Peter Parker... Stark?

Add to the Family

"Peter? Can you come in here please?"

Peter took his earbuds out and hurried into the kitchen. "Yeah mom?"

Tony and Pepper were sitting at the table waiting for him. Pepper gestured at the empty seat behind her and Peter quickly sat down.

"Did I do something wrong?"

"No!" she assured him. "We just... need to talk to you about something."

"Okay," Peter said slowly, looking back and forth from one parent to the other. "What might that something be?"

Tony shifted in his seat and cleared his throat before speaking up. "Well, since school let out last month and we've had the opportunity to spend more time with you, we've been thinking..." He turned and looked at Pepper.

"This is something we talked about before you came along. We were wondering if you would be okay if we adopted someone. If you had a sibling." Tony was squeezing Pepper's hand reassuringly as they both stared at Peter expectantly.

Peter blinked in surprise. "Wait, you want to adopt again? That's great!" he said.

"Really?" Tony asked, leaning closer to Peter, "You're not just saying that to make us happy?"

"No, no," Peter said, "I always wanted a sibling growing up!"

"Okay!" Pepper breathed excitedly. "We just--you live here too, and we wanted to make sure you were okay with it before we started looking."

"So like, how old are you thinking?"

Tony leaned back in his chair with a sigh. "We've talked about it, and we're kind of thinking another teenager around the house wouldn't be a bad thing."

Peter raised his eyebrows. "Usually people don't even consider teenagers."

"Yeah, well, you're a teenager, aren't you?"

"Yeah, but--" Peter stammered, at a loss for words.

"We need more sassy mini-me's running around," Tony said with a smirk.

Pepper smacked his arm lightly with the back of her hand. "That's not the reason, Tony!" He held up his hands in surrender and waited until she'd looked away before winking at Peter.

"We thought you might like someone closer to your age," Pepper continued, rolling her eyes at Tony's antics.

"Yeah, okay," Peter agreed. "So... when did you want to do this, exactly?"

"We were going to start looking tomorrow, if that's alright," Pepper said. "Would you like to come?"

Peter smiled. "Sure! As long as we get ice cream while we're at it."

"You read my mind," Tony said.

~~~

"No, that piece doesn't go there. It goes up here."

"I've got the instructions right in front of me, Peter. I can build Legos, too, jerk."

"Hey! That's just mean!"

"You were asking for it." Morgan said with a grin.

"That's it!" Peter exclaimed, lunging over the piles of Lego and tackling her to the ground. His fingers found her ticklish spot in seconds, and before long she was laughing so hard she could barely breathe.

"Not...fair!" she managed to wheeze.

"You were asking for it!" Peter retorted with a triumphant smile as he let her go.