as he could.

Flash was perplexed by the scene in front of him. "What the-"

Chapter Text

Mr. Harrington spoke first. "What is happening? Peter, why are you here?"

No one had time to respond as Betty spoke up immediately after. "Why are you wearing a suit?"

Flash didn't get his bearings as quickly. "Uh-uh… what the hell is going on?" He finally spat out.

Pepper spoke up. "My husband's intern had to take care of something very important. I'm sorry that it interrupted your trip, but the situation is resolved and he's good to rejoin!" Then she backed into the crowd as quickly as she could.

Peter grinned sheepishly. "Right. Could I change out of this first though?"

"You are not leaving the group unsupervised again young man!" Mr. Harrington was confused, but still fuming.

Harley stepped toward Peter. "I'll take him and Will can continue the tour until I get back. He knows more about this part than me anyway." He waved Will over, wrapped his arm around Peter, and steered him toward the elevator.

All Mr. Harrington could do was nod like he still had control and let Will lead the group away.

Harley planted a kiss on Peter's cheek. "What was the emergency darlin'?"

Peter put his head on Harley's shoulder. "General Williams never left. He was yelling at Ms. Platt when FRIDAY alerted me. Ugh, this is getting so out of hand." He rubbed his hand down his face.

"Hey, we can get it back on track. They definitely can't deny you at least know Pepper, right?"

The elevator doors opened to the penthouse and they strolled to Peter's room. He had no idea where his previous clothes had gone, so he threw on a science pun T-shirt, one of his dad's old MIT hoodies, and a pair of faded jeans, still speaking to Harley and overthinking as he did so.

"Right, but they'll definitely still try to "

"And we'll shut down their trying and destroy their doubts darlin'," Harley answered, being overly optimistic.

"But-." Harley grasped Peter's jaw with his hand and cut him off with a brief kiss. Peter stopped overthinking. The pressure and warmth on his lips overtook him. He couldn't really think at all then. Even though they'd been dating for a year and known each other for way longer, even before Tony had Harley move in as a sort of live-in intern/mentee, Peter still had his breath taken away every time they kissed.

"It'll be fine. Now come on, darlin', and try to stop blushing, before your classmates make assumptions about our whereabouts and doings." With that Harley led Peter back to the elevator and they made their way back down.

By the time they'd gotten down there again the group had recouped from their second major shock of the day and once again asked a dozen questions, which would once again go unanswered. Harley traded back with Will and took the group to see a demonstration.

Peter rejoined Ned and MJ.

Ned spoke up first. "Dude, what happened? Why were you gone for so long?"

"General Williams never left the building and I had to buy Uncle Happy, my mom, and Uncle Clint enough time to look intimidating and get down there, not that my mom needs time to be intimidating."

MJ nodded. "But what about when you went up to change out of the suit. Why'd you take so long then?"

"I couldn't find my clothes from earlier so I had to find new ones, plus I was rambling on about what else could go wrong, plus Harley kissed me and I froze."

MJ thought back to their brief romantic relationship. "Oh yeah, that'll do it."

Peter nodded. "So what happened while I was gone? Was Mr. Harrington civil?"

Ned answered. "When you left to deal with the general, no, when you left to change your clothes, yes. He was yelling practically the whole time you were gone the first time, which was a while, but the second time he thought he had control of the situation so he was fine."

"Good to know."

The demonstration was the last activity before lunch, so the class headed to the cafeteria. It was less a cafeteria and more a huge food court with a ton of different restaurants and options.

"Your meal today is free of charge. SI can afford it. Enjoy!" Harley said as he was already walking off to get Thai food.

As the rest of the class stood there gaping at it Peter and Ned went to the pasta joint (Peter knew from experience that a bowl of pasta never showed truly how much food it really contained and he was hungry. It had been a while since breakfast). MJ walked off to what was essentially a miniature installment of Delmar's, who had his son manning it.

Peter approached the counter. "Hi, Mrs. Romano!"

"Ciao Peter! Shouldn't you be in school?"

"You wouldn't believe how many people have asked me that today. I'm on a field trip here."

"To your own house? That's got to be boring?"

Peter shrugged. "Not really. I planned it and it's fun watching people squirm when they realize people here know me."

"Ah. The usual today?"

"Yep!"

"Then here you go!" She handed Peter his usual, an extra-large bowl of pasta with cream sauce.

"Grazi!"

Mrs. Romano moved on to Ned. "And what about you?"

"What he's having looks good, but normal human sized please."

"Of course." She handed over a bowl almost as full as Peter's.

"Thanks."

They headed back to a table where Harley was already sitting. MJ joined them next, sandwich in hand.

"Is this just lunch or did you plan something?" MJ asked.

Peter spotted Natasha coming over. "You tell me," he replied.

Natasha ignored the stares, gasps, and one brave kid's yelling "That's Black Widow!" as she made her way to the table and sat down. She held a couple of Tupperware containers holding something that smelled really good.

"I've got meatball soup. Bucky threw it together for lunch," Natasha said, holding up the containers. "Clint, get down here!"

Clint spoke from inside the vent. "No!"

"Last time you had soup in the vent you spilled it and Tony made you clean all of the tower's vents and ducts. Get down here unless you want to do it again."

Clint sighed in defeat and scrambled out feet-first. "Okay, I'll leave for soup, but I'm going right back in there after. I don't like these kids' silent staring." He sat down. "So that impromptu meeting was a mess, wasn't it?"

Peter nodded as he shoveled pasta in his mouth. He was already half way through the bowl. "I think we can turn it around though."

"Eh, probably." Clint dug into his soup like a starved animal.

Natasha spoke. "You've got Bruce next, right?"

Harley answered. "Yep, followed by a hands-on competition type thing in his lab. We know it's a chemistry lab but it's the largest area we could use without disrupting any work, aside from Peter and Tony's labs."

Natasha nodded. "Of course. He's exited to show what he's working on."

"We haven't seen him today. Have you?" Peter asked.

Clint answered. "Yes. He came for breakfast after you left."

"And he went up to the kitchen for lunch earlier," Natasha added.

"Great," Peter replied.

Clint finished his soup in record time. "I'm going to go now. Just know I'm watching." At that he ducked into a nearby opening and left.

Natasha stood next. "I better go too. Training with Rodgers. You can split the soup." She pushed the soup to the middle of the table along with some spoons. "Bye паучонок and friends, see you in the gym tomorrow."

"Bye паучиха-мама!"

The table split up the soup, which was delicious as promised.

By the time they were done it was time to move on to go to the labs. The class squeezed into the elevator and headed up.

Chapter Text

Once they got in the elevator Ned squeezed as close as he could to Peter.

"Dude, this is awesome! Even more awesome than I thought it would be! I mean, Black Widow brought us soup made by the Winter Soldier!" Ned wasn't doing very well at being quiet, but at least he wasn't saying anything secret or incriminating.

Peter leaned closer to Ned. "Uncle Bucky makes us food on a pretty regular basis. Now, Aunt Nat bringing it to us is rare, but it's not that out of the ordinary when we hang out. I can see why it's cool though."

"And we're about to go see Bruce Banner! Plus we get to show Flash up!"

MJ slid closer to them. "We've all met Banner, but yeah, we haven't done that second thing to this extent."

Ned turned to her. "Finally, someone who agrees with me," he said sarcastically.

The elevator opened to a huge room. Desks and tables were neatly placed about with various projects strewn upon them. On the glass walls stood shelves and shelves of various chemicals and tools. In the center of it all, back turned to the class, sat one Bruce Banner, back hunched over a desk.

Mr. Harrington not-so-subtly cleared his throat. Bruce practically jumped out of his skin at the sudden noise. He spun around in his chair.

"Oh, hello! Sorry, I knew you all were coming but got really absorbed in something and —."

Mr. Harrington spoke up nervously. "It's fine! Absolutely fine! It's nice to see you again! We haven't seen each other since what, 2008?"

Bruce cocked his head to the side like a dog. "Again?"

Mr. Harrington nodded. "Again! We went to college together at Culver University! I gave you access to the computers, remember?"

Bruce paused. "Oh, Roger! Yeah I remember you. Nice to see you again."

Harley cut in. "We better start with the tour so we have enough time for the competition."

"Of course, sorry," Bruce answered. "Alright everyone, let's begin our tour."

He trotted over to the wall of chemicals. "Over here I have all of the chemicals and compounds I could possibly need for any project. You likely won't be using these today, but if you eventually become an intern in the chemistry department you may occasionally be sent up here to get something."

Next he made his way around to the opposite wall, containing various tools. "Some of these tools are for chemistry while others are for mechanical things. You'll have access to all of them for the activity."

He pointed to the back of the room, where there was a large metal door, heavy no doubt, between two metal walls. "That's where I go if I feel like the big guy is going to come out. The walls are a compound of vibranium. Inside there are a few things to keep him entertained and calming things in an attempt to get the heart rate back down."

Bruce then came to the center of the room. "Over here is my main desk containing the files and basic information about all of my projects." He clapped once. "Oh, this is a confidential area, so no photos please. And that concludes our tour. Any questions?"

Various hands shot up. Bruce called on Cindy. "Yes?"

"H-how do you go about getting an internship here?" Cindy asked nervously.

Bruce paused. "Honestly, I'm not sure. I know it takes a lot of paperwork and you pretty much have to be in the later years of college for it but that's it. That would be a question for Pepper."

Bruce answered a couple more questions until he unknowingly called on Flash.

"If you have to be in college to get an internship, then how did Penis over there land one? He's only a junior in high school like the rest of us," Flash sneered as he gestured toward Peter.

Bruce raised an eyebrow in Peter's direction. "You mean Pete? He's one of the few exceptions to that suggestion. His expertise rivals some of the departments' senior directors and he's a valuable asset. Plus he's a personal intern which is a bit different as far as requirements go."

Flash was running out of rationalizations as to why everyone acted as if they knew Peter. Bruce Banner himself knowing his name sent his head spiraling. "B-but he's not anything special. He's not that smart."

Bruce shook his head. If you squinted, you'd see his eyes taking on a slightly green hue. "You'd be wrong on both fronts."

Harley cleared his throat. "Okay, I think that's enough Q&A for now. Let's move on to the competition."

"Right. Let's get to that," Bruce said.

"Everyone will split into groups of three. Your job will be to create a small robot that can be programmed to do whatever you want it to do. You'll have four hours to complete it. You may use anything in the lab. Don't worry, you can't access anything dangerous or classified. If you need something but can't find it, let me or Dr. Banner know. Once the four hours are up they'll be judged by a few surprise guests, anonymously so there's no bias or favoritism. Understood?" Harley explained.

The class murmered confirmation and split into small groups. They each went to an empty table and got to work.

Chapter Text

Ned, MJ, and Peter chose the table closest to the elevator, a couple of tables down from Flash's group with a clear view of them, and set to work.

"What should we make it do?" Ned asked.

"Nothing too showy. Maybe something to collect food orders? A delivery bot," Peter suggested.

"That's not showy enough. What about something that collects tools and supplies as instructed? It'll still require navigation like your idea, but with the added bonus of having to identify what it's picking up," MJ said.

Ned nodded. "Yeah, let's go with that."

"Sounds good. Let's get to it. I'll start on the chassis. MJ, could you work up a blueprint?" Peter handed her a ream of paper. "Ned, you start programming," Peter said, handing him a StarkPad.

They got to work fast. Peter ran to get some basic supplies from the tool wall. When he got there he spotted Flash lurking by the opposite wall, near the chemicals. He was probably about to do something stupid.

Peter abandoned the tool wall and went over toward Bruce. "Hey, I think Flash might be messing with the chemicals. He's loitering over there." He gestured toward him.

Bruce raised an eyebrow. "Wow, he's that much of an idiot?"

Peter nodded. "Yeah. I wouldn't put it past him."

By the time the interaction was through Flash had already scampered back to his table, acting as inconspicuous as he could, which wasn't inconspicuous. Peter sighed, went back to the tools, collected what he needed for now, and reluctantly returned to his table.

In the short time he'd been gone MJ was already done planning out what the robot would look like. She set it up so it would have a basket set just above the chassis, a claw on each side, with a camera on one claw to check what it was grabbing. Set on the chassis was a sensor so it wouldn't bump into anything.

Ned had started on the coding and the bot would already be able to operate when controlled by a person. Next he would upload images of supplies to a database so they'd be identifiable by the camera.

Their work was interrupted when Peter felt his spidey-sense kick into high gear. He looked behind him to see Flash rolling something toward the table. He didn't know what it was and certainly didn't want to find out.

Peter jumped across the table, pulling MJ and Ned with him until they knocked into the front wall, which luckily Peter didn't instinctively climb. MJ spat out various profanities in confusion and the three heard a bang behind them. They spun around to see a small fire, a scorched chassis, and a very green-looking Bruce.

Peter shook his head. "FRIDAY, deal with the fire please." He rushed to Bruce and gently lead him to his Hulk-proof room.

"Uncle Bruce, it's really important that you take a deep breath. We don't want to cause a bigger scene than what's already been caused, do we?"

"Personally, and you know I'm not one for violence, I think we do. You could've gotten hurt. You would've if you weren't enhanced, so for all he knew, it was guaranteed!"

"He probably didn't even mean for it to explode," Peter tried to rationalize. Bruce was getting larger and greener by the second. Peter's resolution was to shut the door and have Bruce lay down on the heavily reinforced cot so he could ride out the situation.

"Alright, FRIDAY, play some calming music. How's the fire going?"

The music started playing. "It's been dealt with."

"And Flash?"

"He claims he didn't mean for it to explode and must've gotten the combination of chemicals wrong. He's retreated to his table where MJ is still yelling at him."

"Good for her." Peter heard a roar behind him. He turned around as a hand tried to swat at him. He ducked. "Hey bud. You seem extra aggressive today. FRIDAY, get Uncle Thor, thanks."

Thor was always inexplicably able to get Bruce back. It could be chocked up to the fact that they were sort of boyfriends, but Hulk liked Thor too.

"Thor is currently out of the building. He should be back in ten minutes," FRIDAY called from the speakers.

"Alright. That's not too bad," Peter called back, dodging another hit. "C'mon man, you know me. I'm not going to hurt you."

"Bruce angry."

"He's not angry at me. He's angry at one of the kids out there who accidentally made something that, whatever it is, is highly explosive." Peter climbed the wall so he wouldn't have to keep dodging.

Then the door began to open unexpectedly. Peter threw himself at it and got it shut again, followed by someone frantically knocking.

He heard Mr. Harrington's voice on the other side of the door. "What's going on? Is everyone okay?"

Peter squeezed himself through the door, apologizing to Hulk. "Everything's fine. Dr. Banner's heart rate got too high but he'll be back to normal soon. Everyone can go back to the competition but please keep it down for now." Harley came up to Peter, planting a kiss on his temple. "Get back to your robot. I'll keep him company."

"He's acting violent today but Thor will be here in under ten minutes. If you're going to go in there take these." Peter glanced around the room, took the web shooters off of his wrists, and gave them to Harley. "They're pretty self explanatory. If he starts swiping at you aim at the ceiling, press the button, and cling for your life."

Harley took them and slid them on his wrists. "I've got it. Probably. If you hear me screaming come running." He turned, cracked the door open, and slid in.

Peter returned to his table to finish up the robot. The group elected to give it a quick paint job to cover the marks. They finished with a full two hours to spare.

When they were finishing up the paint job Peter heard thunder. The elevator doors opened and Thor stepped out. He stalked toward Peter.

"Young spider, where is my lover?" Thor boomed.

Peter gestured toward the back. "In the Hulk room. He's agitated. Harley's in there but I've yet to hear screaming so he's probably fine. Send him out here please."

"Of course! Thank you Tonyson." Thor stomped to the room and sent Harley out. Harley looked slightly disheveled but unharmed.

He came up to Peter and discreetly handed him the web shooters. "You're out of fluid. I only fell a couple feet though and he didn't punch me at all after that."

Peter gave him a once over. "Are you okay?"

Harley nodded. "Yeah. I landed on my feet and didn't stumble too far."

Peter took Harley back to the table where Ned and MJ were sitting and talking about what could possibly be left to do.

Ned stretched. "We could test it more, I guess, but the coding is all set up and ready to operate."

"It's entirely built, not a screw missing," MJ added.

"I've got some projects in my lab that I could use your input on, and I need to get some web fluid from there anyway," Peter said. "We could go up there."

MJ nodded. "Sure, let's do that."

The four stood up and silently made their way to the elevator. Mr. Harrington was so stressed that he probably wouldn't notice that he was missing three students and a tour guide for a while, if ever.

Chapter Text

FRIDAY sent them up to the lab, but on the way the elevator had to stop for a few people. The first was some intern or another from Legal that Peter hadn't seen around the tower enough to remember the name of. They were friendly though, declaring themself as Lee Gaul.

"Yes, it's ironic and fully intentional," they added.

"So what are you doing all the way up here?" Peter asked.

"I'm bringing Ms. Potts some papers that need to be signed. What about you four?"

"We're heading up to the lab. There's no real reason for it, we're just bored," Peter said.

"Fun. Who's lab is it?" Lee asked.

"Mine," Peter said. "Peter Stark, nice to meet you. If anyone outside this building asks, no, Tony Stark does not have a son. It's in the NDA you signed when you agreed to work here." Peter stuck out his hand to shake Lee's.

Lee took it. "Nice to meet you too, Peter and everyone else. I'll probably see you around." The elevator opened and Lee stepped off. They were almost immediately replaced by another intern, this one from the R&D department who Peter recognized as Amadeus Cho.

"I was supposed to come up here and get a prototype but I got lost. I'm not entirely sure where it is," he admitted nervously.

"The only places where a prototype would be up here are the private labs. Which one are you looking for?" Harley asked.

"My superior just told me to go to 'the lab'. It's a new type of bandaging, I think."

"Oh, that's in my lab. We're going there now. I'll fetch it for you," Peter said.

"Thanks."

The elevator opened unexpectedly, revealing Tony standing there, leaning against the hallway wall. He walked in, ruffling Peter's hair.

"Hey kids and kid I don't know. What are you doing here?"

Peter answered for them all, leaning into his dad. "We finished our project early so we're going up to the lab. Amadeus here needs to pick up a prototype for R&D from there too so I'm going to fish it out for him. What about you?"

"Well, it's my tower. If you mean more specifically here, Pep had me go to some meetings and now I'm going to go hide before I have to go to another one with the government."

Peter and Harley each groaned in sympathy. "Yeah we both had to deal with that earlier. General Williams?"

"No, even worse. It was a whole board of them." Tony shuddered.

"That's good enough reason to hide," MJ said.

The elevator opened and everyone stepped out onto the lab floor. Peter got the prototype off a particular table and gave them to Amadeus.

"They should already have all the information about it down there. Is that everything?"

Amadeus nodded. "Thanks. I better get back. I've taken way too long." He turned around and made his way back to the elevator, weaving between projects as he went.

Ned glanced around the room. "Maybe we should clean up. There's a ton of classified and dangerous stuff out in the open. We're coming back here with the class tomorrow, aren't we?"

"Yeah, there probably shouldn't be half an Iron Man suit or any of this," MJ gestured to a wall of Spider-Man suits with a table of prototype web shooters and fluid sitting in front of it.

"There's a metal wall that slides out to cover the suits. The prototypes can all go in the drawer in the table. We should definitely start cleaning now though," Peter said.

Tony stepped back. "On that note I just realized I haven't eaten all day. I'm going to the kitchen to see if there's anything left over from lunch." He kissed Peter on the head, gave Harley a side-hug, and fled before he had to clean up.

Peter grabbed two vials of web fluid from the table to load the shooters on his wrists and the four, along with DUM-E, got to work.

Meanwhile, in Bruce's lab…

Bruce was sick of kids.

Just Peter and Harley plus their friends or Clint's kids was always a pleasant time, but he didn't usually have to deal with this many children for this long. He was often part of the tours, but he usually just showed them his lab and they left.

It probably would've been fine though if it wasn't for Flash.

First, he caused an explosion, which then caused a Hulk-out. Then, when Thor went to question him, good boyfriend he is, Flash denied ever being by the chemicals. It was easy to disprove, but still frustrating.

Flash was scared out of his mind.

He didn't mean for the chemicals to cause an explosion. Chemistry just wasn't his best subject. His goal was a simple stink bomb. Instead he accidentally made a real bomb. It was lucky that Peter pulled his friends out of the way, or he'd be in real trouble. Now he was getting interrogated by an overprotective Norse god.

"Young Midgardian, what could possibly move you to do that? People could've gotten hurt, property was damaged, and this whole trip was interrupted!" Thor boomed. Little claps of thunder could be heard as he spoke.

"I-I didn't mean for it to happen! It was an accident!"

"What were you even doing around the chemicals? This is an engineering project!"

"I was never around the chemicals!" Flash exclaimed. That was a panicked lie if anyone ever saw one.

Betty looked up from her machine "That's a terrible lie. You clearly were."

Thor nodded to her. "Thank you, young lady. Even if the explosion was an accident you still should not have been using those. You still require punishment." The thunder boomed louder and crackles of lightning flew around the room. Thor turned to Bruce. "I say we throw him in the dungeon"

"We don't have a dungeon hun."

"Fine. We could give him to Natasha. She could use someone disposable to spar with."

"He'd be out of commission within thirty seconds."

Thor gestured to the far side of the room. "Could we make him clean the beakers over there?"

"Now that's something realistic." Bruce turned to Flash. "Get going. I don't care how sorry you are, get going before Thor accidentally summons a lightning storm."

Flash did as he was told and did the washing, but he still had to find a good way to sabotage Peter. The team leaving their robot unattended could be their downfall.

Chapter Text

Meanwhile, in Peter's lab…

"FRIDAY, lock up this drawer, please. Don't let anyone in unless I tell you to."

The lock slid into place with a click.

"Thank you. Initiate Spider-Security Protocol."

"Spider-Security Protocol initiated." A sheet of metal slowly slid into place, hiding the wall of Spider-Man suits. The various holograms around the room that had Spider-Man-related inventions were taken down as well.

"Harls, would you mind putting away that project you were working on yesterday? I think it's classified, right?" Peter asked.

"Yeah, it is, but I think the NDA covers it since it's something for the company. It's not dangerous or anything," Harley said.

"Alright, we'll keep it then. Can you show it off tomorrow?" Peter asked.

"Sure."

MJ called over to Peter and Harley. "Where does this go?" She gestured to the repulser she was holding.

"There's a chest of drawers next to the wall of Iron Man suits. Put it in the one labeled 'hand bits'. FRIDAY'll unlock it for you," Peter called back.

As MJ went to the chest to put away the weapon, Ned rolled out from under a car.

"Hey, how are we supposed to get this out of the way? I've got everything out from underneath it but I doubt Mr. Stark wants a bunch of teenagers messing with it."

Harley answered. "FRIDAY can move it if the engine is functioning, which I'm pretty sure it is, since it's been a full week since Dad started working on it. Just get in the driver's seat, close the door, and turn it on. The key is in there."

Ned didn't hesitate to slide into the car. It was admittedly very cool, a red convertible with shining accents. He turned the key and the engine purred to life.

"FRIDAY, please move the car to the parking line," Harley requested.

The car slowly began to back up, turning around before making its way to a line of cars next to a huge utility elevator and parking between two other cars.

Ned turned it back off, slid out, and trotted to one of the various tool boxes to put things away.

Peter looked around. "We're making pretty good time but Harley definitely should get back soon. The class needs some supervision since Uncle Bruce and Uncle Thor probably won't be paying much attention to them. Plus he's technically the tour guide."

Harley nodded. "Definitely. I'll go up there now." He quickly kissed Peter and ran off to the elevator.

MJ called out from halfway across the room. Since the "room" was an entire floor, it was truly a feat that she could be clearly heard. "Hey, what do we do with the Avengers-related projects?"

"I think we can leave them out as long as they're not currently able to cause death or extreme injury. Arrows that aren't dangerously explosive can stay, so can knives, as can suits and stuff. I think by now the class should know they shouldn't touch sharp stuff," Peter answered.

"You'd think so. We've got a million first aid kits in here if anyone does get hurt."

"How much longer do we have before we need to get back down to the competition?" Ned asked.

"About an hour and a half," Peter answered.

"We should probably get there before they start judging for one more test run just in case," MJ said as she started moving closer to the other two teenagers.

"Definitely. We can finish cleaning up later if we need to," Peter said.

A beeping sound rang out from across the room. "Uh, guys?" Ned said. "I may have pressed a button not knowing what it was." The beeping started going faster. "And now that's going off."

Peter dove in the direction of the sound. "It's fine. It's not anything dangerous, just a bomb."

"A bomb?" MJ asked. "That's definitely something dangerous."

"A web bomb," Peter clarified. "All it does is make a mess right now but later it'll trap it's victims in a web." He didn't make it there fast enough and a white sticky fluid flew about ten feet in each direction. Tables were covered. Projects suffered.

Peter groaned. "We're going to have to come back later and clean all this up. It doesn't dissolve yet like the other webs. At least only one went off though."

"Will it solidify? We don't want that to be a problem," MJ said.

"No, probably not. This is the first trial though."

"Sorry," Ned apologized.

"It's fine. I was planning on testing it with you anyway, but preferably in a more controlled environment that would be easier to clean up and where we were behind a wall," Peter said.

"Hey, we should probably get back to Banner's lab. We've been missing for a while and someone might notice," MJ suggested.

"Sure." The three moved on from their cleaning and made their way to the elevator.

Chapter Text

:/ (Rick's back for the smallest time jump possible because I didn't want to write another elevator scene.)

A couple of heads turned as the trio stepped out of the elevator, but both teenagers simply gave one confused glance and raised eyebrow and turned back to their projects. A look around the room revealed that everyone but the three was still working on their robots, all in various stages of completion.

The group sauntered back to their table for one last test run.

Ned picked up the StarkPad. "Let's just do a couple diagnostic tests first, followed by actually finding and picking up a couple of things."

Ned ran the code to have the helper robot move forward three feet. No problem occurred. The same happened when it was made to go left, right, and backward.

"Now let's have it pick something up."

Not a second after Ned triggered the code running, the machine jerked forward, sputtered, and had smoke begin to billow out of it.

"Shit! What happened? It was working just fine earlier!" MJ exclaimed, thoroughly exasperated. "The claw arms must have some sort of issue, right?"

Peter volunteered to move in toward the still-smoking machine and checked it out.

"Found it! This wire is too low a voltage. I definitely didn't do this though." Peter and his dad literally built suits of armor for fun. He'd been doing wiring way more complex than this since he was in preschool.

"C'mon. We all know who did it." MJ nodded over to Flash's table, where they'd hardly started assembling their robot.

"Well, it's a good thing we checked everything," Ned said optimistically. "We can still fix it."

"Let's do it one better and improve it," Peter suggested. "We can increase its speed and agility, maybe even its strength. We've still got over an hour."

"Great idea and all," MJ chimed in. "But we really need to get started."

They got to work fast. Peter redid all the wiring, MJ souped up the motors, and Ned perfected the code. They were done with a decent amount of time to spare.

"That should be it," MJ said with finality. After one last test they proved that the machine worked perfectly, far smoother than it did before and without any smoking.

Peter glanced around the room. "I'm starting to think four hours might've been too short a time slot for this. Only one other group is done here."

Harley sauntered up to the table at that exact second, kissing Peter as he sat down. "We can extend the time if we really need to but I think they'll all finish." He raised his voice. "Thirty minutes, people! The judges will be here in thirty minutes! Let me know if you need more time so I can hold them off!"

A chorus of students scrambled to work on their projects. A few called out in plea for extra time. "Alright, I'll call them. Y'all can probably have an extra half hour."

Yet another chorus started up, this one a murmering of thanks and relief.

Harley pulled out his phone. "Okay I honestly don't know who's judging. Do you Pete?"

"No. Dad said he'd arrange it. In hindsight I shouldn't have let him because who knows who will show up."

At that moment Clint spoke up from the vent. No one actually expected him to still be there. A grown man should probably have better things to do than spy on a field trip, but he probably hadn't been paying attention for most of the time if Flash had multiple chances to mess with the robot. "I know who's coming," he called out.

"Who?" Peter asked.

"Oh, I'm not going to tell you. They'll have my head. I'll text them though so they know to wait."

Peter leaned across the table. "Well, that can't be good."

"It can't be as bad as what's already gone wrong on this trip," MJ said.

"Oh, it can."

"I highly doubt it. The worst he could do is send someone who'll embarrass you, but that'll still confirm you're here all the time, so it's a win."

"That's true," Peter conceded.

The four had nothing better to do, so they elected to settle in and watch the groups around them work.

Betty, Cindy, and Abe were complete with their project and in the testing phase. The robot seemed like a strong contender.

On the other end of the spectrum was Flash's group. They weren't more than two-thirds done and their robot was already smoking a little.

The rest of the projects were somewhere in between both in completion and functionality. Two other groups were done, three incredibly close, and two a little bit farther but still closer to completion than Flash.

By the time the class was down to fifteen minutes to complete their projects, everyone had finished except for Flash's group.

"Wow, they're cutting it close, aren't they?" Bruce said as he came up to the table. Thor had to reluctantly leave just before then after Bruce reassured him a dozen times that he was okay and it was fine to go.

"Very," MJ answered.

The group had certainly tried to finish, but Flash wasn't exactly good at engineering, and he'd commandeered the building portion. First he installed the wrong motors, then the wrong wiring, then he put in the control hub backward. Plus he'd spent half the time acting like a conspiracy theorist as he talked about what Harley could be to the Starks. They really needed to get it done though, before whoever is getting there gets there.

Peter decided to be a decent human being and ask if they needed help. He regretted his decision immediately.

"Hey, do you need help installing that? You look like it's been giving you trouble."

"No!" Flash snapped. "We've got it Penis. You've got no chance at beating us."

"I was just trying to be nice. Anyway, we've already fixed what you broke, so we've got quite the chance at beating you." Peter turned on his heel and stalked back to his table.

Chapter Text

"He did exactly what I assumed he would, but he definitely needs some help. I would almost feel bad for him if he didn't try to sabotage our robot and almost kill us," Peter said.

From toward the middle of the room Bruce called out to the class. "Alright everyone, ten minutes until they get here! That means all of you need to be done with your project and be away from your tables before then!"

Flash grumbled something in frustration. Part of his creation was still lying on the table, sparking and jerking. The rest was barely held together, screws inserted haphazardly between seemingly randomly placed holes.

"He's not going to make it," Ned said.

"Maybe he would if he included his partners," MJ suggested.

"Or accepted help," Peter continued.

Surprisingly, Flash eventually, as if he'd heard them, finally switched with Jason, who was actually pretty competent and finished only a couple of minutes before the time was up.

Harley clapped twice. "Okay, everyone, screwdrivers down and back away from your projects! Please go stand at the back of the room. The judges will be here shortly."

A muffled giggling could be heard from the vent. The class by now had accepted that Hawkeye, a bow-wielding SHIELD assassin-turned-hero who helped save the world, was casually hanging out up there. Either that or they were still shell shocked.

Harley looked pointedly at Flash. "This is your reminder to keep your phones away." He went to each table and placed a card with a number on it on each machine. Peter's group was number 3 while Flash's was number 5.

Ned leaned toward Peter. "Who do you think it is who's judging?"

"Probably someone who'll either embarrass me, kill Flash, or steer this trip even further off course."

"Yeah but regardless it'll be cool!"

"Not the point."

MJ leaned in. "My guess is all three. Your dad goes overboard both with protecting you and embarrassing you."

Peter rolled his eyes. "I've noticed. He's more of a mom than my actual mom. Remember the baby monitor protocol? Or the training wheels protocol? The names are embarrassing and the protocols are overprotective. It's two birds, one stone."

At that exact moment the elevator opened to reveal one Norse chaos god, one Russian assassin, and one genius billionaire.

Chapter Text

Peter inwardly groaned. He leaned back toward Ned. "I guess MJ is right. Why is this my life?"

"Your life is pretty good. You're the son of Tony Stark, not to mention a superhero."

"We both know that both of those get me in a lot of trouble. I get kidnapped like twice a year."

"Yeah but you escape every time, with few to no injuries, so it's fine!"

Peter rolled his eyes. "Once again, not the point!"

The "judges" stepped out of the elevator. If Natasha and Loki had seen Peter, they didn't show it, but Tony caught his eye and not-so-subtly winked.

That can't possibly be good, Peter mused.

The class, beside Ned, Peter, and MJ, of course, gaped at the trio with wide eyes and open mouths.

"You're-you're Tony Stark!" Flash pointed out, bumbling towards the front of the crowd.

Tony, unbothered, plodded toward the project labeled as number one. "Genius observation, kid." He pressed the button to run the machine's code, watched it run through, and jotted down some notes. "Natasha, reindeer games, come do this. There's prompts and everything. It takes incredibly little actual thought."

"I only agreed to come, not to scrutinize the creations of Midgardian youth," Loki said. "I have something better to attend to."

Oh yeah this'll go badly.

"I'll judge you," Natasha offered.

"Come do it and then you can do whatever you want," Tony compromised.

Dad's going to get someone killed. Maybe himself. More likely someone who accidentally annoys Loki even more than he does.

Natasha shrugs and goes to do it without argument. Peter heard Loki mutter, "I was supposed to be king" at far too low a volume for Tony to register before stalking to the table.

Tony barely got to the second robot without calling out to Peter and Harley, seemingly unconsciously. "Hey, boys, do you think we could apply this to DUM-E to get him to navigate better and move more smoothly? His motions have been jagged recently, haven't they?" He was referring to a couple of improved hinges on the machine he was judging paired with an intricate-looking combination of motion and touch sensors.

Peter came over to the table, Harley close behind, and looked where Tony was gesturing. "We definitely could. Just enlarge and reinforce the hinges, put the sensor cocktail on the claw, and you're good."

Tony ran his hand through Peter's hair as Peter leaned into his hand. "Good. FRI, take a few snapshots of the components and add it to the list of improvements."

A delayed gasp, along with Harley half-shoving Tony's hand away from his own hair, snapped the two back to reality.

Tony made an attempt to shift his demeanor more to one of a boss than a father as he moved further away. "Good work. The two of you may return to your group now."

Peter backed away to the group. "Thank you, Mr. Stark."

Whilst Tony, Loki, and Natasha wandered the room, judging as they went, the class had already started formulating their rumors.

"Maybe he really is an intern," one suggested.

"No, that can't be right. We already figured out he's lying about that," another added.

"Stark definitely knows him somehow though. Did you see the way he leaned in?"

On the opposite side of the cluster of teens, Flash ignored the subject of Peter altogether, instead choosing to talk about Harley.

"Did you see how Stark almost touched him? They've got to be related or at least know each other really well."

"Uh," Jason started. "He actually touched Peter. Like full on hair-ruffling. Are we going to bring that up at all? It's way more interesting."

"That's completely besides the point. Parker is Harley's boyfriend so of course he'd know Tony. The question is how Harley knows him."

Peter, who was eavesdropping, rolled his eyes and whispered to Ned. "They still think Harley's Dad's kid or something."

Ned stifled a laugh.

Tony finally got to Flash's table. When he ran the code it ran about halfway through before jerking, sputtering, and overloading the battery. Tony frowned, jotted something down, and moved on.

Loki was done judging way before Tony was and chose to go over to the group. He ignored everyone until he reached Peter and his friends. However, when one particular remark was made about his participation in the incident regarding a wormhole and the mind-controlling of New York, MJ turned and snapped, "he was an angsty sibling who felt he'd been wronged. You'd have done the same if you were in line for the throne. Well, I mean, probably not the mind control part but trying to start a war, definitely."

Loki just laughed. "Quite the spitfire you are, MJ."

"Thanks. Now why'd Tony make you come do this?"

"I was one of the only people who was not otherwise occupied and he seemed to have found it amusing to force me into such a mundane situation."

"Of course he did."

The five stood in silence for a while until Tony finished up and came to them as inconspicuously as he could, meaning very conspicuously. Loki handed him the paper where he'd begrudgingly filled out the prompts.

"When Natasha gets done Harley'll announce whoever won and all three of us will get out of your hair."

This small interaction created yet another wave of conversation, which Tony pretended to ignore, but Loki chose to escalate.

"Why don't we stay for now? We can escort them to dinner. That way you will have more time with the children you're so fond of."

Of course. The steering the day further off course, as promised.

"That sounds great!" Tony answered, a genuine smile spreading across his face.

Natasha finished up at that moment. "Here you go. Ready to leave?"

"No," Tony answered, still smiling. "We're staying for now."

Natasha smiled too, but it was something darker as she glanced toward Flash. "Great."

Chapter Text

Harley tallied up the results of the judging. Even after the sabotage, Peter's group won with Betty's group in second place. On the opposite end of the placement scale was Flash, who failed miserably.

"This isn't fair! My robot's spontaneous combusting shouldn't be factored into the score!" Flash exclaimed.

"It couldn't finish it's program," Betty pointed out.

"That's unrelated."

Betty just sighed and backed away.

"Okay everyone, who's ready for dinner?" Harley asked. He led the class to the elevator where Loki and Natasha chose to flank Flash while Tony squeezed his way in next to Peter.

The doors opened to the food court they went to for lunch. Only a few Tower workers were still there, since it was after six. There were two people in lab coats and a singular receptionist on the other side of the court, but otherwise it was empty. However, more than half of the restaurants were still open, as would be the case pretty late into the night since the people who worked here were known to sometimes work very late.

Once again, the class scattered to different places to get food. Peter opted for Thai and got an unreasonable amount of Massamon curry with jasmine rice while Tony got a pizza to share with the table. Ned and MJ got Chinese and Natasha went back upstairs to get some of whatever Bruce was cooking for herself and Harley. Clint finally got down from the vents again and got a salad with chicken before sitting down, covered in dust, dirt, and cat hair from Alpine somehow getting up there. Loki chose not to get anything, prefering to steal from everyone else's plates.

They pushed together two four-person tables so everyone would fit and chowed down.

"So there's nothing left after this til tomorrow?" Tony asked.

"Yeah. We'll take them to the rooms they're sleeping in and they've got free reign of that floor. It's just conference rooms and a couple offices besides the bed spaces," Harley answered.

"And then tomorrow is the training gym and the lab," Natasha piled on.

"Who's doing the training gym? I was thinking of coming down there," Clint said.

"I think Bucky and Steve, maybe Thor, and I are going," Natasha answered. "They'd probably love seeing you shoot and Bucky beating you again."

"He didn't beat me. He simply threw me across the room and knocked me briefly unconscious."

"That's the definition of beating you."

Tony quickly shifted the subject. "Do you want to come up to the lab later?"

Peter shrugged. "Sure. It still needs cleaning up. Ned set off a web bomb in there earlier."

"Yeah, I saw that on the cameras," Natasha added.

"Weren't you supposed to be watching Clint?" Peter asked.

"Multitasking. Watching you three is more fun anyway."

Loki stole a piece of meat from Harley and a fork full of rice from Peter. "I am going to leave for now. Perhaps I shall see you mortals later." Turning a nonexistent cape with a flourish, he left.

"We should go too. That kid over there has been staring at me for the past half hour," Natasha added. She and Tony stood up, Tony side-hugged Peter, and they followed Loki to the elevator.

Chapter Text

"What about you, Uncle Clint?" Peter asked.

"I haven't finished eating yet and Tony and Natasha both left a bunch of food, so I'm staying here for now."

"Are you going to follow us again tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow? I'm sleeping up there with my hearing aids in. Nothing's going to happen that I don't notice!"

"You really don't have to do that!"

"I'm doing it. I've set up camp above the door to the rooms you're all sleeping in. There's a sleeping bag, a laptop with all the security feeds, the works! Just like the old SHIELD stakeouts!"

"Except the criminals are teenagers," MJ pointed out.

"I don't see a difference." Clint was practically inhaling his food at that point. His and Natasha's plates were emptied with Peter's help and they were working on Tony's when Harley realized the time.

He stood and clapped twice. "Alright, everyone, clean up your settings! We need to get moving so we can get up to the rooms before we hit the rush of the scientists who've just realized what time it is and that they can leave!"

Chairs squeaked and silverware rattled as people stood to move. Clint said goodbye and scrambled back to his vent, pizza dangling out of his mouth.

Everyone diligently cleaned up after themselves, except for Flash, of course. He simply stood and left his mess. Harley reminded him and, groaning, he went back and picked up.

Harley started toward the elevator. "We'll be going to the lobby coatroom where all of you put your stuff earlier, then up to the rooms."

The class followed and piled in. FRIDAY sent the elevator down to the lobby, which was entirely empty except for one lone receptionist who was still packing up to leave.

They piled back out and went to the coatroom where there was a pile of backpacks and duffel bags waiting in a corner. Everyone scrambled to get theirs as they sorted them out and Harley cheuferred them back to the elevator.

They opened back up into the cafeteria.

"To this elevator, please." Harley gestured to a different elevator from the one they'd been using. It went from the cafeteria floors all the way up floor eighty, the floor directly before the start of the Avengers floors. They'd have to go to floor seventy-five, where they'd stay in the guest rooms that were rarely ever used and really only existed in case the dozen guest rooms on the Avengers' and Starks' floors weren't sufficient.

As everyone piled in Peter was somehow separated from Ned, MJ, and Harley and ended up right in the middle of Flash and his friends.

"Hey, loser. I guess even your friends abandoned you, didn't they?" Flash whispered.

They pressed in on him and backed Peter into the wall. As his back pressed in, the stabilizer bar deformed a bit. He had to push forward so he could put the bar back how it was, which required getting way too close to Flash for comfort and provoking him even more than usual.

He was saved when MJ pushed through the wall of thugs to grab him by the arm and pulled him away toward the elevator doors as they opened onto floor seventy-five. They were the first two out, followed closely by Harley as he rushed after his boyfriend, concerned.

"What's going on darlin'? Are you okay?" Harley asked.

"Yeah I'm fine. Flash cornered me and I broke the bar on the wall so had to practically knock into him to have enough room to fix it. MJ rescued me before anything else happened," Peter answered.

Harley gave him a slightly worried look but didn't say anything. The class filed out of the elevator and he led them to the rooms, holding Peter's hand all the way as MJ walked behind them, glaring at Flash, and Ned followed next to her.

Chapter Text

Harley turned around to face the class as he stopped in front of a common area. "Okay y'all, I need you to divvy up into groups of three each. Your groups will each choose a room in this hall to stay in for the night. Go drop your bags in there. Out here we've got games, books, tons of stuff. You've got pretty much free reign of this floor for tonight, but if it's marked classified don't look at it, and don't trash the place."

MJ, Ned, and Peter chose a room toward the middle of the hall. On one side of the room was a singular bed, on the opposite a bunk bed. Between the two was a small square table with four chairs. In the corner sat a small television. MJ took the single bed and the boys took the bunks.

"Well, we've got some time to burn," MJ said, sitting on her bed. "What should we do?"

"We need to go back to the lab to clean up," Peter answered, responsible person he is.

"Yeah, but that shouldn't take us all that long, right?" Ned mused.

Peter hopped down from his perch on the top bunk. "It wouldn't if you hadn't set off the web bomb in the middle of the room. Now there's a 10 foot half-sphere of synthetic webbing."

MJ groaned but started towards the door. "Let's go."

The trio started going to the private elevator, which was on the opposite side of the hallway from the regular one, tucked around a corner, but were stopped by Mr. Harrington. "Where do you three think you're going?"

MJ stepped forward. "Harley said we've got free reign of this floor. We're just scoping it out." She stepped around Mr. Harrington, beckoning the boys to follow her. "There's no reason for you to stop us, Mr. Harrington. We're far less likely to cause problems than anyone else here."

Mr. Harrington grabbed her arm. "That doesn't seem all that accurate. Peter here's been disappearing all day."

"I haven't disappeared," Peter interjected. "You've known where I've been going. You know where we're going now."

From a distance Peter heard the private elevator open and familiar footsteps file out. It wasn't long before he saw her, in sweatpants with her red hair up in a messy bun, coming to the trio's rescue with very necessary big sister energy. Wow, they're really keeping track of us, aren't they? They've even got Wanda on it, Peter thought.

"Excuse me, sir, what do you think you're doing?" Wanda was less than 2 feet behind Mr. Harrington before she spoke.

Mr. Harrington whipped around. "Uhhh."

"They were given permission to wander. You're not inhibiting anyone else from walking around." Wanda kept her voice even.

"Well, no one else has been disappearing all day," Mr. Harrington defended.

"They haven't been disappearing all day either."

Mr. Harrington gestured to Peter. "He has. He must be messing with the speakers or something. There keep being these 'announcements' and then he disappears for a varying amount of time!"

"Oh, those announcements are very real." Wanda seemed done with the conversation. She pulled MJ from Mr. Harrington's grasp. "Let's go. Peter, your dad's asking for you in the lab."

The four continued to the private elevator, leaving Mr. Harrington behind in his confusion and anger.

Chapter Text

When they got into the elevator, Peter breathed a sigh of relief. "Thanks, Wanda."

"Of course. He has no right to say that stuff."

"He kinda does," Ned said nervously.

Wanda whipped her head towards Ned. "What did you say?"

Ned snapped his mouth shut. "Nothing. Nothing at all."

"So what does my dad want me for?" Peter asked.

"Remember that ten foot circle of webs?" Wanda asked rhetorically.

"Yeah?"

"He slipped and fell and is currently encased in it."

"Did DUM-E get a video?" Peter asked.

"Of course he did. Tony's really annoyed though." Wanda paused. "And sticky."

"I'll get the spray," Peter said. "It's in my room from last week, when Uncle Clint sneaked in in the middle of the night during a prank war and I webbed him to the ceiling."

"So that's what the screaming was for!" Wanda mused.

"Yeah, he's a drama queen." The elevator opened to the penthouse living room. Peter started toward his bedroom, asking FRIDAY to tell Tony he'd be down as he went.

"Okay, dissolving spray. Where'd I put it?" Peter checked his bedroom shelves, his closet, his desk, even his suit compartment (he doesn't even remember to put his suit in there half the time, why would he put the spray in there?), but the spray still went unfound.

"FRIDAY, please tell Dad I lost the dissolving spray."

"Of course." FRIDAY paused. "He says that if you don't get him out soon he's banning Ned from the lab for life."

"I'll just reinstate him when I inherit the company."

"He'd also like to inform you that if you don't get down there soon you're out of the will."

"Tell him I'm coming. I've got to make more solvent though."

"He groaned dramatically, wrestled with the webs, and is now even more entangled."

"Of course he is." Peter left his room and went back to the living room, where Wanda, MJ, and Ned were sprawled on the couches, making themselves at home. "We've got to go before Ned's banned from the lab and I'm out of the will."

MJ sat up. "What about the spray?"

Peter grinned sheepishly. "I lost it."

Ned rolled his eyes. "Of course. The one thing keeping me from getting banished from your super cool lab got lost."

"Hey, I can make more," Peter pointed out.

"Maybe we should go so you can get to doing that," MJ said, standing up.

Ned jumped out of his seat. "Can I help?"

Peter started toward the elevator. "As long as you don't blow anything up." He turned to Wanda. "You coming?"

"No," she answered. "I've got to go out with Steve to deal with this guy who just broke into the Smithsonian."

Peter shrugged. "Alright. See you later." The trio got into the elevator to go to the lab.

Chapter Text

"So what're we going to see when we get to the lab?" Ned asked. No one had time to consider the question before the elevator doors parted to reveal Tony, thoroughly stuck towards the middle of the half-sphere of white strands.

Peter stepped out. "That's what."

Tony shifted so he could face the elevator better. "Took you three long enough," he chided.

"I had to look for the solvent!" Peter exclaimed, indignant. "But now I've got to make it."

"If you didn't have solvent you shouldn't have set this off," Tony pointed out.

"I didn't, Ned did!"

"Hey!" Ned shouted. "I didn't know what the button did."

"Then you shouldn't have pressed it." Peter giggled.

"You laugh at my distress?" Ned asked.

"No, it's just that Dad looks ridiculous." Peter gestured towards where Tony was struggling to try to break the webs. "That's not going to work, Dad. Those have the capacity to contain the Hulk."

"Hey, it's worth trying," Tony panted.

"No, it's not." Peter went over to where his wall of suits would be if they weren't hidden behind a sheet of metal.

"FRIDAY, please deactivate the Spider-Security Protocol." The metal curtain rolled back to reveal Peter's suits and the chest of drawers unlocked so that Peter could get the products necessary for the spray. He grabbed them from the drawer. "Hey, Ned, could you get a spray bottle from the bathroom? I need to mix the powders and boil some water."

"Sure." Ned took off in the supposed direction of a bathroom. It didn't take long for Peter to hear a crashing noise. "Sorry!"

"Hey, as long as nothing exploded, we're good," Tony called back.

"It was a suit!"

"Okay, maybe we're not good. Go get the spray bottle, kid."

Ned poked a thumbs-up into the air and scampered off.

Peter turned to MJ. "Do you mind picking the suit back up? I'm pretty sure it was mostly assembled so you don't have to stack anything, I just need you to put it back upright."

MJ nodded and followed the path Ned had cleared. There was a moment of silence before she called out. "Hey, Peter, I think you forget most people don't have super strength. I can't stand an entire metal suit up."

"Have DUM-E help you do it!"

"DUM-E is under it."

"How'd he do that?" Peter left the water boiling and went over to where MJ was. Just as she said, a suit lay on the ground, wrapped around DUM-E. Peter pulled the suit up with a grunt and righted it to stand. "Maybe we should put this in one of the explosion rooms so no one knocks it over onto themself."

"Good idea. We should do the same with the web bombs," MJ suggested.

"Sure. You get those, I'll move this." Peter scooped the suit up with ease, like it didn't weigh about six-hundred pounds. He carried it up a ramp and through a heavily reinforced door to one of the explosive testing rooms.

In addition to being bomb-proof, the rooms had no windows, so they were good for locking up anything Tony, Peter, or Harley didn't want others seeing (when Peter was little, Tony stashed his Christmas gifts in one to keep him from peeking). The web bombs would be one such project. MJ carried them into the room, carefully setting the lot down in the farthest corner from the door.

"That's probably all of them. What's next?" MJ asked.

Peter left the room, turning to look back at her. "I'll finish the solvent, you put the rest of the tools away."

They set to work, entirely oblivious to what Flash was about to do several floors below.

Chapter Text

Meanwhile, on the guest room floor:

Flash wasn't a conspiracy theorist. Or, at least, he wasn't before the field trip.

And that's why he was a little bit ashamed to think that Tony Stark might have had a son, especially with how little evidence he had. That was definitely something a conspiracy theorist would think. But he couldn't help it. These tantalizing pieces of information needed to be put together, and this is how they seemed to assemble. Yes, there were gaps, but he'd fill them in.

And how was he going to do that? Well, he was going to find a way to get into the office he stood in front of the door to, without tipping off FRIDAY. Why this particular office, though? Well, that'd be because there's no glass. All of the other office spaces had see-through walls, but this one was surrounded by white brick. It clearly had something to hide.

He just had to find a blind spot in FRIDAY's line of sight, but problem was, there were none anywhere near the room. To get in through the door, he'd have to hack her, and he wasn't quite stupid enough to do that.

He thought back to the few times Hawkeye had dropped down from the ceiling. How'd he do that? Is there some sort of crawlspace up there that would be here too? he considered.

He decided to go back to his room and take a look at the ceiling in there, where there presumably wouldn't be cameras for privacy reasons. He was pleased to find the opening to an air vent not on the ceiling, but in the wall. It'd be easy for him to get into and would presumably lead into the room somehow. Even top-secret offices needed air conditioning, right?

He climbed in and elected to follow the way of the (surprisingly roomy) vent until there was a fork, where he'd turn closer to where the office would be as best he could. As long as he didn't take a wrong turn, it should work without a hitch.

It took him about twenty minutes of bumbling around in the dark to finally find a diverging path. He turned down it and bumbled another half-hour until he finally hit a dead end. Forty five minutes and three head-bumpings later, he finally ran into a vent grate, which fell open unprompted, to reveal the room he'd been searching for, heavy white walls and all.

The room wasn't very large, only about seven by ten feet, but it was packed.

In the back, opposite from the door and pushed toward the wall, stood a filing cabinet practically overflowing with documents, a normal-looking but dusty desk next to it. Stacked in one corner was boxes, labeled with things like "baby clothes," "toys," and "art projects". The corner by the door featured a rack of designer suits that seemed sized for an eight-year-old and incredibly detailed Avengers costumes. They were like if the designer had made the original suits. Mixed in with them was a tiny blazer combo that looked like something Pepper Potts would wear and a perfectly Tony Stark-esque business suit, complete with a light-up arc reactor and dark sunglasses.

"Stark's either got a kid or has a really weird storage system," Flash half-muttered. He slipped out of the vent face-first and crawled over to the filing cabinet, opening the bottom drawer and pulling out a manilla folder. He opened it to a thick packet labeled "Midtown Technological High School Legal Agreement".

"That doesn't make sense. Harley doesn't go to Midtown, does he?" Flash kept reading. "'This agreement hereby recognizes Peter—'" and that's where his brain short-circuited. "Peter?! How'd he get in here?" He kept reading. "'Peter Stark—' am I having a stroke? A hallucination?"

Flash gave up on reading the document, instead choosing to pace in circles around the room, bumping into boxes, eventually knocking one open to reveal tiny shirts saying things like "Mommy's Little Boy" and "Tiny Genius", distressing him even more as he rushed to put them back exactly as he found them so he could make a quick exit and pretend he was never there, realizing that if anyone found out that Peter was Tony Stark's kid, he'd be attacked relentlessly for bullying him all these years.

It really did make sense, though, Peter being his. He'd always been incredibly smart, was always reluctant to let friends come over to his house, and got picked up from school in a variety of expensive, sleek sports cars and convertibles, windows tinted dark, like something—or someone—important was hiding inside.

Flash was just barely able to restack the boxes and put the manilla folder away before he heard crashing in the vent he'd come from. He froze in terror as someone barreled out.

"Shit, shit, shit, Nat's gonna kill me! How did he get past FRIDAY and me? I was in there when he was banging around! Dammit, Clint, you had one job!" Flash pressed himself to the wall as Hawkeye himself stood and glared at him. "You! What about a room with thick walls and a heavy door don't you understand?"

"I-I'm sorry—" Flash tried to speak as Clint kept talking.

"Nope. There's no time for sorrys. First, we're going to go see the boss and you will be signing whatever we put in front of you, no questions asked. Second, you're going to go back to your class and pretend nothing happened. Capiche?"

"But- but is it true?" Flash persisted stupidly.

Clint paused. "Is what true?"

"That Pen- Peter is… y'know, Tony Stark's son?"

Clint stared at him for a second. "Did you check the filing cabinet?"

"Uh, the bottom drawer, yeah."

"Then I think what you've seen in here is evidence enough. Even the dress-up rack would be enough. Now, get in that vent, or do I have to knock you out?"

"Uh, why can't we use the door?"

"Because if we go through the vents, no one's going to see me escorting you to your death sentence."

Flash gulped, but did as he was told, Clint fallowing behind him, both of them grave and Flash quaking in his metaphorical boots.

Chapter Text

:/ (Rick says hi, it's been a while since you've seen him because pretty much every second of the field trip has been jam packed with information. He might come back later though!)

"Left," Clint instructed. Flash did as he was told as he'd been for the last twenty minutes. They were moving at a snail's place and Flash was pretty sure they'd went in circles a few times to disorient him.

"I know we've been looping," Flash snarked. "You're not going to disorient me," he lied. He was heavily disoriented and had been since he'd crawled into the vent.

"Oh, yes I am." Clint shifted, causing his arrows to clatter loudly. Flash jumped out of his skin and his head nearly hit the top of the vent. "Now move." Flash obliged, moving far more quickly. That increase speed was his downfall when he reached a loose panel. Before he knew it, he was free-falling towards hard tile floor.

About three minutes earlier, in the lab…

"Yes!" Peter yelled. He'd finally gotten the combination for the dissolvent right.

"Took you long enough," Tony called out. "How long has it been, an hour?"

FRIDAY spoke up from the ceiling. "An hour, fourteen minutes, and forty-three seconds."

"Hey!" Peter shouted indignantly.

"You're the one who updated her to be specific," Tony reminded him.

"Still."

The elevator dinged abruptly and opened as Harley ambled out. "Hey, you'ns. I left the class with Mr. Harrington and asked FRIDAY to tell me if anything bad happens so I can help clean up."

"Wonderful, another distraction," Tony said sarcastically, twisting his head back to Peter. "Now, since you've got the spray done, mind releasing me from your cage of stickiness?"

"Sure." Peter went to pick up the bottle when his spidey-sense went off wildly. He spun around to see the vents rustling directly above Tony. Peter grabbed the bottle and ran at Tony whilst spraying rapidly.

He had to alter his game plan when he saw a vent panel start to fall from the tall ceiling and heard someone scream. It certainly wasn't Clint or anyone else who would know what to do when falling from such a height. It sounded suspiciously like a teenage boy. Peter jumped halfway to the ceiling, releasing a web to get the rest of the way up, and webbed Tony's back to pull him the rest of the way out of the labyrinth and out of the line of fire before releasing him. He then webbed the mystery person and tied that web to the web he'd used to climb to the ceiling, before jumping down and away, landing next to Harley and trying to look like he hadn't just done what he'd just done. (Author's note: whoo that's a lot of the word web, I hope this makes sense because I spent half an hour on it alone. Moving on.)

Peter was surprised to see Flash Thompson, dangling from the ceiling by his ankle. Not suprisingly, the two had the exact same reaction. At the same time, after Flash glanced around the room once, they locked eyes and uttered, "what the hell?"

Then Flash looked down—or rather, up—to see why he was dangling from the ceiling. When he saw the webbing, his eyes lit up. If Harley wasn't Stark's kid, he had to be—! Flash pointed at Harley. "I knew it!"

Harley raised an eyebrow. "Knew what?"

Peter stepped forward. "And more importantly, why did you just fall out of the vent?"

Flash ignored Peter for that moment and kept studying Harley. "Knew that you're Spider-Man!"

Peter and Harley each fell back a step, Harley wheezing. Peter wasn't sure whether he was going to laugh at Flash's stupidity or cry in relief that he'd guessed wrong, so he just stood there, stunned. MJ had gone full poker face, her expression entirely neutral, but Ned looked like he was about to burst out laughing. Tony, on the other hand, looked like he was plotting something, which was never good.

"You don't even have to say anything, I know it's true just by judging your faces!" Flash kept glancing from one face to the next, but was faced away from Tony, and had yet to see him. He hadn't realized he was there until Tony cleared his throat loudly, which startled Flash. He spun on his heel. "Oh, hello Mr. Stark. I'm sorry for," Flash shifted his weight from left foot to right. "For not seeing you there—".

"Why are you here?" Tony cut to the chase to take control of the conversation, voice hard.

Clint chose that moment to half-jump, half-fall out of the vent. Tony turned to him. "There you are! Weren't you supposed to be watching him?"

"I was!" Clint protested. "I haven't taken my eye off him since FRIDAY told me that he was in the storage room where you keep all of Peter's baby stuff and documents!"

"You let him in there?" Tony and Peter yelled in unison. Tony was infuriated, while Peter was equal parts embarrassed and confused. How would Flash even enter? The door was six inches thick and heavily guarded by FRIDAY.

"I didn't let him!" Clint answered. "I don't know how he got in, but I certainly didn't see him!"

"The vents," Flash interjected. "I got in through the vents."

"Aren't there cameras in the vents?" Clint asked.

"Oh, that's just what I told you so you'd keep your clothes on," Tony answered, turning back to Flash. "Now, it's time for you to go see the boss."

"Aren't you the boss?" Flash asked in his terror and stupidity.

"Oh, no no no. I'll be involved in your punishment, as will Peter, of course, but you're off to see the big boss."

"And who's that?"

"You'll see." Tony spun on his heel with a flourish and started toward the private elevator, beckoning for the rest to follow. Harley and Peter went first, followed by Flash, who was flanked by Ned and MJ. Clint held up the rear as they all marched to Flash's death.

Chapter Text

The elevator ride up was silent, and the entire time, Flash looked like he was about to piss himself. It clearly brought Tony enjoyment as he slowly inched closer to him and the boy shrunk into the corner of the elevator, eyes darting around.

He briefly locked eye contact with Peter, who felt a twinge of something like empathy, but not quite. He certainly didn't feel bad for Flash, and knew he knew better than trying to sneak into a room that he could tell was probably classified, but his dad probably shouldn't antagonize him so much. Peter crossed the elevator to situate himself between Flash and Tony, leaning into Tony's side to keep him from advancing.

Tony resisted for a moment, continuing to close in on Flash, but gave in when Peter persisted and threw his hands up in defeat, much to Flash's confusion.

It wasn't long before the elevator opened. To Peter's surprise, he saw an Avengers floor. Pepper, who he assumed they were going to see, didn't have an office there; hers was on the floor directly below. As they walked out, Peter leaned over to Tony. "I thought we were going to see Mom," he whispered, confused.

Tony leaned back. "We are. First, though, Clint's getting murdered."

Peter saw what he meant as Natasha popped out from nowhere in particular, meeting Clint with a light cuff to the head. "You had one job!" She dragged him away as he shouted "avenge me, Peter! Don't let your freakishly strong best friend drag you away to ambiguous punishment too!", and Peter briefly considered that that might be the last time anyone would see him alive.

Everyone clambered right back into the elevator and took the extremely short trip down to Pepper's office.

The woman herself sat poised in her chair with a stack of papers an inch thick in front of her and two seats across from her. She gestured to the one on her left. "Mr. Thompson. Please have a seat." She merely motioned for her husband to sit in the other seat. Tony obliged and Flash nervously followed as if pulled by some invisible string.

Pepper's expression changed to something softer as she looked over to Peter. "Sweetie, why don't you go and take your friends somewhere else? We can handle it from here." Peter nodded and backed out of the room, Ned, MJ, and Harley on his tail.

Chapter Text

In the office…

"Mrs. Potts, I-I didn't mean to!" Flash spouted out before Pepper had the chance to speak.

"You didn't mean to crawl through a vent shaft and into one of the most highly classified rooms in the building?" Tony asked Flash rhetorically. Before he could continue, Pepper gave him the look. "This isn't a court case, and there's no argument."

She pushed over the stack of papers and a pen. "These are for you to sign. You're forbidden to repeat what any of the legal papers you saw in that room had said, and you may not describe that room or anything in it to anyone, until Peter's identity is released to the public. If you violate this contract, SI will hound you and take everything you're worth, and you'll never be able to get a job in this country again. If you don't agree to sign, we'll have you fined or imprisoned for trespassing, and as the room contained SHIELD-related information, you'll most definitely be imprisoned."

"In both cases you can disappear," Tony interjected, snapping. "Just like that. Entire websites gone. We'll reprint yearbooks. There won't be a single photograph of you, not even a cliffnote."

Flash gulped, silently took the pen, and began rifling through the pages as he signed. "But wait, shouldn't I be signing for the other thing, too?"

Pepper frowned. "What other thing?"

Flash furrowed his eyebrows. "Harley."

"What about him?"

"That he's Spider-Man!"

Pepper leaned back a little, raising an eyebrow. "You think Harley is Spider-Man?"

"Uh… yeah?" Flash said, voicing it more like a question than a statement.

Pepper glanced over to Tony, who subtly nodded to indicate that he'd take care of it. "That information is written into the Avengers section of the NDA that was signed before the field trip, meaning that it's covered. You're barred from telling anyone outside of this building of Spider-Man's identity."

Flash blinked. "So that means that telling people who are inside the building is acceptable?"

"Yes," Pepper said, following along with Tony. "Thirty people knowing who he is is relatively safe; the whole of New York knowing is not."

Flash nodded. "Of course." Spider-Man was his favorite celebrity; Flash wouldn't want him getting hurt. He finished signing his name on the documents.

"Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Thompson. I'll call someone to take you back to your class," Pepper said with a press smile. She picked up her phone, which rang twice before someone answered. "Hello, Bucky?" Flash looked like he was about to wet himself when he heard the name. Was he going to die? "Are you free to escort someone? It shouldn't take you more than five minutes." She paused for a moment before thanking the person on the other side and hanging up.

She turned back to Flash. "He'll be down in a minute. Why not wait outside?" She gestured to the door. "My husband and I have something to discuss in private." Flash nodded, thanked her, and quietly left.

Tony leaned toward Pepper. "See? I told you he was an idiot."

"Well, how was I supposed to believe that? How'd he get into Midtown?"

"His parents donated a chemistry lab, so they agreed to look the other way regarding his grades."

"They must've really needed that lab."

Meanwhile (or more like twenty minutes ago), in Natasha's room…

Natasha threw Clint down onto the floor of her bedroom. "How'd you manage to screw up this bad?"

"How'd you manage to keep up the charade of cameras in the vents so long?" Clint rolled off of his stomach to cockily smile at her. She took this as an opportunity to gently smack him across the face. "Not the point. Three-hundred pushups, then we go down to the training gym."

"What do either of those things do with my uncharacteristic lack of observational skills?"

"Nothing. I just like watching you suffer."

Clint groaned. When he was getting dragged into Natasha's room, he thought things were going to go in a very different direction. He should've known better.

Meanwhile, outside Pepper's office (before Flash got banished out there, when Peter & friends got sent out)…

"So on a scale of one to ten, how mad are we at Flash?" Ned asked.

"Seven," Peter answered

"Ten," Harley said.

"Thirty," MJ deadpanned, glaring into her sketchbook. "But I got the reference I wanted." She held the page up to show an extremely detailed pencil drawing of Flash, face twisted into an expression of terror.

Ned blinked a few times. "That only happened, like, ten minutes ago. How?"

"A woman never reveals her secret."

Peter glanced toward the office door. Harley noticed. "Don't eavesdrop, darlin'. Pepper won't be happy."

Peter shook his head. "I didn't mean to, but it's getting really interesting in there."

There was a moment of silence before MJ spoke up. "Well, what're they saying?"

"Flash is convinced that Harley's me. Well, not me-me, Spider-Man-me, but y'know." Peter shrugged. MJ snorted.

Harley raised an eyebrow. "He thinks I'm Spider-Man? When you've been leaping across tables and bending elevator railings all day long?"

"For the record, I never said he was smart," Peter said. "But I think we can have some fun with this!"

"How?" Harley asked.

"We're going down to the lab tomorrow. If we plant enough Spider-Man prototypes down there, someone's got to ask you to show off! Since you're untrained, I'll get to rescue you!"

"And what if I get hurt?"

"Have I ever let you get hurt?"

"You pushed me out of your bed last week."

"And you're okay!"

"I screamed and Tony thought you were murdering me."

"Well, you're not going to fall off a bed this time."

"No, I'm going to fall off a ceiling. That's much worse."

MJ rolled her eyes. "You haven't been dating nearly long enough to bicker like an old married couple, yet here we are."

Peter ignored her, giving Harley the doe-eyed stare that'd gotten them both into so much trouble before. Of course, Harley folded immediately. "Oh, okay, okay. I'll risk my life to play games with your bully's mind."

Peter practically barreled into him, nearly knocking him over with poorly-checked strength before pulling him into a hug. "Thank you, thank you, thank you! This'll be peak entertainment and I guarantee you'll come out without a scratch!"

"Yeah, I'm sure. Please don't make me lose a limb, though." Before Peter could respond to that, though, he heard the conversation inside end and Flash stand up. "Flash's done. We've got to go before Mom finds out we're still here."

"Lab?" was all MJ said, which the boys affirmed happily before rushing for the elevator to avoid Flash.

Meanwhile, in the same exact place but with Flash…

Flash stumbled out of Ms. Potts' office, terrified. Did she really say Bucky? She couldn't have meant Bucky-Bucky, right? The Winter Soldier? Because if she did, that meant he'd be escorting him back to the bunkrooms, and he'd probably ask why he'd been upstairs. He seemed to be very protective of Peter when he'd stormed down to the museum to find him, and this was a far worse offense than simply keeping Peter from leaving somewhere. Flash wasn't so sure that he'd make it out of the elevator alive.

Chapter Text

It wasn't long before Flash heard the elevator slide open a few yards down the hall. However, he didn't hear anyone step out. He assumed it had to be Bucky, though. Who else would move entirely silently? This had to be some sort of intimidation tactic, so Flash tried to stand up straighter rather than fold in on himself.

Flash was somewhat surprised when he finally saw Bucky. He was dressed in, oddly, Captain America-themed pajamas. The odd part wasn't the theming, of course; everyone knew he'd been in a relationship with Steve Rogers for a very long time; if your significant other had pajamas themed after them, you'd wear them in bed with said significant other, too. The strange part was his wearing pajamas. Had he been woken up by Pepper? No, that couldn't be right; it was barely past seven pm. Did the Winter Soldier lounge around in pajamas? Flash thought he'd constantly wear an insane amount of leather.

He tried to stop staring before Bucky noticed, but failed miserably. "It's movie night," Bucky said gruffly. His eyes narrowed. "You're the punk I have to escort, aren't you? What're you doing up here?"

Flash tried not to cower. "I am, sir. I had to meet with Ms. Potts to sign some papers."

Bucky started leading Flash toward the elevator. "What kind of papers?"

"Non-disclosure agreements."

"Why?"

Flash gulped. This is what he'd been afraid of. "I wandered into an office and might've ended up seeing some documents I shouldn't have seen."

"What sort of documents?"

"They're highly classified, sir."

"I'm an ex-assassin married to the country's golden boy. If there's a classified paper in this building, I know about it. Which one?"

"The one that says that my classmate Pen—er, Peter is Tony Stark's son."

Bucky's eyes widened. Oh, yeah, Flash was going to die. "Wait, what's your name?"

"Flash Thompson, sir."

Bucky's body language changed to something harder. It was subtle, but Flash could tell. "You're that kid who's been picking on Peter! You definitely didn't 'wander in' to that office 'on accident', that's one of the highest-security rooms in the country. What did you do, crawl in through the vent?"

"Yes, sir. To both," Flash answered guiltily.

"So you're telling me that you broke into the kid's storage room and read the most important document in this building, and then Pepper sent me to escort you?"

"Uh, yes, sir," Flash replied meekly. "I'm sorry for interrupting your, uh, date."

"The interruption isn't the problem. The action is." The elevator opened automatically as Bucky led Flash to it. Flash was acutely aware of the metal hand on his back, which felt to be pushing harder as Bucky got angrier. Yep, Flash was going to die, and by the hand of his first celebrity crush, no less. Bucky muttered the number of the floor they were going to, and FRIDAY sent them down. They rode in silence until the doors opened and Bucky practically shoved Flash out. "Stay on this floor and don't cause trouble." The doors slammed shut again as Flash was left alone, mildly traumatized.

"FRIDAY," Bucky said.

"Yes, sir?"

"Patch me in with Natasha and Steve."

"Of course, sir."

Meanwhile, in the lab…

"Where're the nanotech web shooters I've been working on?" Peter asked. "We should plant them."

"Over here." MJ held up two small, silver bracelets. One had a small button on the side that, when pressed, would transmit a signal to the nanobots, which would cause them to expand into full web shooters that contoured to the wearer's wrists, and can then be loaded with web fluid. "Do they work?"

"Yeah. They just haven't been properly tested for holding back, say, a bus, so I'm stuck with the clunky ones for now. They'll definitely work to hold up one or two people, though." Peter jogged over to MJ to get the bracelets and took them to a work table in front of the elevator so they'd be some of the first things the class would spot when they came down.

"Should we have some of the wall open so the suits can show?" Ned asked.

"No," Harley answered. "I don't want Flash asking me to put one of those on."

"But-" Peter started.

"Nope. I draw the line at spandex."

"Then what about the nanotech-"

"He's not going to ask about the nanotech one. The spandex is an itchy classic that requires way too few clothes to function."

Peter groaned. "Okay, no suits. What about new mask prototypes?"

"Sure, as long as I don't have to take my clothes off."

"Deal." Peter opened a drawer rife with an unnecessary amount of different masks and pulled out several to put on top of a nearby toolbox. "Ned, can you go clean up what's left of the bomb mess?"

MJ cocked an eyebrow. "Are you sure he should be near that?"

"It'll be fine. Probably," Ned chimed in as he went to clean.

"We kind of need him to if we want to get back downstairs in a reasonable enough amount of time that no one gets suspicious," Peter explained. MJ and Harley murmured in agreement and everyone set to work at getting the lab in shape.

Chapter Text

Meanwhile, in the Avengers' living room…

Steve was lounging on the living room couch when Bucky plodded in. "Hey, you're where I left you! Thought you'd be going down to kick that Thompson kid's ass after the conversation we had." Bucky planted a kiss on Steve's cheek.

"I would, but all that blood on my nice pajamas would ruin date night, wouldn't it?"

"Eh, you look good in red." Bucky sat down on the couch, gently pulling Steve closer to his side. "Now, which movie should we watch?"

"'The Hobbit'?"

"That's a trilogy, hon. We don't have the time."

"But it's one book."

"I know. The producers don't." Bucky flipped through a few movies. "'The Roses' looks good. It's got Cumberbatch like 'The Hobbit' and is only 2 hours long."

"It looks like worse 'Bridget Jones'."

The elevator dinged as Wanda walked out, passing the couple on the way to the kitchen. "Hey, we do not criticize 'Bridget Jones' in this house." She grabbed something out of the fridge and walked down the hallway without another word.

"Still, no," Steve continued.

"Alright. What about 'Casablanca'?"

"How many times have we seen that?"

FRIDAY chimed in. "You've seen this movie forty-seven times within the Tower. I cannot give you the exact number of times you've watched it prior, but since it was a popular movie in the 1940s, you both probably saw it multiple times then."

"That was rhetorical," Bucky said, looking up at the ceiling. "Okay, then what do you want to watch?"

"What if we just go down to the floor full of teenagers and watch Flash?"

"That'd be far more entertaining, wouldn't it?" Bucky said as he stood up, pulling Steve with him to go down to the guest rooms, matching pajamas and all.

Meanwhile (or closer to five minutes ago) in Flash's room…

Flash sat on his bed, scrolling through his social media notifications. He had eight post mentions, four DMs, and a dozen reposts to check on, but didn't really have his heart in it. He was too busy thinking about Spider-Man. He was itching to tell someone that he was the tour guide, and he guessed he had the option to, but he wasn't sure who to tell first.

He could tell Jason, but that meathead wouldn't appreciate it. Abe would care, but the two weren't really friends. If he didn't tell a friend first, he wanted to make the secret-sharing worth it.

Come to think of it, this would be the perfect thing to do to get Cindy to date him. Sure, he'd thought that the past seventeen times, but those times weren't Earth-shattering identity reveals. Some were grand gestures (which she practically ran away from), some were expensive gifts (which she declined), but none of them received a "yes". This could finally be Flash's day (sure he hadn't had any luck in anything else, but maybe that luck was being reserved for this)!

Flash quickly combed his hair, brushed his teeth thanks to the attached bathroom, and layered on more deodorant before rushing out of his room and into the common area, where Cindy was hanging out with a group of girls, gossiping and playing one of the many board games. Flash went up to the group and cleared his throat. "Excuse me," he said "but I need to borrow Cindy for a moment." Before Cindy could protest, Flash grabbed her by the arm and half-dragged her to his room, pulling her inside and locking the door.

"What the hell, Flash?" she screamed. If the walls weren't soundproof, Flash would be in a lot of trouble already.

"I'm sorry," he panted. "This definitely isn't a good look on my part, but I needed to get you alone."

"What?"

He pulled a chair out for her and sat in the seat across. "Okay, that's an even worse look. I mean I needed to get you alone to tell you something."

Cindy rolled her eyes but sat down. "Yeah, Flash, I know you have a thing for me. I could read the sky-writing."

"I mean something else. Something way more significant."

Cindy raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"I know who Spider-Man is."

"Sure, and I'm Black Widow."

"No, seriously!"

"Then tell me."

"That's what I was planning to—." Flash stopped himself from yelling. "It's Harley. The tour guide."

Cindy blinked a few times. "The tour guide?! Do you have proof?"

"I've got the proof of both him and Tony Stark making some absolutely devastated faces when I figured it out, and both Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts confirming it without even saying it."

"Are—are you allowed to tell people this? Am I going to get sued? I can't go to jail!"

"The people inside this building are allowed to know."

"And who else have you told?"

Flash leaned closer to her, trying to accentuate whatever could be brewing. "No one. Just you."

Cindy pulled back a bit. "Oh, I see. You're lying to me so you can finally get a date."

"No!" Wait, quiet down. "I mean, no, that's not what this is. I knew I had to tell someone or I'd explode, and you were the first person I thought of." That was only kind of a lie, and he was at least sort of able to sound sincere, causing Cindy to relax a tiny bit.

"Okay, sure, you're not lying on purpose, but are you sure you understood right?"

"Oh, entirely. Tony Stark confirmed it, remember?"

"But are you sure he confirmed it?"

"Yes!"

Cindy put her elbows on the table to steady herself. "It just doesn't make any sense. He sounds nothing like Spider-Man!"

"Maybe he uses some sort of voice-changing technology!"

"Even so, he's so young. He can't be much older than us."

"The Scarlet Witch was really young, too, when she became an Avenger. That didn't stop her."

"Well, his height isn't too far off…"

"See? He's got a match!"

Cindy sighed in resignation. "Okay, I believe you, but what do we do about it?"

"We spread it around this group until everyone knows. Before breakfast is over tomorrow." Flash paused. "And you sit across from me then."

Cindy rolled her eyes. "Fine." She stood up. "I'm going to go now. We don't want a rumor started about what's happening in here." Flash nodded, standing up and rushing to open the door for her. "After you!" As soon as he opened the door, though, Cindy gasped. "Is that—is that Captain America?"

"What?" Flash craned his neck to see. Sure as daylight, Steve and Bucky were standing across the space, scanning the room. Flash practically slammed the door shut as soon as Cindy was through the doorway, heart racing and gasping for breath.

Chapter Text

Thoughts rushed through Flash's mind as he searched for what to do.

He considered jumping out the floor-to-ceiling window in his room, but then proceeded to remember that he was in Stark Tower, on one of the highest floors, and would surely die. Would that be a better fate? Probably.

He briefly thought of using the vents to escape, but remembered how that went last time. If he got caught doing something wrong again, he'd be wiped from existence. He didn't want to be wiped from existence.

All he could do was hide out in his room until the two super soldiers left. Unfortunately, he could hear someone knocking on the door, quite insistently. "Flash! Flash, get out here!" It was Jason. "Didn't you see?" He opened the door, much to Flash's dismay. "It's Captain America! He's here! He's just—just sitting on one of the couches with his man." Jason plodded into the room, but the door stayed open. Flash was exposed, and Steve and Bucky were watching him clearly and intently.

"Yeah, Jason, I saw." Flash stepped closer to him, taking Jason's hand to pull him in through the door so he could shut it, but Jason didn't seem to notice the glaring sign that he should move, staying stoutly put.

"C'mon, get in here," Flash pushed.

Alas, Jason stood still. "No, man, I gotta get back out there! Didn't you hear me? Captain America's right there!"

Flash lowered his tone. "Okay," he hissed. "But I've got something even cooler to tell you, and it's superhero related too, but I need you to come in here first so I can shut the door."

Jason cocked his head a bit, but didn't budge. "What is it? Why do you need to shut the door?"

Flash craned his neck to see Steve and Bucky. A girl had asked to take a photo with them, so they were preoccupied enough to not be able to tell what Flash was saying. "Something very interesting. I need to shut the door because we can't let the news get out too fast. A couple people learning at a time is plenty."

Jason hesitated for a minute, but made up his mind and moved all the way into the room, closing the door behind him. "Okay, tell me."

Flash pulled Jason further into the room. Sure, the walls and door were soundproof, but one could never be too sure. "First, I need you to know that this was confirmed by Tony Stark himself."

"Okay. What is it that was confirmed, though?"

Flash led Jason to the couch in the middle of the room. "You should sit down first." Jason obliged.

"Okay," Flash started. "Remember the tour guide, Harley? The southern one with the blonde hair?"

"Yeah."

"Well, he's Spider-Man."

Jason blinked twice. "What?"

"The tour guide is Spider-Man."

Jason shook his head so hard that he looked like he was trying to reset his own brain. "The tour guide. The tour guide."

"Yes. The tour guide."

"The tour guide… who's dating Penis Parker?"

Flash nervously swallowed at the name-call, glancing at the door. Bucky had seemed pretty mad earlier after he figured out what Flash had been doing, so he must be pretty protective of Peter. That probably extended to Steve too, meaning that if they'd heard, Flash would have two super soldiers going after him. "Let's keep our voices down.

Jason cocked an eyebrow. "Why? The room's soundproof."

"I'm not sure exactly how soundproof it is, and we don't want to get in trouble with Captain America, do we?"

"Right, right," Jason whispered. "Wait, how would Peter land Spider-Man? How'd he even meet him?"

"I don't know," Flash lied. "Maybe the internship's real."

"Really? But how would he get that?"

"I don't know that either," Flash lied. He elected to change the subject to avoid more questions he couldn't make up lies to. "Look, I need you to go back out there and act like everything's normal. Just go fawn over the superheroes and all that."

Jason hopped up at the mention. "I can do that!" He turned to face Flash. "But… is it okay if I tell just one person about Harley." He paused for a moment. "Wait, no, two!"

Flash nodded. "As long as they're in this building, Tony Stark said it was okay." With a squeal at a frequency higher than anyone with estrogen could ever hope to reach, Jason practically ran over to the door, tossed it open, and went out, forgetting to close it. Before Flash was in the doorway to close it again, Bucky made eye contact with him, pushed himself up off the couch, and started stalking toward Flash, stopping in the doorway.

"Why haven't ya come out here yet?" he asked, smiling very falsely. "Do I look like I bite?"

Flash didn't answer that, even though the obvious answer was yes. He simply slowly, carefully stepped toward the man, who took him by the back and led him into the common area with a bit more force than necessary. "Let's get you back with your class, shall we? We're having a bit of an impromptu Q&A."

Chapter Text

Meanwhile, in the lab…

Peter and Harley sat at their respective desks, collecting random machine parts that'd been there for who knows how long and tossing them into a bin with reckless abandon.

"What're those from?" Ned asked.

"Something for R&D. A medical device, I think," Peter answered.

"Yeah, it was a prototype for an improved stretcher," Harley added. "It didn't work out though. Too many explosions."

"How many explosions are considered too many?" MJ asked.

"For a R&D project, three. For anything else, we haven't found it yet," Harley answered.

"Our record is seventeen," Peter added on. "And it was just a toaster."

"It was the penthouse toaster. Tony revoked lab privileges for two weeks."

Peter shrugged. "It needed an upgrade."

"A toaster makes toast. It doesn't need to do any more than that."

"Yeah, but having it pop right up at an angle where it's guaranteed to hit the plate makes it make toast even better!"

"No it doesn't."

"Yeah it does! How many times a week do you burn your fingers while making your toast? This totally eliminated the issue!"

"Just stick a fork in the toaster," MJ suggested.

"Do you want to get electrocuted?" Peter asked rhetorically.

"Wait," Ned asked. "When did we get on the subject of toast?"

Harley paused. "After the explosion question, I think."

"Okay, why are we talking about toast in the state-of-the-art lab?" Ned restated, gesturing around the room. "We're done cleaning up."

Peter looked around. "I don't think I've ever seen the lab this clean before."

"I can see every part of the floor!" Harley marveled.

"So does that mean we can go downstairs now?" Ned asked.

Harley shrugged. "Sure." The four meandered over to the elevator and FRIDAY sent them down to the guest room floor.

Chapter Text

"So what do you guys want to do when we get down there?" MJ asked.

"Sleep," Harley immediately replied. Peter nodded in response. Today had been long; all he wanted to do was curl up with Harley in his bed and sleep until FRIDAY woke them up for breakfast. Unfortunately, sleeping in his own bed wouldn't be happening tonight, but he could make due with any other bed in his house. And Stark Tower was pretty much just his house, a really big one that was full of strangers at all times.

"We can't just go to bed!" Ned complained. "It's only, like, eight pm!"

Harley gave him a look. "Sure, but this day has been exhausting. I'm surprised we're still on our feet."

"Yeah, but wouldn't it look weird if people saw us going to our room?" Ned asked.

"Weirder than them not having seen us at all in the past couple of hours?" Peter asked.

"Yeah."

Harley groaned. "Okay. Then what do you want to do?"

Ned lit up. "How about we—." Peter's stomach made a noise so loud that Ned jumped a little. "What was that?"

Peter cringed. "My metabolism protesting my letting Loki and Clint eat some of my food at dinner and then not going back for seconds. I need a crap ton of protein before we do the training gym tomorrow or I'll die on the floor."

Ned brightened even more. "What if we go up to the penthouse so you can raid the fridge? MJ and I can play Mario Kart while you and Harley pass out on the couch for a little bit!"

MJ shrugged. "I could go for some Mario Kart."

"Then it's decided," Peter said. FRIDAY switched the elevator's course and they moved up to the top of the tower.

When the doors opened to the penthouse, Harley beelined to a couch to dramatically flop onto, MJ and Ned following him at a slower pace. Peter practically ran to the kitchen, opening the fridge's French doors and grabbing a container of cottage cheese. Then he went to the bread cupboard, grabbed a loaf of sandwich bread, and threw two slices in the toaster. He sat on the counter to scarf down his cottage cheese while he waited for the toast, then got out a container of peanut butter and a knife. He slathered the peanut butter onto the finished toast and took his snack over to the couch to flop himself over his already flopped-over boyfriend.

Harley lifted his head to kiss Peter's hair. "Please don't get peanut butter on me."

"I won't." Peter buried his face in Harley's shirt.

MJ threw a pillow at the two. "Get a room!"

"We have a room. It's the same one as yours," Peter said through his toast.

MJ snorted. "Ned, hand me that controller please." Ned obliged as FRIDAY turned the TV to Mario Kart. Peter cringed a little when Ned's Peach crashed into a wall, making a loud smashing sound. He was overstimulated as hell. He finished his toast and settled into Harley's side. A nap would probably help the fact that the lights were screaming and the fridge was too loud.

Meanwhile, in the exact same place but not in Peter's point of view…

Harley looked like he was becoming very comfortable on the couch next to Peter, eyes drooping as he curled his arms around the shorter boy, who was already snoring and sticking to his boyfriend's shirt. Ned, contrary to his previous protests, was starting to look tired and losing at Mario Kart a lot harder than usual. MJ seemed to be the only person who wasn't going to be asleep in ten minutes.

"Ned, I think it's time for us to call it quits," MJ suggested.

"Just one more game!" Ned insisted as his character flew off the track.

"It's getting way too easy to beat you now," MJ pointed out as her racer rushed to the finish line. Ned insisted on one more race, which then became two more races, before he dropped his controller, his character ran off the track again, and he was passed out as well.

MJ snorted. "All three of you, out by nine. Lightweights." She got comfortable herself and pulled out her phone to scroll. She could give them half an hour to nap before they had to endure the secret spy mission that would be getting to the guest room.