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Peter didn’t have a lot of friends. He wasn’t what most kids and parents would consider normal. For one, he still liked LEGOs even now that he was seven years old. Not that he minded.
He used to have many friends, but they turned out to be bullies so Peter decided that he didn't want to be friends with them anymore. He'd rather he had one or two good friends or none at all instead of a lot of toxic ones.
As a kid, Peter knew that he was a genius. Not to toot his own horn or anything but most things came easy to him. He didn’t really have to study for his exams, instead he preferred to study more interesting topics, like glowing plants. They were just so interesting.
One of the things that came easy to him was learning languages. It was simple to Peter. They all had meanings and rules. There was a logic to languages that made it easier for him to understand him.
Naturally, when he found out that his first and only friend, Ned, was Filipino, Peter decided to learn his first language.
Filipino wasn't actually the only language of the Philippines which made learning it more interesting. It was an amalgamation of so many different cultures that it was so unique. It had influences from the Spanish, Chinese and even American languages and there were over a thousand different dialects too!
Peter liked it.
Personally, Peter liked it because of one of its most defining characteristics: it's gender-neutrality. Unlike most languages, Filipino had gender neutral pronouns which, to Peter, was revolutionary! It intrigued him so much that he looked it up online and found that, to his surprise, the Philippines was originally accepting of same-sex relationships before they were colonized by the Spanish and Americans.
When he found out about this, Peter, for the first time since his parents died, cried. Over the past few months, Peter found that he liked boys and girls.
At first, he wasn't quite sure about it. There was a new kid around the block that he liked a lot. Honestly, he wanted to marry him. But, he also found that he also liked that one girl in recess that gave him a cookie.
When he realized it, he didn’t quite understand what it meant yet but he felt that it wasn't normal for him. By that time, he wasn't really exposed to supportive LGBT environments yet, though he knew of the existence of the LGBT community vaguely.
So, learning that there was a language out there that spoke in gender-neutral terms made Peter really happy. In Filipino, there was no word for husband or wife, only asawa, which applied to both. It didn’t have he/him and she/her pronouns, instead it had siya which was applicable to everyone since it translated to they/them pronouns.
He liked it.
By the end of that summer, Peter was fluent in the language.
This kickstarted his hobby of learning languages. All of them were unique and had different ways of speaking that it fascinated him enough to capture his attention for months at a time.
Over the years, he became fluent in over ten languages and was able to get by in a few others.
He learnt Korean so that he could talk with the new transfer kid, Italian for May, Sign Language for his Deaf neighbor, Spanish and Chinese for class, morse for his spy obsession phase, Russian for Bucky and binary for his coding.
He never explicitly told anyone though. Some knew that he could speak multiple languages like May who liked to talk in a mix of Spanish, Italian and English when she got tired after a long day of work or Mr. Delmar who he talked to regularly. Usually they only knew that he could speak in 2 or 3 languages.
He never minded, though.
Peter Parker was a lowkey kid. He never liked attention, never strayed too far from the sidewalk, never did anything that was too flashy.
Obviously, he's been having a bit of trouble staying lowkey in the recent weeks as he had a job as Tony's personal intern and a part-time career as Spider-man.
Still, it surprised everyone when Peter, on a gala with different representatives of the other fortune 500 businesses, was able to properly communicate with other influential people from all over the world, all while speaking different languages.
He was able to converse with so many influential figures from other countries that was invited here that they even started talks about partnering with Stark Industries!
Currently, Peter was happily talking with T’challa and one of the top business moguls of Asia, Tang Jiakai, who made bank from investing in revolutionary research on viruses and other medical diseases. His company became one of the leading providers of vaccines and other pharmaceutical related products, amassing over 41 billion dollars in revenue.
Tang Jiakai was a smart man; a genius if you wanted to really get down to it. He could probably tell that Peter was Stark Industries’ heir.
Unlike most businessmen, he didn’t like cooperating with Stark Industries because he didn’t think that Tony could have a worthy successor and SI would fall in the years after Tony’s death.
He wasn’t quiet about his opinion either. Though they weren’t business partners, he and Tony got along well and would often talk with drinks in hand when their schedules coincided.
That’s why, Tony was surprised when Tang Jiakai later approached him as he was resting on one of the many seats around the party to propose a partnership. It seemed he approved of Peter as SI’s heir and decided that a partnership was worthwhile.
Figures. Peter Parker was Tony’s pride, after all. Though not his biological son, Tony couldn’t help but look at Peter as if he was his own child. Of course, Peter would impress one of the most fearsome businessmen.
Honestly, when he first decided to bring Peter, Tony thought that he would have to show him around and do the heavy lifting for the night but, to his surprise, all he could do, while Peter went around mingling, was sit still and look pretty.
Not that he minded.
Being able to see his kid flourish in every possible thing he did made Tony unbelievably happy.
If you told his past selves that he would have a kid as outstanding as Peter Parker, he would probably scoff and down the next shot of tequila.
But he isn't.
He's Tony Stark, 48 years old, and he has a kid. A genius, brilliant, outstanding kid.
Honestly.
Tony couldn’t wait to see what his kid would bring to the table in the future.
Without a doubt, Peter Parker would blow everyone away.