"You're basically Hannah Montana"
Everyone followed Letitia towards the museum entrance up the main stairs. When the students got through the double glass doors, their jaws dropped in awe. Even Peter’s eyes widened in amazement. Sure Peter was always at the compound, but he never had the chance to visit the Avenger’s museum. There were large sections for each avenger, Peter being one of them. Well, Spiderman, not Peter Parker, yet.
“All right Midtown, we have about 20-25 minutes to look around in here and then we’ll head on over to some of the labs!” Letitia told the them as students began to break off into groups. Peter and Ned headed towards Spiderman’s section while most of the other kids went to Thor’s or Cap’s.
It was honestly still shocking to Peter that he was technically an Avenger. His section of the museum had a replica of his home-made suit on display, with the words ‘Mark I’ on a plaque. Peter smiled at how much effort Tony had put into his display. There were multiple pictures of Spiderman on the wall beside the case, mostly from around Queens and a few from some of the press conferences Tony made Peter tag along to.
“Dude, this is so cool! You basically have a monument built in your name!” Ned exclaimed, effectively snapping Peter out of his thoughts.
“Well, I wouldn’t say a monument but I honestly don’t even think it’s real most of the time,” Peter replied. “It’s crazy to-”
A loud scream interrupted Ned and Peter’s conversation as they snapped their heads towards the source of the noise. Peter was on high alert, as his Spidey Senses were blaring in his head, but couldn’t pinpoint where the supposed danger was coming from. A group of students were huddled around a tall figure, as many more screams and gasps escaped the students’ mouths. As the two made their way over, Peter realized that there was no danger present, and the tall figure was actually Steve.
Ned let out a high-pitched squeal as did many of their other female classmates. Many of the students were asking Steve for selfies, which he happily agreed to.
Peter glanced over to the Black Widow exhibit while everyone else was fangirling over Captain America, and saw MJ over there alone, pushing a curl back behind her ear. He decided that Ned would be fine fangirling alone and walked over towards MJ. The vibe between Peter and MJ was pretty weird, and neither of them knew how to exactly classify it. However, everyone, and I mean EVERYONE knew that they both had a thing for each other, but the two were too damn awkward to make anything of it. On his way over, Peter thought of what he would say to MJ, as everything he usually said was just awkward and painful to those who happened to hear.
“Oh uh, hey MJ!” Peter managed to get out. ‘Nailed it!’ he thought, even though he was pretty sure the stuttering was the cherry on top of the sweaty palms he wiped on his jeans.
“Hey, loser,” MJ replied in her rather emotionally cold manner. Peter smiled back not knowing how to react to MJ.
“So,” Peter began, “Black Widow is your favorite Avenger?” MJ continued looking at the various plaques that lined Natasha’s section of the museum.
“Uh, yeah. Well, she’s the only female that was a part of the original six Avengers and she fights just as well as everyone else and she doesn’t even have powers. She’s just a natural badass.” She replied while glancing up at Peter who was obviously staring at her. Peter quickly turned his head away and felt the redness grow on his cheeks.
“Yeah that’s true, she’s a badass.” Peter agreed.
“What about you?” MJ asked. It took Peter by surprise as he wondered if she was hinting at his alter ego.
“Uh, what about me?” Peter asked. He was really hoping that this wasn’t a confrontation about him being Spiderman, even though he and Ned were pretty sure MJ already knew.
“Who’s your favorite Avenger?” She asked innocently. Peter let out an internal sigh of relief when he heard her question, not wanting to have to explain his entire ‘coming of age superhero story’ to MJ.
“Oh, well um I like uh, Thor. Yeah, Thor’s my favorite. The whole ‘I’m Thor, son of Odin, God of thunder’ thing is pretty cool. And he has a cool axe.” Peter told her, secretly hoping that Tony wasn’t listening in, because, let's be honest, he’d be offended that he wasn’t Peter’s favorite. MJ nodded in agreement.
“Yeah, he’s pretty good-looking too,” MJ said which made them both giggle.
Peter and MJ continued talking about Thor and Asgard, or what’s left of it, when the hairs on the back of Peter’s neck stood up. He quickly turned around and was met with a familiar face.
“Hey Pete, just the man I was looking for!” Tony said, placing a hand on Peter’s shoulder, effectively embarrassing the shit out of him in front of MJ. Peter prayed that the rest of his classmates were too occupied with Steve to notice Iron Man’s presence.
“Oh, uh hey Tony, what’s up?” Peter replied, still not used to calling Tony by his first name, but after everything they had been through, Tony drilled it into Peter to stop calling him ‘Mr. Stark.’
“Nothing much, I was just walking around the compound when I heard that my intern had clocked in six hours before he normally does,” Tony explained. He removed his hand from Peter’s shoulder, but the redness in his cheeks persisted.
“Yeah, we’re on a school field trip, and shouldn’t you know this, aren’t you the one who sets these things up? Like to maintain your ‘positive public image’ as Pepper calls it or something?” Peter asks. MJ was still standing next to Peter when Tony acknowledged her presence.
“Oh, and you must be one of Peter’s friends. Michelle, is it?” Tony asked while ignoring Peter’s other question, full-on knowing that his intruding was driving Peter up the wall.
“Uh yeah,” MJ said, not really knowing how to reply. And why does Tony Stark know her name exactly??
“Peter talks an awful lot about you. Whenever he comes over he always talks about how-” Just as Peter was about ready to yeet himself out of the room, the students noticed Tony and made their way over to where the three of them stood.
“Hello, Mr. Stark! I have some students from Midtown touring with us today and they were wondering if they could ask you a few questions, would that be alright?” Letitia asked as the group of students got closer. Peter had glanced over to where they all previously stood, but Rogers had left after Peter’s classmates.
“Of course Letitia, I was just talking to Peter here about how nice it is that school full of bright students like yours are able to see what the Avenger’s facility had to offer,” Tony replied with is trademarked smile. Many students raised their hands in hopes that Iron Man would pick on them to ask their questions. There were multiple questions about what was Tony’s favorite food, if he and Captain America were friends, and even one or two about Spiderman. Peter met back up with Ned during Tony’s interrogation with twenty seventeen-year-olds.
“Bro, I totally saw you with MJ over there!” Ned said to Peter with a punch to his arm. Peter held his right arm with an ‘ow’ even though it didn’t hurt.
“What dude, I was just talking to her,” Peter replied innocently.
“Yeah, okay. You were so talking to her.” Ned told him. Peter rolled his eyes in defense of Ned’s observation.
“Yeah, just like you were talking to Betty over there. I see you two talking during decathlon practice every day.” Peter rebbuttled with a smirk plastered across his face. Ned’s eyes widened as his quickly lowered his voice.
“Dude, she’ll hear you! And so what if I wanna ask her to prom? We would have a great time with you and MJ. And, MJ would love to go with you! You’re basically a cooler version of Hannah Montana! Leading the whole ‘double life’ thing.” Ned replied.
“You’re comparing my life as a superhero vigilante to a blond Disney Channel pop star?” Peter asked Ned, who was chuckling at the comparison. The two weren’t paying attention till the annoying ring of Flash’s voice was heard when Tony called on him to ask his question.
“So does Stark Industries offer internships for high school students?” Flash asked with a grin plastered from ear to ear. His stare was burning through the back of Peter’s head as he knew that Flash was trying to expose him. Little did Flash and the rest of the school know that Peter actually wasn’t lying.
Tony cleared his throat and responded, “Why yes we do. In fact, one of your classmates here is an intern at our facility.” He motioned to Peter whose face returned to its natural embarrassed rose color.
“You owe me twenty bucks,” Betty said to Flash in a hushed tone. Flash’s face was filled with anger as all of his accusations were proven wrong, and by THE Iron Man too. Yeah, he wasn’t gonna live that one down for a while.
“Alright, any more questions?”