◤ chapter thirteen: ❛ meet the aldersons ❜ ◢
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TONI HATED LARGE FAMILY EVENTS. Well, correction, she didn't just hate large family events, she hated any family event because her family was complete trash. Like seriously. Her Aunt Lucy was a homewrecker who fucked a married man until she got knocked up, popping out Finn, and then made the married man get divorced so he could wife her up. And it's not the first time something like that had happened in her family.
Her grandfather, the one who got all the money that the Alderson family now had to begin with, got it from stealing an invention from someone else, and then got married to his first wife, who Toni didn't know, until her grandmother decided to put an end to that and get the rich guy for herself. So yeah, they're stellar examples on how to be a good and moral person, but that doesn't mean she hates them.
Her grandmother was the one who taught her how to ride a bike during the summer when she was six and staying with them because her dad had to spend a month in London for work and her mother decided to follow him but they didn't exactly want to bring their child, so to grandpa and grandma's she went. And Toni didn't mind, because that was back when she went by Anna and she was best friends with Finn, and because she was spending a month with their grandparents he wanted that too.
That was when they were thick as thieves, and spending every day together sounded like heaven. Now, it just sounded like hell. Well, not exactly hell, a little less worse, because Finn was always pretty cool and now that she was a highlight of his working career whenever she graced him with her presence at Apple's Eye Diner, she got to see him as a little better than a devil who was out to ruin her life.
But even though she didn't hate any of her family members, except for maybe her mother, she certainly wasn't the biggest fan of any of them like she was as a child. It was that young naïve nature she used to have that allowed her to overlook all their bad qualities, all of the unmoral things they did for wealth or for what they wanted, but as she got older, as that ignorance faded away, all she was left with was the truth.
The truth was that her granddad was a scum who cheated someone else out of wealth, and her grandma practically offed another woman so that she wouldn't have to work another day in her life, and her aunt fucked a married man and that's why she had her cousin and why she was married now. And the truth was that no father was truly nurturing to any of their kids, leaving that to their wives, and then her mother didn't really care that much either even though being a stay-at-home mom was her job, which left little Toni Alderson (almost grown Toni Alderson now) all alone.
The truth was that her family really didn't care about anyone but themselves, always more keen on how their appeared and how they thought of themselves before anything else. If they didn't have a benefit, it didn't matter to them. So, little things like children or having a good moral compass just went out the window. And still they acted shocked when they found out that Finn was a drug dealer and she was an addict. Yeah, as if they didn't create these little problems.
So Toni didn't like her family, and she didn't like family gatherings, because while she looked good all dressed up and she could put on her best poker face, she really hated spending time with people as stuck up as herself. She knew that she was insufferable on a good day, but they were just a million times worse than she could ever be.
Which was exactly how she found herself slipping into Finn's room, because he refused to leave the room for other than the thirty minutes they actually ate dinner. She had had enough of her cousin Dinah's new engagement to a rich mister named Hank Greenfield and yeah, have fun moaning out the name Hank, and her grandma's caring questions about her school and future.
(No, grandma, I don't know what I'm going to do in the future but I'm sure as hell not gonna go into business like dad.)
If the creaking door didn't alert Finn to her presence, her loud, overdramatic sigh surely did. He looked up at her briefly, unamused with her showcase of dramatics. "You know, the polite thing is to knock," he told her, "I could be naked or something."
"Fuck being polite – I'm done doing that tonight," Toni cursed back at him, "And it's not like I haven't seen you naked before."
"Yeah, but that was when I was, like, five or something. We're sixteen now, that's weird. People could think an Alabama situation could be happening," Finn said.
Toni grimaced, looking Finn up and down. "I'll pass," she gave him a fake smile before collapsing onto his bed, "Ugh, why does this whole family suck ass?"
Finn shrugged, going from his desk where he was on his computer to join her on his bed, their heads right next to each other, though they stared at the ceiling instead of looking at each other. "Guess it's genetic."
"Okay, we're not as bad as them," she defended them, but they both knew she was mostly defending herself. No, she didn't like Finn, but he was a lot better than the rest of their devilish family.
"That's because we're young. One day we'll be just like Dinah cooing over a snobby rich guy with a bad name," he told her.
"Imagine marrying someone with the name Hank – I could never," Toni shook her head.
Finn laughed at her, "Even if he's rich?"
"I think I'll be rich enough for my husband and me," she said, "Besides, who wants to be a sugar baby to someone with that name? He's probably not even hot, either – no one with that name could be. It's an ugly guy name."
"So you're saying that you'd be a sugar baby for a hot guy with a hot guy name?" Finn asked her.
She thought it over for a moment. On one side, she would never have to work again, but that would also mean all the networking she did at Stark Galas would be for nothing and she did not flirt with older men for nothing, plus she thought she'd get too bored only getting money for sending pics or doing sexual acts. Even if she abhorred schoolwork, she did like to work, one things that she liked. Like managing – she liked to be in charge, liked to keep a schedule and set things up. She was good at networking and even though she told her grandma that she wasn't going into business like her dad, well, her dad wasn't into managing but she was, so technically she didn't lie.
Not that it would matter. She had lied plenty of times to her grandma and other family members. It's not like she felt guilty about it because she already didn't like them. Lying to Sabrina or Atlas on the other hand always sent her stomach into knots.
"Nah, I don't think I could," she decided on. Being a sugar baby just wasn't the future profession for her.
"Even if it's an insanely rich guy named Harry?" Finn teased her, and she quickly elbowed him, hoping that he wasn't looking at her to see her rosy cheeks. God, why the fuck were her cheeks reacting like that? It made no sense, she didn't like Harry or anything, he was an annoying piece of shit and nothing else so stop blushing!
"Shut up, and no. Especially not for someone named Harry who's super annoying and who I hate very much, thank you," she shot him a glare but he just giggled at her. How disrespectful.
"Yeah, yeah. You coming to complain to me at work about him all the time is definitely what someone does when they hate a person," he said sarcastically.
"You said it yourself – I go there to complain about him because Sabrina also thinks that I'm one day away from saying that I like him, which won't happen, and Atlas boos until I shut up or forces a blunt in my face so I'll forget about him," Toni explained, "So you're the only person I can go to, but apparently not anymore."
"Oh, come on, Toni, I'm just teasing," he said, a little apologetic for upsetting her. And fuck that. Why did he have to be so apologetic and make her look like a bitch for not being able to take a simple joke? God, this was exactly why she hated Finn Patterson! He really was the worst.
"Whatever, it wasn't funny," she grumbled, looking back up at the ceiling to not meet his eyes which were waiting for hers. Then, he sighed, and looked back up at the ceiling and she tried not to feel guilty because she had no reason to at all. She wasn't being overdramatic here. She wasn't.
She felt her phone buzzing in her pocket so she dug for it, bringing it up to her face and seeing a call from a number that she didn't know. She almost went to decline it, but something in her told her that she should answer it, so she lifted herself up from Finn's bed and went out into the hallway. No one was upstairs besides the two of them anyway.
"Hello?" she said into the phone after she accepted the call.
"Toni! Is that you?" she heard on the other end, and it sounded familiar, but people's voices always sounded a bit different over the phone so she couldn't be sure as to who it was and who would be calling her without already having her number and her having theirs.
"Um, yeah? Who is this?" she asked back.
"It's Peter," the voice on the other end said, and oooohhhhh, that made sense. Now that she knew the identity of the other person, she could hear their voice and clearly say, yep that's Peter.
But still, she frowned. "How did you get my number? I never told it to you."
"Well, when you handed me your phone so that I could put in Happy's number, I looked at what your number was and memorized it so that I could call you," Peter explained, "Sorry, I know that sounds really weird."
"It really does," she agreed. It wasn't like there was any point in denying it when he already admitted to the creepiness of it himself.
"I mean, I only did it so you could tell me how your call with Happy went. You did call him, right?" and there, that little bit of distrust, she hated it. Yeah, she understood it, it wasn't like they were close buddies and he could trust her, but Toni Alderson said she would do it, so of course she would.
The only people she lied to when saying she would do something – or not do something anymore – were her parents when they told her to stop drinking and doing weed. Obviously, she was going to lie to them, but she hadn't let Peter down yet or given him a reason to distrust her. She kept his little spider secret to herself, even though she wanted to tell Sabrina and Atlas because she hated keeping secrets from them, but she still did it.
"I did," she told him, "Right after you guys left on the bus. But when I told him that it was about you and whatever Vulture guy thing you told me about, he hung up the phone and told me to never call again."
"And you didn't try again?" Peter asked on the other end.
She shook her head, even though it wasn't like he could see her. "Nope. If he's smart, he would block my number, so no. I haven't. I mean, I told him what you wanted me to but he didn't seem all that interested in listening. What did you do to piss the guy off?"
"I didn't – I don't piss him off," Peter weakly managed to say in his defense, "I haven't done anything."
"Yeah, and my name is Janika – we both know that's a lie, but whatever. You don't have to tell me," she said at the end, because even though she asked, she wasn't really all too interested in finding out and fighting for something she wasn't even that interested in wasn't worth it.
"Thanks for trying," Peter said next, changing the subject, and she was stunned for a moment. It wasn't like she was usually thanked for anything. Most people just called her a bitch and moved on, because when did she actually do anything for them that warranted a thank you? Never, the answer was never.
"Uh, yeah, it's whatever," she stumbled out, and God, why did she have to sound so dumb all because he thanked her? That was so not Alderson of her!
"Um, I gotta go now. Ned just took a lot of protocols off of my suit and I gotta start tracking the Vulture," Peter rushed out.
Toni blinked, incredibly confused. "What?" she asked, because none of that made sense.
"Right, well, so Tony Stark found out my identity a couple months ago and gave me a suit but apparently there were a lot of protocols so I couldn't use every bit of the suit but Ned just took them off so now I get to explore the full range of the suit," he rushed out again because he was so incredibly excited.
"I hope you know that none of that made sense. How the hell did Tony Stark find out your identity or care to find out who you are and give you a new suit?" Toni asked.
"It's complicated," Peter managed after a minute, "You know what? I'll tell you everything when we get back to New York. I gotta start going after this guy now. Um, thanks for trying with Happy again."
"Yeah, no problem," now that he had already thanked her once, she was more prepared for the second time he did it and didn't make an complete full out of herself. Then, the call ended and Toni stared at her phone for a second.
Peter's world was just getting more complicated, and sadly, she got herself involved in it. Fuck her life.
authors note
hi this chapter made me emo because i miss writing for finn so much and especially finn and toni because it's been way too long since i've done that.