Actions

Work Header

Rating:
Archive Warning:
Category:
Fandoms:
Relationship:
Characters:
Additional Tags:
Language:
English
Series:
Part 1 of Dead Tropes; New Stories
Collections:
BAMF Peter Parker, Peter Parker's Field Trips™️, Identity Reveal x Field Trip, literally every fic i've ever read, Irondad and Spiderson shenaigans, Spider-Child fics are saving my life, My appreciation for the author to serve the best characters and plot, bitesize fics, Peter Parker Field Trip (Mostly SI Tower) and other stories, Spider Son and Iron Dad FanFiction, jiji's avengers fic collection, MARVELous Fanfictions, Peter Parker Stories, Marvel peter, a collection of every spider-man fic i've ever read <3, hufflepuffdemiwizard's completed works, Sk1tats, Adorable Peter Parker, Peter Parker and gang, SI Field Trip Fics, I come back to you
Stats:
Published:
2022-02-10
Words:
3,474
Chapters:
1/1
Comments:
150
Kudos:
7,186
Bookmarks:
1,108
Hits:
59,027

I'm Peter Parker; I Will Not Be Your Tour Guide

Summary:

For Flash, the only thing better than being in the running for an internship at Stark Industries is the fact that Penis Parker isn't.

That's what he thinks right up until he gets to Stark Tower and hears all about how the high school internship program is run.

Notes:

Yes, I wrote a SI field trip story. Is it a tired trope? Maybe. Do I love it? Yes. Did I think of a new angle? Kinda. I wanted to do a "Peter living his best life" story after I survived watching No Way Home.

I had surgery this week. I no longer have a gallbladder. I'm on drugs. My concentration is shot. I should be working on Point Oh Oh Six. But you're getting this instead.

This has been translated into Русский by Nastya_Sever. Check it out here.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

Flash was pumped. Getting to round three of the Stark High School Internship Program selection process was a big deal. And yes, it would be nice if his parents were in the country to be aware of it. And yes, it would be nice if Ned Leeds weren’t also in the running so that he could rub it in his face. But y’know who wasn’t in the running? Penis Parker.

While there were two more rounds in the process, every student who was in the third round was invited to tour Stark Tower in New York. It was a big fucking deal. You got to see the top research floors. You ate lunch in the employee cafeteria. You got a swag bag. Regardless of whether or not he actually got selected, Penis Parker wouldn’t.

The Stark High School Internship Program hadn’t even existed when Parker had started claiming he had an internship Freshman year. And now it did exist but only took Juniors and Seniors. He couldn’t wait to wear something from the swag bag to school on Monday to rub it in Parker’s face. Then were eight kids, other than him and Ned, from Midtown in the tour group of fifteen. It made sense that a magnet school had so many finalists who had gotten this far.

Then, Penis Parker appeared in front of them, holding a StarkPad, not looking up. “Hello, welcome to Stark Tower. I will not be your tour guide. I am Peter Parker. Here are some quick ground rules. Wear your visitor badges visibly at all times. They are yours to keep as a memento but they are also an ID today. Your tour guide will be here momentarily; she’s just finishing something in her lab. Do not touch anything. Be polite. This does count as part of your application. If you are rude today, you will be removed from consideration. Don’t worry about acing today; you can only fail it. Just be polite and you’re in the clear. Also, keep in mind, while we are pleased as punch to have you, tour guide duty is used as a punishment. If you join us, you will quickly see you never, ever want to leave your lab. While we all love meeting new people, we don’t want to leave our work for a second so be nice because you should view her time as incredibly valuable. She’s awesome. You’re on to step three. I assume you’re awesome too. I’m doing this introduction as a punishment because I ate the head of security’s crackers. I thought they were someone else’s. Your real tour guide will be here momentarily. I am not in the High School Internship Program so I would be a terrible tour guide.”

There it was; he had admitted it: he didn’t have an internship. Flash was soaring.

Then a girl approached and said, “What Peter means is that he’s Dr. Stark’s personal intern and he’s the founder of the High School Internship Program. Peter is a rockstar.”

He glanced up from his StarkPad. “Flattery isn’t going to get you out of the other tours you have to give.” He looked at the group for the first time, “Oh, hey, hey, guys, Ned. Cool.” To the girl, he said, “Most of these kids are from my school.” He pointed at Ned, “That’s my best friend.”

“Do you want to give the tour?”

He gave a fake laugh, “Hey, cold fusion, no. Everyone, this is Gina. You’re tour number seven of thirty-five she has to do. Being as you’re tour number seven, she’s really good at it.”

“Peter?” asked a disembodied voice.

“That’s FRIDAY; she is Dr. Stark’s AI who runs the building,” said Peter. “What’s up, FRI?”

Penis Parker talked to Tony Stark’s AI? Parker used a nickname for Tony Stark’s AI?

“Boss wants to know what you want for lunch.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Boss is in a very bad mood and you’re his favorite person. Ordering things you like cheers him up.”

“I want Thai. Why is he in a bad mood?”

“Cold fusion,” the AI said.

“I’m getting fired,” said Gina.

“You are not getting fired. I run the high school interns. You are not getting fired,” said Peter.

Parker could fire people. There was no way Flash was getting the internship. Parker had power.

To the group, he said, “I have things to do in my lab. Don’t steal anything, don’t touch anything, don’t bug Gina. Generally speaking, don’t screw this up for yourselves. And, remember, have a good time.”

He walked off, looking at his StarkPad. Gina took a deep breath before putting on a smile, “So, that was Peter Parker. You should consider him the closest you will ever get to having a conversation with Dr. Stark. I mean, you’ll maybe see Dr. Stark occasionally. He might greet you as ‘intern’ but you will never actually talk to Dr. Stark. Peter Parker shot his shot and applied for a September Foundation grant when he was a Freshman in high school and Dr. Stark was so interested in his grant proposal he became Peter’s personal mentor on the project. When he realized not all high schoolers are idiots, he was shocked. Peter proposed the High School Internship Program to steer young scientific minds towards the great big beautiful tomorrow. Essentially, Peter is our God. If you need more funding, make a PowerPoint for Peter. If you need to not get fired, explain everything to Peter before anyone else finds out. And he said he knows some of you. I know he’s a Senior, does he ever sleep? Because one time he was wearing a mustard sports jacket and when I asked, he said it was for Academic Decathlon.”

“He sleeps; he has other hobbies too,” said Ned, like a suck-up.

“Seriously? Other hobbies?” Gina spoke with a reverent tone like she really was talking about a rockstar instead of… Parker. There was no way Flash was getting in. He was gonna get his swag bag, and that was the end of it.

“We just built the LEGO Millennium Falcon,” said Ned.

Flash had to fight not to snort. What was he thinking outing himself as a LEGO nerd at a job interview?

“No way? The one that’s seven thousand five hundred and forty-one pieces?” she asked.

“Yeah; it’s amazing,” said Ned.

“How heavy is it? It looks heavy on the internet, but you never can tell.”

“Thirty-seven pounds,” said Ned.

“Damn,” she said. She led them through an atrium, explaining the plants and how they were offsetting the carbon of the coffee shops of the building before talking about the arc reactor that powered the building. Then she started leading them to the elevator that would lead to the labs where they might be working.

Seeing how Ned was brownnosing, Flash knew he had to make up ground; after all, the tour was part of your interview process. “It must be cool to talk to an AI,” he said.

She looked at him and smiled, “Oh, um, we don’t really talk to FRIDAY. She’s very young. Right now, she’s still a baby AI and her input sensors only allow her to interact with people Dr. Stark likes and trusts personally. It’s cool to hear her. Peter tells her a lot of knock-knock jokes. She’s getting better at guessing them.”

The tour continued, her showing them different labs with incredible equipment. It was all stunning. He knew there was no way he was going to work there. Not if Peter was in charge.

“So,” he asked. “How involved is Peter in picking who gets into the Intern Program?”

All the Midtown Science and Tech students were looking at him with a mix of smirks, pity, and poorly masked contempt. Gina obviously didn’t understand as she said, “I get that you hope being his classmate will help. But Peter doesn’t have anything to do with that side of it. Once you’re in, you’re working for him, but he has nothing to do with the selection committee, sorry. And, even though you’re his classmate, if you do end up here, you’ll be in these labs and he’s in Dr. Stark’s. Interns make appointments to get on Peter’s schedule. You won’t get to work side-by-side. Which is a shame; I’d love to watch him work on his polymer science close up.” They got into another elevator, and she said, “Okay, time for the final stop before we hit the cafeteria, and you see what your future lunch will be like. You can see Dr. Stark’s lab in action. He’s not going to acknowledge us, probably, but you’ll see him and Peter working.”

The door opened, and there was a massive room that took up the whole floor. They were separated behind glass. There were robots moving everywhere. Holograms shifting all over the place. Large lumps of equipment and welding tools were strewn about. Penis Parker and Tony Fucking Stark were in the middle of the mess with take-out containers of noodles, and Tony Fucking Stark was saying, “I want a damn name, Pete.”

“No, no, because when Harley blew up his twenty-million-dollar lab in Tennessee you kicked him off of the family Minecraft server for a week and rebuilt it for him. When I knocked FRIDAY offline and the whole company was only behind a McAfee firewall for two minutes you put your head between your knees to breathe, asked me what I wanted for dinner and when I said Italian, you ordered sushi. I’m not giving you the name of the cold fusion intern.”

“The cold fusion intern has caused thirty-five million dollars’ worth of damage and set back the work of six labs.”

“And because of that, they received disciplinary action that was appropriate. The interns are my problem not yours.”

“They make themselves my problem when they cause thirty-five million dollars’ worth of damage,” said Tony Fucking Stark. “I want a name. FRIDAY won’t give it to me.”

“I pinky promised Peter,” said the AI.

“You don’t have hands,” Tony Stark said.

“I promised,” she replied.

“A name,” the man demanded.

“Peter Parker,” said Parker.

“C’mon, Pete, a real name.”

“What if it was me? What would you say? You’re ready to fire this kid. They’re all brilliant. Tens of thousands apply, two hundred get picked. One of them made a big mistake. But that’s all it was. A brilliant kid who absolutely should be here messed up. You’re not firing them, and they aren’t getting chewed out by Tony Stark. If I had done it, you would have shouted, ‘What the fuck, Richard?’ and then asked if you were using the right meme reaction. Then you would make me reorganize the lab glass. I handled it. They have had an appropriate disciplinary action taken against them. Move on.” Parker glanced up. “Wave at the tour group.”

Tony Stark started to wave at them, then he said, “Ned? Hey, that’s Ned. It’s so nice to see you in person, instead of seeing you through Peter’s phone when you video chat. Sorry we’ve never actually met in person over the years. Every time we start to eat dinner and say, ‘We should invite Ned,’ we realize it’s gone one in the morning. You should hang around after the tour. Pete can show you his new thing. It’s neat. That Millennium Falcon you guys made is cool.”

“I’d love that, thanks,” Ned looked like he was going to vibrate to pieces, and Flash wanted to murder someone.

“Love the LEGO,” said Tony Stark. “I’m always telling Peter not to do anything I would do and not to do anything I wouldn’t do. LEGO, LEGO is exactly what I mean: have a nice, close friend and wholesome healthy hobby. Don’t do drugs; do science and fun.”

“Wait,” said Ned, talking to Tony Stark like he was just a person. “Don’t do anything you would do and don’t do anything you wouldn’t do?”

The man nodded, “Yeah. On one end of the spectrum, I don’t want him wasting his time getting drunk on yachts with idiot celebrities. On the other end, he better never murder a man.”

“That’s what that means?” said Peter. “I’ve never understood that.”

“That’s what it means. It means do LEGO. I wouldn’t do it, but I also wouldn’t not do it.” Then Tony Stark seemed to study Gina for a moment before turning to Peter, “You had to do the introduction to the tour. What did you do? That’s reserved as a punishment.”

“I asked Pepper if I could eat the cheese crackers in the penthouse kitchen. She said sure. It turns out, we were talking about different crackers, and I ate Happy’s crackers. He’s… not pleased.”

Peter Parker hung out in the penthouse. Peter called Pepper Potts by her first name.

Tony nodded, “Damn, that’s bad. Here’s a different question. Today’s tour guide has been touring people for two weeks.” He swung around and looked directly at her. “So, Miss Cold Fusion, what’s your name?”

“Absolutely not,” said Parker. “Nope, not happening.”

Tony Stark actually rolled his eyes at Parker, “Fine, fine, Miss Cold Fusion, how many tours are you giving? Is it perhaps thirty-five? One for each million dollars.”

“Yes, yes it is,” she agreed.

“Well, okay then. Ned, see you after lunch. Good luck, everyone, you’re in the top fifteen hundred,” said the man, then he literally made shooing motions at them.

In the elevator, Gina put her back to the wall and looked like she might have a panic attack. “Oh God, he knows. He knows.”

Ned, the suck-up, was right there saying, “Just breathe, okay? He doesn’t know your name and he accepted that the tours are an okay punishment. Like, he’s gonna make fun of you, but he’s not gonna fire you. Peter’s not gonna let him.”

“I did thirty-five million dollars’ worth of damage and set the work of six labs back.”

“Yeah,” Ned nodded, “but you heard Peter. You’re great. He’ll go to bat for you. And Harley blew up a lab. And I don’t know if you have heard many stories about Harley but he’s crazy. So, Pete can just keep playing the Harley card and calling Mr. Stark a hypocrite.”

She nodded, seemingly fighting to calm down. Then, still trying to get her breath normal, she said, “In the Intern Program, we call him Dr. Stark. It’s an informal policy, started by Peter. He has three PhDs. He might be professionally ‘Mr. Stark,’ but, as he’s our overarching mentor, he’s officially unofficially Dr. Stark because we’re scientists and he’s the head scientist in charge.”

Ned nodded, “Good to know, thank you. Peter got over his starstruck phase after his aunt change his emergency contact with school to have him as a backup number and he got a bedroom in the penthouse. Now he calls him ‘Tony’ when he’s not at work.”

“That’s crazy; he’s so cool.” She said. Flash was inclined to agree. It was crazy because Tony Stark was way too cool to be Parker’s emergency contact. But then she added. “I can’t believe he’s your best friend. What science do you do?”

“Robotics and coding.”

“Awesome,” she nodded. Pointing to herself, she said, “Genetics.”

“It’s cool that there are so many labs… if you’re in genetics, how did you screw up cold fusion?”

“Went to deliver notes to a lab. Saw a big red button that had a giant all caps note that said ‘IS IT AFTER ONE? PRESS THE GODDAMN BUTTON OR PERISH.’ You never know if that’s hyperbolic around here. It was one fifteen. No one was in the lab. I pressed the button. They had pressed it at one minute past one exactly and then gone to lunch. I destroyed the whole system.”

“Ouch,” said Ned.

“Ouch?” she repeated.

“It could have been worse,” he shrugged.

“How?” she said.

“No one could have pressed the button and we could have perished,” he said.

“That’s exactly what Peter said,” she replied. “Then he said that in future pressing the button at one fifteen or one seventeen probably won’t make a difference so always call someone from the lab to find out what a button does. But it was very big and red and labeled.”

“I totally see how that happened,” agreed Ned. “If I were if your shoes, I’d be giving this tour and really upset about not being in my lab right now.”

“I have a rat about to give birth and if she does and eats her young in the next half hour well… cold fusion.”

“Do rats frequently eat their babies?” asked Ned.

“It’s her first litter, so yes, it’s relatively common for them to eat their first litter.”

“Huh,” he said.

“I’ll walk you back up to the lab after I show out the rest of your group and then run to mine.”

“I don’t think anyone would mind a quick detour to your lab for you to check on your rat.”

“There’s a protocol,” she said, but she sounded like she wanted to be swayed. “You guys are supposed to get a full forty minutes in the cafeteria.”

“Show of hands, who cares if it’s a little shorter?” said Ned, no one raised a hand.

“Okay, thank you, thank you,” she hit the button for another floor. It opened to the animal floor she had shown them earlier, and she brought them back down the hall. “I can’t technically bring you in there. Let me just call in.” She opened the door and called, “Marco, can you look and see if Beth gave birth?”

“Aren’t you in the middle of a tour?” asked another teen.

“Please?”

He looked in a cage. “Yes, she has.”

She sighed. “Can you please, please, please, come stand here with our potential friends for three minutes while I recage the pups?”

He sighed and snapped his gloves off. “Bring me coffee in the morning.” He exited the room and took a surgical mask off as she slipped into the room and donned one. “How’s it going guys, where are you up to?”

“Heading to lunch,” said a girl Flash didn’t know. “We worried the mother might eat the babies.”

“It’s always a possibility,” Marco agreed. “We don’t touch each others animals or I would have done it for Gina. My smell in the cage would freak out Beth.”

Through the window, they could see Gina in gloves, carefully putting tiny rats in a new cage.

“Were Dr. Stark and Peter doing something crazy cool when you went up there?” asked Marco. “Last time I went up there they were welding together what looked like a laser sword. It was one third cutlass one third light saber one third laser whip… I think it was for the X-Men.”

“They were having a… rousing discussion about cold fusion,” said Ned.

Marco nodded, “Ah… hot topic this month. It’ll calm down.”

She came back out quickly and said, “Thank you.”

“Coffee. Black, four sugars,” he said.

“You got it.” She then took them to a massive cafeteria and started pointing to different stations, and said, “There is going to be a second lunch in your swag bag. It’s a running joke that all interns walk out of here with a second meal, so they added one to the gift bags as a preview of your future life. Everyone takes a salad and a dessert home every day. But, for now, have at it.”

“Ned?” said FRIDAY. “Peter asks that you bring him and Boss a big plate of cookies when you go back to the lab. I can’t hear any response you give me. Please nod if that makes sense.” He did and gave a double thumbs up. “Thank you, Ned. It’s nice to have you here in person. I hope you get into the Program. That would be fun for Peter, but he doesn’t get a say in who gets in.”

Thank God for that; it was the only thing Flash had going for him, that and the fact that Parker hadn’t clocked him. The whole day was eye-opening.

After a delicious lunch, Gina showed them downstairs to where gift bags were waiting for them. Flash knew he wasn’t gonna wear his sweatshirt to school; he hoped he could sneak through the rest of the process without Parker noticing him. It was possible that Parker couldn’t get someone into the Intern Program, but he could probably kick someone out of consideration.

Ned had already put on a sweatshirt proclaiming that he was a finalist in the selection process for the Stark High School Internship Program. He was carrying a massive plate of cookies. As Gina showed the rest of them out, she said, “C’mon, Ned, I’ll show you back up.”

Flash was screwed.

Notes:

I hope you liked this. I'm pretty sure comments and kudos have more healing power than percocet, so if you could throw them my way I would be thrilled!

Edit: this story blew up. Thank you for the kind comments and kudos! I have many complete stories and series you might be interested in!

Series this work belongs to: