A/N: Hello, all! I've been sitting on Pickpocket for awhile, and there are four chapters up on AO3, soon to be five. I realized I needed to play a game of catch up, so here I am with the first chapter!

At some point, I had the idea of 'What if Tony was a pickpocket? What if Tony tried to pickpocket Loki?!' It spiraled from there. Pickpocket is a slow build story, and it'll take a little while to reach the events of the story summary. In the meantime, there's plenty of angst to be had with kid!Tony to keep you occupied!

Tony didn't remember much about being eight. Well, he remembered some things.

He remembered his father always being busy, and that his mother never seemed to be around, unless they were holding a fancy banquet in the mansion's ballroom. He remembered the family butler, Jarvis, who snuck Tony cookies after dinner when Howard said eight years old was too old for dessert. He remembered spending a lot of time in the tool shed, tinkering with the old TVs and lawnmowers that Jarvis managed to sneak in when his father was locked in his lab.

He built his first engine at eight, though his dad didn't really care. Jarvis said it was marvelous, and the gardener was proud to use Tony's first motor on his favorite lawn mower. Uncle Obie ('Call him Obadiah, Anthony,' his father used to say) told Tony that he was a genius, and he started bringing Tony blueprints for guns and rockets whenever he visited.

At eight, Tony had never gone to school with other kids, so he mostly remembered things about the mansion, and completing coursework with a tutor. He studied engines and schematics with Uncle Obie, and if he was really good, he got to design things himself.

But the thing he remembered most was the squealing of tires, the sound of glass shattering, a huge, fiery explosion, and then the thought that he was dying, and would never see the world or build anything again.

He was driving with his parents somewhere. He didn't really remember where. He had been excited, and was running from end to end in the limo, peering out windows, and tapping on the privacy window just to see if he could get a rise out of Jarvis, who had filled in for their sick usual driver.

"Anthony, knock it off. Let the man do his job," his father had barked, but his mother sent him a secret wink that made the rebuff easier to take. Even though she wasn't around much, Tony's mom was amazing when she was.

Settling down into his seat, Tony looked glanced out of the tinted window, frowning.

"Dad, aren't cars s'posed to stop at stop signs?"

"It's supposed, Anthony. And yes, they are supposed to stop."

"Then why isn't that one?" Tony asked, pressing his face against the glass to watch as a large SUV like his father's body guards drove sped towards them.

His father twisted in his seat to look out the window, and before he could reply there was a screech of metal on metal, the distinct smell of gasoline that Tony recognized from his father's workshop and his tool shed. They skidded sideways, and the front of the limo wrapped around a light pole. There was red stuff on the privacy window, and Tony felt sick when he remembered that Jarvis had been driving them.

The windows shattered, and he was picked up, his mother's perfume mingling with the smell of gasoline and metal. There was lots of yelling. Then he was pushed through a broken window, bits of glass getting in his hair and on his clothes, and his mother screamed, 'RUN!'

Tony hit the sidewalk and landed on his knees; they were scraped, and he felt so, so dizzy, and then the limo started burning, and it was so hot. Gasoline burns, his brain told him, and Tony scrambled backwards, wanting to go back and find his mother, and help his father, but then the limo just exploded and there was nothing left but flames.

Tony was blasted backwards, and it hurt so bad, worse than his worst tummy ache, and where was his mom, was he gonna die?

His chest hurt, and he screamed, louder and louder, and then there were arms around him, and he felt safe, but it still hurt too much to think, and then he doesn't remember anything from when he was eight.

Tony remembered a little more about being nine. After the car accident, he met Dr. Yinsen, who saved him from the explosion, and he had to stay in bed all the time, because his chest hurt.

He missed his parents (but he missed Jarvis most) and he cried a lot, but Dr. Yinsen was always there to give him a hug. Dr. Yinsen explained the 'electromagnet' that glowed like a nightlight in his chest, and Tony knew that it was repelling something, and that something was inside him, because he was a smart cookie, according to his mom, and a genius if you asked Uncle Obie.

"What is it actually doing?" Tony asked one day, running his fingers over the circle of metal sticking out of his chest, frowning at the blue-white glow it cast on his hand.

Dr. Yinsen got that sad smile his mom used to get whenever his dad wasn't very nice, and he ruffled Tony's hair, which was something new and he kind of liked it.

"When the limousine exploded, bits of metal lodged into your chest," the doctor murmured, pressing his index finger against a scar right above the electromagnet that was still sore. "Those bits of metal were headed straight for your heart. You would have died, if we hadn't put in your electromagnet."

"So…my electromagnet keeps them out of my heart, huh?" Tony inquired, looking down at the glowing contraption.

"Correct."

"Wicked."

Then Tony was ten, and he had been with Dr. Yinsen for a while. Dr. Yinsen told Tony he was the son he never had, and Tony thought that it would've been really awesome if his mom had met Dr. Yinsen in college instead of his real dad.

Sometimes he wondered why it didn't feel very different being ten, instead of nine, or even eight, but then he remembered that his chest didn't hurt anymore, that his mom and dad were dead, but he was still kind of happy.

Dr. Yinsen wouldn't let Tony go to public school, because of his electromagnet. He said, 'It's dangerous, and accidents happen all the time, Anthony.'

Sometimes Tony got upset, because he really wanted to play with other kids, wanted to feel 'normal', but then Dr. Yinsen would bake cookies and make macaroni and cheese, and it was okay again.

Usually Tony was okay with being homeschooled, because he got to stay home and work on building circuit boards and robots, because he was still a genius even with an electromagnet embedded in his chest.

He got special classes with Dr. Yinsen, and there was nice tutor who came to see him. He was great at math and science, and occasionally he got too jittery to read the books he was assigned for English, but it was okay because he got all A's.

Sometimes, if Dr. Yinsen had to go away on a conference, a man in a suit named Phil would come over, and they'd watch Super Nanny and take apart Phil's taser when Tony got bored.

Occasionally Tony forgot that he was Tony Stark before he was Tony Yinsen. They didn't talk about it much, but Tony remembered that his first dad was important and smart, and they had a really big house. Dr. Yinsen lived in a huge apartment in a nice neighborhood that was a few blocks away from his clinic, but it still wasn't as big as his old house.

Tony had his own room, with his very own bed that he got to paint red and gold. Tony accidentally got some paint on the baseboards, but Dr. Yinsen said it didn't matter. He never got mad like his first dad did.

When Tony turned ten, he got his own little 'workshop' in his room, tucked into a corner. He liked to take things apart, and put them back together. Sometimes he built new things, and sometimes he'd nick the TV turner and Dr. Yinsen's pager and make them better, though Dr. Yinsen wasn't always happy when Tony wanted to 'fix' his cell phone.

Dr. Yinsen was really proud when Tony showed him a circuit board he put together. It was the first of many parts he made for a robot he wanted to build. They went out for pizza when Tony finished coding his first robot. It wasn't a super smart robot, and Tony named him Dummy, but he moved and knocked things over, and he was still pretty cool. It was one of the few times Tony got to leave the apartment, and it was one of the best things he remembered about being with Dr. Yinsen.

Then Tony turned eleven, and everything was ruined. Tony had forgotten that he was still Tony Stark, though he went by Tony Yinsen. Things had been wonderful, and he was happier than he ever remembered being when he was Tony Stark, but the one thing his first dad had always told him was that happiness doesn't last.

One day, there was pounding on the front door, and there was a lot of yelling. Dr. Yinsen rushed into Tony's room, opening the window.

"Anthony," he said, and his normally soft voice was very urgent, and Tony was terrified.

Dr. Yinsen handed Tony the toolkit that was just for his electromagnet, with spare parts inside. There were extra 'batteries', wires, a miniature soldering iron, and a 24-in-one tool that had super tiny screwdrivers. Tony was an expert on his electromagnet by now, probably the only other one in the world besides Dr. Yinsen, and he wasn't allowed to have his toolkit unless it was super important.

Then his favorite hoodie, with Fe for iron embroidered on the front, was pulled over his head, and Tony felt like crying as he shoved his feet into his sneakers.

"You are an amazing boy, Anthony," Dr. Yinsen murmured, pressing a kiss to Tony's forehead. Then Tony started crying, and he hugged his second dad tight, even as the pounding got louder.

"I love you, Anthony. You will always be my son."

"You'll always be my dad," Tony hiccupped, burying his face into Dr. Yinsen's shirt.

Then Dr. Yinsen whispered into his ear, "No matter what, never tell anyone that you are Anthony Stark. Do you understand?"

Tony nodded, swallowing hard, but his throat was dry.

"Can I use Yinsen?"

Dr. Yinsen shook his head, pulling away. The sad smile was back, and Tony's heart hurt for the first time in months.

He hugged his second dad again, and then there was a crash that sounded a lot like the front door breaking off its hinges, and then he was shoved out the window and onto the fire escape.

Tony looked over his shoulder, wiping at his face as he stammered, "I-I love you!"

"I love you too, Anthony," Dr. Yinsen said, leaning through the window to press a finger against Tony's electromagnet.

"Grow up to be a good man, Anthony. You have a very special heart."

Tony's head snapped up when his bedroom door cracked in the middle, and he knew there was only a few seconds before the door would break.

"Run!" Dr. Yinsen shouted just as the door exploded. Tony scrambed down the ladder, clutching his toolkit and tried to imagine that he didn't hear gunshots like in the movies Dr. Yinsen didn't like him to watch. He was eleven, and everything was ruined.

Thanks for reading! Reviews are welcome!