Once again, Peter stood in front of Stark Tower. It was still just as tall and intimidating as every time he saw it before.

Peter let himself enjoy the view for a few more moments before going inside for his internship. He was a bit early so he still had enough time to get inside.

Suddenly Peter heard a familiar voice calling his name.

"Hey, Peter!"

He looked around, trying to find the source of the voice when he saw Azul and Shayla standing near the big entrance, both waving at him.

"We're here!" Azul yelled and waved faster while Shayla just smiled and put her arm down.

Peter grinned and walked to the couple, speeding up a little to get there faster.

"Hey guys!" he greeted them.

Without wasting too much time, the three of them went into the tower and to their workplace while talking about what they did yesterday. Peter didn't really want to tell them he was Spiderman, so he simply made up something about studying for school and doing homework, easily believable enough due to him (supposedly) still going to school.

For about an hour they did their stuff, Peter helped Shayla with whatever he could, even though she insisted on letting him work on his own projects.

Suddenly, while Peter was working on a more complex equation that he just didn't seem to be able to figure out, he felt somebody tap on his shoulder, twice. But since only Shayla and Azul ever did that he wasn't surprised to see Shayla standing right next to him.

She was holding her phone in her hand, the screen showing in Peter's direction to let him read the message she had just got.

"Boss said you're supposed to go to floor 86 and bring some coffee to the people up there."

"Doesn't every floor have like at least one coffee machine?" Peter asked, confused. Shayla and Azul even told him on his first day where to find the coffee machines on the floors he was supposed to work on.

"They do, but the guys there apparently managed to somehow destroy it." Shayla sighed. "Again."

"Wow. It seems like that has happened a few times now already."

"You don't even wanna know. It happens way too often so there are usually always a few spare coffee machines, but the guys up there are too lazy to just replace it, so they get interns to get them coffee." Shayla thought for a moment. "We actually do benefit from them breaking the coffee machines that often, because we can use the spare parts if we need them.

A *ding* sounded from Shayla's phone. She looked at the message for a moment, then turned to Peter again. "I think you should go now. Boss says they need the coffee as soon as possible. Maybe they're closer to figuring out that one equation now. Come on, I'll help you with the coffees, it's a lot to carry for one person."

Walking next to Shayla to the coffee machine, he asked about the equation.

Shayla didn't appear to know much about it, but it seemed to be a quite important one that not a single person up there was able to figure out, there was always something wrong.

Peter kept thinking about it for the whole elevator ride. What kind of equation does it have to be that nobody could figure it out?

-

After arriving at the 86th floor, Shayla knocked at the glass door in front of them with her free hand.

They didn't have to wait long until Azul ran out from behind a few shelves, desks and whiteboards to open the door for them. While it opened, they could still hear someone yelling at Azul for running in the lab.

Azul greeted them with a big smile and a hug for both of them before leading them further into the big room. They took the coffees Peter was carrying, leaving him to stand there awkwardly, until Shayla invited him to just follow them and look around for a bit while doing so, because "who knows when you'll get another opportunity to do so".

While Shayla and Azul walked towards the voices of the other people inside the lab, Peter was drawn to the many whiteboards around him. Each showed completely different kinds of equations, he'd never seen any like them before.

Peter looked at every single one of them, trying to learn as much as possible about them without having to ask somebody about them.

That worked pretty well, until he came upon one that was written in red instead of the usual blue or black. It seemed to have been edited multiple times, sometimes the remains of an old number or letter were still slightly visible beneath a newer one.

Something about the equation just felt wrong to him, but he couldn't figure out what. So Peter took one of the many pens that were lying around just about everywhere and started copying it onto his arm, unwilling to possibly ruin an important piece of paper.

About halfway through he noticed that something was wrong, so Peter played around with different signs, putting a plus where a minus had been on one spot and a multiplication sign instead of a plus. He calculated it again with the new signs, but something was still wrong.

Peter looked over the original equation again, looking for anything he could've missed.

He tried changing a few of the numbers, and look at that: soon enough, the equation made a lot more sense.

Peter smiled, feeling proud of himself.

"Hey kid, whatcha doing?" Azul suddenly asked from behind him.

Peter jumped and turned around in a split second. How did he not notice them sneaking up to him?

"Uh, nothing, just lost track of time!" Peter answered, trying to hide the arm he'd written on just minutes before behind his back, obviously unsuccessfully.

Azul raised an eyebrow. "Are you hiding something?" they asked.

"Uh... No?"

"Nice try."

"Thank you."

"Is it drugs?"

Peter gaped at Azul and threw his arms in the air, speechless. "How could you think something like that of me?" he said with a dramatic amount of disbelief. "We both know I don't have that kind of money!"

"So true, so true. Can I read that equation on your arm? It looks interesting," Azul said with a smirk.

Peter just stared at them for a while longer and then hung his head, admitting his defeat.

"Here it is," he said and held out his arm for them to see.

It didn't take long for Azul to read what he wrote, but they did have to take some double takes when comparing the equation on Peter's arm with the one on the whiteboard.

They sighed, cupped Peter's face with their hands and said, completely serious: "You. You are a genius."

Peter just stared at them with wide eyes, Azul's hands still on both sides of his face, while they turned their head and yelled for the others further inside the lab.

As soon as he heard three pairs of footsteps running in their direction, Peter started feeling overwhelmed. This was definitely not going as planned. Was there even anything planned? Who knows, for he surely doesn't.

Still overwhelmed, he didn't even care to look at the new people's faces and just turned around and started writing when Azul carefully guided him to a clean whiteboard and softly told him to copy the equation from his arm to the board.

Behind him Peter could hear whispers and murmuring, but he just tried to ignore it and continued writing.

It didn't take him long to copy the equation save for the few times he had to twist his arm uncomfortably to even see what he'd written there. He hadn't even noticed how nobody behind him had said anything in quite a while, specifically since he'd gotten to the first change he had to make in order to make the equation function properly.

Stepping back, Peter looked over what he'd written again to make sure he hadn't made any mistakes. Deep in his thoughts, he jumped a bit when someone behind him finally said something.

"Ok. Wow. What the f- OW! fine heavens!? How the..."

Peter whipped his head around to the voice, staring at the man star-struck with his eyes open wide as he recognized who just talked to him.

Tony. Freaking. Stark.

A superhero as well as a genius.

In the top three of people Peter idolizes the most.

He could even be number 1 on that list.

And Peter was standing in the same room as him

It took Peter all of his willpower to close his mouth and make himself look like a normal human being (which he wasn't, not really, but that's not the point right now) so he wouldn't immediately start fangirling over basically everything Tony Stark had ever invented or built, especially his AIs.

"Hey, kid? You there?" Tony Stark asked, looking slightly concerned.

Peter blinked a few times until he realized that the conversation must've continued while he had spaced out. Who knew what they'd talked about during that time?

"I- I'm sorry, sir. I must've gotten a bit distracted," he said, hoping nobody would question what he'd gotten distracted by, that would only lead to embarrassment.

"It's alright, kid. But really, how did you solve that question?  None of us had been able to figure that out, and, no offense, all of us are way older than you and probably know more about this than you do. So, how?" Tony Stark asked, a genuine spark of curiosity in his eyes.

"I'm not sure, actually..." Peter paused for a moment, trying to find the right words that were all scattered in his mind. "Maybe you just needed a fresh pair of eyes?"

"I think the kid's right, Tony. A new perspective is always good, we should've thought of that earlier."

Again, Peter could not believe his eyes when he saw who was standing next to the Tony Stark.

Bruce. Freaking. Banner.

An amazing scientist and a genius as well.

Peter had to take a few moments (minutes) to even process what was going on now.

He was in the same room as the Tony Stark and the Bruce Banner, that should be reason enough for his brain to simply shut off. Dumbstruck, the only thing he could do as they talked more about the equation was nod and say "mhm" here and there.

Soon enough though, the two of them left, leaving Peter, Shayla, and Azul behind. As soon as Peter was sure enough the two scientists couldn't hear him anymore, he let out a deep breath he didn't know he was holding.

"Oh. My. God." He turned around to the couple behind him. "Why didn't you tell me??"

Azul snickered, and Shayla answered with an innocent face: "What do you mean? What were we supposed to tell you?"

Peter just put his face into his hands and screamed silently. He just met two of his biggest idols and he made himself look like an idiot. What were they going to think of him now?

Together, the three of them then walked to the elevator and went back to their usual floor.

A/N
okay look: i know that i haven't updated in literal months, and i am very sorry
i also have to say that i have no excuses whatsoever
i would promise that i'd update faster from now on, but i don't really want to break more promises than i already have, so
yes
thank you for reading, and have a good day / night