Tony hung up the phone, a strange expression on his face. Bruce raised an eyebrow. "What was that about?" he asked.
"My son," Tony replied simply and seriously. Bruce looked at him and waited for him to elaborate. "His mother was one of the women I was with before I was Iron Man. I never saw her again and I never knew about him, but she was just killed in a car accident." He took a deep breath and went on. "He's six years old. His name is Christopher Jacob Whitley."
Bruce's eyes widened, as he figured out what the call must have been about. "They want you to take care of Christopher?" he asked. Tony nodded. "Will you?"
"He's my son, and I don't know if he has anywhere else to go," Tony said. "What else could I do?"
Bruce nodded thoughtfully. "I think that's the right choice, but we should talk to the others. We all live here, and this is going to effect everyone a lot."
Tony nodded in agreement. "One other thing," he suddenly said. "Christopher is mute. He was born without vocal cords and he uses sign language to communicate."
Bruce took a deep breath and nodded. "Well, we can learn. Clint and Natasha sign."
Tony raised an eyebrow, looking surprised. "Clint signs? I mean, Natasha knows every language, but Clint just needs to shoot stuff."
"I've been undercover," Clint said, causing Tony to startle and spin around to face him.
"Jesus Christ, you and Natasha need to stop doing that!" he breathed. Bruce stifled a chuckle, having trained himself not to startle easily.
"That's not why I'm fluent in sign language, though," he continued, not elaborating further. "I'll teach you to sign, though, if you want, and probably everyone else, if he's going to be living here. We should go talk to the others."
Within the week, a six-year-old with glasses and short, light brown hair was standing at the front door of Avengers Tower with his suitcases. At Bruce's suggestion, Tony had, for once, gone to answer the door himself. The little kid looked angry and scared. By that time, the only sign language Tony knew was finger-spelling, but the boy had been warned of that.
Tony spoke loudly and slowly, finger-spelling what he said. "Hello, Christopher. My name is Tony, and I am your daddy."
The little boy glared at him. "I can hear you!" he finger-spelled angrily.
Steve pulled Tony away from the door and looked at the kid. "He didn't mean that to be mean," he assured the little boy. "He just didn't know what to do. I'm sure he's sorry."
"Fine," the little boy finger-spelled, still looking annoyed. "Tell him not to call me Christopher. My name is CJ."
As Steve helped CJ carry his bags up to his room, Tony sat down next to Bruce. "I blew it," he muttered. "He hates me."
Bruce put a hand on his friend's shoulder. "He has a right to feel offended by the way you talked to him, but I know you didn't mean to hurt him and you regret what you did, and CJ will figure that out, but you need to go talk to him."
Tony nodded, and followed Steve and CJ upstairs.
When Tony had agreed to take care of CJ, he'd quickly converted one of the tower's guest bedrooms into a kid's room for him. Three walls were white, and the fourth had a wallpaper with brown and blue retro robots. There was a brown and beige patterned rug, and the bedding was striped with brown, blue, green and orange. Spread out on the bed, CJ had a full set of kids' luggage. Along with a suitcase full of clothes, there was a backpack full of books and toys, a duffel bag with baseball gear, a messenger bag with all of his electronics, and an electric keyboard in a case.
When Tony got upstairs, Steve and CJ had almost finished moving all of CJ's clothes into the dresser. "Hey, CJ, I'm sorry," Tony said. The little boy refused to look at him. "I shouldn't have talked to you the way I did. I know you're not deaf and you're not stupid." He took a deep breath. "I didn't know what to do and I was nervous because I really want this to work out for your sake because I didn't know about you until less than a week ago, but you're still my family and I want you to be happy. If you want to unpack your backpack, there's a toy box right over here."
CJ finally looked up at him, offering a small smile and finger-spelling, "Where's the book shelf?" When he opened up his backpack and spilled the contents onto the bed, Tony understood why. What he had expected to be a bag full of toys was mostly filled with more real paper-and-ink books than had seen the inside of Stark – now Avengers – tower since JARVIS had been installed, outside of Bruce's and Steve's suites, of course.
CJ noticed Tony's surprise, but misinterpreted it. "I'm an advanced reader," he finger-spelled proudly.
Tony nodded. "I can see that. I'll get you a bookshelf for your room," he promised. For now, he moved the stacks of mostly children's classics onto the desk. "JARVIS, order a bookshelf for CJ's room. Pick out a nice one, that matches everything else."
"Of course, sir," the hidden speakers in the room replied.
CJ's eyes went wide. "What was that?" he finger-spelled.
"That's just JARVIS," Tony replied casually. "He's an AI; he runs the tower. If you need anything, just tell him."
"It can understand if I sign?" CJ asked
Tony mentally cursed himself; why hadn't he thought of that? "I'll set that up as soon as I can." He helped CJ unpack his surprisingly few – especially to Tony – toys. He had a box with 10 Hot Wheels, a Lego set, a big box of crayons, a teddy bear, a chess set, and a remote control race car. When they put everything in the toy box, they could still see the bottom. "We can get you some more," Tony assured him.
CJ shook his head. "I like my toys." Tony was confused. What little kid didn't want more toys?
JARVIS's voice came on again. "Sir, the pizza is at the door."
"Let him in," Tony replied, and turned back to CJ. "When we get downstairs, I'll introduce you to everyone else. Everyone can finger-spell and two of them are fluent in ASL. The rest of us are learning."
He led CJ down to the kitchen, where everyone else was already gathered around the table, with several open boxes of pizza. "Everyone, this is CJ," he said. "He's the kid I told you about... My son." It was odd to say. CJ waved shyly. "CJ, you've already met Steve. This is my best friend, Bruce. He's really smart and also a doctor and really nice. He likes books, too."
"Nice to meet you, buddy," Bruce said.
"You too," CJ finger-spelled.
Tony went on. "This is my girlfriend, Pepper. She's really great and remembers everything and she's also the CEO of Stark Industries, so I can focus on inventing things."
This time it was CJ who spelled "Nice to meet you," and Pepper who answered him.
Tony gestured to Natasha. "This is Natasha. She's fluent in ASL already, so you don't have to finger-spell with her. She also knows Russian and Chinese and French and Latin. She's amazing jumping and climbing things, too, like a ninja. Basically, she's a bada- really cool." He was going to have to get used to the language thing.
CJ signed something and Natasha responded the same way. Their hands moved so quickly that Tony couldn't follow the movements, much less understand them. Clint joined the conversation and Tony gave up.
After dinner, Tony suggested that CJ go pick out a movie, but then realized he didn't have any kids' movies. "What movies do you like?" he asked.
"Duma," CJ replied with a smile.
Tony didn't recognize the title, and asked Jarvis to look it up.
"A family movie released in 2005 by Warner Brothers, it presents the story of a twelve-year-old boy who journeys to return a rescued cheetah to the wild," the computer responded.
"Buy it, download it." Tony turned to CJ. "Let's go watch Duma." Everyone came into the living room, and Tony told Jarvis to start the movie. CJ, sitting between Tony and Steve, knew the story by heart, but when anything scary happened, he jumped and ducked behind a pillow. Tony tried to put a hand on his shoulder, but the little boy curled away.
At the end of the movie, CJ looked thoughtful. "What is it, buddy?" Tony asked.
CJ started signing, and realized his father didn't understand, so he tediously spelled out. "In the movie, Xan's daddy... went away, like my mommy, but Xan's daddy didn't come back even though he told him that they would go on a trip to where they found Duma."
Tony took a deep breath. How to begin? "I know your mommy loved you very much, but she can't come to you right now. If she could, she would."
"Is she in heaven?"
Tony didn't know how to answer that, but thankfully Steve stepped in. "Your mommy is watching over you right now from heaven, and she's making sure you're okay, and everyone here in the tower wants you to be okay, too, okay?"
The little boy nodded.
"Bedtime," Tony announced.
"Do I have to?" CJ complained.
"Yeah," Tony said. "Sorry, squirt." CJ lead Tony though his bedtime routine. He brushed had a quick bath and was tucked into bed with froggy pajamas on and his teddy bear, which Tony learned was named The Snowman.
"Now we read," CJ told him. He kept his copy of For The Children's Hour on the nightstand even though the rest of the books were on his desk. The stories were easy for his advanced reading level, but they were still good when he was sleepy and he wasn't the one reading them anyway. "Pick one."
Tony decided to start at the beginning, and read "The Little Gray Grandmother."
"Now a song," CJ spelled.
Tony frowned . He couldn't think of a lullaby off the top of his head, because "you're three now, Tony, you don't need your father to put you to sleep like a little baby; I'm busy." and because he'd never interacted much with children. "I'll be right back," he assured CJ, and came back out into the living room. "Guys, what's a good lullaby? I don't know any."
"Blue Shadows?" Steve suggested. Tony still looked lost, so he followed him to CJ's room and sang.
Arizona moon keep shining
From the desert sky above
You know pretty soon
That big yellow moon
Will light the way back to the one you love.
Blue shadows on the trail
Little cowboy, close your eyes and dream
All of the doggies are in the corral
All of your work is done
Just close your eyes and dream little pal
Dream of someone
Blue shadows on the trail
Soft wind blowing through the trees above
All the other little cowboys
Back in the bunkhouse now, so
Close your eyes and dream
CJ fell asleep. "Thanks," Tony whispered to Steve and they left him alone. Later that night, Tony went down to his workshop and updated JARVIS for CJ.