Nat sighed as she marked another question as incorrect on Wanda's math quiz.
Her daughter was smart, incredibly so in her perhaps biased opinion and especially coming back from such a deficit in her education. She breezed through reading just about anything these days, she took to picking up languages like a fish to water, she did well enough in sciences with Vision and she adored her history lessons with Steve. Mathematics continued to elude her thought, much to the teenager's chagrin. Natasha could not figure out the disconnect in her understanding; neither could Vision or the rest of the team as they tried to help her figure it out.
"Red." Tony greeted her with a small salute as he sauntered into the kitchen where Natasha had posted herself to do her grading. Pepper had meetings with Maria that day and Tony had tagged along to check in on the labs, which apparently translated to him eating their snacks as the man started rifling through the refrigerator. "Where's Little Red?"
"Somewhere with Steve I think." Natasha said distractedly then in her head thinking, hiding from me and her math test. As an afterthought she added, "Do you know how to teach a 15-year-old math?"
Tony had pulled out a yogurt and a carton of blueberries and set them on the counter, "Do we really want to go down that road?"
"No." She said with a humorless laugh, "But I'm running out of options."
"That bad, huh?"
"It's not that bad. I just hate seeing Wanda so discouraged." The Widow sighed again, making her final red slash on the paper.
"Huh." Tony looked contemplative for a moment before going on, "Maybe you could try a math tutor."
Natasha looked at him dubiously, "A math tutor?"
"Someone her age might be able to help her understand better. And I happen to know a kid." Tony dropped some of the berries into his yogurt.
She became even more dubious, "You know a kid?"
"Yeah, I saw you with your little protégé and I thought I wanted one too-"
"Tony, you can't just go pulling children into this." The spy interrupted him, her anger rising sharply. "It's dangerous and irresponsible-"
Iron Man held up his hands defensively, "Slow down Mama Bear. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have messed around like that. Just let me explain, okay?"
"Alright," Nat took in a steadying breath and exhaled. "Explain."
"He's 16. The kid got these powers from a spider bite of all things. I won't go into the whole story- I can send you the file. But he was running around Queens in his pajamas and swim goggles taking down purse snatchers. So I brought him in, gave him an internship at Stark Industries. He's actually a genius, you should see this webbing he invented."
"Webbing?" She raised an eyebrow.
"I'll admit he's leaning pretty hard into the spider gimmick, but he's got heart." Tony dropped his voice a little, revealing more sincerity, "Look, his parents died in a car accident when he was a kid. His Uncle Ben was killed in a mugging a couple of years back. He lives with his Aunt May who is a good woman, but she's got to work to support them. He got these powers completely by chance and needs some guidance.. I'm trying to keep him out of the fight until he's ready, you know?"
Natasha listened and felt her heart softening for her friend and this mystery boy. She did know. Even though they had not been aware of Wanda's age at the time, it still made her sick to her stomach thinking about her daughter only 14 years old then fighting alongside the Avengers in the battle against Ultron. And while she loved seeing Wanda growing stronger in her training with her magic and fighting skills, her movements and speed matching Natasha's more and more each day, a part of her wished that the girl would never see battle ever again. She wished the little witch wanted to be a teacher or an artist or a surgeon or hell, a spoiled, trust-fund kid if it meant she would not be put in harm's way. That was not who Wanda was though, and she could not stop her from going into the family business as it were, however she could make sure she was as prepared as humanly possible.
She gently conceded to him, "Alright.. I'm sorry I jumped to conclusions, I just don't want to see anyone get hurt. I know you're a good man, Tony."
"Aw shucks." He grinned at her.
The agent gave him a half-hearted glare, "Don't ruin this."
"Okay, okay.. And I can talk to him about the tutoring if you want. The jet ride is only 30 minutes, I can bring him by after school one day." The billionaire suggested.
She considered his proposal. It was not the worst idea that someone closer to Wanda's age might be able to help her understand the subject better. And the mother liked that this could lead to a friendship for the teenager; a friendship that was not with an adult or synthezoid. "I'll talk to Wanda, you talk to your kid, and if they agree we'll make a plan."
"Great, I'll set it up. This is going to work out, I can tell." Tony clapped his hands together with a little excitement.
The Widow thought about trying to tamper his enthusiasm. They would only arrange the tutoring if Wanda felt comfortable with it, but she just fondly rolled her eyes at him, "What's his name?"
"Hm?" The man made the inquiring sound around a spoonful of yogurt.
"The spider boy, what's his name?"
"Oh, Peter. Peter Parker."
/
Wanda had begun to regret agreeing to this as she followed her mother to the library where they were going to meet Mr. Stark and a boy named Peter who would be tutoring her in math. At first she had adamantly she said no. The Sokovian did not have good experiences with her age group, and she loathed math, so combining those two things was an immediate rejection for her. However, her mother talked and coaxed, telling her it could be good for her and to give it a try, promising that if she did not like it she would not have to do it again. Finally she consented to the arrangement, though now she stopped short in the corridor. Natasha noticed and stopped with her, placing her hand tenderly on the girl's upper arm, "What is it, malyshka?"
"I don't know if I want to go." She gazed up worriedly at her mama.
"Okay.." Natasha said evenly. "Let's take a minute. Why don't you want to go?"
"I- I'm nervous."
"Nervous or scared?" The older woman gently pressed.
"..Nervous." Wanda decided after a moment.
"Okay, good. It's alright to be nervous. Remember what I've said, I wouldn't ask you to do anything that wasn't safe." Tasha spoke encouragingly, her other hand coming up to cup her cheek.
"I know." Wanda moved forward to hug her mother, burrowing into her face into the crook of her neck. Nat held her tightly for a moment, then offered, "If you really don't want to do this, you can head back to your room, and I'll go talk to Tony. But I think it would be good for you to at least try."
Another moment passed then she breathed in deeply, "Okay."
"Okay?"
"I'm ready."
Mama kissed her forehead and then extracted from her, giving her an encouraging smile, "Okay, let's get in there."
They finished the short walk down the hall and Natasha let them into the library. Tony and Peter were already there standing by one of the desks when they entered. The pair sort of jumped to attention at their appearance.
"Ladies, glad you could make it." Stark started them off, "This is Peter Parker. Peter, this is Natasha Romanoff, our resident Black Widow, and Wanda Maximoff, our resident math student."
"Hi, nice to meet you-" The boy eagerly came toward them with his hand extended, but as he got close he suddenly halted and took a step back as Wanda did the same. The teenagers were mirror images of each other as they grabbed their heads and gasped. Natasha put a hand on her shoulder with concern and may have asked if she was all right, but Wanda could not really hear her. When Peter had come near, Wanda had felt a strange shiver, like a small alarm echoing all over her body that was not necessarily frightening but unfamiliar. The feeling faded in her and it must have faded for him as well as he gawked at her, "Whoa, what are you?"
Wanda shrank back a little at his question and Nat pulled her closer to her. Glaring at them fiercely, though mostly at Mr. Stark, the woman barked defensively, "What the hell, Tony?"
"Hey Parker, pro-tip from me to you. When you meet a girl, don't ask what they are." The man lightly smacked the back of his head.
"Sorry, sorry." Peter rushed to explain, "It's this spidey-sense I have. I'd just never felt anything like that before."
"Ah, yes. I forgot about his spider tingle. And little witch has her empath thing. Seems like they just had a little psychic feedback." Tony put it together for them. "Everybody good?"
Nat waited to Wanda to nod, then she did as well. Peter on the other hand complained in embarrassment, "Please don't call it a tingle, Mr. Stark."
"Sure, kid." He said dismissively and tried to push passed the hiccup, "Shall we leave them to it?"
Now her mother seemed reluctant to leave her there after their rocky introduction, asking Wanda, "You're okay?"
Peter babbled an apology, "Sorry, Mrs.. Agent, ah, I mean Black Widow- Ms. Widow. It's all under control now. I promise."
"I'm okay." Wanda confirmed and took a step towards the boy.
Nat let her hand drop from her shoulder as she moved away, "Alright, we'll be back in about an hour and a half. If you need anything, have FRIDAY call for me."
The adult Avengers left, and Wanda went to sit at the desk where her math book was already sitting out. Peter took the seat across from her and continued his apologies, "I am sorry about before. I didn't mean anything bad by it, it just took me by surprise."
"It's okay.. I understand. I don't always have control of my powers either." And it was the truth. Her lips pulled back in a slight, reassuring smile. Peter had not been what she was expecting when her mother told her Tony Stark had found her a math tutor. She thought he would be like a younger version of the eccentric billionaire- sarcastic and a little evasive and very full of himself. Instead she found this boy with wavy, brown hair and an earnest smile who seemed a little awkward, mostly kind, and maybe just as nervous as she was.
"Cool." He gave her a relieved grin. "Do you want to show me the math you're working on?"
Wanda flipped open to the page she and Natasha were last working on for him to look over. He bobbed his head along as he read, "Got it. How about you do the practice questions so I can see what you need help on."
She hesitated for a few brief seconds before flipping open her notebook to transcribe the questions and try to divine the answers on a new blank page the way Natasha had shown her to do. He waited patiently, taking out his own much more advanced looking homework to do while she worked. When she finished, Wanda pushed the notebook toward with the tips of her ears burning pink. She quietly said, "Here."
Peter easily shifted his attention to her page, and quickly scanned it over, "Okay, I think I see the problem.. you've got the order of operations wrong, but you're not as far off as you think you are."
Wanda stayed silent, feeling uncomfortable, but Peter did not appear to notice, or at least was polite enough not to pry as he continued, "You just have to remember 'Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally.'"
"What?" The Sokovian wrinkled her nose in confusion.
"Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally." He reiterated like with would mean something to her the second time he said it. When her perplexed expression persisted, the boy went on to clarify, "It's a mnemonic device that helps you remember the order. Here I'll show you."
He ripped out the page she had been working on and on the fresh sheet he wrote out the random sentence then from the first letter of each word he wrote down the steps she needed to follow. "See?" -Peter showed her the page- "Parenthesis, exponents, multiply or divide, and add or subtract."
She looked it over with careful consideration, "Okay.. that makes sense."
"Oh! And we can even color coordinate it." He began digging in his backpack and pulling out different colored highlighters. Wanda observed as Peter highlighted the letters making the 'P' pink, the 'E' orange, the 'M' and 'D' yellow and the 'A' and 'S' green, he pushed the notebook back over to her enthusiastically, "Let's go through a few problems together. We'll reuse the ones you just did."
Wanda rewrote the problems out beneath Peter's strange notations. Before she began solving them, the boy had her highlight each part with the corresponding color he had assigned to it, so she could better see what she needed to do. Then the little witch worked through it, with him offering assistance as she went when she needed it or answering a question if she had one. Steadily, Peter withdrew his help and after she had done a few on her own he checked over her work again. He grinned at her brightly, "These are all correct, except this one, but it's because you accidentally dropped the negative sign here."
He pointed out the error, however Wanda was more focused on the first part of his statement, "They're all correct?"
"Yeah," He held out his fist for her to bump like Sam sometimes did. "Hashtag nailed it!"
The girl gave him a slow smile and dutifully knocked her fist into his, "Hashtag?"
"You know, hashtag." Peter said as if that would clarify the unfamiliar word to her. "Like when you send a tweet or make a post on Instagram, and you add a hashtag."
Wanda shook her head, still not understanding. Undeterred, the boy took out his cell phone and opened up an app. Leaning over the desk so she could see the screen as well, Peter scrolled through and showed her boxes of text, "Like my friend Ned tweeted this, Ran out of milk and ran into the wall #Mondays. You can use them to make your post searchable, but a lot of times people just use them to make a joke."
"Okay.. so what is the point of saying it aloud?" She raised an eyebrow.
"Well, I suppose there's no point. It's just like slang now." Peter shrugged and went on a bit dubiously, "Have you really never used one before?"
"I don't have social media."
"No Twitter? Instagram? Facebook?!" He asked shocked.
She indicated no to all of it and admitted, "I don't think I'm allowed to have them."
And the little witch was not terribly interested in pursuing the pastime. Besides not understanding the technology, it would really be dangerous for her to be posting her personal life on the internet. The boy nodded, "That makes sense.. What about YouTube? You don't need an account to enjoy the wonders of YouTube."
"I've not heard of it." Wanda felt her cheeks blush slightly at her naivety, but Peter appeared thrilled to illuminate her.
"It's great. You can watch anything on here." The teenager opened a new app on his phone, this one showing displaying videos. "Like what's something you're interested in?"
"Um.. I like sharks." The girl cringed internally, not sure if that would be a normal answer, fortunately though Peter did not bat an eye.
"Okay, cool." Typing the words sharks into the search bar and the screen changed to videos of sharks. "You can watch nature documentaries, or some people just upload their encounters when scuba diving. Like this one."
The boy tapped a video and it started to play, showing some amateur footage of a couple in wetsuits and diving gear in the middle of a school of small sharks. Wanda wondered what it would be like to be under the water with them, "Wow."
"Pretty cool, right? And it will give you suggestions based on what you've already watched. Here." He scrolled down to show her related videos, stopping at one with a laugh, "Oh man, you have to watch this one. The left shark is hilarious."
Peter opened the new video and this time it played a pretty woman singing a pop song with a couple of people dressed in shark costumes dancing on stage with her. The singer sounded okay, but the real star of the video seemed to be the shark on the left, clearly dancing off beat but with a lot of passion which escaladed as the performance continued. Peter laughed and Wanda giggled with only a touch of uncertainty. She did not quite understand the purpose but had to agree, the video was funny.
"Youths these days. Always on their phones." Tony glibly announced the adults return as the teenagers turned quickly to see him and Natasha entering the room.
"Mr. Stark, Mrs. Roman- er, Agent Widow," Peter was once again unable to land on an appropriate name to call Nat as he hurried to explain like they had been caught doing something wrong, "We had just finished up and Wanda likes sharks, so I was just showing her-"
"A Katy Perry music video?" Stark raised his brow.
"Yeah." When he said the word, it sounded like he was deflating.
Natasha had a blank expression, but Wanda could tell she was amused by the boy by the nearly imperceptible lift in the right corner of her mouth. Slightly coming to his rescue, her mother changed the subject as she asked Wanda, "How'd it go?"
"Good.. Peter helped." The little witch informed her.
"Good." The Widow nodded with approval then told her gently. "It's time for training now. Go ahead and pack up then get changed into your workout gear."
Wanda nodded and stood, gathering her math things back up into a neat pile, while Peter stood as well and put his things away into his backpack. As Natasha and Tony started a conversation about Pepper wanting to arrange dinner sometime with her and Steve, Peter half-whispered to Wanda, "Hey, ah, Wanda?"
"Yeah?"
"What do you call Agent Romanoff?"
The girl blinked at his question, "Call her?"
"Yeah, what name do you call her?"
"Oh, I call her Mama." Wanda said matter-of-factly, not really sure why he was inquiring.
His eyes widened, "She's your mom?"
"Well, adoptive but yes." Before the conversation could go any further, Natasha called to her.
"Come on, sweetheart. Vision is already waiting downstairs for your flying lessons." The little witch immediately moved towards her and the exit.
"Mama, can we go scuba diving?" She idly asked, more wondering if it was possible to as opposed to actually asking to go at least for the moment.
"I'd have to look into it, but I don't see why not, milaya." Her mother replied.
Satisfied with the answer, Wanda asked the next thing on her mind, "Can we get highlighters?"
"Sure, I'll have FRIDAY put it on the shopping list."
"We're just going to breeze right by that?" Iron Man questioned. "She went from scuba diving to highlighters in two seconds flat."
Nat wrapped her arm around Wanda's shoulder and began walking out with her, unperturbed by the wildly different topics, "Don't worry, Tony, when you have a kid of your own one day you'll understand.. And Peter?"
"Yes. Ma'am?" Everyone winced at that title.
She smiled at him, "You can call me Natasha. Or Nat."
Tony gave a short laugh, "Goodluck with that. I kind of like Ms. Widow personally."
/
Author's Note:
Oh silly Peter Parker :) Hope you enjoyed! Love to hear your thoughts! Thanks for reading!