Peter Parker Field Trip to Stark industries

Field Trips and (Overly Dramatic) Father Figures (PS_NoThanks)

Word Count- 17,079

Chapter One- Why Has God Forsaken Me?

Peter liked school, a lot actually. He had Ned, and MJ too now, possibly. The girl had started inching closer to where he and Ned sat during lunch, so Peter took that as a good sign. While the course work was challenging, it wasn't impossible, completing it didn't feel like watching paint dry, which was more than he could say about his elementary school. And sure, there were a few bullies *cough* Flash *cough*, and the occasional unnecessarily cruel teacher or not-so-great test result, but he liked it. Peter actually, surprisingly, liked school.

What Peter most definitely didn't like, was field trips. His most recent ones had been absolute disasters, what with having to break into the Washington Monument to save his AcaDeca team, as well as accidentally-on-purpose encountering the Vulture and getting locked in a storage facility overnight. The time before that at Oscorp had also sucked, but that was a given. Being bitten by a radioactive spider, getting really sick for an agonising weekend, and then obtaining superpowers tended to be a bit of a mood killer, but even before that field trips hadn't been his jam.

Once, he'd gone to the Empire State Building and a crazy-looking lady pushing a shopping cart filled to the brim with cabbages had asked if he wanted to stroke the ferret curled around her neck. Looking back, he realised that a strange lady on the streets with an odd attachment to cabbages and ferrets was just part of the famed New York culture, and was nothing to worry about, but at age seven, he hadn't thought that was the case. There was also that time he'd gone to a water sanitation plant. Nothing bad had happened, it had just been incredibly boring. No one had enjoyed that trip.

When Mr Harrington greeted Peter's AP science class bright and early on Monday morning, the teen could tell something fishy was going on. The usually mellow teacher was grinning like a madman and bouncing on the balls of his feet (teachers should never be energetic, and if they were, Peter didn't trust them). It didn't take long for Mr Harrington to spill the beans, and, remarkably, when he revealed that they were going on yet another field trip, Peter didn't fall to the floor and scream to whoever was up there about why they'd decided to forsake him. Instead, he allowed himself a tiny bit of hope, just a little bit. Maybe the universe was going to give him a break after the whole Toomes debacle?

But of course, the universe didn't feel inclined to give him a break, and Peter only got to hold onto his hope for a short while, as not seconds later, Mr Harrington's voice broke through the boy's wishful thinking.

"Now, I know you're all really excited for Friday, but we've gotta be on our best behaviour, I mean it. It's not every day Stark Industries grants a school group access their Tower. In fact, I'm not quite sure how the school managed to wrangle this, but you guys know the saying, 'never look a gift horse in the mouth'," the man said excitedly.

Peter groaned as he buried his head into his arms. He had a pretty good idea of how Midtown had managed to get a tour, and boy, if he was right, a certain someone was going to be getting an earful when Peter showed up for his internship after school finished for the day.

Despite his growing dread, he still felt a little thrill in his chest when he thought about the internship. When Peter had turned down the opportunity to become an Avenger (sometimes he still had trouble believing that he'd actually done that, but he didn't regret his decision, it had been the right one), he'd thought he was also saying goodbye to Mr Stark, and the awesome spidey suit upgrades, and spontaneous missions to other countries.

To his surprise, Mr Stark (or Tony , as the man had been trying to get Peter to call him), had offered Peter an internship. A real internship, not just a cover for his Spider-Man activities. He got to go to the labs in Stark Tower three days a week (Monday, Wednesday and Friday) and work on anything and everything. His suit, his web shooters, Karen, random projects, and once, the Iron Man suit. Sure, it was just screwing in a few plates of metal here and there under Mr Stark's very careful supervision, and passing his mentor the tools he needed when he asked for them, but still . He'd touched an Iron Man suit .