Peter Parker never understood how he managed to get himself into such unusual situations. First with Oscorp and the spider bite, then with Ironman sitting on his couch after Academic Decathlon and somehow, his school gets a truly convenient field trip to his house. He didn't understand it, and he wasn't sure he wanted to. What he did understand, however, was that he had just walked into an another unusual situation.
While it wasn't unusual for the some of the Avengers to be found in the common room at one time, normally eating, it was unusual to see all of them, sitting and just talking. With not a single smidge of food to be found. He wasn't quite yet sure if he wanted to find out what they were doing or to just quietly creep back out of the room.
Damn his curiosity.
"I know more of them than you!" Clint said to Natasha, while she rose her eyebrows with incredulity.
"Well, I know more obscure ones," Bruce interjected, trying to defuse the tension forming between the two assassins.
That just made Peter more intrigued. Curiosity killed the cat, half mind told him unhelpfully, but satisfaction brought it back, overrode the other half. Shaking his head minutely to clear away his thoughts, he took the leap of faith.
"What have I just walked into?"
"Hey Underoos, well, Legolas and Natasha were arguing about how many languages they both know, then Bucky got involved, then so did Bruce, Spangles added his two cents, and well, you know, I just like to watch the drama," Tony explained, looking over at the SHIELD agents with poorly concealed amusement, "So far, Natasha is winning with 12 languages fluently, Clint's at 10 despite how much he's arguing, Bucky has 8 under his belt, I know three, Bruce knows about five but badly, and somehow, Capsicle knows 3! How? No idea, he lived through the war, not sure when he had the time to pop out a textbook. Point break is excluded 'cause of the Allspeak and the others haven't told us yet."
"Oh, languages. Wait! You know three languages? Which ones?" Peter asked his mentor as he squished himself into a gap on the still too small but extremely large couch.
"You don't know? What language did you think I speak to Aunt Hottie in? No, let me guess, you got distracted and always thought we spoke English?" At Peter's bashful nod, Tony sighed, "Italian, another thing we have in common Kiddo. We're both Italian. We speak Italian to each other. Pensavo conoscessi il, mio bambino. (I thought you knew, my baby)."
"No! Non avevo idea che fossi italiano! (No! I had no idea you were Italian!)" Peter replied in Italian, shocking a few of the Avengers. Switching back to English, he looked around the common room and asked, "So what languages do you know?"
"More than you, you pequeña mierda (little shit)," Clint said smugly.
"Quieres apostar por eso? (do you want to bet on that?)," Peter countered back in Spanish, raising some more eyebrows with this multilingualism.
“So, Spider-baby, how many languages do you know? And yes, before you ask, I also know Spanish, that’s my other language. Yep, I am a genius!” Tony asked Peter in his own unique way.
“Umm, I’m not too sure, Mr. Stark, I can speak some of a lot of them. If that makes sense? Well, now that I think about it, it might know over 12 languages. Does that mean I win?”
”Well, I think we should test it, don’t you boys? We can see how many he truly does know,” Natasha suggested, her mind spinning with the possible ways this could work while a grin worked its way onto her face, “How about we all say a phrase in a language and then Peter has to respond, and then tell us the language we used. You up for that, маленький паук? (little spider)”
“I don’t see why not, мама паук (mama spider),” Peter replied, adding his personal endearment to her in Russian on the end.
"Je vais commencer. Pourquoi les enfants sont-ils allés à l'école? (I'm going to start. Why did the children go to school?)" Clint kicked off, starting easy with French, a language he was sure Peter learnt in school.
"Ainsi, ils peuvent apprendre plus de langues pour gagner contre les espions, (So they can learn more languages to win against spies)" came Peter's snarky response, in perfectly pronounced French.
"Okay, okay, not too bad. Bin ich dein Lieblingssuperheldenonkel? (Am I your favourite superhero uncle?)" Steve asked in German, shocking most of the Avengers, bar Bucky and Natasha.
"Nein, aber warum sprichst du deutsch? Das wurde in keinem unserer Geschichtsbücher erwähnt. (No, but why do you speak German? That was not mentioned in any of our history books.)" Peter asked him, startled by the revelation that Captain America, the American Eagle himself, knew anything other than the true language of America: Americanish.
"Jemand muss wissen, was die Nazis gesagt haben, um ihre Pläne zu kennen. Ich war sowieso immer gut mit Sprachen. Frag einfach Bucky. (Someone has to know what the Nazis said to know their plans. I was always good with languages anyway. Just ask Bucky.)" Steve responded, including a head tilt towards Bucky place on the couch.
"好的，让我们来看看您如何使用这种语言。(Okay, let’s see how well you use this language.)" Natasha asked in Chinese, which she had previously thought was the only language that none of the other Avengers knew how to speak.
"我会说的很好。这是我最喜欢的语言之一。(I will say very well. This is one of my favourite languages.)" Peter said, quietly enjoying the small shock that formed on Natasha's face.
"同じ大陸に滞在します。あなたの日本語はどうですか？(Staying on the same continent. How is your Japanese?)" Bucky asked, a small smirk forming on his face, while thinking that the Kid had many more talents than they all gave him credit for.
"悪くない。おそらくそれらのいくつかをやり直す必要があります。(Not bad. I will probably need to redo some of it.) " he said back to Bucky, watching as his smirk widened into a full smile.
"Но вопрос в том, насколько хорошо ты знаешь русский язык? Помните, у вас есть три русскоязычных здесь. Никакого давления, маленький паук. (But the question is how well do you know Russian? Remember, you have three Russian speakers here. No pressure, little spider.)" Natasha then asked him, eyeing Bucky's smile with trepidation.
Shuffling nervously, Peter told them, "Я бы сказал, один из лучших, мама паук. Единственная причина, по которой я так хорошо это знаю, в том, что я слышу, как ты говоришь это Клинту и Баки каждый день. (I would say one of the best, mama spider. The only reason I know this so well is because I hear you speak with Clint and Bucky every day.)"
Smiling shyly, Peter glanced at the three Russian speakers in the room, and at seeing their proud looks directed at him, a wave of relief washed over him.
"Good pronunciation, but moving on, what about this one? Não confunda isso com outro idioma, (Do not confuse this with another language)" the next language came from Clint.
"Eu não estou confuso. Eu sei que é português, cérebro de pássaro. (I am not confused. I know it's Portuguese, birdbrain)" Peter replied, slightly offended that he'd confuse his languages, but knowing that if Ned was here, he'd ramble on about the number of times Peter had mixed his languages up.
"και ποια είναι αυτή η γλώσσα; (and what is this language?)" Natasha asked, getting more curious as Peter spoke back to them in each language they threw at him.
"προσπαθήστε σκληρότερα από αυτό, ξέρω ότι είναι ελληνικά! (try harder than that, I know it's Greek!)"
"Okay, kid now try this one, the only other person I've known to speak this language was taught at the same place as me. Si tu scis. Consternatus (If you do know. I am shocked.)" Bucky tested him, knowing that he, himself, was taught Latin in the Red Room, when he had been loaned from HYDRA for his training, along with Natasha.
"I hoc scitote. Stupor. (I know it. Shocking.)," Peter told him in Latin, before continuing in English, "But I am a bit bad at speaking, but I can read and write it quite well."
Tony's jaw was slack, his eyes wide and his mind blank trying to come up with a reason why he hadn't realised that his kid was a genius in more fields than just STEM. He was slowly coming to the conclusion that the teenager he loved as his own was by far smarter than he was, and had more skills than he could ever hope to gain.
Wanda also had a similar reaction to Peter and his multilingual abilities. She only knew two languages- Ukrainian, the language of Sokokvia, and patchy English, that she was still in the process of learning. Hearing Peter talk, and well, in a multitude of languages left her in astonishment. But, she also thought mischievously, he won't know Ukrainian. Oh boy, was she about to be proved wrong.
"що з моєю рідною мовою? (What about my native language?)" Wanda asked, for as far as she knew, she was the only one who knew Ukrainian.
"Я також знаю українську, Ванда. Це не так відрізняється від деяких інших, яких я знаю. (I also know Ukrainian, Wanda. It's not that different from some of the others I know.)" Peter replied, putting her into further shock, while also reminding her of home and how much she missed it.
"How about going a little more obscure?" Bruce asked, looking at Peter before continuing in Swahili, "Ilichukua zaidi ya miaka mitatu kujifunza. (It took me over three years to learn.)"
"Ilinichukua chini ya hiyo. (It took me under that.)" Peter sassed, channelling Tony for a hot second.
Gaining more astounded looks, Peter blushed, embarrassed by all the attention being focused on him before it all got stolen away by one Clint Barton.
"I know a language you won't know!" Clint all but shouted. "ASL!" Clint signed,"do you know this? Because if you do I might scream."
Peter grinned, which did not go unnoticed before signing back with, "Of course I know American Sign Language. I used to know a girl called Betty, she was deaf, so I learnt how to sign so we could talk to each other."
"Okay, I give up, I don't know anymore languages and I don't know how he knows so many!" Clint exclaimed, throwing his arms up dramatically.
"You win, маленький паук (little spider). Well done," Natasha told him, ruffling his curly brown hair with a proud smile.
Sam interrupted the gentle moment, "Well, I know I have only one question. How do you know so many languages?"
"The duolingo bird is scary."