Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel or any of its characters and lines from the movie used in this story. What is written here is for entertainment purposes only. I do not make any profits from it.
A/N: So, this is a sequel to Welcome to the Family which was a series of one-shots about Peter hanging out with Tony's family. In this sequel, we have Tony hanging out with Peter's family and interesting stuff happen. You don't need to read Welcome to the Family to understand this.
Tony let out an expletive when his foot collided with another one of Peter's backpacks (the third one this month; he should really put a tracking device on those things) that the kid left haphazardly on the final step of the staircase leading up to the living room of Tony's New York house.
Fortunately, Tony had managed to hang on to the railings, saving his face a trip to the floor.
"PETE—" He began to shout but changed his mind midway and sighed instead. It wasn't worth the strain to his vocal chords.
Tripping over backpacks was getting way too old. He was getting way too old to be tripping over bags left in places it shouldn't be.
Tony bent over and began to sort through the collection of books and paper that slipped out of Peter's open backpack when Tony had kicked it.
He had told Peter dozens of times not to leave it on the floor. But for someone with super hearing, the kid sure was pretty deaf to that one. What was wrong with leaving it lying on a couch or on a table? Was it too far for him to reach? Too high?
Tony slipped the last of the books and the notebook inside the bag, turning to the paper next. There was an envelope among one of them with a broken Midtown seal right in the mouth of the envelope.
Tony turned it to the other side and saw Anthony Edward Stark printed in cursive letters.
Why would Peter open a letter addressed to Tony?
Tony was just about to pull out the letter's contents when Peter yelped out a "Mr. Stark!" from behind him.
He grabbed the envelope, stuffed it in his backpack, and zipped it close in quick succession.
Tony raised a brow at Peter. "What was that?"
"That's nothing," Peter stammered, shaking his head. "Nothing. I read it and it's nothing."
"But it wasn't for you to read."
"Yeah, but I had to to find out if it was nothing or something and it's something." Peter's eyes widened at the slip-up. "I mean, it's nothing! So…" Peter started tapping his foot and then he swung his backpack over his shoulder. "Gotta go, Mr. Stark! Got homework! Bye!"
"Parker, get back here!"
Peter kept on walking all the while saying, "Really big Spanish test tomorrow, Mr. Stark! Don't wanna fail!"
And then he was out the front door leaving Tony still processing what the hell just happened.
Did Peter just—
Did he just—
Tony blinked a couple of times.
And then he turned on his heels, walking down to his workshop.
"Friday, get me in touch with Karen."
"Sure thing, boss."
Tony sat down in front of his computer, elbows resting on the chair's arms with his chin on top of his linked hands.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Stark," came the AI's pleasant greeting. "What can I do for you today?"
"Peter's trying to hide something from me, Karen. I want to know what it is."
"I am afraid I am unable to help you with that, Mr. Stark," Karen said, sounding genuinely apologetic. "Peter has forbidden me to speak to you of his plans."
"What plans?"
"I am unable to reveal the specific details of his plan. Although, Peter has mentioned that he wants to snatch your wig."
Tony's chin slipped off his hands. "My what?"
"He wants to snatch your wig and everybody else's. Peter says it's going to be yeet-able."
Tony stared at the spectrogram of Karen's voice being displayed on his computer.
"Huh. Friday there's something seriously wrong with Karen. Scan for bugs in her speech drive. Is this the latest upgrade's doing?"
"Scan initiated."
Tony narrowed his eyes at his computer screen again, almost daring Karen to say something weird a second time just to see if he had misheard it.
Hmm. Maybe he should keep her talking.
"Alright, Karen. What are you able to tell me about Peter's plans?"
"I am unable to reveal more."
"Okay, then. Is Peter there? Patch me through."
"Peter has left a message saying he does not want to talk to the FBI agent in his computer."
"Who?"
"You mean, whomst?"
Tony forced himself to breathe in through his nose and exhale out his mouth. He shouldn't be angry at Karen. It's not her fault.
"This kid is messing with me. Friday? Anything?"
"Scan negative, boss. Speech drive is clean. But there is a coding in Karen's systems that is dissimilar to yours."
Tony cursed under his breath. "It's that Ned kid, isn't it. Tell me it's him." He focused on the computer screen and Tony told himself it's not at all weird he's getting frustrated at a spectrogram.
"Did that Ned kid do something to you again?"
"Don't be salty, Mr. Stark. Peter only wanted me to be extra and Ned has no ragrets in updating my vocabulary."
Tony dropped his face to his palm. "Friday, scan and analyze speech patterns. Is it slang? Is it… what is it?"
He stood up. Maybe he'll be less tense if he paced. "Okay, Karen, we gotta have a serious talk. Creator to creation. I'm gonna be completely honest. This is all confusing to me."
"That was a big mood to me as well prior to my dictionary upgrades. But now, I can say that you are shookt, Mr. Stark."
Tony grimaced. "Oookay." He started running a list of weird words Karen's revealed to him: salty, ragrets, wig and now shookt… Tony shookt—SHOOK—his head. There was no pattern here. It's just a jumble of nonsense and grammatically incorrect words.
Is that how teenagers speak nowadays?
"Boss, I have the words with their corresponding meanings," stated Friday.
Relief blossomed in Tony's chest. "Thanks, Fri. Bring it here."
The list popped up on a separate screen.
And there it was.
Wig.
Yeet.
FBI agent.
Whomst.
Tony quickly scanned them all, his forehead creasing at the definitions. In hindsight, he should have understood that salty one.
But even with these new vocabulary, Tony was still getting nowhere near to the issue at hand.
"Look, Karen." Tony planted his hands on his computer desk, head bowed, chin to his chest. "I'm just worried. Peter's never great at keeping secrets and the letter was addressed to me, so it has to be something about his scholarship. Did he lose it? Are his grades slipping? I can't have him way over his head like the last time, Karen. That sent my blood pressure up having to discipline him and putting my foot down. I don't like being bad cop."
"Oh, Mr. Stark. Peter is going to be pleased to find out you're actually soft."
"Sof—what does—does that mean what I think it does?" Tony waited for the word to appear on the list. He scowled at the confirmation. "I'm not soft! Okay, maybe sometimes I am in certain situations, but I'm Iron Man! I'm mostly hard! Hard!"
"Tony?"
Tony turned around to find Pepper giving him a judging look from the doorway of the workshop.
"Are you…?" She cringed, hesitant to even say it. "Are you and Karen…?"
Tony's eyes widened at what she was implying. "God, no! Pep, honey, I'm not hard in that way. I would never have sex with an AI especially not Peter's! I mean, that'd be pretty cool if we're actually able to—what? Robot sex could replace prostitution!"
Pepper gave him another look, two sharp brows knit together, judging him.
And then Karen piped up, "Sex is great and all that, but have you ever tried DelMar's, Mr. Stark?"
Pepper turned to the computer behind Tony and shook her head, hands raised. "I'm… this is weird. I'll be upstairs."
She left without another word and Tony glared at the spectrogram. "I'm—that was my fiancée—why would you—"
"This is so sad. Alexa, play Lonely."
"You don't even need Alexa! You're a freaking—You know what, I'm not doing this with you."
A/N: Tony needs to get those memes away from Peter.