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It all starts with a permission slip. Well, actually it all starts with a tweet. When Sam Wilson had first taken up the mantle of Captain America, Peter had, of course, tweeted his support for the man as both himself and Spider-Man. Not too unusual. What had gotten his classmates attention was the fact that Captain America had liked the tweet. And for two weeks, that was all Midtown had talked about. Peter had made the excuse that he met the man while interning for Mr. Stark, there had been more uproar and accusations that he had been lying and then everything had died down for a good long while.
Until today when a permission slip for a field trip to the Avengers Compound had landed on Peter's desk. The Avengers had began the process of reforming six months ago, with Captain America (now Sam Wilson) leading the team, Spider-Man and Sergeant Barnes making up the other full-time members, and Shuri, Joaquín, Thor, Ant-Man, Hulk, and Captain Marvel as part-time or emergency situation members. In an effort to “improve transparency and relatability” Sam had opted to offer two tours of the facility once a week every week for three months. One of these daily tours was available to the general public via a raffle (proceeds from the $10 tickets were split between the Avengers Fund and various charities) and the other was awarded to schools from New York who had also entered a raffle. Of course, Bucky being the little shit that he was, went searching for Midtown’s entry and approved it for the first slot. Or at least that was what Peter had assumed had happened because Bucky had been alone with the paperwork.
“Our school was one of the select few chosen for the Avengers Compound field trip!” Peter’s teacher announces. “Unfortunately, only thirty slots were made available to us at this time so the school decided to make this a senior field trip. The top thirty students in the class will be attending.”
The kids who have permission slips cheer. Those who don’t look positively broken-hearted. Peter hopes he can change that.
After class ends for the day, he approaches his teachers desk. “Uh, ma’am? Can I forfeit my spot on the trip?”
The teacher frowns, “why would you want to do that, Peter?”
Peter shrugs, “not really interested, I guess. I’m sure one of my classmates would enjoy it more than me.”
The teacher looks confounded, “well you know school policy, Peter. You need to have a legitimate reason to miss a school trip. I can’t see the school approving you to miss this for anything that is not a long-standing commitment.”
Peter nods, trying not to look too miserable. It could really just be a coincidence, he supposed. He rather doubted it, though.
“Hey,” MJ greets him coolly as he walks up to her locker, “you try and get out of the field trip?”
Peter nods, “it’s a no-go.”
“That excited to see your ‘best friend’ Cap, huh?” Flash asks, evidently overhearing the conversation.
Peter sighs, “I told you, we met through my internship. I never claimed to be his best friend. In fact, if you ask the media, that’s Bucky Barnes.”
“They’re totally dating though,” Betty chimes in, detaching herself from Ned for a moment.
Flash frowns, “yeah, right.”
Peter offers no comment. They are, as it happens, but it’s not his place to say that.
That conversation distracts Flash though, and Peter and MJ make their way outside. They part with a kiss, MJ headed home and Peter for patrol.
~*~
The morning of the trip is a hectic one. Peter barely has time to grab breakfast before he is popping into his personal jet. Living at the compound means a longer commute, but with the use of his jet, ‘longer’ actually means ‘about the same as before’. It had been one of Tony’s unfinished projects to develop the small jets, but Shuri had completed it in about ten minutes flat. The result was that Peter had a personal jet with autopilot enabled to get him to school every day, with cloaking panels, of course. It also ran on solar energy.
Peter lands on the roof fifteen minutes before school is due to start as usual, then lowers himself through the secret shoot that drops out into a back corner of the library. He then makes his way to the table where Ned and MJ are waiting.
“No Betty?” Peter asks, dropping a kiss to MJ’s head and then sliding in next to her.
“She’s running a little late. She’ll be here just before the bell rings, I bet.”
“Field trip day,” MJ grins evilly. She’s excited both because Sam Wilson is one of her idols and she thoroughly enjoys the fact that both Bucky and Sam like to take every opportunity possible to mess with Peter. Peter is like 80% sure the teasing comes from a place of affection though, so it’s all good. Okay maybe more like 95% sure.
They do indeed meet Betty just before the bell rings and the four of them spend a grand total of ten minutes in their shared world issues class before getting called out for the field trip. Flash is predictably annoying in line for the bus, but Peter and Ned end up in the first row and Flash is near the back. Betty and MJ are across the aisle from their boyfriends, preferring to leave them alone to ‘geek out’. And yeah, Peter lives at the compound and Ned visits him on a regular basis but there’s always Avengers stuff to freak out about. Plus, Peter hasn’t actually been in any of the exhibits as Friday night was the grand opening. Well, okay, he had technically been there , but he had been in costume and hadn’t really left the big press room because he had been too busy meeting Avengers fans. Then Saturday he had spent with MJ and patrolling, and Sunday he had spent patrolling and then with Ned.
Needless to say, he’s also pretty excited when the bus pulls up to the compound. At least he is until he remembers just where they are. Then he’s considerably less excited.
They all unload from the bus and huddle up out front. A perky intern comes out to greet them. She introduces herself as Piper and leads them into the lobby. Peter’s actually never been in the lobby either. It’s pretty disappointing. The class is packed in like sardines and the walls are just plain white. There’s a sleek desk with the Avengers A on it, but other than that, it could be any old lobby.
“If you all would follow me through this door here, you'll have to pass through security. Security at the Avengers Compound is a joint effort between security personnel and AVA, which stands for Avengers’ Virtual Assistant, the compound AI. Since you’re all guests, you shouldn’t need to worry about AVA. She only really interacts with staff and high-level guests.”
Piper walks through the scanner system first.
Piper Ross, Media and Outreach Intern. Welcome Miss Ross.
“Hi, AVA. Initiate Tour Group Protocol.”
Tour Group Protocol Initiated. Twenty-nine unregistered personnel identified.
For some reason, no one picks up on the fact that that number is four short of what it should be. Probably because they are all still geeking out over a genuine Tony Stark AI . Well technically, Shuri and Peter had done a little work on AVA as well right before the compound became the official Avengers case once more and they hired more staff, but still.
The class files on through, Peter and his friends in front of only the teachers. Ned is the first of their group to be greeted by AVA.
Ned Leeds, Personal Guest, level three. Welcome back, Mr. Leeds.
Betty follows behind him. Betty Brant, Personal Guest level two. Welcome, Miss Brant.
The class rounds on the couple and Peter tries to take advantage of their distraction.
Peter Parker, Head of Mechanical and Technical Engineering for Avengers Gear. Peter, you have two projects labeled as ‘important’ currently outstanding and ten unresolved task items. Shall I proceed to sync with Karen for maximum ease of use?
“Erm, no AVA, that’s okay. I’m actually on a field trip right now, so if you could silence all alerts below level seven, that would be fantastic.”
Silencing.
Where before Peter’s classmates had been excitedly chattering, now they were all silent and staring at him. He knew his face was burning up for sure, so he sort of shuffles towards them and takes a great interest in his feet.
“ You’re Peter Parker?” Piper, the tour intern sounds shocked. “I am so glad to finally meet you! I’ve heard so much about your work here and with SI, not to mention that you were Tony Stark’s personal intern! I had no idea you were so young!”
Peter scratches the back of his neck, “uh, yeah, that’s me. I'm busy most of the time and I also go to school, obviously, so that’s probably why we haven’t met.”
MJ, his beautiful and wonderful girlfriend, steps through the sensor at that moment.
The announcement of Michelle Jones, Peter’s Kickass Girlfriend, level 1000. I can’t believe you haven’t dumped him yet, but welcome back I guess.
“Shuri!” Peter yells, knowing the tech genius can’t hear him but needing to express his frustration all the same.
“I told you guys Peter was cool and knew the Avengers!” Ned breaks the silence.
No one says anything. They all seem to be in shock still. Including the tour guide, which is rather unfortunate.
She snaps out of it and begins passing our little electronic badges. “Press this button here and spell out the name you want the badge to present. Any inappropriate nicknames will be red-flagged by our system and will result in your immediate dismissal from this tour, so please don’t test us. You won’t like the results.”
Everyone spends a few moments activating their badges and then pinning them on. When Piper is satisfied that they are ready, she leads them to a bank of elevators, explains that the tour starts in the Avengers Museum, which is one floor up. The school had been prepared for this and had already created groups of ten, each with a chaperone for cases just like this. Peter had been lucky enough to get MJ in his, but had missed out on Ned as well as Betty. Instead, they were stuck with Flash. Luckily, the elevator ride is not long at all and they are hopping out nearly as soon as they had stepped in.
“To our left here is the entrance to the Avengers Museum. It is arranged chronologically and includes all current, past, and honorary Avengers from as close to birth as we could get to current day. Please feel free to explore at your leisure, but know that you must be back here in an hour and a half for a presentation.
The exhibit is really, really well done. Pretty much every notable exploit of each Avenger, solo or as part of the team is outlined, as well as a lot of backstory on each of them and their origins. Peter knows that most of the design is actually Bucky’s work. Sam calls him a control freak, but Bucky likes putting together massive projects that require a lot of attention to detail. It was a skill that certainly did not fail him here. Steve and Bucky’s pre-war exploits have a panel of their own, complete with artifacts from the time that belonged to the men or were replicas of items they owned. Carol’s history in the Air Force is displayed, accompanied by photographs that look like original copies. By the time they reach the modern day, Peter actually has learned quite a lot about his fellow teammates. The modern day exhibit is probably the best one, though. Not only does it have a touching memorial for Tony and Natasha Romanoff, but Spider-Man is featured (cool!) and Bucky had actually talked about his struggles with mental health and therapy in one of his panels, which Peter really admired him for. Both he and Sam (earlier in the exhibit) had chosen to display a bit of their trauma for the world to see in order to help bring mental health to center stage and encourage people not to be embarrassed about their own struggles.
As for Peter’s exhibit, it doesn’t do anything quite so noble and is contained to the very last two sections of the museum. His first ever Spider-Man onesie is in a glass case by the story of how he first came on the scene. Later, there is pictures of the iron spider suit and him in space (he would have to ask Bucky where those photos came from, he wanted them) and a couple of him as Spider-Man with Mr. Stark, which takes away his ability to breathe for a moment. Seeing the memorial is hard like that too. He had actually been one of the people to write notes for the display, both as Peter Parker and Spider-Man and while he had done so, he had barely been able to pen out the words.
Before he can dwell on that too long, MJ gently tugs on his hand and leads him to the display on modern-day Sam, aka Captain America. Clearly, the text here is written by Bucky because it is deeply reverential.
“Let’s start wrapping things up, Midtown!” The tour guide announces.
Everyone begrudgingly begins to make their way towards the exit.
“So how’d you rig the AI to get it to pretend to know you?” Flash pops up behind Peter.
MJ gives Flash an unimpressed look, “honestly, Eugene, why would he do that? Peter hasn’t even talked about the Avengers since we all reformed. You’re the only one ever interested in talking about Peter’s internship. Frankly, I’m beginning to wonder if your obsession with my boyfriend is actually more of a crush.”
Flash splutters, “as if.”
MJ raises a cool eyebrow, “whatever you say, Eugene.”
Flash doesn’t have a chance to say anything else because the group is being led into the big press room now. When everyone is seated, Captain America, Sergeant Barnes, and Spider-Man appear on stage. Or rather, holographic renderings of them appear on stage. Everyone begins muttering excitedly.
“Welcome to the Avengers Compound!” Sam greets everyone. Kids cheer.
“You’ll have just seen our new Avengers museum, which I can now tell you was put together mainly by one James Buchanan Barnes, better known as Sergeant Barnes.” Holographic Bucky nods his head briefly in acknowledgement of the compliment.
“Boyfriends,” Betty calls in a sing-song voice.
Luckily, Sam begins talking just then, so any argument is stopped before it can begin. “Your tour today was intentionally structured so you would know a bit about the Avenger’s past before you see the present and future.”
“We hope you have an educational and fun trip!” Peter’s holographic spider-self tells them, voice an octave lower and slightly changed thanks to one of Tony’s updates while Peter had been blipped.
“And remember, we’re a lot more human than you’d think.”
“As evidenced by the story of Spider-Man setting his sweatshirt on fire while cooking pasta,” Bucky chimes in.
Peter, unscripted, (not that the audience knows) turns to Bucky with a look of betrayal evident even with the mask on, “you included that?”
Bucky grins, “with the pictures of the sweatshirt.”
“Well, world, let it go on the record that one time I caught Sergeant Barnes trying to see if he could run fast enough to run over water. And it’s on video.”
Bucky frowns and opens his mouth, but Sam cuts him off, “as I said, we’re all very human sometimes, just like all of you! And now, welcome to the Avengers Compound!”
Then, quieter as the holograms fade out, Sam saying: “I need that video.”
“So, now that you’ve ‘seen’ the Avengers, please follow me to check out a couple of the training spaces! You’re not guaranteed to see any of our heroes, of course, but I have been told that both Captain America and Sergeant Barnes are on the premises today!”
“No Spider-Man?” Flash asks.
Piper the tour guide shakes her head, “Spider-Man often has other commitments during the day, I’m afraid. Between you and me, a lot of us here have theorized he is a college student and he wants to finish school before revealing his identity so he can have a relatively normal experience. It explains his lack of daytime availability, at the very least.”
“And we do know he’s on the young side,” MJ contributes. Peter boggles at her and she just squeezes his hand.
“Exactly. Anyways we are now approaching the main gym. If you'll follow me through this door here,” and Piper leads the way into a huge gym space.
Peter, of course, is in here all the time, so he doesn’t really marvel at the fusion of normal gym equipment, super-strength gym equipment, and technology. Neither does MJ as she often reads in here while Peter works out. Pretty much everyone else is amazed. It is pretty cool.
They don’t really do much in the room, just walk through slowly so everyone has a chance to look it all over. Piper leads them back out the same door they came through and then leads them to the hangar overlook. All sorts of jets and other types of airplanes and helicopters are stored there, and the students are transfixed looking at the transportation of their favorite superheroes. Piper actually knows a lot and is able to point out pretty much every aircraft and what it’s purpose is. They then move on to the cafeteria, and are allowed a thirty minute break for lunch.
“Peter!” Sally, the cafeteria lady greets him happily, “I thought you had school today.”
“Field trip,” he shrugs.
“Your usual, I presume?”
He nods and she puts in the order.
His food comes out rather quickly. Since he’s eating in public, it’s just a normal proportion, but he has a couple extra sides and he knows from experience that everything is absolutely delicious, so he’s very excited.
“So now you know cafeteria workers too?” Flash asks.
Peter sighs, “I work here a lot Flash. I don’t know why you won’t accept that, but it’s the truth. I didn’t hack a Tony Stark AI, and I haven’t made up my credentials or asked anyone to pretend to know me. I had an internship with Mr. Stark before the blip and these days I have an actual job working here.”
“Maybe you should try that sometime. Having a job, I mean,” MJ adds, “no one likes a loser who can’t even make his own money.”
“Yeah!” Ned helpfully agrees.
Flash just rolls his eyes and stomps off.
The rest of the lunch break is rather pleasant. Mostly they spend it discussing what they all had learned from the museum and what exhibits they missed. Peter promises they can all check it out in more detail this weekend.
Soon enough, the Midtown group is back together again and headed off to their final tour stops. The first of these stops is the equipment room. It’s honestly a bit like what a football team’s locker room might be like, each hero getting their own space to store suits, weapons, or whatever else they might need for a mission. Piper has to check with AVA before they can enter to make sure it’s not currently in use and isn’t anticipated to be during their time in there. As the group files in, glass comes down to cover each of the lockers so that the students can still see the area but can’t actually touch anything. Peter prays he left his in a reasonably tidy state and heads straight there to check. Thankfully, he did.
“That your pal Spider-Man’s locker?” Flash asks, coming up behind him. Peter pretends to be startled, just for show. “You know, it was bad enough when you were running around claiming you knew Spider-Man and Tony Stark. Now you’re pals with Captain America and Sergeant Barnes too? As if anyone would believe a twat like you-”
“would know any superheroes.” The voice of Bucky Barnes finishes Flash’s sentence for him. Then, for show, Bucky drapes an arm over Peter's shoulders. “What do you think, Cap? Does Parker here know any superheroes?”
“Well as far as I know, he only knows two. Me and Spider-Man, of course.”
“I’m offended,” Bucky’s Brooklyn drawl is thick, but the tone of his voice is light.
“No. No way.” The rest of the Midtown group is staring at the scene now, absolutely transfixed, but Flash is seemingly unbothered by the presence of two superheroes and national icons. “I refuse to believe this. Parker is a liar and an attention whore. He always has been. Whatever story he told you, it’s fake.”
Sam narrows his eyes, “Peter is not a liar. He’s a good kid. Hell, he’s one of the best people I know.” Then, Sam turns to face the entirety of the tour group, “how many of you got blipped?”
About half the group raises their hands.
“I want all of you to know that you’re only here today because of this young man right here. You see, Tony Stark wasn’t going to try to bring everyone back until he saw a photo of himself with this young man right here, and he knew that he had to try. Because Tony loved Peter, you all can stand here and look at me today. Because Tony loved Peter, I got to see my little nephews again. Because of Peter Parker, billions of people were brought back. And do you want to know why that is?” Sam doesn’t wait for an answer, “because Peter is the best of us. He has heart and he has courage and most of all he does what is right. Peter is an example of all that is right in this world, and I will not allow people to bully and belittle him.”
For a moment, there is a sort of stunned silence. Then: “wait I thought Spider-Man was the reason Tony Stark saved the universe?”
“Erm,” says Peter rather cleverly.
“No. No way is Peter Parker Spider-Man. No way.” Flash insists.
Bucky crosses his arms and sighs, “this is why we never do undercover missions with you, Sam. You’re terrible at the whole lying thing.”
Sam frowns, “that story was public knowledge?”
Peter just shrugs, “they were bound to find out eventually,” he pats Sam consolingly on the shoulder, “I mean I always miss class on the same days as Spider-Man is out on missions and have left three school trips to go out and fight bad guys. It’s really a wonder MJ was the only one who put two and two together.”
“I’m so sorry Peter!” Sam exclaims, clearly feeling terrible.
“Really, it’s fine.”
“No. Nuh-uh. No way. Peter Parker is not Spider-Man.” Flash seems to be stuck on that point.
Peter sighs. “Yeah, I am, Flash.”
“Do a flip!” Peter is pretty sure that voice belongs to Caster, a classmate he doesn’t really interact with, but he doesn’t see where exactly it comes from. He does a flip.
“As if that proves anything,” Flash scoffs, “plenty of people can do flips.”
“Crawl on the ceiling!” And that voice definitely belongs to Ned.
Peter glares at his best friend, but easily jumps up to reach the ten-foot tall ceiling and crawls across it. His classmates mutter in awe.
“This was not what I had planned when I invited your class to come to the compound,” Bucky muses.
Peter drops from the ceiling, a bit of dread in the pit of his stomach, “what did you have planned?”
“An educational film.”
“Not The Peter Parker Lab Fails Documentary!”
“The what now?” MJ asks, clearly interested.
“I’ll send you home with a copy,” Sam promises MJ, “in the meantime, let me call my lawyer. You all are going to have to sign an NDA.”
Sam dials a number and as he and Bucky walk away Peter can hear him saying into the phone, “hey, Marian. Yeah, listen, I made a mistake…”
Piper, the tour guide, just sort of stands there in shock for a moment. “Okay! Well, absolutely nothing in my training covered this so we are just going to continue. The last two stops on our tour is the combat training room and a mock up of what a dorm in the Avengers Compound looks like. Please follow me.”
One of the doors from the gear room leads to the combat training room (the other to the hangar, which makes a lot of sense) and they exit through that one. The training room is huge and well-lit. There is a padded area for sparring, as well as an obstacle course of sorts that runs along the length of the very large space. The ceilings are also high and the wall that doesn’t bump up to the obstacle course features a climbing wall.
“So here is where the Avengers prepare for actual combat situations. Uh, since we have an Avenger among us right now, why don’t you talk a bit about what happens in here. I’m sure you’re more qualified.”
Peter can feel the heat in his face at the sudden attention, “well, the last gym was more of a training space for physical strength and preparedness, here we do more combat strategy. I would say that nine times out of ten, if you’re in this space you’re with a couple members of the team. For that reason, I think the most important training takes place here.”
“And do the employees of the compound ever get to access the training spaces?”
“The other gym we saw before lunch, sure. They are prohibited from the equipment made for enhanced individuals, of course, for safety reasons, but other than that they may use it during the workday if they so choose. This room here is off-limits for staff use except for special occasions. I will say, though, that if staff members are hoping to get in a gym session with Captain America, their dream probably won’t be realized as the team tends to gravitate towards this room during the times when comping staff is allowed in the other gym.”
Piper nods at this, “I’ve worked out a couple times on my lunch break and never seen an Avenger. In fact, today was the first day I’ve met any at all.”
“So the Avengers are too high and mighty to interact with compound staff?” Flash is the person that asks this question.
Piper shakes her head, “I don’t think that’s it, really. A lot of the office spaces here are in a completely different wing than the actual Avengers spaces. They don’t really have any reason to go over and disturb people who are working. Sometimes some of our scientists have to consult with team members, or people higher up in PR than me, but mostly those meetings happen over here in the Avengers wing in conference rooms. You have to keep in mind that the Compound was designed for the Avengers to live in and no one really wants to live in an office building, so they mostly stay separate.”
Peter nods, “I can vouch for that. Staying in the Avenger’s wing not only feels more comfortable but also more polite. No need to go step on people’s toes while they’re just trying to do their job.”
“This whole time you were an Avenger?” Sue, a girl from Peter’s English class asks.
Peter shrugs, “officially I became an Avenger just before the blip, when I went to space with Mr-Tony.” Peter corrects himself, “but yeah, this whole year. And obviously I’ve been Spider-Man for a while.” Sue is one of his classmates who didn’t get blipped so he’s been Spider-Man as long as he’s known her.
“He’s really not that cool,” MJ promises.
“Hey! I am totally cool!”
MJ arches a judgemental eyebrow, “keep telling yourself that.” But she slips her hand into his and squeezes gently, so the statement is more bark than bite.
“Anyway, on to the room mock-ups. For this tour, we got special permission from Sergeant Barnes to see the mock-up of Spider-Man’s room, which makes a lot more sense now, in addition to the usual viewing of Captain America’s room.”
She then brings them to the hallway with three doors branching off it. “Okay, AVA, go transparent for me on the walls facing the hallway for room two six seven.” The AI obeys the command and the walls fade gently into transparency, “okay so what you’re looking at right now is a recreation of Captain America’s room at our compound. All the furnishings are the same and placed in the same locations, but a lot of personal touches have been removed and some of the pieces may be in different positions. Captain Wilson actually has one of the apartments located within the residence area, each of which are three bedroom two bath setups with a kitchen and living area.”
Betty raises her hand, “and Captain Wilson and Sergeant Barnes share an apartment, right?” Betty already knows the answer to this question, having visited Peter at the Compound before.
“Yes, I believe that is public knowledge,” Piper answers.
Betty spins on Emily, who is next to her, “told you!”
“We also have a generic example of a dorm a part-time Avenger might use while at the compound. AVA, go transparent on the hallway-facing walls for room two six eight.” A brief pause as that happens, “you can see that this room is slightly bigger and has a sort of sitting area in it. While part-time Avengers have access to the common rooms and kitchen, the intent was also to give them some space to themselves.”
“Why does everyone not just get an apartment?” Jasper is the one who asks this question.
Peter knows so he goes ahead and answers, “there are only four apartments at the compound, so they are reserved for anyone who is living here full-time. Bucky and Sam share one, I share one with my Aunt May, and the other two are vacant so that anyone who chooses to live here full-time can just move right in and we don’t have to shuffle belongings around.”
“You live here?!” Multiple people ask this.
Peter avoids eye contact with any of his classmates, “uh, yeah. Part of the whole being Spider-Man thing.”
“Are the apartments pretty big?”
Peter shrugs, “yeah, I’d say so. The way it works is basically the common rooms, dorms, and kitchen are above us right now, and then the apartments are the floor above that, so four apartments take up the same space as the communal areas and dorms, and you just use an elevator to get to the apartments. It’s supposed to help with team camaraderie for everyone to have to go through the main common room to access their rooms because people will tend to meet up, or see something happening and join in. In practice, that hasn’t happened a lot yet, but we are still filling in our ranks.”
“So why do Sergeant Barnes and Captain Wilson share an apartment?”
“Well, I think it was a bit of a hopeful gesture, Sam was thinking that eventually other people would be wanting to live here full-time, and they’d bring their partners or family and need some space so it didn’t make sense for two single men to take up a whole three bedroom apartment each, especially when the rooms are pretty big, as you can see.”
“Which is the perfect transition to our last room, Spider-Man’s. Er, yours I guess,” Piper nods to him. “AVA, go transparent for the walls facing this hallway in room two six nine, please.”
“Sergeant Barnes has told me to inform you that he has made a few last-minute adjustments to the staging of the room to make it more accurate.”
“Alright, thanks.”
The moment the walls begin to go see-through, Peter groans. Bucky’s last-minute adjustments take on the form of clothes strewn about and random pieces of tech crowding up the desk. It would have been embarrassing before his classmates knew this was a replica of his room, but now that they do know, it’s even worse. Peter can feel his face burning. MJ takes out her sketchbook, which is never a good sign.
“Ha. Ha. Real funny, Bucky. Real funny,” Peter says this more to the ceiling than anything else, and doesn’t say it loudly, but he’s sure that even if the super soldier isn’t within hearing distance that the sentiment is known.
A few kids from his class snicker and look his way, but Piper opens all three doors and tells them they can look around, so everyone spreads out to do that and (thankfully) forgets about Peter for a minute. He heads straight to his own room and picks up the shirts Bucky has decided to provide him with. Jokes on Bucky, really, because now Peter just has more science pun T-Shirts to wear. Once he has gathered the clothing, he crosses back into the hall, knocks twice on a specific section, and places the pile into the little mini chamber that is revealed.
“Send those to my room please, AVA.”
“Certainly, Peter.”
Peter thinks he gets away with this, but no such luck. “The walls can transport things?!” The question is asked by a girl named Mia.
“For people with high enough clearance, yeah. There’s a couple places that have openings to the chutes and so long as you know where those are, you can have AVA deliver things to any of the other access points you’re cleared to use. So I can send stuff to my room, the common room, and pretty much all the other shared areas, but I couldn’t send something to say, Ant-Man’s room, unless I had specific permission.”
“Is your room really this messy?”
Peter flushes, “no.”
MJ snickers, “think less clothes but more tech spread out everywhere.”
“ MJ! ” Betrayed by his own girlfriend.
“I still don’t buy it,” Flash protests, “no way is pathetic little Peter Parker Spider-Man. No way. What did you have to do to get the Avengers to pretend for you? I heard rumor that Bucky Barnes sometimes plays for the other team, if you know what I mean,” Flash insinuates.
“You little piece of-” Ned jumps to his best friends defense, but stops upon seeing the downright murderous look on a certain ex-assassin’s face. Around them, several people audibly gulp and back away.
Bucky casually pulls out a dagger from seemingly thin air and runs it gently under the fingernails of his human hand. The motion is more intimidating since Bucky has lost the jacket that had been covering his metal arm earlier. Peter rolls his eyes, knowing what a drama queen James Barnes really is. When Bucky is satisfied he has captured his audience’s attention fully, he begins casually flipping his dagger and catching it, strutting towards Flash with a nonchalant yet menacing air. “What an interesting rumor,” Bucky muses, far too casual for the murderous glare still present, “and if not for what you were insinuating about my relationship with a minor , it wouldn’t even be a particularly nasty or untrue one.”
The dagger does three consecutive flips in the air before Bucky catches it and then looks at it in contemplation, “as it is…well…”
Peter steps forward then, “as it is, that’s absolutely not true at all, Flash. I literally know him because we are both Avengers.”
“Even I didn’t know you were this dumb, Eugene,” MJ snarks.
Bucky flips his dagger once more, and then, quick as a whip, tosses it for real. His aim is strikingly perfect, so close to Flash it actually cuts a streak in his hair, but doesn’t even so much as nick him. The class gapes at where the dagger is now stuck in the wall, everyone but Peter and MJ terrified. Even Ned.
“Oops.” Bucky deadpans, “funny how those can just really slip right through your fingers, isn’t it?” Somehow a new dagger has materialized in his hand and he begins doing tricks with that one, “wouldn’t want to have another accident like that. Two inches to the left and you’d be dead now, kid.” Flash visibly gulpes and turns sheet white. “Now, about that nasty little quip earlier. I reckon that may be defamation of character, and I’d hate to have to take you to court. Lord knows what the university you’re attending would think of that, not to mention the personal cost to you.” Bucky stops flipping the dagger and sticks it in his belt, advancing on Flash, presumably to retrieve the original, “but instead of going down that path, I’d settle here and now for your word that your bullying of Peter and everyone else stops now.”
Flash nods, too scared to do much else.
Bucky makes a thoughtful noise, “I’m a little old fashioned, so I’m going to need to swear,” he removes the dagger from the wall, “on your life.”
“Yes, yes I swear on my life. I swear it, I swear it.”
Bucky smiles, “good.”
Sam enters the room then, stopping short when he notices the weird atmosphere. But Bucky has already hid his dagger and stepped away from Flash. “We’re ready for you all to sign the NDA’s, if you'll follow me.”
The group follows in a sort of dazed trance, still processing what just happened. Peter is a little embarrassed that Bucky and Sam had found out about Flash, and definitely embarrassed that Bucky went all mama bear on him. At least it probably meant that Bucky really did like him, which he already kind of knew, but it was nice to get confirmation. But also. Your friend from work scaring the shit out of your classmates? Not cool. Even though Flash maybe deserved it. Okay, he probably did deserve it for saying such nasty things about Bucky. But still. Peter needed new, less scary, friends. Because really, Ned and Betty were sweethearts, but MJ, Bucky, and Sam were all very, very scary.
Up at the front of the room Sam has led them into, the lawyer is going over the NDA, why it is binding, and the consequences for breaking it. Peter doesn’t really bother paying attention, and instead does his best to hide in the back of the room. His plan is pretty much ruined a moment later when Aunt May bursts into the room, closely followed by Joaquín.
“Peter! Sam told me about what happened!” May wraps him in a hug.
All Peter’s classmates turn to look at him again, “I’m fine. It’s not that big of a deal and Sam has it covered,” he is a little embarrassed at all the attention he’s gotten today.
“Hey, Peter,” Joaquín greets when Peter steps back from May’s embrace.
“Hey.”
The lawyer frowns at all of them and then tells everyone to come to the front to sign the papers. Once they do so, the field trip will be considered over and they can head back to the bus. Well, everyone but Peter can head back to the bus because he figures May can just sign him out.
And that’s exactly what happens. His classmates all sign the papers and file out one by one to wait for the bus. Once the last person leaves, Bucky and Sam turn to Peter.
“What did you think of your field trip, Peter?” Bucky asks.
Peter laughs, “it’s been another memorable one for sure. But honestly, thank you. You guys didn’t have to do all that.”
Bucky shrugs, “sure we did, kid.”
Sam pats him on the back, “you’re part of the team, Peter. We have each other’s backs on the battlefield and every day.”
Peter grins at them both, a little too overcome with emotion to say anything and lets Sam lead him out of the room with his arm over Peter’s shoulder.
All five of them pile into the elevator that will take them to the living quarters, and Bucky presses a sweet kiss to Sam’s mouth as the doors slide shut. Another field trip over for Peter Parker. Somehow he thinks this one has the sweetest ending, him arguing with Joaquín over what movie they all should watch tonight and just completely comfortable and at home with his family. Perhaps the biggest benefit of a field trip to your house.