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Seeing the sky begin to lighten over the horizon, Peter stretches with a yawn as he stands. Turning, he smiles at Phantom and Wade.
“Wade, don’t keep the kid out too late, yeah?” Peter asks, grin hidden behind the mask.
Wade gives him an exaggerated salute, somehow winking from behind the mask.
“You got it baby boy!”
Peter rolls his eyes as he swings away, spidey sense calming as he gets further and further from Phantom.
Knowing those two? They’d be out until one of them fell asleep. Wouldn’t be the first time, after all. Wade’s crawled into bed when Peter’s been leaving it before.
Either way, Peter has to work in a few hours, and is planning on getting as much sleep as possible before he has to work at Stark Towers.
Stifling a yawn, Peter swings home quickly, knowing he’ll be asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow.
Usually, at work, Peter’s spidey sense doesn’t go off. Well, not like this anyway. Usually, it goes off for small things. Avoid a wayward tool here, a chemical splash there, ruining months worth of work. Those sorts of things.
When his spidey sense goes off like it is now, there’s usually some sort of crash that follows. People yelling and screaming, a villain monologuing. In all the hectic-ness Peter’s able to slip away, don his suit, and kick butt.
But, as Peter looks around, nothing is out of the ordinary. His section of the lab is isolated at the moment, probably due to lunch or something. Peter usually loses track of time and forgets about lunch. There’s a group touring that’s looking into the lab, but unless one of those high schoolers are a threat, there’s nothing out of the ordinary.
Although … Peter’s gaze sweeps over the curious teens. Something about them feels … off. Squinting, he can’t quite tell what. They look like the normal group that comes through here. On the surface, at least.
There’s the normal clique’s that are usually sprinkled in a group like this. The “A-List” group and the “outcast” group. Oh boy does Peter not miss high school. Still, he can’t tell what’s wrong with them.
Yet, his spidey sense is going off like crazy so he decides to do the next best thing he can do.
Pushing himself away from his table, he walks over to the door that only opens from the inside unless you have a keycard and pops his head out.
Smiling widely at the tour guide, Ace, he ignores the curious or bored gazes from the high schoolers.
“Hey Ace,” Peter greets, offering a shy and not at all threatening smile.
Ace smiles warmly back at Peter, nodding.
“Hey Pete,” Ace responds, turning to the gaggle of teenagers. “Casper High, this is Peter Parker. He is one of the many scientists working at Stark Industries.”
Some of the children nod excitedly, but most just nod politely.
“Ace, if it’s okay with you, I could show you guys part of what I’m working on?” Peter offers, still not quite sensing who the danger in the group is. Maybe if he got them in a more isolated place? “Nothing confidential, but some of them might find interest in what we do here, exactly.”
Most of the children seem a little intrigued by that, but only a handful seem excited.
“Are you sure? We wouldn’t want to intrude,” Ace is quick to say, but even Ace is smiling at the aspect of something new to show the tour group.
“Of course! Just a few rules before I take you inside,” Peter starts, staring at all the teens seriously.
“Hands to yourself. While I’ll be showing you some of the safer, non-confidential stuff I’m working on, I still have a lot of dangerous chemicals in there. I don’t want you touching something accidentally acidic. Next, one question at a time. I’m only inviting you all in because everyone else is off at lunch, but there are still some people working. If you ask too many questions, or get too loud, we’ll be disrupting other people working. Deal?”
The kids nod, some of them looking squeamish at the thought of acid.
“Perfect,” Peter states, opening the door widely for the kid closest to him. “Let me show you what I’m working on then!”
The group filed in, seeming to take Peter’s words more seriously than he’d ever seen any group of teenagers take any kind of direction. Resisting the urge to frown, he had a sneaking suspicion that something was up at that school.
“Where did you guys say you went to school?” Peter asks, turning to look directly at a gothic teen who was posturing but genuinely seemed interested.
“Casper High,” the girl said, acting disinterested as she studied the other lab tables they walked past.
Peter hums in response, going through a mental map. Casper High … Casper High … Amity Park maybe? About a half hour or so out of the city. He can’t remember anything about Amity Park other than some wacky scientists living there. He also thinks Phantom’s from Amity Park?
“So, here I’m working on how to optimize grid-forming inverters to make them more cost efficient and … well efficient overall,” Peter starts as they arrive at his desk, holding up a rod with multiple gears on it.
“A what?” a blonde who reminds him too much of Flash questions, a confused look on his face.
“Grid-forming inverters,” Peter replies, seeing blank looks on everyone’s faces. “Does anyone know what these are?”
“They’re supposed to be replacing power plants, aren’t they?” the goth from earlier asks, interest flickering in her eyes.
“Correct! What’s your name?” Peter asks, grin wide on his face.
“Sam Manson, she/her,” Sam responds, staring him down.
Peter grins, nodding.
“He/him myself,” Peter informs her, seeing some of the tension melt off of her. “Now, does anyone else know why we need grid-forming inverters?”
The class is silent, so silent Peter can practically hear crickets.
Scanning the group, Peter makes eye contact with a kid who seems to be trying to shrink away in the back. Black hair, sharp blue eyes. Peter’s spidey sense goes a little more crazy.
Resisting the urge to tilt his head, he moves along.
“Well then,” Peter continues, clapping his hands together. “The reason we need grid-forming inverters to replace the power plants is due to the growth in renewable energy. See, large power plants are being retired, but when they’re retired they’re leaving the grid unstable. So, we need something that has a low impact on the environment that helps make up for this hole in the grid.”
Before Peter can continue, he feels the building shake a little, spidey senses going even wilder. Sighing, Peter feels a headache at the back of his head begin to form.
“Alright, alright, everyone remain calm,” Ace starts, attempting to corral the group.
“There’s a panic room in the corner of the lab in case of emergencies,” Peter pipes up, gesturing.
Ace nods in thanks as Peter begins to help guide the group to them.
“Hold on! One of my students is missing,” the teacher of the group says.
Peter’s brows furrow. He didn’t see anyone slip out of the room, he would’ve.
“Who?” Peter asks calmly, blocking the teacher from exiting the panic room.
“Danny Fenton,” the teacher responds, eyes wide with panic.
“I’ll go grab them, you stay here,” Peter states, shooting Ace a confident smile.
Ace nods, grateful, as Peter closes the door. No one can leave without a key card, and no one can enter without one.
Turning around, Peter curses his luck. Would it be too much to ask for the kid to be in the bathroom?
That’s what he hopes, anyway. Peter can’t go looking for the kid when doing so would put more people in danger.
Running to his desk, he grabs his bag with his suit, and heads towards the bathrooms. Sliding inside, he’s quick to change, before he’s running out and looking for the source of his spidey sense screaming.
A loud bang followed by an awful crash leads him to the source.
Of course whoever’s attacking is attacking while Tony Stark is out of the country. As if he doesn’t have safety measures in place. As if Spider-Man won’t come to protect this place.
Sliding into the room, Peter spots the Beetle using his armor to get further and further inside the building.
“Hey Beetle, up to your usual ant-ics?” Peter yells, swinging in and delivering a punch to Beetle’s faceplate.
“Baby Boy, I’m all for puns as the next guy,” Wade's voice calls out, a rubber bullet bouncing harmlessly off of the armor. “But that one just beet-es.”
Peter rolls his eyes good-naturedly at Wade, “Really? Beet-es for bites? That’s the best you could come up with? Besides, everyone knows my puns are un-beet-able.”
Wade shrugs, smiling under his mask as Peter swings by to grab him.
“Sorry I’m just beet-er than you,” Wade teases.
Peter groans as he drops Wade off behind the Beetle before he goes to land in front of him.
The Beetle recovers quickly, raising his arm to shoot a missile at Peter. Peter webs his arm before he can, clogging his armor up temporarily.
“Hey guys! I’m elytra to see you!” a voice calls out.
Peter jumps slightly at the sudden appearance of Phantom, spidey sense going wilder.
“Sorry, did I scarab you?” Phantom teases, forming an ecto-shield around himself and Peter as the Beetle shoots the webbing off with his free arm.
Peter just rolls his eyes but huffs out a laugh as he ducks to avoid the next shot. Running along the wall, shots from the Beetle chases him. But Phantom has gone invisible, and Wade is reaching for Bea and Arthur. As long as Peter can keep the focus on himself …
“Come on Beetle,” Peter taunts, flipping over Beetle’s head and swings to the next closest wall. “Is that really the bee-st you’ve got?”
Two missiles come for him, causing him to dodge one quickly, but he misjudges the other missile and it hits him right in the gut.
“Oof!” Peter grunts, falling to the floor. “Really? Right in the thorax?”
Flipping out of the way of another attack, Peter watches Phantom appear behind the Beetle and coat the man in ice.
“I think it’s about time you chill out, dude,” Phantom snarks.
Wade quickly sinks his katanas into the weak points of the suit, aiming for the bits that hold most of the power.
The Beetle wiggles in his ice cage, but his suit powers down.
“With your guys’ help, that was almost too easy,” Peter remarks, swinging over to the two. “I almost can’t beet-lieve it.”
“Well you beetle believe it, Spider-Man,” Phantom cheers, grinning wide.
Wade rolls his eyes, but Peter can tell he’s grinning under his mask too.
“Come on, we beetle beat it,” Peter teases.
“Guess it’s time to make myself scarabed,” Phantom puns, going invisible.
Peter can feel that Phantom’s left when the spidey sense calms down.
“See you at home?” Peter asks, turning to Wade.
“See you at home baby boy,” Wade replies gently, blowing a kiss towards Peter.
With a grin, Peter swings away, hurrying back to the same bathroom he changed in. Quickly, he changes before rushing back to the lab.
Opening the panic room, he acts more out of breath than he really is.
“I couldn’t find Danny before I was forced into a different panic room,” Peter lies, hoping the kid is okay. “But the fight’s over, we can go to security and look for him from there.”
Peter’s spidey sense begins to go off again, causing himself to whip his head around before the kid who just appeared speaks up.
“I’m fine! I just went to the bathroom when everything happened,” the kid, Danny, states, offering a guilty smile. “Didn’t mean to give everyone a scare.”
The teacher lets out a relieved breath as he exits the panic room, walking over to Danny.
“You know better than to wander off without telling anyone Mr. Fenton,” the teacher admonishes, but Peter can see the teacher is looking Danny over with his eyes to make sure he’s okay.
“Sorry Mr. Falluca, won’t happen again,” Danny promises, but there’s a sort of … glint in his eye.
Peter narrows his eyes. There’s no way the kid was able to enter the lab without a key card. And his spider sense started going off right when he appeared, just like …
“Phantom,” Peter whispers to himself.
Danny’s head whips towards Peter, meeting his gaze.
Peter offers a smile.
“Come on, I’m sure you guys are beet after all this excitement,” Peter states, winking at Danny’s whose eyes have gone wide.
“Yes, come on Casper High, let’s return to the main lobby. Sorry to cut your tour short,” Ace agrees, leading the group out of the lab.
Danny goes towards the back of the group, turning back towards Peter. Raising his hands, he makes a thwip thwip gesture and raises an eyebrow. Nodding, Peter smiles.
Phantom, no, Danny grins back at Peter, before turning to exit with his group. Peter knows that they’ll talk about it later on patrol.
For now? He heads back to his table to resume working thinking about all the questions he’ll ask Phantom later.