Peter Parker Field Trips And More

Of ID Badges and Artificial Intelligence

By hblankm

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15742707#main

On paper, Peter is, technically, a legitimate Stark Industries intern now.  This whole visiting the tower every second weekend or so and actually getting to work with Tony Stark in his personal lab is a great improvement from being mostly-sort-of-ignored by Happy.  And it’s not even all Spider-Man stuff!  Which, okay, the Spider-Man stuff is definitely the coolest thing to tell Ned about and definitely the most important because it leads to him saving real, human lives - but this thing where Mr Stark seems willing (happy, even?) to just teach him about completely unrelated tech stuff?  It makes it feel like Mr Stark isn’t just interested in spending time with Peter because he’s Spider-Man.  Like he’s interested in spending time with Peter because he’s Peter.  Which is honestly way more unbelievable and way more amazing than any of this superhero stuff.

But anyway, none of that is the point.  The point is that Peter’s internship is 100% real.

It’s just not exactly… standard.  Peter doesn’t spend his time getting people coffees, or cleaning lab messes, or even working with any of the college level interns who experiment in the labs.

Peter doesn’t really interact with anyone else at SI other than Mr Stark, Happy, and occasionally Miss Potts.  When he arrives he walks straight through the foyer and FRIDAY lets him into the elevator reserved for access to Mr Stark’s personal floors and lab.  Peter doesn’t even have an ID badge because SI employees don’t ever actually use those floors.  The security for them is handled completely by FRIDAY.

Which makes everything much simpler for Peter because he would definitely have lost a badge by now if he’d been given one and there is no way he’d be able to survive the embarrassment of having to ask Mr Stark for a new one every time he misplaced one.  He really really didn’t want to annoy anyone and jeopardise this mentor-mentee thing he had going with Mr Stark right now.

On the other hand though, it means Peter is going to look like a big fat liar today when he doesn’t even have badge to let him into the tower.  Ever since the permission slips were handed out Flash has been going on and on about how everyone will finally get to see that “Penis Parker’s” internship is a total sham.

Peter seriously considered not going at all.  Too bad he was already on thin ice with the school after the whole Washington incident, and even thinner ice with May after the whole… walking in on Spider-Man incident.  He was pretty sure if he skipped any more school he’d be grounded for, well, ever.  Plus, he was still kind of terrified that May was one slip up away from taking his suit and burning it.  So, no skipping unfortunately located field trips.

“Hey, Peter, do you think Mr Stark will be at the tower today?  And if he is do you think we’ll get to see him?  I mean, I know you see him all the time, obviously, but how cool would it be if we all got to meet him?”

At least Ned seemed excited about visiting the tower.

“Yeah, Ned.  That’d be cool.  But I don’t think Mr Stark will—“

“You talking about your fake internship with Tony Stark again, Penis?” Flash butted in, leaning over the back of his seat on the bus, “Don’t you realise everyone’s going to know you’re a liar as soon as we get there?”  Peter felt himself flushing.  Usually he’d be able to just brush off Flash’s comments but he was fairly certain today was only going to make everyone believe that Flash was right.  There was no point denying it, not saying anything was probably better.