Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who or any of its properties. If I did, Steven Moffat would not be in charge right now.
Notes: This was written forever ago and posted to Tumblr. In an attempt to update this account with some things, I decided to post it here. For reference, Tony is about fifteen/sixteen, here.
Missed Opportunities
Dinners in the Tyler family usually ended with drinks. Nothing too heavy, of course; glasses of wine for the most part, maybe scotch or brandy for Pete if he was feeling up to it, but drinks and laughter were the best way to cap off any meal, in Jackie's opinion, and that was usually when the stories started getting told. As far as Tony was concerned, these evenings were the best ones; maybe he couldn't go traveling in the TARDIS himself yet, but he could still hear plenty of stories, and he always stored away the names of planets and galaxies and moons so that he'd have a to-go-to list for the day he finally received his key.
". . . and then," his mother was saying, mirth in her voice as she swirled the wine in her second glass of the evening, "as we stepped out onto the beach I told this plum, I said to him, d'you remember the last time, I was pregnant? Had a little boy, I said, and we called him 'Doctor.'" Jackie burst out laughing, and Pete and Rose hid smiles behind their hands. The Doctor himself made a face at Jackie, though it was clear that he wasn't nearly as put-out as he was pretending to be. "And he actually believed me!"
"Wait, what?" Tony sat up straighter in his chair, his own happy smile replaced by a frown. "You almost named me after the Doctor?"
"No, not really," Jackie said, and her tone suggested that this should have been obvious, that Tony was foolish for even suggesting it. "I just told him that. You should have seen the look on his face!"
"Yeah, Jackie, it was a real laugh," the Doctor said wryly. Tony wasn't nearly so amused.
"Well, why didn't you?" he demanded. "All this time, and you're saying I could have been named after the Doctor? I can't believe this! I could have been named after the Doctor, and you named me 'Anthony,' of all things!"
"You can't really expect us to have called you 'Doctor,'" Jackie said. "Really, what sort of a name is that, anyway?" She looked over to the actual Doctor, who looked honestly indignant now, while Rose shook with silent laughter by his side. "Sorry, love."
"Yes, I'm sure," the Doctor said. Tony put his head in his hands.
"This is one of the worst days of my life," he said. "I can't believe this. I really can't believe this. I could have been named after the Doctor. I could have been named after the Doctor, after a hero, and you name me after . . . after no one!"
"Technically you were still named after someone," Rose pointed out. "Your middle name, Michael, remember? Comes from my friend Mickey."
"Mickey was a great man," Jackie said. Pete nodded.
"Very admirable, in the time I knew him."
"See, Tony-boy? Chin up," the Doctor said, and Tony couldn't help but glare petulantly at him. "Could've been worse. Could've been named after Ricky." The Doctor paused, shrugged, and rubbed a hand along the back of his neck. "Kind of were, if you think about it."
"I don't think that's helping," Rose said, and the Doctor grinned at her.
"This is the worst," Tony said flatly, and he pushed his chair back so that he could stand up from the table. "This is the worst and you're all terrible." With that, he turned and stalked from the room, muttering under his breath about the injustice of it all.