Sorry (kinda sorry but not really tbh) I can't bring myself to write 'math' instead of 'maths' it just doesn't feel or sound right to me. Also, I know nothing about American education, I'm kind of going with the flow.
Canon Divergence, Domestic Avengers, Peter is Tony's Biological Son.
Disclaimer: I don't own the Avengers or Marvel.
Cross Posted on my AO3.
"What homework have we got today?" Tony asked his son as eleven-year-old Peter came home from school and entered the communal living room. On his way over to his dad, he greeted the few Avengers he passed,
"Maths."
"You still have Mr A-Hole as your teacher?"
"Yes," Peter answered with an adorable giggle causing Tony to smile before patting the chair next to him where he sat a the table,
"Come on then. Let's do it together and then we can go pester Brucie." Peter grinned alongside his dad, "I've got some paperwork to do, but you know me, any excuse to get out of it and help my son out is welcomed with open arms." He mock-whispered causing Peter to laugh as he set his homework down and got comfortable.
There was a peaceful silence across them both. The occasional huff and puff along with the turning of pages and the sound of a pen and pencil running across paper were the only sounds as the few Avengers in the room respectfully let them do their work in peace. Clint had silenced the TV from where he was playing video games with some headphones on, though he muttered harshly multiple times in anger he did so quietly. Steve was merely drawing so he was quiet too and Natasha was reading. Bruce and Thor were elsewhere.
"You alright, Pete?" Tony murmured when he spied his son chewing frantically at an equation, he could see tears of frustration building in his eyes. Taking his reading glasses off, Tony shuffled closer and gave the upset boy his full attention as he wrapped an arm around his shoulder.
"I just don't get it! Mr Stevens went over it yesterday and he wants us to follow his method and I don't understand his method."
"Ssh. It's alright." Tony murmured when he saw the tears welling up even more, "Let's see what we've got to do." The billionaire took a look at the work and his eyes widened at the example of the method, "What the ever-loving fuck is this bullshit? Why do you have to go all the way around to get one answer!" Everyone startled at Tony's sudden exclamation, Natasha and Steve shared a look with Clint as they tried to hold their laughter in, "Okay, new plan, kiddo. If we subtract these two and add these two you get your answer."
"But it's…it's not his method."
"Screw his method." Tony muttered in response, "Kid, just do it like this because his method sucks and you've still got the correct answer."
—LINE BREAK—
"Dad?" Tony looked up from where he was being forced against his will doing some paperwork,
"Yeah, kiddo?"
"I'm stuck…again." He whispered shamefully
"Hey, none of that. It's alright to be stuck," Tony leaned against Peter, "Let's have a look." Several seconds of silence passed, "Why the hell do you have to add that to get thirty-two when you could simply subtract! This is messed up! You know what. We're doing this Tony Stark Style. So ignore everything that teacher told you because we're going to do it in an efficient and easier way, that'll actually be useful for when you have your exams." Tony told the boy and began to show him what to do. "So many unnecessary steps. Are they trying to have you kids waste time and therefore fail your exams? Why is everything so stupid?" Peter was trying hard not to laugh at the comments his dad muttered under his breath -though when Clint passed by, the archer had no qualms and burst out laughing, spraying his coffee everywhere. "Oh my god, maths is maths! Don't change it!" Tony ended up yelling at one point.
—LINE BREAK—
Sadly it wasn't all so amusing for Peter when he walked slowly into his dad's workshop the next evening. Tony turned around from where he had been working on his suit when JARVIS turned his music off (signifying that his son -or Pepper- had walked into the room). There was a slight pause in movement as Tony spied his son's watery eyes and fists clenched around a small booklet that the man recognised as last nights homework. Without a word he placed the wrench in his hand down and opened his arms for Peter, who all but ran into the hug, burying his face into his dad's t-shirt whilst being careful of the Arc Reactor (or his nightlight as the child had taken to calling it). Gently, Tony moved them both to the couch and continued to hug his son, who was mostly on him.
"Petey-Pie. Love of my life. PB. Hun-bun. Peter Pan."
"Your nicknames suck." He heard the boy mumble against his chest and Tony couldn't help but chuckle a bit,
"But you love them." He hoisted Peter up a bit with a grunt, "What's wrong, baby boy?"
"…you'll be disappointed." Is all he muttered not looking his father in the eye,
"Peter. I will never ever be disappointed in you -unless you do the bad shit I did in the past. Come on, kiddo, tell me what's wrong. I can't help you if you don't."
After several moments of silence, Peter handed over the booklet that was bent in half. Unfolding it Tony saw what had his son so upset. Capitalised and in red was a large F wrapped in a circle with the words 'USE THE PROPER METHODS AND HAND THE CORRECT VERSION IN TOMORROW' beneath. Tony's fingers tightened on the paper. The teacher had the nerve to do this to his son. To an eleven-year-old. He quietly inhaled and exhaled knowing Peter would take his anger the wrong way.
"Okay, first of all, I am not disappointed in you, because I helped you and checked over your answers, so technically you have an A star, but Mr Dickhead is well…being a dickhead. Secondly, I will be having a talk with this apparent 'teacher'. Thirdly, here's what we're going to do with your homework." He shuffled out from under Peter and then held both hands out to pull his kid up. "Follow me, Mini-Me!" Tony called as he wandered further into the workshop until he was standing next to Dum-E, who was attempting to kill Tony making a smoothie for Tony.
"Now. What we're going to do is accidentally drop your homework in front of Dum-E." The bot then picked up the fallen booklet and instead of handing it back as he should've, he placed it in the smoothie that had already been blended and well, the bot then began to blend the paper into the liquid…it didn't exactly work. "Now if we just take the soggy paper out and gently squeeze some of the probably poisonous smoothie out and hand it over to U." Giving his other bot the damp paper, they watched (from a safe distance) as Dum-E rushed over to try and get the homework back as he saw it first and therefore, it was Dum-E's, thus resulting in a game of tug-of-war. Both bots ended up with a piece of the homework when the paper ripped. "The homework can't hurt you anymore, kiddo."
"That was actually really fun!" Peter murmured with the grin that Tony loved to pieces,
"Good. That's what I wanted." The two stared at the mess that Dum-E was trying (and failing) to clean up, "Don't tell Aunt Pepper what happened."
"Agreed," Peter said knowing what the redhead was like and the two started to laugh.
—LINE BREAK—
"Where's your homework?" His maths teacher asked standing in front of his desk and staring down at Peter,
"I don't have it, sir."
"You don't have it?" He repeated mockingly before glaring down at Peter but before anyone could continue a new voice popped up echoing significantly across the room,
"There was an accident with my robot and a smoothie. Then a game of tug of war took place and coincidentally, the bots used Peter's homework thus resulting in, well this. Catch." Tony chucked a ball of scrunched up, ripped and slightly wet paper to the teacher who instinctively caught it.
"Mr Stark," Stevens spat with blatant disgust and irritation,
"Yes. Hi."
"You're not allowed to be here without a meeting and you're disrupting my lesson."Tony grinned
"Oh, I know." He wandered over and took a seat at the teacher's desk, "But, I have somethings I would like to say and not only is public humiliation exciting, there are also multiple other parents who feel the same way about you."
"Mr Stark, this is extremely unprofessional."
"Yes, you are." Tony snarked back as he propped his feet up onto the desk and pulled out his phone, "Right here, I have the proof I need. I've hacked into your security cameras and well, this is not very ethical behaviour." He did something with the phone and suddenly a hologram appeared showing what had happened yesterday when Peter got his homework back:
"Mr Parker, I'm extremely disappointed in you. You've failed your test. I expect you to redo it tonight in green pen, I might change your grade then. Honestly, what would your father say? He must be disappointed."
"Actually, I'm disappointed with you. How dare you say such a thing to a child?" Tony growled,
"He did the work wrong."
"No. He got the answers right. I checked it myself after helping him work out what to do! You teachers expect people to follow your methods but when they have a new teacher they get new methods. Instead of treating all the methods they know as a multi-choice, you expect them to use yours. Despite the fact that they might find a different method easier!" Tony remained calm, but his tone showed his rage, "It's almost barbaric."
"That's just how it works, Mr Stark, I wouldn't expect you to know." The man snarled not bothering to keep his cool,
"Ouch." He deadpanned, not giving the man the confrontation he sought, "You see, exam boards don't give a single fu- damn about how they achieve their answers as long as they get one and can show working out. The fact of the matter is that you're essentially wasting their time with the number of steps they have to take to get the answer."
"Look, Mr Stark. I understand that it must be painful for a parent to learn that their child got a bad grade. But, Mr Parker's working out wasn't correct."
"Funny thing about that is it was my working out. He followed my own method and got the correct answer, so you can shut up because I have a horrible headache from listening to your stupidity."
"Mr Stark!"
"Have fun on your last day of teaching!" Tony called as he walked away, ignoring the calls from Mr Stevens as he went, "This has really been a pleasure!" He paused at the door, one hand holding it open as he looked back at the class and winked, "And Peter, don't bribe Happy into getting snacks after school, it's movie night with the Avengers!" Whilst it was true, he mostly said it because he knew it made his kid brighten up, which he did, he beamed back at Tony.
—LINE BREAK—
When Tony was heading home, he made all the necessary calls to the school and school board. He sent the security camera footage of what just happened along with more incriminating footage. They responded how Tony knew they would. With apologies and confirmation that they would deal with this and see Mr Stevens fired. Which was good. It was great…now he had to explain to Pepper as to why she shouldn't kill him for skipping out on meetings.
—LINE BREAK—
just like they did every Friday, the team and Peter found themselves settled in the living room arguing over what movies they would be watching. They were occupying their usual spots; Clint sat on a beanbag by the side of the couch that consisted of Tony, Peter and surprisingly Natasha, who would usually run her hands through ever Stark's hair when one of them ended up moving down to sleep -often both of them as Tony would go first and Natasha would drag his head down to her lap, shortly after, Peter would follow his dad and snuggle up against the man. Some may say he's too old for such things but he was eleven. He was still a child, so what was the problem? Besides, it was only once a week. Steve would take over the second couch and spread out mostly to keep Thor from sitting beside him when the God would get fed up of Clint throwing things at him. The god sat on the couch opposite Steve and Bruce would occupy the armchair separating Natasha and Thor's couches.
"Clint, we are not watching that!"
"Why not?"
"Maybe because we have an eleven-year-old, that doesn't want to see sex, drugs and murder!" Tony shouted back chucking a sock at the childish man, who stuck his tongue out and threw it back,
"Fine!" He snapped,
"How about this?" Steve held up a movie that whilst childish, was equally enjoyable for the three adults and Thor, Clint and Tony.
"That works." They all murmured in agreement and once it was on and everyone was settled they started the movie.
Anyway,
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Bye~