Perhaps He's Not Missing Out After All

Chapter 2

  "Pete, catch!"

Peter turned just in time to see his mentor, who was facing the other direct hunched over his own project, throw a large wrench over his shoulder in Peter's direction. His instinct kicked in and Peter effortlessly leaped up and grabbed the tool with his hand. Him and Tony had woken up early that morning and headed down to the labs.

"Mr. Stark!" Peter grumbled, a bit annoyed at the man.

"What?" he responded innocently, still working on his own project.

"I'm fairly certain that breaks many lab safety rules." Peter responded, slightly amused, mostly annoyed at his mentor.

Tony shrugged. "Lab safety doesn't apply when 'Spidey Senses' are involved."

Peter gave Tony a look, "Oh, really."

Tony shot up, eyes widening, when he realised what he implied. "Actually no, I take that back. Lab safety especially applies when your name is Peter and you have freaky spider powers." Tony looked the kid up and down, "now, where's your safety goggles, mister?"

Peter rolled his unprotected eyes, "where's yours?"

"Last time I checked my name isn't Peter, nor do I have spider powers, therefore the rules are flexible with me."

Peter chuckled, before getting a mischievous glint in his eye. He walked past Tony toward the sink, rinsing the collection of oil and dirt off of his hands. He then reached for his phone, which was setting on the counter, and began to search through his contacts. "Is that so?" his mentor looked at him in question as he found the contact he was looking for and pressing dile "Then 'm sure that Pepper would have no problem with it then."

Tony's eyes widened in shock, "you little shit!" he yelled, abandoning his project in favor of diving for the phone in Peters hands. He pried the device from his proteges fingers, quickly pressing the end call button.

Or, at least he thought that he pressed the end call button. In reality, just put the call on speaker.

"What did you just say?" A voice came from the small phone. Tony looked at it in horror, there was no backing out now. "Because it sounded like you just cursed at a minor."

"Pepper! Baby! Sweetheart! Love of my life! Light in the . . ."

"Tony," she warned in a stern voice.

Tony gulped, "Pep! Pete and I just wanted to call and let you know how much we love and appreciate . . ."

"Actually," Peter cut off him off by yelling from across the room, well out of Tonys reach, but still in a listening range of the Phone, "I wanted to let you know that Tony said that lab safety doesn't matter to him!"

"You little . . ."

"Tony!" She exclaimed.

He sighed, "Let's be honest Pep, that's far from the worst thing you have heard me say," he said while sitting in a chair next to him, lazily giving it a small spin.

Pepper sighed from her end of the phone. "As true as that may be, you said all of those things outside of listening range of a teenager. What made you think that you can tell Peter, a fifteen year old, that lab safety was unimportant?"

"Well, I . . ." he started, but was cut off by Peppers fiery voice.

"You know what, it doesn't matter. I have so many things to do, Tony, that I honestly don't have time for your antics right now. I have a conference call in five minutes, a stack of both my own and your paperwork, not to mention there is a tour group coming by today, and I have to make sure everything is in tip, top shape. Which you will not ruin, today. Just stay in your lab, and stay away from explosives. I got to go. Bye, Peter," she said raising her voice, so the teen across the room could hear, "I love you!"

"What!" Tony exclaimed, "you going to tell Him that but not . . ." Tony was cut off by a loud, repetitive beeping sound, signaling that Peper had disconnected the call. "Great," he huffed, tossing Peter his phone back.

Peter laughed at his mentors expression.

"What are you laughing at." Tony asked, a slight smile tugging at his lips. He was really glad that Peter wasn't feeling down anymore.

"Nothing, Mr. Stark," he responded, innocently.

"Nothing Mr. Stark," Tony mocked and let out a huff before standing up and returning to his project.

"Hey Mr. Stark?" Peter timidly asked from his spot in the room, "I think I'm going to head downstairs and see if the other interns need my help."

Tony looked up at the teen, "What, are you already bored with little ol' me?" he looked down at the Stark-Watch on his wrist, "It's only 9am."

"No, Mr. Stark!" Peter defended, "It's just that if everything is as busy as Ms. Potts says it is, then they might need my help."

Tony sighed. "I was just kidding. Go head Pete," he told him before grabbing a screwdriver and setting back to work on his project.

"Thanks Mr. Stark!" he said running out of the room, "See you later! Your the best!"

"Damn straight," he mumbled watching the boy stumble out.

Peter hopped into the elevator and, giving that F.R.I.D.A.Y. heard their conversation, it started moving downward. He watched as the numbers lowered until it finally stopped at floor 18. Peter walked out of the elevator and onto the floor. He took and left and entered the Intern's Lab. Stark Industries has very few interns, ten to be precise. Each of the individuals were already well into college and had a bright future in the world of science. They had been the few selected out of thousands of applicants and had to go through many different interviews and screenings. It was well worth the hassle, though, as those that were selected had virtually automatic entrance into any job they could dream of, and had their college and boarding completely paid by the company.

As he entered the lab, Peter noticed that none of the interns were there, except Emily. Emily was a very bright girl with Einstein-level intelligence. She had entered the program as a college junior and was now a semester away from gaining a PhD. Emily was tense and was just barely sitting on the edge of her chair as she typed aggressively on her computer.

"Emily?" Peter asked, timidly making his way towards the college student. When she didn't answer him, he reached out a hand and tapped her shoulder, "Hey, Emily?"

Emily jerked up in surprise, calming a bit when she saw Peter, "Oh, hi Peter," she turned back to her work and continued to type while she talked, "Sorry, I really don't have time to talk right now, I have a project due at noon, and I still need to finish my report on it. Not to mention that I'm the only intern here, and there a tour group will be getting here any minute!" her voice quieted down a little bit, as she mumbled to herself, "There's no way I'll be able to finish in time!"

"Um, Emily, is there anything that I can do to help?"

Emily looked over at Peter and smiled. "No, there's not. I have to be the one to finish the report, or I would hand it over in a heartbeat." she turned back to her computer and started mumbling to herself about different word choices. "Good? No . . . Great? No . . . Amazing? No, too childish. What to use, what to use . . . Peter! What's a word that I can use? I can't think!"

"Um," Peter pondered for a second, "Productive? Effective?" he suggested

"Effective!" she exclaimed as she furiously typed the word into he document, "it's perfect!"

Peter watched as Emily got back to work. He looked down in thought, he wished that there was something that he could do to help Emily out. She seemed so stressed, and he knew what it was like to be in a position like that. His eyes lit up when he realized that there might be something that he could do after all

"I could lead the tour that's coming through!"

Emily stopped typing and turned to face Peter. "Really?! That would be amazing! Thank you so much Peter! Wait, have you ever lead a tour before? Do you think that you can do it?"

Peter smiled at Emily, "Yeah. I went on the tour like ten times when I first started working here, I thought it was awesome. I know the tour like the back of my thumb, I've got you covered!" Peter loved the tour that Stark Industries offered. The tour was mostly offered to business partners, local colleges, and media groups, but occasionally they have other approved groups come along.

A look of relief took over Emily's face. "I can't thank you enough for doing this Peter! I feel like I can finally breathe!"

Peter chuckled. "No problem, Emily. I don't mind at all. When does the group get here?"

"Oh, um," she looked down at her watch, "F.R.I.D.A.Y.?"

"A group just walked into the front lobby claiming to have a tour." the automated voice responded.

"Now."

Peter chuckled, "alrighty then, I best head down there. It was nice seeing you Emily!"

"You too Peter! Thank you so much, again."

"No problem! See you later Emily!" he called back while exiting the room. He headed straight for the elevator. He watched as the numbers lowered until he was left on the first floor. He skipped over the the receptionist's desk, where a woman was talking on the phone. Noticing Peter she told the person on the line to hold on for a second and she moved the phone away from her ear.

"Hi Cindy! I'm taking over Emily's duty of tour guide today. Where is the group?"

Cindy motioned to her left, "they're right over there sweety. Need anything else?"

"Nope, I'm good! Thanks!"

Cindy nodded her head in acknowledgement, before going back to her phone call. Peter turned to his left and walked towards a group of people standing awkwardly in the lobby. A middle-aged man stood at the front of the group and was filling out what he assumed to be the tour paperwork. When he got closer, he realized that he recognized the man.

"Mr. Warren?!" Peter gasped in shock. What was he doing here? Wasn't he supposed to be on . . . Oh no.

"Peter?!" Mr. Warren looked at him with confusion and shock. His face soon flashed with anger. "What are you doing here?!" he exclaimed

"Mr. Warren, I . . ."

"No, Peter!" Peter could here the chatter of his classmates cease, as they all turned their attention to him. They all looked at him in shock. This left an audience when Mr. Warren continued, "Peter, when I said you couldn't go of the field trip, I meant that you couldn't go on the field trip! Even if you got your own ride. You should be at school right now. I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"But Mr. . ." Peter started but was interrupted by his livid teacher.

"No 'buts' Peter, I mean it. As much as I think you deserve to be here I have to enact school policy. You blatantly ignored me and your skipping school right now. We'll talk about your punishment later, but for now i'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"I'm here on my internship!" Peter blurted out before his teacher could have the chance to cut him off again.

"What?"

"My Stark internship, that's why I here today. I'm here with the internship, not the field trip." Peter tried to explain.

"Peter," his teacher sighed, "I wasn't going to say anything, but enough is enough. I'm going to need you to stop lying about the internship. We all know that it is fake. You are a bright student, but you are only in high school. You don't have a Stark Internship, now quit the act and leave. We'll talk about this once I get back to school."

Peter looked at him in shock. This was his favorite teacher, how could he say these things about him? His words really hurt.

"But . . ."

"Now Peter!" his teacher yelled sternly, making Peter flinch. He looked at his classmates, to see looks of disbelief on their faces. He caught neds eye, who gave him a worried look. Behind him, he could see the grin plastered on Flashes face. He quickly looked away.

Peter started to walk away. What was he supposed to do? How could he convince Mr. Warren that he was an intern and there to take them on a tour? He started to head towards the receptionist. Maybe Cindy could convince him.

"Peter!" the feminine voice of Emily made him stop. He looked up at her in confusion. What was she doing here? Seeing that he had stopped walking, Emily rushed forward to meet Peter, holding a small, plastic container in her hand. "Hey, Peter, I forgot to give these to you. They are the badges that I printed out for the class. They need them for the tour."

"Oh," Peter said, grabbing the box, "Hey, Emily, we have a slight problem."

"What?" Emily looked at him in question, "What's wrong?"

Before Peter could respond, Mr. Warren made his way over to the two interns. "I'm sorry, Miss, is he bothering you? He a student of mine that's actually not supposed to be here right now. I'll take him out of your way." He said, grabbing Peter's shoulder.

"Wait, what?" Emily breathed out looking between between Mr. Warren and Peter. I look of realization crossed her face and she busted out into laughter. "Wait, you think that . . . Oh my God, Peter, your life is fucken gold! Who else does this happen to? Oh my God!" she said between laughing fits.

"Miss, I don't think I understand what you mean."

Emily finally found a break in her laughter and turned to Mr. Warren. "Okay, listen here, Mr. Whoever, I'm Emily, Intern here at Stark Tower. So is Peter, in fact, Peter is the personal intern of Mr. Stark. I was supposed to take you on your tour today, but I became a bit busy and Peter volunteered. Today, Peter is not your student, he's your tour guide and boss." Emily turned back to Peter, "did you know it was them on the tour?"

"Um, no. Actually, the only reason that Mr. Stark let me work today was because he knew that I was bummed out that I couldn't go on the field trip." Peter awkwardly stated.

Emily laughed some more, "Only you, Peter, only you." and with that, she headed back towards the elevator to get back to work on her report.

"So, um, yeah," Peter stood awkwardly before his teacher, "so, um, should we get started?"

"Peter," his teacher stammered, "you, um, Internship . . . real? Um, Okay, so, uh . . ." his teacher seemed to be searching for the right words, but couldn't find them.

"Yeah."

"The internship is real?" he asked finally finding his words. Peter nodded. "And you're here because you're our tour guide?" Peter nodded again. "And I just said . . . Oh, God! I'm so sorry Peter! I didn't realize! And I treated you . . . I'm so sorry!"

"Um, It's alright Mr. Warren. It's okay. I understand. My story is quite unbelievable, I suppose." Peter lied. It was not okay. Mr. Warren's words really hurt him.

Mr. Warren nodded shamefully but followed Peter back to where the class was still gathered.

"Class," Mr. Warren called out silencing the group. Many looked at Peter with curiosity, wondering why was he still here. "I want to publicly apologise to to Peter." Many students, including Peter, looked at him in shock. "I was wrong, Peter does have an internship here at Stark Industries. In fact, he is our tour guide for the day. I want you all to pay attention to Peter and show him respect. He has authority over all of us, including me, for today." He smiled and turned to Peter. "Take it away"

"Okay, so we will start with . . ." he didn't get to finish before a voice cut him off.

"What?! Your just going to believe him?! Just like that! He's obviously lying!" Flash yelled in objection.

"Flash, I know it's hard to believe, but it's true. Now hush so we can start the tour." Mr. Warren told him.

"But . . ."

"Now! I don't want to here any more of this!" Mr. Warren silenced him. Flash shut his mouth, but openly glared at Peter, making him fear what was going to come to him tomorrow at school.

"So, I have badges for everyone. Come and get one as I call your name." Peter handed out the standard blue badges to everyone one by one. "Now, these are lanyards so I expect everyone to keep it around your neck at all times. Make sure it is always visible and not hidden by anything, including jackets. Our head of security gets a little cranky when proper identification is not shown." Peter chuckled a bit thinking about Happy. "Any questions?" a girl named Rachel raised her hand. "Yes Rachel?"

"What does the number 1 mean on here?" she asked looking down at her badge.

"Oh, that's just the ranking system. It tells security what places you are allowed to be with what people. Our ranking system is out of ten. One being a visiter, you, and ten being Mr. Stark and Miss Potts themselves. Any more questions?"

"Yeah, what rank are you, a two?" Flash asked spitefully, without raising his hand.

"A nine," Peter said, pointing to the red number on his black badge. "Any more questions? No? Okay, Stark industries was originally founding in the 1940s by Howard Stark, whose goal was to support the United State's military with high grade weaponry during the second world war. From there, Stark Industries . . ." Peter trailed off describing the history of Stark industries as he lead them through a small museum exhibit. The walls were lined with display cases filled with historical letters, contracts, newspaper clippings, and old inventions and artifacts. Peter stopped at several for the displays to describe them in further detail to his classmates, his passion clearly being shown in his voice.

Once they made it through the mini historical museum, Peter lead the group through the rest of the tower. He showed them the different departments that Stark Industries had to offer. From R&D to marketing, Peter lead his class from department to department showing his classmates the different opportunities that were offered.

Eventually, Peter lead his class back into the elevator and asked F.R.I.D.A.Y. to take them to level 100. A whisper broke about among the students over what could be on level 100. As the elevator traveled up, Peter turned to his classmates. "Since the Avengers have moved out of the tower, their old room and gym have been renovated into a museum-like display. You are about to walk into the rooms that the Avengers used to call their own." As if on cue, as soon as Peter finished his sentence, the elevator doors opened revealing the avengers former living area.

An excited murmur broke out among the students.

" - Are those Captain America's SOCKS?!"

" - OMG! Black Widow's purse! I bet she's killed people with it! So coo!"

" - Are those FOOTPRINTS on the ceiling?!"

" - Look! There's a giant human-sized bird-nest in the corner! Wait, what is that there for?"

Peter chuckled at his peers reactions. There were many weird things in the Avengers quarters, he acted the same way when he first saw it. He continued to lead them through the maze of rooms until he got to the gym doors and lead them through. He heard many of his classmates audible gasp when they saw the room. It was filled with exercise equipment, courses, and weapons, behind reinforced glass of course. Peter lead them around the gym describing the different pieces of equipment and what they were used for.

Eventually, they made it to a red, white, and blue thing that looked like an ordinary bench press. Above it was a sign that read "CAPTAIN AMERICA CHALLENGE."

"This," Peter gestured towards the machine, "is Captain America's personal bench press. The lowest setting is 500 pounds, the highest is ten tons. Giving that you all have signed your wavers," he turned to Mr. Warren who nodded, "you are all allowed to give it a shot. The challenge is usually reserved for enhanced individuals testing their limits, but you are welcome to try. Who knows, you might discover a new inhuman strength within you." Peter chuckled at the thought.

"Move aside, losers, let me show you how it's done!" Flash said, moving to the front of the group. "I can lift 500 pounds, it's nothing!"

Peter raised his eyebrow at Flash but didn't say anything as he moved away to allow Flash his chance to test his strength.

Flash approached the machine and lay down with a smirk. He positioned his arms on the bar and pushed up. His smirk disappeared. He pushed up again. Nothing. It didn't even move aside. Flashes face scrunched up as he used all of his strength to push up on the bar, but nothing would move it. Eventually, Flash moved away from the machine and approached Peter with an angry expression.

"This is all your fault!" he screamed with the tone of a four-year-old.

"What?" Peter asked in surprise.

"This!" he gestured around, "All of this is because of you! You ruined everything!"

"How is this My fault? And what's even your problem? Nothing's wrong!" Peter yelled back in confusion

"Nothing's wrong? Everything's wrong! You don't deserve to be here, you don't deserve to have your so-called "Internship", and you certainly don't deserve to be everyone's favorite! You weren't even supposed to go on this trip in the first place! Why do you think I asked my mom to make the requirement for the field trip based on attendance?" he ranted

"Excuse me?" a loud voice asked from behind them, where Tony Stark himself stood. "You are the reason Peter didn't get to go on the field trip?"

Flash took a step back out of fear and gulped, "uh, no . . . I um."

"I'm pretty sure that you just said that you purposefully had your mom make it so Peter couldn't go on the field trip." he mused.

"Uh, no. Mr. Stark, I just, I uh. Wait, why do you care about peni . . . Peter? He's a nobody."

"A nobody? Kid, you are the nobody! Peter Parker is Everything. He's one of the smartest people I have ever met, and I'm surrounded by intelligence. Not to mention he's the heir to my company! You're looking at the future of Stark Industries. Be respectful!"

Everyone gasped at the new revelation, even Peter. He had no idea of Mr. Starks plans.

"Now, if everyone will excuse me, I am stealing my intern. F.R.I.D.A.Y. will send you a new tour guide." he turned to Peter, "lets go."

Peter chased after his mentor and followed him into the elevator. The stood in an awkward silence for a couple of second before Peter spoke up. "Did you really mean it?"

"About you being the future of Stark Industries? Every word. I was going to tell you later, but i suppose the cat is out of the bag."

"Oh."

"So, I guess that was the great field trip you were missing?" Peter silently nodded, and Tony continued, "Well, that kind of luck could only happen to you, kid. At least you didn't miss out on anything."

"Yeah, I guess so."

Tony looked at his protege and noticed how sad he seemed. "Ice cream? We still have half a tub left over from last night."

Peter smiled at his mentor. "Yeah. That sound nice.

Peter and Tony made it upstairs to the living room. Peter went and sat on the couch and Tony joined him minutes later with the trusty tub of deliciousness and two spoons and handed one to Peter.

"Thank you, dad."