3rd Person POV
Peter, Ned, and their class stare wide-eyed at the interior of the Stark Tower. Sure, they've marvelled at the exterior almost every time they've passed by it, but it was all of their first times actually inside of it.
"Dude," Ned breathes, eyes practically bulging out of his skull. "We are inside Stark Tower. This is, like, peak nerd achievement." Pete nods, trying to keep his cool, but his inner geek is breakdancing.
The place is insane. Futuristic doesn't even begin to describe it. Holograms float in the air, drones casually fly past like it's nothing, and there's an elevator that zips up the outside of the building like some kind of glass spaceship. Even the air smells expensive, like coffee, perfume, and arrogant billionaires.
One kid pokes at a floating Stark Industries logo, and it freaking reacts, shifting into a live news feed.
"D- Did that just move?!" someone whispers excitedly.
Ned elbows Peter. "Bro, we are breathing the same air as Tony Stark right now."
Peter snorts. "Pretty sure he has, like, seven private floors above us. I doubt he's hanging out in the lobby going, 'Oh boy, I sure hope a bunch of high schoolers swing by today!'"
"Okay, but what if he's just casually walking by and sees us?" Ned presses. "What if I impress him so much that he makes me his personal tech apprentice?"
Pete raises a brow. "And how the hell do you plan to do that?"
Ned looks around giddily, then lasers his focus toward a nearby touchscreen panel. "I dunno, hack something?" He nods determinedly and starts making his way towards the screen.
Peter grabs his backpack strap and physically yanks him back, and Ned comes reeling back in. "Yeah, okay, let's try not to commit any cybercrimes in Tony Stark's house. He can sue you and ruin your life in a snap of a finger."
Meanwhile, another student, who's been trying way too hard to act unimpressed, crosses his arms. "Pfft. It's just a bunch of fancy screens. I bet Stark doesn't even build half this stuff himself."
Right on cue, a tiny drone zips past his ear, scans him with a bright blue light, and plays back his exact words in his own voice, but pitched in a high tune, like a nerd's voice.
"I bet Stark doesn't even build half this stuff himself."
The student stares at it. The drone hovers. The class bursts into laughter.
"Stark literally has drones programmed just to roast people," Peter wheezes. "I love this place."
A sleek, silver-plated service bot rolls up to them. "Welcome to Stark Industries. Please proceed to Lab 3B for your scheduled tour."
Ned claps his hands together. "Alright, boys. Let's go look at some extremely expensive science and definitely not touch anything."
Peter sighs. "This is gonna be a long day..." He mutters to himself.
-o-
The class makes their way toward the designated lab, unaware of a bioengineered spider also making its way to that exact same lab via the vents.
They stop whenever they see anything interesting, and ooh and ahh at whatever while passing by. Finally, they make it to their designated lab, 3B. Lab 3B was less of a lab, but more of an exhibit. It made sense in retrospect, what kind of CEO would Stark be if he let a bunch of unruly high school kids near his actual dangerous and important experiments and stuff.
Peter and Ned step into Lab 3B, eyes darting across the room like kids in a candy store. The place is sleek, futuristic, and way too clean, like the kind of place where if you sneeze wrong, a robot will materialize just to disinfect the air. It was kind of a science/history exhibit, detailing the rise of Stark Industries, showing off their history and inventions.
Ned immediately zeroes in on the hover car in the massive glass display. "Dude. Howard Stark's floating car! The most popular vehicle that doesn't actually work!"
Peter whistles. "Man that thing is old. It's got that I'm totally gonna explode if you turn me on energy."
"Are you kidding me?" Ned scoffs. "This thing was ahead of its time! Look at it, pure genius!"
Peter squints "It doesn't even have seatbelts."
"Yeah, because real geniuses don't crash," Ned counters.
Peter gestures dramatically. "How did said genius die again?"
"Okay, except for that one time!" Ned huffs. "Besides, Stark's gotta be working on a new version, right? Like, an actual flying car? If he can make Ironman fly, he can totally make cars fly."
While the two were caught up in their witty banter, they couldn't seem to notice the small spider with a metallic sheen slowly making its way out of a ceiling vent.
As Peter and Ned continue their back-and-forth about the feasibility of a flying car, the spider descends. Slowly, inch by inch, spinning its web.
Meanwhile, the tour guide, a chipper Stark Industries intern with a company-approved smile, gestures toward a massive hologram, with a dismantled Iron Man suit floating in midair, rotating piece by piece as if it were assembling itself.
"And here," the guide announces, "we have one of Mr. Stark's latest armour projects, the Mark 7. This feat of engineering is designed for rapid deployment, meaning he can call it in mid-battle, and it'll assemble around him in seconds!"
Peter and Ned stare in awe. "Wait," Ned says. "You're telling me that Iron Man is basically about to unlock instant suit-up mode?"
"Essentially!" The guide grins. "The previous models required manual assembly or suitcase storage-"
"-Like in Monaco!" Peter cuts in. "When he pulled out the suitcase armour to fight that Russian whip guy!"
The guide nods. "Exactly! That was Mark 5. But the Mark 7? This one's gonna fly to him in pieces and build itself mid-air. He's testing out new targeting bracelets so the suit knows exactly where to attach."
He continues. "This is one of the many different prototype armours that are currently in the work. After the disaster at the Stark expo last year, Mr. Stark decided that he alone couldn't save everyone, and decided to construct new suits for every occasion, making up the IRON LEGION."
Ned, amazed, mutters. "Dude. He's making DLCs to his suit. He's making a legitimate one-man army."
Meanwhile, the spider, experiment 42, creeps closer and closer, slowly spinning a shiny metallic web with pinpoint precision, directly above a dazed Peter Parker's shoulder.
The thread snaps.
It falls right onto the exposed skin of Peter's neck with a plop, cushioning its fall with its eerily long legs.
Then suddenly-
BITE
A dull pain hits pete's senses, kind of like a needle, but really weak, as if numbed by a toxin. He flinches and swat at his neck, where nothing remains but two small fang marks.
Peter wobbles, suddenly much more lightheaded than before.
"Yo, you good?" Ned whispers, momentarily diverting his attention from the tour guide.
Quickly recovering, Pete responds, "Yeah, I think I'm fine. I suddenly got a lil dizzy. Might be because of all these holograms though."
The students continue their field trip as normal.
-o-
Meanwhile somewhere else in Stark tower
Tony walked hurriedly down the corridors of his building.
"Jarvis, update on the spider?" He questioned into the open air.
"Sir, it seems to have bitten one of the students of Midtown High, here due to their field trip." The empty air replied back.
"Give me visuals on the kid." Tony stated while bringing his Rolex watch up to eye level. Then magically, the Rolex watch split in half, and opened up to reveal what looked like a miniature projector inside.
The light in the projector blinked on, constructing a hologram in front of Tony. In the hologram, it showed the scene of the escaped experiment #42 making its way down and biting Peter in the neck, and Peter swatting it away, making it land on the ground and scurry away.
Tony sighed.
"Jarvis, keep an eye out for that kid and see if there are any side effects of the bite. Hopefully, it doesn't kill him. You know what, I think one dead kid is already too much on my conscience. I don't care about the image anymore, so please call in the anti-spider swat team, and contain that thing asap."
"Will do sir." The thin air replied back.