Chapter 3
Peter woke up to his alarm blaring, and the pain of last night’s knife wound made him groan. His healing factor was basically absent seeing as though he had barely eaten anything in the past 2 days. Free school lunches only helped so much, and he wasn’t about to start stealing food.
He slowly sat up, careful not to jostle any of his other injuries. The thief had got him good, his reflexes having slowed down due to the lack of food and sleep. Peter gathered his belongings, making the long walk to Stark Tower.
After half an hour of walking (god, Peter was hungry now), he finally reached the towering, chrome building. He couldn’t believe that he was really here. He walked in, suddenly worried this was all a big joke. What was he doing here? He wasn’t smart enough for this. He almost walked out until he really saw the inside of the building. Everything was so..futuristic. His mouth was agape and he knew he probably looked incredibly stupid, but he couldn’t help it. He stood there until he heard a gruff, angry voice call out at him.
“Hey kid, what the hell do you think you’re doing here?” Peter’s head turned so fast that he was dizzy for a moment, mentally cursing himself for already causing trouble. A short, angry man walked over to him and put a rough hand on his shoulder. Peter flinched back, but the hand remained. “I said, what the hell are you doing here?”
Peter stuttered unintelligibly until he remembered the paperwork he had in his backpack. “Sir, I’m here for the internship! I won it in school and they said today was my first day. I have the paperwork in my backpack to prove it, I swear!” Peter was almost panicking now, wanting to get that hand off of him at all costs.
The man looked suspicious, but finally let go of him and allowed him to rummage through his backpack. After presenting the man (“It’s Mr. Hogan, Head of Security to you, kid”) with his paperwork, he stood in uncomfortable silence while Mr. Hogan read everything over. He must have found what he was looking for because he sighed heavily and gestured for Peter to follow him.
“Here is your security badge, which you do not lose under any circumstances, am I clear? No touching anything, no pictures, no talking to someone if they’re busy, and you only go where you’re told, got it?” Mr. Hogan did not seem like a happy guy. Peter enthusiastically nodded, promising to follow all of the rules. He looked down at his name badge and saw Security Level 1 along with a picture of him. This was possibly the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him before.
Mr. Hogan showed him to an elevator and told him to take it to the 50th floor, the intern labs. Peter thanked him profusely, but only managed to get a grunt in return. He opened the elevator by scanning his badge as he had been shown, and was immediately greeted with a mellow and lovely voice that seemed to be coming out of the ceiling.
“Welcome, Peter Parker. How can I assist you today?” Peter jumped, looking around for where the voice had come from. He finally settled on the ceiling, wondering if this was the famous AI he had heard rumors about. Feeling very stupid, he angled his head at the ceiling and said “Um..50th floor please?” The elevator started moving as soon as he had finished the sentence, taking him to what he hoped were the intern labs. “Welcome to Stark Tower, Mr. Parker. Please enjoy your stay.” The voice seemed nice, and he decided it wasn’t as creepy as he’d previously thought. “Thank you, ma’am. And please, just call me Peter. No Mr. necessary.” The voice paused for a moment (can robots pause? Before responding with a simple “As you wish, Peter.”
Peter stepped out onto the intern labs to see dozens of people running around, tinkering with machinery and writing equations on whiteboards. This looked right up his alley. He couldn’t wait to get started, if only he knew what he was supposed to be doing.