Throwing Caution to the Wind

Chapter 14

The next 2 days went pretty good. Flash and his group stayed away form him. Peter was sure that that wouldn't last. On Thursday Peter settled on Star  Wars. When MJ heard, he rolled her eyes and smiled. That made Peter oddly happy. When Ned found out, he looked about ready to start jumping up and down.

Friday things were back to normal. The Flash Bandits cornered him by his locker and he got a couple threats and a quick but painful punch to the shoulder before they left him again. Peter didn't mind, not really. Better him than someone else, someone who didn't have super human strength. Plus, it was Friday, he was going back to the tower tonight, nothing could sour his mood. He had another work period in first. He chilled to his tunes. Today the song that stuck out to him was Centuries. It just had a sweet beat. And it made him thoughtful for the future.

MJ had seen Flash and the others corber him that morning, so she was waiting for him by the doors.

Ned was already there when they finally got their food. The three of them started taking about the weekend plans. They had decided that they wanted to try out doing something as a group. Ok, really it was more Peter and Ned deciding that they needed to do something with all three of them, and then roping MJ into it. She had been extremely reluctant. That was a bit of an understatement. It had taken weeks of convincing and bribing her with her favorite movie snacks. But she finally relented. The conversation turned to the possibility of either going bowling, going to see a movie, or going to the arcade. Eventually the movie won out. It was the cheapest and also Accor to MJ "the least bond forming and low effort activity".

When the bell ring they headed off to their respective classes. Peter spent his afternoon classes trying to figure out a fun project to do. Mr Stark had told him last time that he wanted Peter to think of a fun project using some of the tech in the lab. One that they could do together so Peter could both get comfortable with the different machines, but also him. He still didn't know what he wanted to do.

The final bell rang before Peter could think of an idea. He was heading off towards station when he heard the car he was passing honk. He looked and saw a black Audi with a slightly grumpy looking driver in it. He motioned impatiently for Peter to get in. Peter stood there for a few seconds unsure of what to do. Apparently it was a few seconds too long because he rolled down the window.

"Peter Parker" he yelled.

"Uh, yeah, that's me" Peter said stuttering a bit.

"Happy Hogan, head of security at Stark Industries, and for some reason, your driver" he said in introduction.

"Now get in, I've just gotten a call about some trouble up at the tower" he said clearly unhappy about his new position.

Peter got in without further comments. The ride was silent, despite Peter's best attempts of getting a conversation going. Eventually be just gave up and accepted the uncomfortable quite.

When they pulled into the garage he thanked Happy before making a mad dash to the elevator. With his hearing he heard Happy mutter something about this being below his paygrade.

"Hello Peter, Boss had requested that I take you up to penthouse" said Friday.

"Thanks Friday"

When he got up there, he saw that the dining table that he had seen from Ms Potts tour had been covered with several sheets of blueprint paper.

"Hey kid, so I figured we'd sit here to day and start working on the blueprints for our first project" he said holding out few white pencils.

"Although, remember these plans can change at any point, in fact I find that I rarely stick to the original plan."

Peter felt uncomfortable, he had been racking his brain all week but hand thought of anything.

"Sir, I haven't been able to think of anything, sorry" Peter admitted sheepishly.

"Even better, now you with be disappoint if you aimed too high for your first one, though you would have to want to build a rocket to aim too high" he said chuckling a bit.

"What's the hardest part of your day" he asked a minute later" Mr Stark asked a few minutes later our of no where.

"Waking up" Peter responding the only way he knew how, with Gen Z humour.

"Could you think of anything that might help with that" asked Mr Stark.

Peter thought for a moment, while he had said that jokingly, the way he might answer Ned. He realized that it really wasn't very smooth. He remembered reading something about how it was best to wake up at the end of your REM cycle.

"Maybe we could build a bot that constantly monitors where you are in the REM cycle. You could set the time for the time you absolutely must be up and it could wake you up at the time closest to that at the end of the cycle" he suggested.

Mr Stark looked thoughtful at that.

"Ya know kid, that's actually brilliant. We could make some sensors to attach to pulse points to make it even more personalized. Maybe a bottom that you could push to let the robot know your offially trying to sleep".

They spent the next 30 minutes taking about it would work and the different components of it. They decided that an app would be good, but to limit how often you could open it so people wouldn't be able to stress over the numbers.

Finally they busted out the white pencils. They decided on the side TJ be a bit bigger than your typical digital clocks. Needless to say, they had a clock on the front. It came with electrodes that used a paste that dissolved in water to put over your points and over the diaphragm. They also agreed that if it worked correctly it shouldn't take too much to wake you up. They decided that they would try it some gentle slow classical music. It felt freeing to just be brainstorming and tossing ideas around like that.

When Ms Potts came home she reprimanded Mr Stark for not feeding Peter earlier. She was in a good mood so she made then some Alfredo Fettuccini for dinner. It was a bit weird to start off. But they were much more open to conversation then Happy.

"Peter, please, call me Pepper. I'm surrounded by people who always need something from me who call me Ms Potts. So please, it's Pepper" she pleaded.

"Ok...Pepper" the name felt strange on his tongue since he was used to calling people of authority by their proper title.

"Great so it's Pepper and Tony right kid" interjected Mr Stark.

"Ok Mr Stark" Peter said letting Spiderman take over.

The rest of dinner went well, they kept working for a bit longer and eventually Peter had to go home.

When he got to the appartment he excitedly told May about the project they had settled on.

That night Peter dreamt of building wacky contraptions in the lab with Mr Stark. That really was more than just a dream though, it would hopefully soon become a reality.