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When you’re the principal of a highly successful and well-regarded science and technology school, there are plenty of things that stop registering as unusual. At least, that was more or less true in Jim Morita’s opinion.
Still, as he scans his schedule for the day, even he has to admit this one falls outside the scope of normal.
“Hey, Ang?” he calls, eyes still on the screen. “Why do I have a meeting scheduled today with Tony Stark?”
He looks up in time to see Angela Swan glance over from her desk outside his office. She grins behind thick, purple-framed glasses and shakes her head.
“Your guess is as good as mine, Jimmy. The rest of us have been taking bets on whether it’s a prank call or some kind of PR stunt.”
She pushes back from her chair and drops into one of the leather seats across from his desk, grin turning conspiratorial. Lisa Rowe, one of the receptionists, follows close behind. That’s how it always went. Once one of them wandered in, the rest of the front office took it as an open invitation.
Jim doesn’t really mind. They still have about twenty minutes before the first students arrive for the day anyway. And, realistically, you don’t work at one of New York’s most prestigious science and technology schools without wanting to gossip a little about a possible meeting with Tony Stark. Iron Man, for crying out loud.
“You remember that kid who was going around telling people he had an internship there?” Julius Kramer says, leaning against the doorframe as he joins the impromptu meeting. “Maybe this is about that.”
Stacy Lew slips past him and perches on the edge of Jim’s desk, already shaking her head. He glares at her and shifts a few of his trinkets out of reach before she can knock them over again.
“First of all,” Stacy says, unfazed, “I told you, he wasn’t going around telling people that. Another student overheard him and turned it into a rumor.”
If anyone was going to be tuned into the inner workings of student drama at Midtown, it was Stacy. She was the newest addition to the front office team, a recent NYU graduate who, for reasons Jim still didn’t fully understand, had chosen to work in a high school front office. Technically, she’d been hired as a guidance counselor, though Jim suspected she spent more time in his office than in her own down the hall. That probably wasn’t actually true. Mostly.
“Plus,” Angela adds, “do you really think some childish high school rumor would reach all the way to Tony Stark?”
They all consider that. No matter how critically acclaimed Midtown was, there was no realistic world where Tony Stark cared about student gossip.
“It’s probably a prank,” Julius says with a sigh. “Ten bucks says it’s a senior with a goatee drawn on his face.”
Morita can’t help but chuckle.
“Well,” he says, glancing back at his calendar, “it’s scheduled for nine. I suppose we’ll find out in an hour. Now don’t you all have jobs to do?”
-
At 8:55, the familiar sound of the school buzzer snaps everyone’s attention upward.
Jim figures they’re all a little on edge, waiting to see whether the meeting is real or a prank. He watches Angela’s shoulders slump at her desk and assumes that answers it. Not Tony Stark. Just another student arriving late for one reason or another.
Jim turns back to his screen, makes a show of focusing, even as he resists the urge to stare at the clock and will the minutes forward.
A knock on his doorframe pulls his attention up again.
Angela and Julius stand there, both wearing the same targeted confusion. Between them is a student Jim recognizes immediately — Peter Parker. One of Midtown’s top-ranking sophomores. Polite. Quiet. Rarely in trouble.
For a split second, Jim assumes Peter’s been sent in for some minor infraction. Then he notices the woman standing beside him. Young. Composed. Protective in the way most adults tend to be when they’re in the principals for a conversation.
His aunt, Jim realizes. If memory serves, Peter lost his parents and his uncle. Not all at once — the universe usually spaces its cruelty out better than that.
“Miss Parker says they have an appointment scheduled with you at nine,” Angela says, then hesitates. “But—”
“I didn’t schedule it,” the woman adds, clearly trying to help. “So it might not be under my name?”
Jim exchanges a glance with Julius and Angela. He’s just about to respond when the buzzer sounds again.
This time, Jim doesn’t need to see the door.
The looks on Angela’s and Julius’s faces tell him everything. One glance at the Parkers confirms it. This is not a prank.
Peter’s face has gone bright red. His aunt — May, Jim remembers suddenly — looks relieved, a tension easing out of her shoulders.
“Look who’s actually on time,” she says lightly.
Tony Stark steps into view.
The man is unmistakable, even in measly front office. Expensive suit. Tinted sunglasses. The kind of presence that bends attention without trying. He grins at May and then slings an arm around Peter’s shoulders with practiced ease, the gesture’s casual enough to suggest he does it often.
Jim is fairly certain his brain short-circuits.
“Well—uh,” he manages, pushing back from his desk. “Welcome. Please, come in, take a seat. Angie, could you grab a chair for Peter?”
Tony waves him off without breaking stride. “Pete, you sit. I’ll stand.”
Peter starts to protest, but Stark is already guiding him into the leather chair across from Jim’s desk. Angela, mercifully, wheels in another chair, and Tony flashes her a grin before dropping into it, settling himself close enough that Peter ends up neatly sandwiched between the two adults.
Jim closes his office door.
-
“So,” Morita says carefully, folding his hands on the desk, “to what do we owe the pleasure?”
He makes a point of addressing both adults, even as it takes a conscious effort not to stare at Tony Stark outright. Stark and May exchange a look, and May gives a small nod, clearly ceding the floor.
Peter sits quietly between them, Tony’s arm still hooked around his shoulders despite the awkward angle.
“Well, for starters,” Stark says, shifting slightly as he reaches into the inside pocket of his suit jacket, “I wanted to file these.”
He pulls out a small stack of neatly folded papers and sets them on the desk, sliding them toward Morita.
“Official internship paperwork,” Stark continues. “So the work Pete’s doing over at SI can count for school credit.”
Morita unfolds the pages carefully. Thick, high-quality paper. An official Stark Industries seal. Signatures at the bottom — Tony Stark, and beneath it, Pepper Potts, CEO.
He blinks once.
“Wow,” Morita says, looking up with a smile. “Peter, this is exciting. We’ve heard rumors around the school that a student had an internship, but until now, that’s all they were. Rumors.”
He smooths the papers flat, briefly wondering if this technically counts as an autograph.
“Thank you, sir,” Peter says quietly, returning the smile.
“That’s why I hand-delivered them,” Stark says, grin easy. “Didn’t want anyone challenging the validity of the kid’s work or the paperwork.”
“And—” May cuts in gently, “we’d also like to add Tony as one of Peter’s registered guardians and emergency contacts.”
Morita is fairly certain he keeps his expression neutral. Fairly.
Plenty of students at Midtown have impressive parents. Renowned surgeons. Well-published professors. Authors and scholars with long lists of credentials. But Tony Stark occupies a category entirely his own. The closest they’ve come to celebrity before this is a freshman whose mother had a brief run as a D-minus-list actress.
“We can certainly take care of that today,” Morita says, recovering smoothly. “Though I should tell you, you could’ve saved yourself the trip and completed the forms through the parent portal.”
He chuckles as he pulls the necessary paperwork up on his screen and sends it to the printer.
“The visit was actually necessary,” Stark says easily. “I’ll need you — and your front office staff — to sign these as well.”
May reaches into her oversized purse and produces a manila folder, passing it to Stark. He flips it open and starts sorting through the contents.
“NDAs,” he explains. “I’m sure you understand we’d like to keep knowledge of the kid’s connection to me as limited as possible.”
Morita nods. It makes sense. Tony Stark is a walking headline. If word got out that he was a secondary guardian to a Midtown student, Morita can already picture the articles writing themselves.
“Of course we can sign those,” Morita says, offering a practiced smile. “Angie, Julius, Stacy — I know you’re all hovering. You might as well come in.”
He raises his voice just enough for it to carry past the thin door. There’s no doubt they’ve been waiting outside the door trying to eavesdrop anyway.
They drift in almost immediately, careful in their movements, curiosity poorly disguised. Their eyes move between Tony Stark and Peter Parker like one might look at animals in the zoo. Morita spreads the papers across his desk and lets Stark handle the explanation.
“Standard NDAs,” Stark says, sounding almost rehearsed. There’s no doubt in his mind Tony has made spiels like this several times over in the past. “If you can’t reach May, you’re authorized to contact me directly about the kid. I’d prefer my number stays limited to the four of you in this room.”
Morita signs without much hesitation. So do the others. His wife would tell him he should read the fine print more closely, but this is Tony Stark. There are worse things than being bound by Stark Industries confidentiality.
“Great,” Stark says, already leaning back. “Now let’s talk security.”
“Mr. Staaaark,” Peter groans at the same moment May reaches over and swats lightly at his arm.
“We already went over this,” she says, warning threaded neatly into the words.
Stark lifts his hands in surrender, unbothered. “Unbelievable. A guy shows concern for his protégé and suddenly he’s the villain.”
Peter rolls his eyes. “You let me use a soldering iron without goggles last night.”
“That was a controlled environment,” Stark shoots back. “My lab. My rules. FRIDAY and DUM-E were monitoring you the entire time. If you’d so much as sparked, alarms would’ve gone off.”
May exhales slowly, pinching the bridge of her nose.
Morita glances at his staff. He doesn’t need to say anything. The same realization is clearly settling over all of them.
Peter Parker is comfortable enough with Tony Stark to argue with him. To complain. To roll his eyes. Comfortable enough that Tony Stark could, without question, sign him out of school if he felt like it.
That is not something you see every day.
And it’s certainly not how Morita expected this meeting to go when he saw Tony Stark’s name on his calendar that morning.