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He's about to go on a school trip when he notices the danger.
It's to Stark Tower. He's got a feeling that Mr. Stark went to the school and arranged the whole thing. The danger-sense runs up his spine when he stands outside the obnoxiously yellow school bus. Peter looks around, but everything is fine. Spidey-senses are annoying like that, they aren't a miracle worker and half the time it's only the puddle in front of me.
I'm watching you, puddle, Peter thinks, eyeing the water reflecting the blustery blue sky.
After an unfathomable amount of teasing on the weeks leading up to the trip by Flash, the bus ride isn't so bad. Everyone's too excited about going to care about some random kid that said he had a Stark internship.
Once there, everyone's herded into the main lobby by the teachers. It's nice, clean and understated, all chrome and high-tech. The receptionists start to hand out passes - plain white cards with a zip code and GUEST printed across the bottom. When Liza, one of the secretaries, reaches Peter she smiles brightly.
“Heya Peter. How are you?” Most of the staff at least know him by sight. It's hard not to, seeing he's around a lot. And, a teenager with more exposure to Tony Stark than most of the board of directors is a topic for gossip, to say the least.
“I’m good, thanks Liza. How’s the new apartment?”
“It was such a pain moving, but I’m really glad I did. I didn’t grab you a guest pass, I figured you could use your own?”
“Yeah. I think I have it in my bag.” Liza moves down the line, while everybody gawks at Peter. It's apparent that he's not lying about his internship. Peter just smirks, pulling out a shiny matte card clipped to a lanyard, which he slips around his neck.
Next everyone lines up to go through the scanners permitting us further entry into the tower. Flash gets locked out, the automated bot repeats: 'you do know whose tower this is, right? If you're trying to rob the place, you're out of luck.' in Tony Stark's voice. He made that certain security feature while drunk, and Pepper practically had an aneurysm when she heard. Peter chuckles, recalling the memory. Flash glares at him, thinking he's laughing at him.
Then it's Peter's turn to pass his card over the scanner. Instead of the automated bots FRIDAY speaks:
“Hello Peter, you’re early for any of your scheduled visits.”
“Yeah, school trip.” He says awkwardly, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. His classmates mutter around me again. He catches more than one variation of: ‘Oh my god, so he wasn’t lying?’, ‘so his internship is real?’ and finally, what he's pretty sure is Ned’s gleeful voice: ‘I told you guys! He’s not lying!’
“Mr. Stark has been anxious for your arrival.”
“Oh my god,” Peter moans, “what’s he gonna do?” Asking is pointless, I=he already know the answer.
“I am prohibited from telling you that.” Yep. Predicted.
“Great.” he mutters, stepping through the metal detector.
Everything goes fine, if rather boring. I've already had several tours of the place and knowing what’s upstairs and how cool it is doesn’t help.
It’s only when a certain Natasha Romanoff strolls ‘oh-so-innocently’ into their class that Peter definitively knows Mr. Stark’s planning something. Amid all of the ‘oohhs’ and ‘aahhs’ she still finds time to push through the crowd and make it to Peter.
“Hey Pete,” she smiles wickedly.
“How much is Tony paying you?” he deadpans.
“Oh I’m being paid in your embarrassment, детский паук,” she turns to face the rest of the class, now staring open-mouthed. "Hey, this is my main man, Peter Parker. I would like everyone to know, he once cried when Mufasa died on The Lion King!"
"That was one time and it was very emotional," he defends, wanting to sink into the ground of embarrassment.
Natasha knows this and she swoops down and kisses his cheek, leaving a sticky red imprint.
Peter turns and hits his head against the wall as she sashays away, leaving only a ‘Seeya Peter!’ in her wake. By the time he's nearly recovered the class is halfway down the hallway, some still lurking to gape at him.
They're now in a hallway lined with some of the less experimental labs. Some even have widows showing inside. A door opens down the hallway. A certain blonde-haired super soldier exits, bare-chested and shaking hands with a man in a white coat, presumably a doctor.
- Boy or girl - most of the class screams at the sight of Captain America shirtless. He looks up, eyes zeroing on Peter immediately. He raises his eyebrows and shrugs, walking towards us, thankfully slipping a shirt over his head while doing so.
“You’re here too?” Peter asks despairingly.
Steve grins, “Yep, Tony’s called in everyone.”
“Demanded you have your check-up here, in a semi-public hallway along our classes route conveniently timed so we would see you?”
"The doctor seemed very eager to get me out when he saw you lot coming down the hall. You know Tony.”
“I’m starting to regret it.” Peter intones, “Don’t tell Mr. Stark I said that, FRIDAY!”
“I’m sorry Peter, too late.” FRIDAY’S smooth voice is replaced with Tony’s, “I’m hurt, kid.”
Steve huffs a laugh, “don’t take it personal, Tony. Most people you meet hate you within seconds.”
“I’ll have you know I can be very charming.” Tony’s voice issues though the speakers.
Steve snorts, “sure you can.”
“What are you implying, Capiscle?”
“I’ll believe it when I see it, that’s what I’m implying.”
Tony goes off the air with a muffled ‘hmph’.
“Anyway kid, I’ve gotta run. See ya later.” Steve claps him on the back, walking down the carpeted corridor.
Everyone bursts into chatter the moment he’s gone. Including Ned, who zooms straight up to Peter with a awestruck ‘duuuude’ leaving his lips.
They run into Pepper next. She dives straight towards him.
“I’m getting out of here, I know what they've got planned -”
“I’ve been given instructions to make sure you do not inform Mr. Parker of the plan. If you continue to try and inform Peter, I will have to drown you out with a selection of Mr. Stark’s favourite songs, per his instruction.” FRIDAY almost sounds regretful. Almost, you stone-hearted robot.
Pepper sighs, “I won’t put you though that, Peter, knowing won’t change the outcome anyway. All I can say is,” she looks him straight in the eye, “run, while you have the chance.” And with that she continues down the hallway, talking into her phone already.
Peter can’t exactly ditch the field trip, and it would be useless trying. Mr. Stark would never let him. It’s another half hour of what Peter's sure is extremely interesting to everyone else, but he's so on edge that his Spidey-Senses seem to be on permanently, prickling up and down his spine.
The faint cracking of gunshots echoes though the corridor.
This is bad, no, no, no, no.
“Everyone get down, everyone get down!” Peter yells, Ned throws himself to the floor over-enthusiastically, and everyone more or less follows.
Flash is too late, and a burst of red appears directly in the middle of his chest, he falls to the floor, clutching the red dramatically.
Our teacher screams, crawling across to the injured student. She grabs at his wound, but when her hand comes away, it smells strongly like chemicals and the red is too tacky to be blood.
"It's...It's paint?"
The guides face goes slack, "Oh no. I've heard about this," she says darkly, eyes flitting around nervously. The cracking of gunfire comes closer.
The vent directly over their heads is unscrewed, a bulletproof vest, loaded paint gun, goggles, and a small bag of extra ammunition dropping down. “Five minutes, Peter!” Clint yells, popping his head out of the grate, “Same teams. Soviet oldies' base is in the cafeteria and Iron-Spider Katniss in conference room #7. Don’t worry, Pepper’s had the whole place evacuated. And be careful, Steve’s bringing out the big guns and Nat’s determined to win.”
Peter swears, scrambling to collect the equipment. Flash is moaning, holding his chest and recounting his near-death tale to his admirers. Attention turns to Peter when he slips the vest over his head and tighten the straps under his arms.
Ned looks up at him with wide eyes. “What’s going on, Peter?”
Peter picks up the gun, stuffing the extra paintballs in his pocket. “Avengers paintball,” he says grimly, fitting the goggles over his head. “Gotta go,” he turns on his heel, sprinting down the hallway, amid the shouts of the teacher.
Peter ends up in the lobby just as the rest of the class is getting organised to leave. He's wearing a silly grin and splattered in multi-colored paint. The team wanders out to see him go, with Nat pulling him in for an affectionate hug. She smells like turpentine and paint.
Bucky glowers good-naturedly, his metal arm covered in purple. “I still think that it was cheating,” the comment arouses groans from everyone.
“Come on Bucky,” Steve punches him on the shoulder, the human one.
“ты плохой неудачник.” Black Widow tells him.
He replies back, “Это был обман!”
“Sure it was,” replies Steve.
Everyone looks at him in surprise.
“What? I’ve been learning Russian, I don’t like you three-” he singles out Natasha, Bucky and Wanda, “- having your own way of communicating. Bad things will happen.”
“сколько, по вашему мнению, он знает?” Natasha says calmly.
“слишком много,” Wanda crosses her arms, gazing at Steve with a streak of blue across her forehead.
“мы должны закончить его сейчас, прежде чем он слишком мн гому научится.” Bucky agrees.
“Okay, I don’t know that much, but from what I do know, I’m gonna start running.”
Natasha grins, and that’s all the indication Steve needs before he’s sprinting up the stairs. Natasha follows on foot and Bucky disappears, no doubt to sneak up on him. Wanda stays put, laughing at his reaction.
Peter fights back a grin. “Okay, okay, I gotta go.”
“Awww!” Tony complains, “can’t you stay? I’ll sign you out.”
“You can’t do that. Anyway, May’s picking me up from school.”
Tony smiles ruefully, he pulls Peter in for a warm hug. “You’re coming over on Saturday, right?”
“Yeah,” he confirms.
“See you then, buddy.”
“I’ll admit: you won, fair and square, kid.” Wanda lowers her auburn-haired head, bowing.
“I’m glad you’ve seen your true master.” Peter teases.
The class starts to file out of the lobby, after they've finished gawking at him and the Avengers.
“Peter!” It’s Ned, waving his hand and no doubt itching to hear all the tales of his time playing paintball. He jogs to catch up, reaching to dig out his security card. He's barely late to the bus, Ned waiting for him at the yellow doors, practically vibrating with excitement.
Peter waves off his questions, “let’s just sit down first, okay?”
Ned agrees, and they make their way down the aisle, whispers breaking out as Peter passes. They - finally - sit down on the cracked leather seats at the very back.
MJ’s in the row of seats in front of them. She turns around, flipping her book closed. “You have paint on your cheek, loser.”
Peter just laughs, and Ned breaks into so many questions he can't even. "Okay! Slow down, Ned!" he chuckles, a smile so wide it literally hurts his face
Flash is suspiciously quiet for the rest of the trip back.