Here we go again folks!

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Kennedy's pov

(one week later)

"Peter?" I ask when I finish creaming him at mario kart.

"Yeah?"

"Do you think Tony and Pepper really want me to be their daughter?

"what do you mean, they adopted you didn't they?" Peter replies, putting the mario kart disk back in its case.

"well yeah but just mean, like, do they want to be my parents, or just my guardians? did they adopt me because they pitied me, or because they want to have a kid?" I wait for Peter's reply but his only response is the slight confusion written on his face.

"Let me put it this way, do they want me to call them Mom and Dad?" Peter looks understanding now.

"I don't doubt that they care about you, alot, I mean, we all do. As for weather they want you to call them Mom and Dad, I think the first question is do you want to call them mom and dad?" He tells me, sitting on his green bean bag next to my pink one. I ponder the question for a minute, I had thought about it before but it takes a different kind of thinking to be able to tell someone else how you feel.

"I mean, it kinda feels right to call Pepper mom, you know, after everything that happened with my real mom, I never loved her and I don't want the word mom to mean her anymore, so I guess I do want to call Pepper mom." ramble a bit crossing my arms over my chest.

"There you go, so call her mom." He says as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"Yeah, But what if I say it and she doesn't want me to call her that, think how awkward it would be! Plus, i don't know if I'm ready to call Tony dad, and if I call Pepper mom then he will think I like her better!" I protest,

"First off, you should just ask her, it can't hurt to ask, and then everyone will be satisfied and no one will have to wonder and be awkward anymore. Second, Tony knows you loved your dad, he'll understand." Peter councils. 

"I guess you're right, do you think she's in her office?" I ask, hoping to talk to her right away.

"I doubt it, its saturday." He reminds be, before I can ask Friday where she is...

"Kennedy!" I hear my name shouted from across the room.

"Whatever it is it was Peter's fault!" I defend before I even know who's speaking. spinning around I see Natasha walking in our direction followed by Wanda, and Pepper, who is looking a little bit flustered.

"we're going shopping!" Natasha announces, as she walk determinedly up to me.

"Why?" I ask, confused at the sudden prospect of a trip out.

"Pepper told me that you haven't been clothes shopping since you arrived here, and that the clothes she, wanda, and me, gave you are the only clothes you own!" She declares disgusted and outraged.

"Yeah, what's the problem with that? I like all the old clothes you guys have given me."

"But those clothes are old, and we haven't given you very much, and you are a teenage girl who has never been shopping, and Wanda and I are prepared to fix that. Come on grab your shoes, let's go!" she orders prompting me to leave the room to go find my shoes, I give Pepper a 'what's going on' look as I pass her, but she only shrugs smiles. The three women go with me down to my room, Nat and Wanda immediately start looking through my clothes, apparently making mental shopping lists of things I need. such comments are made as

"Do you really wear this still? it torn in like three places!"

"I can't believe I gave this to you, I thought I threw it out."

"You definitely need more dresses."

"Do you have a belt? we should get you one."

"How do you feel about hats?"

"this blouse is not flattering on you it has to go." 

I laugh at their antics and sometime answer the questions directed at me. Soon enough my closet is completely emptied onto my floor, and we leave the tower with a sufficient idea of how to 'revamp my wardrobe' as Wanda called it. Natasha drives us to the mall and we head into the first store. I wander around, sometimes picking up something that I like and showing it to the others for approval, but for the most part the three older women are the ones plucking item after item off the racks for me, soon I have my arm full and so do the other three, and apparently deciding that was enough for this store, Natasha leads me to the dressing room. They hand me item after item to try on, and I come out to show off each outfit before trying on the next, and every time I came out with a new outfit on, everyone would tell me what they thought of it.

"Ooo, that looks so good, definitely get that one."

"this skirt is too short try the next one."

"thad doesn't look good with yellow, here try this blue one."

"you look lovely in green, we need to look for more green."

Finally after every armful of clothes was tried on, we walked to the check out with only three outfits, and a belt. I can't believe that after all that, after trying on so many things, this is all we came out with. As we get in line for the check out I have to ask,

"Who's paying for all this?"

"You're newly dubbed father has the privilege of paying for your new wardrobe." Natasha assures me.

"Uh-hu," I chuckle, "and does he know about this?"

"I asked him if we could use his card to buy you a few thing." Pepper confirms.

"I'm getting hungry, we should eat after this." Wanda comments, we step forward in the long line.

"why don't the two of you go find some place to eat while Wanda and I check out?" Natasha suggests Pepper nods in agreement.

"Any preferences on where to eat?"

"sandwich shop maybe? I could really go for a panini right now." Wanda suggests. Pepper and I walk out of the store and in the direction of the food court to find a sandwich shop. I nervously think about the question I have to ask Pepper as we order our food, we sit down at a sticky mall table and I am practically sweating with nervousness, and I resign myself not to tell her, before she says,

"Is something bothering you? you seem nervous." I fiddle with my thumbs a second before blurting out,

"Do you want me to call you mom?" she seems a bit surprised by the question, but collects herself quickly and asks her own question in return.

"Do you want to call me mom?"

"I, um, i think I do, but only if you want me to, I didn't know if you really wanted to be my mom and me to be your daughter and I was just thinking about my mom and I have always hated everything that came along with the word mom but I guess I thought that if I called you that then the word would start to be a happy word, and...." I trail off after a long winded ramble and stare at the table with embarrassment. after a long moment I look up at pepper's face, she is smiling, one of the biggest smiles i've ever seen.

"All I want is to be your mom Kennedy" She laughs out with he smile staining her voice, "I wanted to be your mom for months, I love kissing your forehead before bed, I love seeing you sleeping on our couch in the morning, and leaving you notes to remind you to eat breakfast, I love when you unexpectedly show up in my office with a story to tell me, and I love shopping with you." She laughs gesturing to the mall around us for reference. "I've wanted so badly for you to call me mom, but I knew you had been through alot with your mom, so I didn't want to bring it up." I let out a sigh of relief as he speaks, A smile cracking my lips as well

"glad we're on the same page" I chuckle trying to keep it from being awkward, "Mom" I smile like an idiot at the last word, I have used that word so few times during my life, it seems so foreign to my tongue, especially in reference to Pepper, and yet so natural at the same time. we sit in silence until Natasha and Wanda walk up having found us in the crowded food court.

"What are you two staring at eachother about?" Natasha asks looking at us like we're crazy, Pepper brushes it off and the other two sit down to join us right as our food arrives. as soon as we finish eating Natasha ushers us off to another store, where we repeat the process of pulling massive amounts of clothes off shelves, spending an inordinate amount of time in the dressing room trying everything on, and then leaving with very few of the items we picked up. this process goes on through the next several store, a flow of happy lighthearted conversation goes on the whole time with hardly a pause, Natasha and Wanda ask me lots of questions about my teenage hood, and we all find out that apparently there are plenty of things I have missed out on that they are determined to fill me in on. We browse through most of the stores in the mall, skipping some, and walking quickly in and out of others, without buying anything. by the time we are headed back to the car, each of us has at least one bag in hand, some of us have other bags inside those bags. Back at home they help me sort and put away all my new clothes and accessories. I had a blast going shopping, I have never had a completely fresh wardrobe like this, in fact the last few years my wardrobe has consisted of only two to three outfits, so this is amazing and I can't wait to wear all of them. When everyone has left my room I immediately put on a pretty blue sewater dress with flaired sleves, it is my favorite item out of all the things we bought today. First I dance across the hallway into Peter's room to show him. I knock on the door and,

"Come in," comes the reply. I open the door and when Peter turns around to greet me I do a big spin in my new dress. When I stop spinning and face him his expression is frozen, mouth slightly open, and eyes wandering over my dress. I clear my throat dramatically and he snaps out of it. "You look great." He says in a sort of airy tone, Stepping forward and taking my hands.

"Thanks, it's my favorite thing I got." I pause a second before saying the next part. "My mom picked it out for me." I state, dramatizing the word Mom. Peter's eyebrows reais questioningly.

"you asked her?"

"uh-huh," I nod eagerly. "and she said that she's wanted to be my mom for months, but she didn't know how I felt about it."

"That's great, I'm happy for you, all your dreams are coming true." He waves a hand in the air like a magic wand.

"Yeah well, I have a family again, so I guess that counts as at least most of my dreams. Now if you'll excuse me, I want to go show Tony my dress." I curtsy, and and he bows, then kisses my hand, playing along. I giggle and retreat out of the room, off to find Tony. I find him at last in the Lab, and as soon as I walk through the doors he takes off his goggles and looks me over, eyes wide with admiration.

"Wow, you look beautiful," He twirls a finger around, prompting me to spin around, which I do and show off the twirliness of the dress. "Absolutely beautiful. I've made a decision, you're not allowed to wear that dress, you'll have too many boys chasing after you." He jokes Standing up and looking me over again. "Now tell me honestly, how much did this cost?" I bashfully wander over to a workbench and pick something up,

"Oh, I don't know, you'll have to ask Natasha." I excuse, trying to push the interrogation off onto her.

"I see, so you bought it from one of the most expensive stores at the mall right?" He says seeing through my not so good disguise. I look upward innocently. "we'll I hope its worth it, when you go to school and have this dress as an icebreaker for making friends." He says, casually reminding me of my imminent doom as soon as Pepper can find a suitable school. I loathe the thought of going to school. Why would i need to sit in a classroom all day when I can learn anything I need to know from youtube.

"when I grow up, I will homeschool all my kids." I declare, putting down the piece of metal I was playing with and walking over to my work bench.

"Oh, and how many kids will that be?" He asks, swerving the subject back off of school.

"I don't know, I guess it depends on how I do with the first one and if I think I can handle another." I reach my desk and open up some programs I was working on a few days ago, I haven't come down here to work for a while. I look over some of the work i've done and remember why I had stopped a few days ago, I had reached a problem that I somehow couldn't solve, a barrier that I couldn't hurdle in my programming, I lay my head on my desk mumbling about stupid computer, then I glance over and watch Tony working on, well, whatever it is he's working on.

"Hey Tony," I say in my most pitiful voice. "I can't figure this out, can you help me?" He stops what he's doing and strolls over to my desk, delighted to be asked for his expertise. I explain what's going on, and where I'm having trouble. The two of us think on the problem for a while, and compare notes, and talk it out, and can't come up with the solution. Tony calls Bruce in, thinking that 3 brains are better than two, and still no luck, Peter joins us, and by the time the impromptu nerd club meeting is over, we are pretty much no closer to figuring it out than we were when we started. And one by one we drift away, perplexed by the problem, and in the case of Tony and I, we drift off to sleep me still in my pretty dress right there at my desk, still trying to work out the problem in our sleep.

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I hope you liked it! This book is almost over!