Work Text:
It was a typical Thursday in third period English when Peter's “spidey-sense” went off, a gentle tingling sensation on the back of his neck. Peter sighed quietly to himself, lifting his pencil from the outline of a creative writing assignment that was due in a few days. His spidey-sense went off in school fairly often, typically alerting him to an incoming nudge from Ned, a crumpled piece of paper thrown at him by Flash, or even an incoming dodgeball during gym class. The relatively calm way his sense was trying to notify him of an incoming disaster told him that it wasn't truly a catastrophe awaiting him, but most likely a minor annoyance.
Peter looked up from his paper, scanning the classroom. The majority of his peers were bent over their own papers, writing utensils scribbling away as they jotted down their ideas. A few students were also glancing around the room, likely for a change of scenery from their work. He caught MJ's eye and sent a small smile her way, which she vaguely returned before resuming her stare out of the window. His spidey sense continued to prickle the back of his neck, growing slightly more intense before stopping as suddenly as it began.
Useless superpower, Peter internally grumbled. He returned his attention to his outline when a faint, rhythmic buzzing noise caught his ear. It sounded not unlike a cell phone -
Oh. His phone was ringing.
Peter huffed but resolved himself to ignoring it. Somehow, his super high tech phone, crafted and coded by Tony Stark himself, continued to receive spam calls. Neither Tony nor Peter could figure out why so many robotic people wanted to talk to him about his car's extended warranty, but it was an endless source of irritation for the two geniuses that they had not yet come up with a solution for blocking the calls.
“Some things just defy logic, kid,” Tony had said, shrugging, after Peter had complained about the third call in a day. “We'll work on it some other time.”
The buzzing eventually stopped and Peter continued his English assignment. If he was able to get the outline done today, he'd have more time to patrol tonight and more lab time this weekend with Tony. The thought filled him with warmth and he smiled to himself, taking a pause from his paperwork to daydream about what he might do with his mentor-slash-father-figure. After everything that happened with Titan and Thanos and the snap – Peter and Tony had grown much closer. He spent nearly every weekend with the Stark family at their lake house or at the rebuilt Avengers compound, working on various inventions with Tony, Bruce, or just creating whatever he felt like making. Aunt May had given her blessing, noticing how the time spent with Tony helped both of them manage their trauma related to the “Endgame Incident.” It helped that Peter's absence from the apartment meant she had more time with Happy (Peter shuddered at the thought of what they got up to when he was not around) as well as the ability to take extra work at the hospital without worrying about her vigilante nephew going unsupervised. After all, said nephew had a track record of bad luck that generally ended in an injury.
Peter shook his head slightly to draw himself out of his fantasy. He had an idea for a drone to aid in first responder situations that he wanted to prototype with Tony this weekend -
The buzzing had started again. It was significantly louder, as if trying to get him in trouble. The kids immediately near him all shot him a look. Ned, who was on his left, raised an eyebrow and mouthed “Car warranty again?”
Peter shrugged and continued to ignore the vibrations of his phone. If he shifted just the right way, perhaps the phone in his pocket wouldn't be making as much contact with the plastic seat and thus would be quieter. He adjusted and true to his hypothesis, the “vrrrt vrrrt” sounds were more muffled.
The damage had been done, however, as his teacher looked up from her computer where she had been typing to squint at her class suspiciously. “Is someone's phone ringing?” Ms. Nguyen asked.
No one answered, staring back with wide, innocent eyes. Peter's luck seemed to hold as his phone stopped ringing right at that moment. The teacher gave the class a stern frown before continuing to type away.
Peter let out a breath he had been holding, refocusing on his paper. He was developing a short story that he wanted to be able to share with Morgan. The littlest Stark was at the age where she found Peter to be the most fascinating person ever, which meant that he had gotten quite adept at entertaining her. Pepper had apologized after the first time that Morgan had usurped his weekend at the lake house, meaning he and Tony had spent limited time working together, but Peter had laughed it off.
“I like spending time with her,” he'd said. “I never had any siblings growing up. This is actually really nice.”
Pepper had smiled at him, a soft, motherly expression on her face as she watched Morgan hanging on Peter's every word. “You're a great big brother,” she'd said in response, smile getting wider as he blushed and stammered a thank you. He and Morgan had a routine now, where he'd tell her a story each night at bedtime -
His phone was ringing again. This time the vibrations were so intense they could be heard despite the phone having no contact with any hard surface. Peter clenched his fist around his pencil, hoping that Ms. Nguyen couldn't hear it, but of course she could.
“Whose phone is that?” she demanded. “You aren't in trouble, but please silence your phone now. All the way silenced, don't leave it on vibration mode.”
“Sorry Ms. Nguyen,” Peter said, pulling his still buzzing phone from his pocket. “I've been getting a lot of spam calls lately, and I was hoping that ignoring them would be enough, but I guess this phone has a feature on it where the vibrations get stronger if there's repeated calls from a number? Sorry,” he repeated. He pressed the lock button hard, sending the call to voicemail without looking at the number on the screen, then pressed on the volume down button to send the phone into total silence.
His teacher nodded her head, accepting his explanation. “Thank you for your honesty, Mr. Parker. However, if it rings again, I will ask that you bring it here and I will hold on to it until the end of the period, per the school's policy.”
Peter grimaced but nodded in return, shoving the phone back into his pocket. “Right. Sorry again,” he said. While Ms. Nguyen didn't smile, her face did lighten up a little and she focused back on her laptop. A few of his classmates were smirking at his misfortune, but not in a cruel way – it was just funny when someone's phone went off in class.
Silence reigned for a moment. Peter idly wondered what language the robocall would be in when he listened to the voicemails later. The most recent one had been in Spanish, oddly enough, which was somewhat cool because he had fully understood what she was saying. Spanish class was paying off.
“Peter,” a smooth female voice said from his pants. “Mr. Stark has been trying to contact you. He is activating the 'IronDad Protocol' to override your phone's silent setting.”
The whole class had startled when Karen started talking to him, and now everyone was staring at him. Ned looked like he couldn't decide if he should laugh or commiserate with the horrified expression on Peter's face as the enhanced teen frantically tried to stop the communication from coming through.
“No, Karen! Decline, override protocol! I'm in class!” He pulled the phone from his pocket, only now seeing the three missed calls from Tony Stark, and desperately mashed the buttons on the side of the phone in an attempt to keep from being utterly humiliated.
“Mr. Parker, please bring your phone up here - ” Ms. Nguyen started, but Karen interrupted her.
“Sorry, Peter, but you cannot override this protocol. Accepting video call from Mr. Stark.”
“Pete!” Tony's holographic form projected itself from the phone in Peter's palm. There were a few gasps as people recognized the (in)famous billionaire and savior of the known universe, who had a slightly manic expression on his face. “Pete Pete Pete, my Underoos, my favorite eldest child, why are you rejecting my calls and more importantly why are you not here?”
“Mr. Stark!” Peter groaned. “I'm in English class. You're on speaker.”
“Oh.” Tony's manic expression faded, only to be replaced by a pout. “Hey, we talked about the 'Mr. Stark' thing, like, months ago. C'mon kid, why you gotta break your old man's heart like that?”
“Oh my god,” Peter muttered, putting the phone on his desk so he could hide his face in his hands. It also helped to block out the view of his class, most of whom seemed shellshocked. Even Ms. Nguyen. “How is that the only thing you heard out of what I said?”
“I heard everything you said kiddo. I'm choosing to ignore some of it.” When Peter didn't respond, Tony continued on instead. “Why are you in English class on a Friday afternoon?”
“What are you talking about?” Peter peered through his fingers at the hologram Tony, who now seemed genuinely perplexed. “It's Thursday morning. Like ten-thirty.”
“No, that can't be right,” Tony responded after a beat of silence, his brow furrowed. “Pepper's out of town and I made Morgan lunch hours ago. FRIDAY, what time is it?”
“It is currently ten twenty seven A.M. on Thursday, February 29, 2024,” FRIDAY's voice replied, slightly muffled since it was coming from a speaker on Tony's side of the connection.
“Told you so,” Peter said sulkily, lowering his hands from his face. “I need to get back to class, Mr. Stark.”
“Well shit,” Tony exclaimed, once again ignoring Peter. “I made Morgan mac and cheese for lunch but I guess that was her breakfast. Not that she was complaining about it, little missy could eat her weight in pasta if I let her. Anyways, sorry Pete! I thought that today was tomorrow and you would have been here already! You are coming to the house tomorrow right?” Tony narrowed his eyes at Peter, as if daring him to say no.
“I dunno Mr. Stank, you're pretty much ruining my life right now. Maybe I'll stay with May this weekend as revenge,” Peter snarked in return. He heard a few classmates give a nervous giggle, like they couldn't imagine being so rude to someone so famous.
The hologram of Tony rolled his eyes. “Please kid, you're terrible at being dramatic. Leave that to me. Besides, you know Morgan would enlist Nat and Strange to guilt you into coming up anyways.”
There was a sudden uptick in sounds from Peter's peers at the mention of Avengers. He found that he didn't care as much as he thought he would. The familiar ease of bantering with Tony soothed away his anxiety over his connections being revealed.
“And...” Tony hesitated, but seemed to come to a decision and kept talking, “and I also really need to see you too. I don't want to embarrass you too much - ”
“Too late,” Peter murmured under his breath.
“ - but you know how it is. Wanna make sure you're okay and everything. That, you know, you're real and not still dusty. Cause I gotta admit kid, when you didn't answer, I kinda went to a bad place and I know I shouldn't cause it's been months but, you know. Yeah.” Tony sounded sheepish, very unlike his usual confident self.
“Oh,” Peter said, suddenly blinking hard against the feeling of tears. Tony's manic face at the beginning of the call now made sense. They both often struggled with panic if the other couldn't be reached, and he felt guilty for being so sarcastic. “Oh. Yeah, I know. I know. Sorry, dad. I'm here. We're good. I'll be by later tonight okay? I don't have school tomorrow. May said I could come up early.”
Tony's face relaxed entirely and he grinned. “There's my Petey-pie. I'd ask what you want for dinner but you know Morgan is going to ask for cheeseburgers and they're my favorite so I gotta go with that. Sorry for interrupting your class – Ms. Nguyen is it?”
Peter's teacher jumped, not expecting to be called on. She'd been silent since Karen cut her off earlier, watching the situation unfold with as much awe as her students. “Er, yes?”
“Sorry about the interruption!” Tony called cheerfully. “I was worried, I'm sure you know how helicopter parents can be.” He chuckled at his own little joke and Peter mock-groaned in response. “I'll let you get back to work! Keep enriching those minds and such. Work hard Underoos, Morgan says she loves you 3001, and I'll ask Sam to get you from school today. See you tonight!”
“Bye, dad. Love you,” Peter said quietly, and Tony's face became soft.
“Bye, kiddo. Love you too.”
The call ended. There was a moment of stillness in the room, before an explosion of sound came from the people around him.
“Did Tony Stark seriously just call you?”
“Why is your nickname Underoos?”
“I can't believe Tony Stark knows my name...”
“Did you just call him dad?”
“Are you Tony Stark's secret kid or something?”
“What the actual shit just happened?”
Peter just picked up his pencil and kept working on the outline. Morgan's next bedtime story wouldn't write itself after all, and he had a weekend of family bonding to look forward to.