Disclaimer: I don't own the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)
A/N: This was just a fun side story I wrote when I was bored. It has actually been posted on AO3 for over a month now, I forgot to repost it on this website for a while there, so here it is. And if the summary doesn't explain things enough, one of my head-canons is Steve isn't very good at modern high school Maths. Or Maths in general in that case.
[equation] is 4x to power of 3 plus 9x to power of 2 minus 5x plus 18
Sorry I have to write it this way, is just super restrictive on the characters it can display. I can't even display an add sign.
When Academics Meets Steve Rogers
Peter doesn't know which is harder, being a friendly neighborhood Spiderman while still in highschool or having Tony Stark and Steve Rogers as your parents while still in highschool.
On second thought, the latter is harder. Much harder.
First of all, you have to deal with your peers in school mobbing you like you're a superhero, which isn't entirely untrue, and the only person Peter can thank for that is my dad, Tony Stark. Why Tony told the rest of the world that Peter was his and Steve's adopted son, Peter will never know.
Secondly, since all the Avengers, including Peter, are living in the Avengers Compound upstate, which 'surprisingly' is owned by none other than his dad, Tony Stark. Because of this, the saying 'my house, my rules' comes into play.
And when those rules allow his parents to… do things that will not be described, anywhere, you get a very traumatised 16-year-old who has witnessed his parents making love to each other on multiple occasions. The other Avengers however don't seem to be fazed by his parents behaviour, which suggests to Peter that they've seen it way too many times to even start to complain.
Last but not least, the expectations that are in place when you're the son of Tony freaking Stark and Captain freaking America. Everyone in school expects him to get everything right in everything, which to say the least is obnoxious. Furthermore more, everyone expects him to have the perfect morals and to be righteous and all that crap that Captain America is portrayed as. Which is completely absurd in Peter's opinion.
Usually the former expectation is not exactly hard to reach, Peter always found highschool relatively easy and usually aced his exams and finished his homework with ease. But there are those times when homework just gets too confusing for him, but that's where the advantages of having Tony freaking Stark as your dad comes into play.
When Peter has trouble with his homework, he just simply walks down to his dad's workshop and asks for help, and by ask for help, he means give to his dad so he can do it, which his dad is surprisingly willing to do, albeit with plenty of scoffs at how easy the work is and how even a demented monkey or any other animal with a disability that first comes to his dad's mind could finish the homework with ease.
That's been the pattern for as long as Peter can really remember since having trouble with homework. Until now.
Now, Peter is sitting in his room banging his head against his desk, groaning. Infront of him is a sheet of questions of differential and integral calculus and in the bin next to his desk is a mountain of crumpled up scrap paper.
"Why… is this… so… confusing?!" Peter complained in-between head-bangs.
By now, he would've gone down to his dad's workshop to ask his dad to 'help' him with his homework, but unfortunately, his dad is currently out of town in a Stark Industries conference. Literally the only one he has attended in 6 months, what are the odds?
"Come on Parker, dad isn't home right now, it's up to you. Think, come on, think! It's just calculus, nothing… hard. Yeah, this is easy. I can do this. Who needs dad anyways?" Peter said, filled with determination again.
It was 10 minutes later that pops found him rolling around in bed in frustration.
"Hey, son, you alright? You sounded like a dying duck." Steve asked thoughtfully.
"No, I'm not alright! And I don't sound like a dying duck!" Peter replied, clearly in a bad mood.
Walking up to the bed and sitting by Peter's feet, Steve asked again. "Alright, what's the problem Peter? Tell me so I can help you."
Peter scoffed, sitting upright and facing his pops now. "Pops, I don't think this is a problem you can help me with, it's kinda out of your league."
"Excuse me, young man, it seems your dad has been rubbing off on you." Steve shook his head. "Now, there's no problem that I can't help you with. Just tell me what it is you need help with son."
"Alright, don't faint in shock once you see it though pops." Which Steve replied with a scoff as he followed Peter to his desk. "Sorry about the mess Pops, I'll clean it up, don't worry your ass off."
"Language, Peter, you know that isn't appropriate language."
Peter laughed. "Pops, it's not like you don't use bad language either, especially when you're… having fun times with dad." Peter smirked when he saw his Pops blush. "Now, here it is. I need help with my Maths, differential and integral calculus to be specific." He said while pointing to the sheet almost accusingly.
M-Maths?! Why isn't Peter asking Tony?! Oh, yeah, Tony's at that conference that Pepper forced him to attend. I can see why Peter said this might be out of my league. But I'll be damned if run away from a few Math problems. Steve thought. But… what even is differential and integral calculus?!
"Is this silence you trying to solve the first problem in your head or you staring on in shock and horror Pops?"
"What do you mean 'staring on in shock and horror'? I'll have you know I was the top of my class in Maths back in the day." Steve gloated proudly.
"Pops, I doubt the Maths you learnt at 16 over 80 years ago is the same as the Maths I'm being taught now." Peter explained.
"Nope, Maths doesn't change because it's Maths. The Maths my mother learnt is the same as the Maths I learnt, and so is the Maths you're learning."
"Then be my guest and help me solve it Pops"
Steve pulled the chair out to sit on it and grabbed a piece of paper and pencil. He sat there and stared at the first question until it was burned into his memory. 'Differentiate [equation]'.
What?!
"There's the undefined silence again." Peter deadpanned.
"Enough of your sass Peter, save it for when Tony gets back. And luckily for you, I just found the solution to this problem. It's actually dead easy if you think about it hard enough."
Wait... Pops solved the first question?! Seriously?! Peter thought incredulously. I gotta see this.
One day later…
"Bye Happy, thanks for the ride!" Peter exclaimed to the retreating black limousine.
Upon entering the Compound, FRIDAY's voice played through the in-built speakers. "Mr Parker, Mr Stark requests your presence in his workshop immediately to… discuss something with him."
Peter didn't miss the second of hesitance in that last part, as if she wanted to say something but thought better of it and rephrased it instead. "Uhhhh, okay? Can I ask what is it that my dad would like to discuss with me?"
"I'm sorry, but Mr Stark has not told me as to why he requests your presence in his workshop. He only told me to inform you to head down there immediately." FRIDAY replied apologetically.
"Oh, alright then. Tell him I'm on my way down. Scrap that actually, I'm pretty sure he's watching me through the surveillance cameras, so there's no need FRIDAY." Peter said while staring at a spot where he knew a surveillance camera was.
Once infront of the tinted glass doors, Peter punched in his security lock passcode and the door clicked open for him to enter.
What surprised Peter upon entry was the fact that not only was his dad in the workshop, but so was Pops as well.
"Hey dad, hey Pops. What's the occasion? Please don't tell me you called me down here just to tell me that I'm not allowed in your room or the workshop for the next 3 hours."
"Ha ha, very funny Peter." Tony deadpanned while Steve blushed, knowing what Peter was implying him and Tony did during those 3 hours. "If you're quite done enquiring about your parents sex life, which I must say, is very lively thank you very much-"
"Oh my god dad, I don't need to know that! Look! Pops is as red as a tomato now!" Peter pointed at Steve, who was staring at the ground, blushing profusely.
Tony continued, completely ignoring Peter. "I called you both here to talk about this." Tony pulled up a hologram and expanded it so Peter could see clearly what it was.
"My Math homework that Pops helped me with? What's wrong with it?" Peter asked curiously.
"Yeah Tony, what's wrong with his homework? I don't see anything wrong, he finished it all too." Steve added.
"What's wrong with?! The question should be what's not wrong with it?! I mean look at it! It's a disgrace to Maths itself!" Tony exclaimed incredulously while pointing at the large hologram. Though this just put confusion over Steve and Peter's faces.
"Peter, come here and stand next to dear old Stevey here would you?" To which Peter obliged.
Tony took a deep breath and asked. "Now. How the hell did you two get the answer 43 when they asked you to differentiate [equation]?!"
"Well, we took the big number infront of the x and we subtracted it with the power. So 4-3 plus 9-2-5 plus 18 is 31. What other answer could you even get?" Steve answered, still confused as to why Tony was getting flustered up by this.
"W-What?! What kind of logic is that?! Why would you be subtract the coefficient with the power?! That doesn't even make sense! How in the name of all that is good in this world did you manage to fuck 10th grade Maths up this badly?!" Tony yelled, completely baffled as to how they thought that would work.
"Wait, how do you have my homework? I just gave it to my teacher this morning." Peter asked.
"Said teacher sent me a copy of your homework and demanded I tell her, and I quote 'which idiot did Peter's homework for him?'" Tony replied.
"Wow, excuse me, that's just plain out rude. Why are so many people starting to act like Tony now?"
"Honestly, can't disagree with her." Tony said.
"Wow Tony, that hurt, you don't have to be so brutal."
"And you, Peter, who possessed you to ask Steve to help you with your Math homework?! You could've gone on YouTube to search for some tutorial videos or you could've asked literally anyone else in the Compound for help. Yet you asked Steve?!"
"Okay, in my defence, Pops came to me, I didn't go out and ask anyone. He asked me what was wrong and I told him that the problem I was having was most likely out of his league, which it clearly was." Peter said while glancing towards Steve, who had a frown on his face. "But Pops insisted that he could help and I quote 'there's no problem that I can't help you with'. So then he helped me with my Maths."
Tony scoffed. "You should've known better than to actually listen to Steve's 'help'. He's like Jar Jar Binks when it comes to Maths and Science. I doubt he even knows what 56/8 is." Tony mocked.
"Okay that's it! I've had enough of this! I get one thing wrong, and keep in mind I wasn't even taught said thing during my time in school, and I get given hell for it?! What is this?" Steve yelled, his patience and composure worn thin.
"Here we go again..." Peter murmured to no one in particular, rolling his eyes in exasperation.
"Well you should've never even offered the help then seeing as you were never taught it! But nooooo, you just had to go and give Peter your 'help'! Now the school is offering to call the NYPD to help find Peter because they think someone has kidnapped him!" Tony shouted back, both married husbands walked closer to each other until they were barely a feet apart.
"Well that's your fault for not being there when he needed the help! If you had gone to previous meetings then maybe Pepper would've let you skip the one yesterday bro you could stay here and help Peter! But what did you do? You skipped 18 meetings in a row in the span of 6 months!"
"Oh now don't you start acting like Pepper, I don't need another one! And it's not my fault I skipped 18 meetings in a row! It's theirs cause they make them so boring! And why are there even 3 meetings a month anyways?!" Tony cried out.
"Why are you asking me?! It's your company! And how is it not your fault that you missed 18 meetings in a row?! That doesn't even make sense!"
"We're married! So technically, it's also kind of your company now as well! So ha! Plus would you go to 3 boring ass meetings a month and sit there and listen to managers talk about management crap and stocks?!"
"Yes actually because as the owner of the company, it's my duty to attend company meetings! No matter how boring they are! It's your company and you should take responsibility for it!" Steve yelled in response.
"That's because you're lame and boring! You would probably pay to watch a completely black screen for 2 hours straight and you'd still applaud once it's over!"
"Lame and boring?! Me?! Have you seen yourself?! I mean just look at your wardrobe and choice of music! Plain, lame and boring! You could've chosen any band from the 20th century yet you chose AC/DC?!"
Meanwhile, Peter stealthily snuck out of the workshop, knowing how long his parents would scream at each other for.
"I'll check on them in a few hours, I wonder how many times dad will want a divorce this time." Peter said to himself while shaking his head with a chuckle as the sounds of his parents arguing grew smaller and smaller.
3 hours later…
Looking up from his book, Peter asked. "Hey FRIDAY, where are dad and Pops and what are they doing right now?"
"Mr Stark and Mr Rogers are currently… indisposed in their bedroom." FRIDAY replied.
"Ughhhh, even that's too much information." Peter groaned. "So how many times did dad say he wanted a divorce?"
"Mr Stark said he wanted a divorce 3 times during his and Mr Rogers's argument."
"3 times huh? FRIDAY, tell Natasha that Clint and Bruce both owe her $20." Peter instructed.
"Definitely Mr Parker." FRIDAY replied.
Just another day as the son of Tony Stark and Steve Rogers. It has its downsides, but it's not so bad. Peter thought contently. Just another day… Sweet dreams dad and good night Pops.