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Well, Peter wasn't getting out of this alive. Of course. His AcaDec team had gotten a field trip. Normally, he'd be excited (though a little nervous of what his well documented Field Trip Luck would throw at him this time), but this time he was not. Guess where it was. Stark industries. The place where he was Heir to, where he lived and worked and did everything else. He was also pretty sure his boyfriend was on tour duty that week.
Lucky him...
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The bus ride was insufferable. Flash was being obnoxious the whole time, throwing a notebooks worth of scrunched up paper at the back of his head, that Peter was having a hard time not instinctively catching, and shouting all about how his lie would be exposed soon and how he should just come clean.
His only solace was Ned's distracting talking on Star Wars, and why exactly the new character from Rogue One was going to be Rey's mother, and MJ's witty comebacks to Flash's stupid remarks. When they arrived, Mr Harrington warned them to be on their best behaviour, throwing a disappointed glance at Peter as he did so.
They entered the lobby, and were greeted by the receptionist, who started to hand out passes with their names on.
"Ok, Midtown, so your tour guide is a little late but first we have to get you through security! Now the passes you have are level 1, which means..." Peter zoned out as she explained the complicated pass system. He wouldn't get a new pass, knowing Happy's views on reprinting, so he pulled out his Level 10 pass from his bag and hung the lanyard around his neck. They walked through security, and he thanked Thor and Loki that FRIDAY wasn't installed on the regular scanners, so she couldn't recognise and greet him.
"Oh and here's your tour guide! I'll just be leaving you with him then..." The receptionist trailed off as she hurried back to her station.
Moments later, Peter's head shot up ad he heard the southern tones of a very familiar voice.
"Hey y'all! I'm Harley Keener, and I'll be your tour guide for today!"
He groaned and put his head in his hands. Thanks to the gods retracted.
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To be fair, Harley seemed to value his relationship so far. He hadn't called on Peter at all, while still vaguely defending him from the jibes from Flash with warnings about SI's strict anti-bullying policy, and he had tried not to take them to the labs that Peter frequented the most.
Unfortunately, this was too good to last, as Harley announced the next stop on the tour being Tony Stark's lab. He sidled over to Harley, a pleading look on his face.
Harley looked around, before whispering into his ear.
"He's not there."
"You promise?"
"Promise."
The is short exchange calmed his nerves a lot, though he did also check Tony's schedule on his phone. Tony was due in an important meeting right now. He wouldn't be in the lab. He smiled at Harley, who smiled back nervously, as he began to usher the excited kids into the elevator.
When they got to the right floor, the doors opened, and Peter saw red.
Tony fucking Stark, was in the lab. The one, single person, Peter didn't want to see. And he'd checked. He knew the others were out on missions, he made sure the interns wouldn't talk to him too much. But Tony. Freaking. Stark. Had ignored a meeting just to be here. And Harley had promised he wouldn't be here.
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Cindy was totally not freaking out over seeing Tony Stark, no she was not, when she heard a frightened squeak from the tour guide behind her. She turned to see Harley looking like a deer in headlights, staring at Tony, before his gaze fell on someone else.
Peter.
Cindy gasped at the look on Peter's face, drawing the rest of the teams attention. None of them had ever seen Peter angry, no matter what Flash had done. He was a little like MJ like that, never showing emotions - or at least that specific emotion.
But now the class watched in confusion as he turned his furious gaze on Harley.
"You..." Harley blanched at this, the colour running from his face faster than Spider-man leaping off a building.
"Peter, darlin', sweetheart, I swear I didn't know he'd be here! I double, triple checked his schedule-" He seemed to be pleading now, a surprise to all of them. From what they knew of him, he was a confident and carefree sort of person, and this was confusing.
"I don't wanna hear it Harls. " The tone of Peter's voice was icy, his eyes cold except for a tiny glint when he glanced back at Tony.
"Please Pete, I promise I didn't do this!" Harley seemed to be panicking a little now. The students were all confused, wondering what Harley and done and why Peter was annoyed at it. Thankfully Flash had remembered his brain cell today, and didn't say anything yet.
"I don't want to hear it."
"Please, you have to believe me! I checked, he's supposed to be in a meeting, aren't you Tony?"
He looked pleadingly at Mr Stark, and the eyes of the room followed. Mr Stark was also looking scared, and shell-shocked to the point that he barely seemed to hear Harley's appeal for help.
"Nuh-uh, that's it. You're sleeping on the couch tonight."
Now came the confusion again. Was... was this Peter's boyfriend or something? But Peter never mentioned a boyfriend... and what the fuck was going on?
And to the vague shock of everyone in the room, and the complete world turning upside down shock of Tony Stark, Harley Keener got down on his knees and begged.
"No, darlin', come on, I didn't mean for this to happen! How can I make it up to you?"
"Nothing doing. Now I'm going to my lab, and so help me if you come in for any other reason than to grovel or make out I promise I will lock you out of my room for a week."
People gave each other confused looks at the options, and grimaced at the hidden meaning behind the threat. As Cindy thought before - What the fuck.
Harleys face turned even whiter at the thought.
Peter tore his gaze off of Harley and turned to Tony Stark
"And don't you laugh, old man. I know you knew we were coming. You'd better watch your back..." Tony was far from laughing at this point.
He trailed off menacingly, and strode out the door, not glancing back at Harley at all. The team stood in silence wondering how their mild mannered classmate had just managed to threaten Tony Stark.
Mr Harrington watched his student up and leave with a resigned sigh. He really wasn't paid enough to teach this kid.
The team turned to look at Harley, who was frozen in position, kneeling on the floor. The moment everyone looked at him, he stood up and sprinted out of the room after Peter.
Tony just stood there, horrified. Peter never got mad at Harley. It was the one rule! If they had bad news, or wanted to prank Peter, get Harley involved, and Peter just couldn't be mad.
Shit.
Tony was dead.
PBPSxHK
Harley was... moderately terrified. He was at first, genuinely terrified for his relationship, but as he rode the elevator down a level to his and Peter's labs (which were now one lab cause they knocked the wall through when they got tired of running in and out of doors) he realised the odd glint in Peter's eyes as he had argued with him. He hoped. Still, he had to be careful.
He came to the door of the lab, and hesitated a moment. He should probably stick to Peter's rules, just in case. So, grovel or make out? There was an obvious choice there, and lucky for him it was the best option in both possible scenarios. He took a deep breath and opened the door.
Peter was reclined in an armchair, facing him, his eyes closed. Harley could tell he wasn't asleep though, so he quickly ran over and kissed him deeply, trying to apologise through a kiss or however they do it in movies. A few moments later, Peter's eyes opened, and he pulled away, holding his breath. Peter looked at him, his face as masked as the spider themed vigilante usually was.
"Good choice." He said with a straight (but actually bi) face.
And then he burst out laughing.
Harley was just confused, as his boyfriend guided him over to the loveseat in the corner and promptly sat on his lap. Soon enough, his laughter died down and he was able to choke out an explanation.
"Oh I'm sorry, Harls, you know I'd never be mad at you, and I'm not mad at you. I checked Tony's schedule too, and I know he skipped a meeting just to be there, and I know you didn't know. I'm mad at Tony, and I needed a way to make him really scared... I'm sorry, can you forgive me?"
Harley stared incredulously before replying.
"So that was all... just an act? Darlin, you should win an Oscar, I was fucking terrified!"
Peter giggled at this a little and Harley somehow fell in love all over again.
"I dunno though, I mean you put me through all of that, how are you gonna make it up to me?" Harley asked with a smirk.
Peter just grinned. "You can join me in pranking Tony?"
"I will, but that's not good enough. Come on babe, what you got?"
"Well... did I tell you how hot you looked begging me for forgiveness? Cause I think the choice is the way to go."
"Oh, grovel or make out?"
"Yup"
"Have either of us ever chosen grovel?"
"Nope."
And they leaned in for a kiss, hormones going wild as they ran their fingers through each others hair and under their shirts. They pulled apart for a second and Harley remembered something.
"Darlin, doesn't your dad have a rule? Something about no making out in the lab?"
"Oh Harls. Right now, I want to piss my dad off as much as possible, and if I can do that while making out with my sexy Southern boyfriend, then that is even better."
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Tony managed to pull out of his spiral into his own doom after a few minutes, at which point he realised that he had been left in charge of the group of teenagers. He dimly registered that he now had to give the actual tour of his lab, an forgotten side effect of his plan to embarrass Peter.
Again. Shit.
It apparently didn't matter, since the kids seemed more interested in knowing what the he'll just happened.
"What the fuck was that!" One kid yelled.
They all turned to Tony, who immediately started regretting this idea about 12% more.
"Ummm, I guess cause I wasn't supposed to be here?" When they all looked confused, he elaborated. "So I have a meeting right now, and I promised Harley that I'd be at it cause its kind of important, but I skipped it cause I wanted to catch Petey off guard so I could embarrass him while proving to a few dufuses in your class that he does actually have an internship here? And... now he's mad at me and his boyfriend." He shuddered a little.
He wondered if he should find Peter a smarter school to go to when there was a ripple of realisation, as if these kids had taken this long to figure it out.
He called another intern to lead the group, taking them through his lab as they waited for the guide to get there. When they left, he sat down at his desk, hoping Pete would make his imminent death swift and painless.
PBPxHK
The next day, a 40 minute video was uploaded to YouTube from the official Stark Industries account. The official twitter account tweeted it, resulting in it going viral.
Stark Industries @SIofficial
This is payback, @iamironman
You know what you did
Consider this only the beginning
They're all on my side.
[Link to {Tony Stark has donned his last suit} - YouTube]
The initial reaction was worried, and after a row from Pepper about sounding like a terrorist, Peter added a follow-up tweet.
Stark Industries @SIofficial
Replying to @SIofficial
Relax. I won't kill you. Obviously. Pepper won't let me. But if your suits are full of sand... I know where the hidden ones are...
This calmed everyone down, what with the mention of Pepper knowing about this and the obvious pranking nature of the sand in the suits, but it left everyone confused - until they watched the video.
The video was a compilation of footage from FRIDAY and even a few of JARVIS's old recordings, spliced together hastily. Each and every clip showed Tony falling over, slipping, dropping something, or failing in some embarrassing or humiliating way. The internet got a kick out of it, and kept wondering why it was that sent it out. Tony locked himself in his room, shaking in fear, waiting for the next attack. It never came, and instead when he finally left his room, he walked straight in on Harley and Peter making out on a desk in their lab. They just cackled, Peter making sure FRIDAY saved Tony's expression to his phone. And Tony understood.
Needless to say, the prank war continued for quite some time.
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It wasn't until years later that the internet finally got an answer to what the hell went on that day.
Peter Parker, Spider-man, and Harley Keener, Iron Lad, co-CEOs of Stark Industries since Tony and Pepper retired to raise Morgan, were doing an interview when the journalist brought up some old tweets.
"So, do either of you know what went on here?"
The two took one look at the tweet and burst out laughing.
"So you do know?" The reporter pressed.
"Yeah we know! I sent that tweet, hacked into SI's twitter account myself!" Peter responded, still choking on laughter.
The reporter looked bemusedly at them. "So what happened?"
They launched into the story you have just read, telling it in the perfect amount of detail, with interjections from the other when necessary.
And the internet watched and loved the power couple, who'd successfully out-pranked Tony Stark.
This was clearly an awesome timeline.