Chapter Text
Francine had been Peter’s partner in the Lab for about a month now, and had never seen him wear anything but polos and T-shirts with bad science puns. He was wearing a Spiderman shirt under his lab coat, today; nice stuff, too. Not the crap they sold to tourists near Chinatown. While it was a mild surprise to see him wearing some Spidey merch, it wasn’t shocking; Spidey was pretty popular in New York, after all.
“Nice shirt,” She said. Parker blinked at her slowly.
“What?” He asked. Peter looked like he hadn’t slept in days, and while she was loathe to admit it, she probably looked the same. At least he’d remembered close-toed shoes.
“Your shirt,” She said, pointing, and he looked down. “It’s cool. I didn’t know you were a Spiderman fan.”
Peter stared at his shirt for a moment, brain seeming to lag behind the conversation, and blinked again. “Spider-Man fan,” He snorted. “I guess. Who isn’t, these days?” His smile grew mischievous, like he was making an inside joke. Francine rolled her eyes.
“The Bugle kind of hates him,” She pointed out. “Whatever. Did you remember your paper?”
“...I’ll be right back,” Peter replied, and leapt out the second story window. Francine blinked after him, only now realizing he'd handed her his lab coat on his way out, and sighed. Seemed like those rumors of him scaling the Math building were true. Or was it the dorms?
When Lucy woke up this morning, she expected to meet up with Rachel before going to History. What she did not expect to see on her way to class was another student throwing himself full-tilt out of the second story window of the Lab building. She screamed, expecting to hear a crack of bone or something equally disturbing as he hit the ground, but apparently she had nothing to worry about.
As he hit the ground, the crazy asshole who’d disturbed her morning smoothly rolled forward, bleeding off his momentum, before he threw himself into a handspring to bring himself back up to his feet. Without pause, he began running towards the Freshman dorms. From a nearby sidewalk, another guy whistled.
“That was sick, dude!” Her fellow observer shouted after him. The crazy guy threw a wave over his shoulder, acknowledging the compliment, before he disappeared into the dorm building and out of sight. Lucy’s heart was still racing when Rachel finally walked up.
“Wh-what?” She finally said. Rachel looked at her like she was crazy, and Lucy honestly had to agree. That couldn’t have possibly just happened, right?
“Are you okay, Lucy?” Rachel asked, and Lucy couldn’t bring herself to answer. More footsteps, and the other guy from before, who she could now see was Jessie (also a freshman), joined them beside the Lab building.
“She was startled by Parker, but I think she’s fine.” He said, “In her defense, if I hadn’t met him before I’d be startled, too.”
“Parker?” Rachel frowned, “Like, Peter Parker? What did he do? Oh, was he in a tree, again? I told him to stop doing that…” There was a story behind that, Lucy could tell. Rachel and her had only become friends recently, though, so she’ll have to ask about it later. Y’know. When her soul returns to her body.
“No, not a tree this time. Peter came out of that window and startled us,” Jessie said, and Lucy racked her brain for where she knew that name. There was that thing with the Math finals...oh!
“Was that really Peter?” She asked breathlessly. Jessie snorted.
“Who else?” Rachel said tiredly, and Jessie nodded.
“He’s just...like that.” He said, in a reasonable tone of voice, like that experience was at all reasonable.
Lucy wanted to go back to bed.
As the receptionist for Stark Industries’ New York Office, (yes the Avengers Tower, no they don’t all live here) Aaliyah had been trained for lots of things. She’d been trained for bomb threats, supervillains, weirdos with guns, the press, etc. Strangely, what she had not been trained for were college-age kids walking in and claiming they were Tony Stark’s intern, like that was something someone could be.
“I swear I’m being serious,” The kid said desperately. “I forgot my ID at the dorms, but if you look me up in the system I have clearance.”
“Uh huh.” Aaliyah said, not even moving towards the keyboard. “And if you aren’t in the system?”
“I am!” He said. “Um...I know! The Head of Security- Happy Hogan! He knows me!”
“From kicking you out?” She says, but does pick up the phone on her desk. She glances down for a moment to press the pound and zero keys, before looking back up to keep a firm eye on him.
“Security,” The voice on the other line says.
“Hi, this is Aaliyah at the front desk,” She says. The kid deflates with disappointment? Relief? Eh, he’s literally the one who told her to call security. “I have a kid up here-”
“Peter Parker,” The kid says.
“-Peter Parker,” she allows, “who says he’s Tony Stark’s intern, and that Happy Hogan knows him. Any way we can confirm that?”
“Oh, Peter?” The voice on the other line repeats, much less professionally, “Yeah, he’s good. Wait- tall, lanky white boy with a squeaky voice? Looks like Tom Holland?”
Aaliyah narrows her eyes at the tall, lanky white boy who looks like Tom Holland. “Say something.”
“Like what?” He asks, voice cracking.
“Sounds like,” Aaliyah says into the receiver. “Thank you.” She hangs up, and finally moves over to check the system for the kid’s picture. She’s not letting him in without at least double-checking.
