The Scattered Stories of Spider-Son and Iron Dad

The Field Trip - 'Most Senior Intern'

Andy laughed at the two high-schoolers, and shook his head as he leaned back in his chair. You couldn't really call their work stations cubicles, but they came as close as a Stark Industries lab could, I guess. Surrounded on three sides by floor to ceiling Interactive Glass screens, a workbench with some built in shelves on the side, and a swivel chair, they allowed a sense of privacy without cutting off any visual connection. Which--with all of the interns habit of listening to their music as they worked--was a safety feature Tony implemented personally when he decided to overhaul the intern labs; Most of the, now, highest level interns had been there to experience the major changes to their circumstances after Peter had been 'recruited'. And all of them knew that--while he didn't necessarily know about it--it was because of Peter.

They now had access to the most up to date Stark Tech, their own break area, access to free unlimited snacks and drinks, and each had their own 'cubbies'--what they had, without any discussion, dubbed their cubicles. All of that, and all of the higher level Interns--Juniors or Seniors in college, now in Paid internships--had a lot of freedom in what projects or research they worked on. While everyone reported to a lead scientist and Head Lab Tech in their assigned area of expertise, they could work on just about whatever they wanted in the Intern Labs--with the knowledge that while their work was the intellectual property of SI, they would receive their own royalties if any of their projects ever went into SI production.

Not to mention all Higher level interns now had there own 'offices' on the 53rd floor, now dubbed the Interim Hall. With fewer than twenty higher level interns at a time--new people were almost always direct replacements for graduating interns--everyone was given their own office and test lab in the looping hall of the floor. With full access to an interactive holographic filing system for notes, blueprints, whiteboards, and schematics in their offices, and blast-proof data collection labs of their own, all of the higher level interns--twelve at the time--were suddenly more well equipped than they had ever been.

Peter, though, had not known a Lab without all of these amenities.

Andy, who had worked in the old labs for all of a month before they were shut down for two weeks of overhauled renovations, was really the only one left who did know the full extant of change that Peter had unknowingly wrought on the lives of the SI Paid Inters.

Many of the Interns at the time had scoffed at some of the features built into their cubbies; sensory deprivation options to dim lights, applicable warnings when someone was walking close by, timers set to go off every three hours of work time, and soft reminders to eat and drink. Andy knew--having got his first job in a corner store at 15--that the timers at least were more than likely for minor work restrictions, and said as much after they had received their run down about the new labs.

Then a barely-15-year-old was given his own workstation, and started coming in a few times a week. Most of the Interns weren't confused, so much as annoyed at the time.

Those were students who had been interning at SI for two or three full years, at that point; they had worked their way up, and still had to earn a level of respect with everyone they interacted with in their assigned labs, simply because they were college students. Then a high school freshman shows up, seemingly out of nowhere, and starts working alongside the college seniors, apparently a part of the paid internship program. It wasn't all that surprising a few feathers were ruffled at this.

Peter, luckily, was unaware of the anger and annoyance thrown at him for the first week of his internship.

Which made sense, seeing as he didn't really feel confident enough to talk to anyone the first few times he visited the lab. And the fact that everyone changed their mood towards him after that first week. He only had to ask one intern a question about what he was pretty sure was a mistake in a higher level equation he was working through for an Iron Man armor before the whispers spread through the lab like flame over a sheet of flash paper.

Peter Parker was ridiculously nice, unbelievably intelligent, and had somehow earned this internship directly through Dr. Tony Stark himself. He was the first of a Pilot group for a new Internship program, set to work directly with the Avengers, through Stark Industries. The unspoken agreement to Protect him and Help him if he ever asked for it spread through the interns even faster than the initial gossip had.

Now, Peter having worked in the labs for coming on three years—technically—was considered the unofficial Most Senior Intern in the lab. The fact that he believed this title was jokingly bestowed on him--and it was not at all--was a running joke amoungst the SI interns. They all knew that Peter knew as much as they did about the Lab, the company happenings, and technically being the Most Senior ASI, the last group of graduating Interns--now funneled into there own floor in their areas of expertise and research-- had made a plaque and tacked it to the only visible side of Peter's desk.

{ Peter Parker, ASI: Most Senior Intern }

He had laughed at it, but had taken notice when incoming higher level interns were funneled towards him, to be introduced to the 'Intern Only' spaces, like the Lab and the Interim Hall. He was the one to take them through the unofficial tour, give the detailed 'Lab Rules' talk and help them get used to a much more advanced interface than they were typically used to with the limitations on their unpaid internships.

Somehow, though, Peter was still 'Peter': ridiculously nice, unbelievably intelligent, and would be protected at all costs.

And he still sort of didn't know.

Andy thought it was hilarious.

He stood and walked over to Peter's station, chuckling as Peter and Lori continued ribbing each other good-naturedly.

"Whoever decided to give the ASI's a competition should be fully prepared for the consequences; tell me it was Dr. Stark!" He said as he leaned his shoulder on the slim edge of the glass wall.

"Pretty sure it was Ms. Romanov, actually." Lori said, smiling as she turned back towards her own detailed schematics.

Andy snorted as he turned back to Peter, nodding over his shoulder as he said, "and she thought it was a good idea, to pit the four of you against each other?"

Peter shrugged, as he looked over some long equation, and grinned, saying, "She's Russian; 'Friendly competition' probably means something different to her, ya' know? 'Zhivi i davay zhit' drugim.'" The Russian was understood, not because Andy could speak it, but because the phrase was said so often.

So often, in fact that, that Amy parroted, "Live and let live," back to him in English as she passed--not really paying attention, and barely glancing up from her model rocket she had built to test--on her way to the testing booths along the back wall.

Peter nodded and looked back to a set of schematics on his left. Andy took this time to bring up his real reason for wandering over.

"You do know that there's gonna be a tour group coming up here at some point, right? Any thoughts on that?" Peter groaned, rolling his eyes, though Andy could see him fighting a smile.

"Yeah, it's my Decathlon team, and I am desperately trying to avoid them today."

"Don't want bragging rights?" Andy laughed.

"I have stuff to do! And I kinda don't have the time to deal with friends from school, as much 'street cred' as this would give me at a school full of nerds." Lori snorted at that, and the three of them took a moment to laugh. They were only cut short by a ping at Peters station and a soft accented voice saying, "Peter, Mr. Barnes has just entered the lobby, downstairs."

He nodded, made some quick saves, and locked his station before he got up and nodded to the other two. Andy nodded back before He headed over to his own cubby, before bypassing it entirely and heading to get himself a snack, setting a twenty minute timer on his smart watch as he went, seeing as the three-hour-work timer was only a few minutes off from being finished anyway.

Some of the Interns might have scoffed at it--at least at first--but the regular breaks had made all of them more productive, and the motion warnings had allowed for fewer mistakes to fix when they were startled out of an intense session of hyper-focus.

Yeah, Peter had changed a lot of things, but so far, all of them were for the better.