Title: Daddy will always be my King
Author: firstflier
Theme: 016. Weak
Rating: PG-13
Length: 1124 words
Summary: 'Don't disturb your father, sweetie, he might blow you up by accident.'
Author's Note: A (hopefully) slightly more amusing drabble than some of the other more angsty ones that I have been popping out this week.
Babies, and children in general, have never been on the cards for Tony Stark.
It's not that he hates kids or anything – some of his greatest fans are around the 9 year old mark – but he's not the procreating type. There is no insatiable urge to reproduce or continue the Stark line. He's spent years making sure he's careful with whoever is sharing his bed and he's meant to just suddenly stop so that he can make a glorious mistake? It's not going to happen in this lifetime.
Plus he's seen what children can do.
They can scream and whine and completely disrupt lives. If Tony had to design a weapon that could be used in any household in any country to completely destroy someone, a child would be his starting point. More than just pure destructiveness, babies in particular, can turn adults into simpering idiots. He's witnessed it himself. Hell, some of the people he respects the most melt at the sight of a baby gurgling articulately.
Hogan, Rhodey and even Pepper (rational, reasonable Pepper) have all fallen victim to the baby complex. It's slightly horrifying to watch all the logic and sense drain from their faces to leave them vacant-eyed and cooing. Tony once found his PA (and a group of women that worked on the third floor) staring so avidly at one of the employee's babies that he had been completely ignored for nearly ten minutes. He had later asked why they had been so engrossed in a being that was seriously trying to suckle it's own toes. Pepper's response had been a scathing look and a biting comment that went something along the lines of 'you have a lot in common then; you can't look after yourself, you shouldn't be left on your own for longer than five minutes and I have to watch you stick your foot in your mouth everyday'.
That had served a serious blow to his ego.
Nobody Tony knows seems to have realised that babies have the bizarre ability to make people weak. Emotionally and physically babies are exhausting but it's more than that. They cause weakness in logic and sense, in determination and resolution. How many times has Tony been out and found toddlers screaming until their mother gives in to the temper tantrum? He doesn't want that. He doesn't want to get soft and mushy and sentimental. Children create and exploit weakness.
Tony Stark does not like to be weak. Sure, he's got a few weaknesses, fast cards, good scotch and Pepper's ankles to name a few, but it doesn't make him a weak person. These indulgences haven't softened his brain and, barring perhaps the most obvious exception, these weaknesses can never be used against him. Children are in constant peril and children of Tony Stark would suffer from all angles. Not only would Ironman's enemies have new targets but Ironman in general is a threat to a happy family life. What kid wants to grow up hearing the phrase 'don't disturb your father, sweetie, he might blow you up by accident'?
And it's not as if it's just a few years of stress and anxiety like people might think – it's forever. Parents worry about babies, toddlers, teenagers and adults alike. Tony doesn't do well with stress anyway and he figured out pretty early that being a father is the most stressful job in the world so it doesn't really appeal. Also, who wants to have Tony Stark as a father? Always gallivanting off to save the world, never home in time for good night stories, never there for peewee baseball games. Tony knows that selflessness isn't one of his more obvious traits but he's not selfish enough to inflict his lifestyle on a child. And besides which, he readily admits that he's selfish, so why would he want to have a child who he'd have to share everything with; his house, his money, his knowledge? Nah, he's not cut out for fatherhood.
There's also the small, minor detail that Tony has never been in a relationship long enough to even consider the possibility of children. So that's a fairly effective end to that conversation but he's happy to watch with disbelief as all the people around him go doe eyed over the dribbly messes known as children.
Of course, once Rhodey's got one of his own (stupidest decision ever, by the way) he's the worst of the lot. There's not a day goes by where his 'precious bundle of joy' isn't mentioned and, coincidentally, there's not a day goes by where Tony doesn't feel a little nauseous.
The day Pepper announces that she'll be babysitting the little monster because Mr and Mrs Platypus are going on holiday for a few days, Tony decides that there is suddenly a lot of work to be done down in the garage and resigns himself to self-inflicted exile. On the second day, he ventures up to the kitchen for lunch and hears a peculiar sound.
It's like the melodic ring of bells and, upon further investigation he discovers it's the laughter of Pepper Potts and baby platypus. He finds them both on the floor with Pepper sitting cross-legged, leaning back against the sofa as a tiny, inconceivably tiny, version of James Rhodes is cradled in her arms chuckling sweetly. Two sets of eyes glance up at him as he fully enters the room and his breath catches in his throat.
He has never seen Pepper so utterly relaxed and he thinks it's the most beautiful she's ever looked. Her cheeks are flushed slightly but she's smiling and her eyes are like two great sapphires sparkling up at him. For a moment he can see the promise of future in her eyes. In an instant, his imagination conjures up that future with images flashing in his mind.
Pepper barefoot and heavily pregnant, Pepper complaining about her ankles swelling, him kissing her rounded belly, a tiny fist that wraps entirely around just one of his fingers and then, finally, there is a crystal clear image of a little girl – only 4 or 5 years old – she looks exactly like Pepper but she's staring straight at him with dark, dark eyes that he recognises with a jolt as the same shade as his. He's content to picture her in his mind's eye but then, his imagination on a roll, he can hear her sweet voice saying 'Daddy'. He knows, without pausing to wonder how he knows, that Pepper would be a good mother to his children. He also knows, without a doubt, that he wants Pepper to be the mother of his children.
With that realisation he has to sit down.
Quite inexplicably, his knees have gone weak.
~Fin.