Author's Note:

This one-shot is part of the season 2 episode "There's No Business Like Shoe Business". Whereas I never liked the stupid and far-fetched key plot of this episode, I loved the scenes of Tony and Angela together with cute baby Clint. They could've shown us more about the triggering effect a baby in the house would've had on Tony and Angela. So here's my canon version of it.

You might recognize parts of the conversation as they originate from the show, only that I have varied them a bit and put them into a different setting. No copyright infringement intended.

Enjoy, and please review if you do.

Tangoing On A Tightrope

"You're wonderful, Tony. You do everything for this baby. You feed him, you change his diaper, you rock him to sleep." Angela smiled, "You know, you'd make a wonderful mother."

"And what about you, Angela? You're away the whole day, dash home from the office in the evening, spend a minute with the kid, make a mess,...you'd make a wonderful father."

They were sitting in the kitchen, Clint in a high chair between them. They gave each other the look, the chemistry between them palpable, then Angela looked away and pursed her lips. She was glad he obviously didn't have too much a problem because of their role reversal. Or at least had become so used to it by now to be able to make fun of it. He was a proud man but secure enough about himself to be above other people's mocking remarks.

"I'm gonna miss having him around." Angela tickled Clint and he gifted her one of his lovely, heart-warming baby smiles, "It's so nice to have a baby in the house."

"Yeah, it's kinda fun to have someone to do my housework with. Someone who isn't complaining when I ask him to help me with dusting. Huh, Buddy?" He pinched Clint's cheek and likewise got an enchanting smile back.

Angela caressed the baby's bald head and looked lovingly at him. It made Tony ask a very personal and not entirely harmless question. "Hey Angela, you ever think about having another one?"

"A baby? Oh, I'd love to," and sighing heavily she added, "but how?"

Tony gave her a quizzical look, then said, "I'll tell you later. Not in front of the kid."

A 'ha ha' look appeared on her face. "I meant how am I supposed to find time to have a baby when I am running an advertising agency and I have no man in my life?"

"I would help you out with looking after the kid, of course! It's in my job description, isn't it?"

"Very well, Tony, but if you also helped me out with making the baby I guess I should give you a raise, shouldn't I?" Angela chuckled when she looked up, but Tony's vacant expression, his wide eyes and open mouth, took that grin from Angela's face in no time. "Relax, Tony! It was a joke!"

"Yes...sure," Tony wiped his wet palms on his pants and smiled uneasily, "a joke."

He inhaled deeply. There was no such thing as a joke without a kernel of truth in it, right? But the idea was weird. Crazy. Completely plucked out of the air. It was, wasn't it?

"Tony," Angela said in her soothing voice, "don't get me wrong! The joke was about paying you for...uh, donating..." Angela's temples started throbbing.

"I know what you mean, Angela."

"As to your question... If I ever had another baby, I would love to have it with y-, I mean...someone like you. You're the most responsible and caring father I've ever seen."

Of course, having a baby with him instead of only someone like him wasn't that far from possible either. When she had come home earlier and had found him singing a lullaby to Clint, it had warmed her heart. Jonathan's cradle had been standing beside the sofa, just like it had done when he was a baby. The scene had brought her back in time when she had come home to her baby son from work. Only that she had never seen Michael caring so lovingly for Jonathan. If someone had rocked him, it had been the nanny. Angela knew that Tony would be the best father she could find for her baby; if she ever had another baby, and above all, if she had a baby with him. She shook her head. Crazy idea! Crazy and weird, and yet beautiful.

"Thank you, Angela. You're not such a bad parent yourself. You're warm and sensitive. And you make enough money to pay for a good school," he said with a grin, trying to put them back on the joking level. "If I ever had another child, I'd also like to have it with someone like you."

They locked eyes again. What Angela didn't know was that in Tony's head the same semantic shift occurred, replacing the 'someone like you' with a simple 'you'.

"What were you like when you were pregnant?" In front of his mind's eye, Tony pictured her in a business-like maternity dress, her hands on her huge belly, surrounded by that halo only pregnant women had.

Angela was caught off-guard by the question. She shrugged and replied laconically, "Like this," she still wore her business outfit, "only fat."

"Ey-oh, you weren't fat! Your baby was growing inside of you. That didn't make you fat, it made you one of nature's miracles."

"Oh, come on, Tony. Don't tell me you never thought that Marie was fat. At least towards the end, when her belly was so big she couldn't see her feet anymore."

"Never, Angela! I promise! She carried our child! She never was more beautiful to me, and I was attracted to her until the very last day of her pregnancy. Didn't Michael tell you that you were beautiful?"

"I...don't think so. And I don't think I was attractive in his eyes. At least not in the end. He slept in the guest room because he thought my going to the bathroom all night was disturbing."

"What a jerk! You made him the most precious gift a woman can make her husband and he treated you like that? What a complete idiot!"

Tony felt sorry for Angela. This woman had deserved better. A lot better.

"I don't think Michael ever saw it that way. Our family never lived up to my expectations," Angela said. She stared into the void and sighed heavily. "I had this sweet dream of my husband, our beautiful baby boy and myself enjoying every possible moment with each other. Instead, I felt like a single parent from early on. What we have feels more like a family than what I ever had with Michael."

Angela played with Clint's baby rattle, and eventually it produced a squeaking sound which made him giggle.

"Angela, what we have not only feels like family, we are a family."

"Patchwork family."

"I don't care what you name it, but the four of you - Sam, Jonathan, Mona, and..." Tony looked so deeply into Angela's eyes she would've sworn he must have been able to read her mind, "you - are the most important people in my life."

"That's so sweet of you to say, Tony."

"I mean it, Angela. If we were to have a baby, I-I mean...uh, I wanted to say, if we ever had a baby...hypothetically speaking, I mean..." He swallowed hard, "we would be a wonderful team raising that kid."

"You being so caring and protective."

"And you being tender and giving."

"And being able to pay for the private school," Angela teased.

"I wasn't serious about that, Angela. You'd be a wonderful mom even without your deep pockets."

"Thank you."

Their faces had come so close above Clint's little bald baby head during the last sentences that their noses almost touched. And Tony couldn't do anything about it, his lips found Angela's on their own. Her sweet, soft lips, which were as delicious as chocolate candy.

They kissed. Shyly at first, but then the kiss got more intense. Angela closed her eyes and savored Tony's lips on hers and his tongue caressing the inside of her mouth. By and by, they found themselves in a complete French kiss, right in front of the little boy they had volunteered to babysit and who had been the jumping-off point of their conversation. A conversation leading into a passionate kiss between employer and employee. But neither of them cared about their business relation at that point. Instead, they gave in to the inherent attraction.

Baby Clint stared at what was happening right in front of his face. His big blue eyes saucer wide, his curious mind apt to soak in every new experience his hitherto short life kept offering him. But at a certain point he started to feel uncomfortable, and because he wasn't able to classify the situation he did what every baby would do at a moment like this: he cried.

That, of course, was the proverbial cold shower. Tony and Angela tore their eyes open, pulled back in shock, froze and gaped at each other. For a moment nothing else happened, then Clint screamed an octave higher and several decibels louder which woke Tony up from his trance. He took Clint out of the high chair and tried to soothe him.

"Shhh, Fellow, everything's alright. No need to cry."

He rocked the baby tenderly, closely observed by Angela, who was still paralyzed by what had happened. Her heart was pounding and the wonderful taste of his kiss was still lingering on her lips. She couldn't avert her gaze from him. How could a man be so hunky and macho on one side but so fatherly tender on the other? She probably would've stared at him so overtly for the time being if she hadn't been disturbed once again: this time by the chime of the front door.

"Oh, well, that must be Isabelle. She wanted to come over for an iced tea," Angela explained. "I should get the door."

Tony looked up and their eyes met, and again they exchanged the same intense look like before the kiss, the look which said so much although not a single word was uttered. Angela slowly rose from her chair. She cupped Clint's face, who was still in Tony's arms, stroked the baby's cheek and said in her warm voice, "I leave you with Tony, Cutie-pie. You can't get a better sitter."

This time she was the one who was closely observed, by two pairs of eyes.

After Angela left through the swinging door, Tony collapsed on one of the wooden kitchen chairs, pulling Clint on his lap. He hadn't completely recovered from what had happened just now. He had enjoyed the kiss. Immensely. But he had kissed his boss! The woman who paid him! She had liked it, so it seemed. She had kissed him back, at least. How far would this have gone if Clint hadn't interrupted them? Tony wasn't sure whether he should be grateful or annoyed he had done so. A bit of both maybe.

"Hey, Clintster," Tony looked at the baby in his arms, "one piece of advice. If you want to have any brothers and sisters, don't do this to your parents too often."

Angela spent the rest of the afternoon with Isabelle who instantly read from her friend's face that she was confused and needed someone to talk to. Being a little more extroverted and definitely more reckless than Angela, Isabelle couldn't understand why she worried so much about her relationship to Tony.

"He's a hunk, Angela! I thought that was why you hired him in the first place!"

"I didn't hire him because he's a hunk! I hired him because he's wonderful with Jonathan and because he's a terrific cook and a very attentive housekeeper. My house is immaculate since he's been keeping it."

"Yeah-yeah-yeah, fine. But what's wrong with enjoying his soft skills some more?"

"I-sa-belle! Are you implying I should dive into an affair with my housekeeper?"

"Oh my, don't be so scandalized by the idea! I'd say in 50 percent of Fairfield's households the man of the house has an affair with the maid. Even Joanne amuses herself with the pool man."

"As if Joanne Parker was the standard! Anyway, she'd be the first one to spread it all around our community if I ever got involved with Tony."

"So what?"

"Jonathan and Samantha would be called names at school, Tony would be looked at as if he was a gigolo, and I'd be the woman who has to pay a man to take her to bed! No thanks!"

"Well, how do I put this delicately?" Isabelle scratched her head. "It's not so easy to believe that you can keep your hands off of him. I mean, you have to admit, he has a great body!"

Angela cleared her throat. "Okay, yes, he has a great body. But he also is a very sensitive man, Isabelle."

"Even better!" Angela's friend grinned blatantly, "That makes a perfect combination for a great lover!"

"I can't believe what I'm hearing!" Angela threw her hands in the air. "It's like talking to Mother."

"Have you been involved with someone since you threw Michael out?"

"I didn't throw him out, he chose to leave."

"The question was whether you've been involved with someone, Angela!"

"No."

She would've gotten involved with Grant, her boss at Wallace & McQuade, if Tony hadn't talked her out of it the very first night he had spent in her house. She had been angry with him because he had ruined her date, had almost fired him immediately. But after the waves had calmed, she had known Tony had been right to advise her against joining her boss for a weekend upstate before her promotion to president of the company was cut and dried. And afterward, she had lost interest in Grant, and he obviously in her as well.

"Not even a single easy one-night stand?"

"No! I'm not that kind of woman!"

"Angela," Isabelle sighed, "a little tingling adventure has never hurt nobody!"

"But Tony's too remarkable a man to be a tingling adventure."

"I see!" Isabelle crossed her arms in front of her chest and looked at Angela from head to toe with a smug grin on her face. "That's what's behind it! You're really fond of him! You want more than just an affair!"

Angela felt caught with her hands in the cookie jar, and Tony was the cookie jar. She bit her lip and looked at her feet to avoid her friend's inquisitive eyes.

"Still waters do run deep!"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Angie, Angie!" Isabelle shook her head. Then the tone of her voice changed. The teasing and sneer were gone, she sounded all sympathetic now. "What's wrong with getting involved with him? If he really is such a nice guy, and he even gets along well with your son, he's a jackpot in the lottery! Grab him!"

"I pay him, Isabelle. It's going to be very complicated."

"Love is never easy."

"What if it doesn't work and we break up? It's going hurt not only us but also the rest of the family."

Isabelle noticed the fact that Angela had called their living arrangement a family but decided to not address it, although it spoke volumes, of course. "Breaking up always hurts," she only said.

"We're from different worlds."

"Opposites attract."

"How many more of these pearls of wisdom do you have?"

"Lots!"

They looked at each other, then both smiled.

"Angela, I'm giving you a piece of advice. As your friend." Isabelle put an arm around Angela's shoulder. "He'd be good for you, and you'd be good for him. Who cares what the neighbors say or whether or not it's common for a female ad exec to get involved with her male housekeeper as long as the two of you are at one with each other?"

"I don't know whether we are at one. What we feel is...kind of unspoken."

"Then speak up!"

"It's not so easy! And besides, why do I have to be the first to speak up?"

"Because you're the boss and he's your subordinate?"

"Great," Angela murmured. "I wish he was one of my direct reports at the office. I could fire him and then we'd start anew without having a business relation to worry about."

Isabelle looked at Angela's contrite and somewhat helpless face.

"You're gonna find a way to let him know without firing him, I'm sure. You're good with words. You're in advertising for heaven's sake! Use your abilities!"

Clint's parents picked him up in the late afternoon. Tony and Angela had only cared for him a few days but had already taken the boy into their hearts. When Tony closed the door behind them, he had a funny feeling that he had lost something, and a look into Angela's face told him she felt the same way. She was emotional and sentimental just like him.

The mood in the house wouldn't lighten up throughout the entire evening. Angela was sitting on the couch carelessly flipping through one magazine after another, Tony was wiping the inside of the fridge not knowing any other way to get rid of the dull thoughts about Clint. At a certain point, he decided to make some tea for Angela and himself. A hot cup of tea was always soothing.

Balancing a tray with a pot of steaming herbal tea, two cups and a plate with chocolate chip cookies on one hand, he pushed the swinging door open with the other and found Angela on the sofa, absent-mindedly squeezing the rubber duck she had bought for Clint the other day.

"Hey," Tony said tenderly, "I thought you might want some tea."

Angela's head turned around. "Look, they forgot to take his rubber duck."

"Ah well, it will get a special place on the rim of your bathtub."

Angela smiled, then her eyes fell on the plate with the cookies. "Homemade?"

"Sure! Have I ever offered you ordinary cookies from the supermarket?"

She took a cookie and nibbled a tiny piece off, "Mmmm, chocolate chips, my favorite."

"I know. That's why I made them. It's double chocolate chips, actually. Doubles the taste." 'And doubles the healing effect,' he could've added. It wasn't the first time he tried to lighten up her mood with chocolate. And it had always worked so far.

"Delicious."

"Feel any better?"

Angela nodded but didn't say a word. She obviously wasn't in the mood to talk, but Tony felt they needed to talk about what had happened in the kitchen earlier.

"Uhm, Angela," he waited until she looked up and her eyes connected with his, "that was...a nice kiss. Earlier. In the kitchen."

"It was." She blushed. "And this time we were sober."

Kissing when you were sober meant a lot more than kissing when you were drunk. Their last and only kiss had been a drunken kiss, and it would've led directly to sex if Tony hadn't still been clear enough to not let her pull him into bed. They would've regretted it the next day, for sure. What would've happened today if Clint hadn't broken the spell with his crying? Would they have ended up in bed this time? The kiss surely was passionate enough to make it happen.

"That was pretty personal stuff we were talking about," Tony suddenly said, pulling her out of her contemplations.

"You're right, but I don't mind telling you personal things about myself. I know you're a trustworthy person, Tony. I guess, you inevitably get into personal matters once in a while when you live so close to one another like we do."

"Yeah, we live pretty close," 'We live under the same roof, Lady, the only way to live even closer would be sharing a bedroom,' went through Tony's mind.

Their eyes were glued to the other, their look telling so much more than what they actually said. It was full of subtle affection and they both struggled very hard to keep the underlying attraction in check. Before the tension became almost unbearable, Tony broke the silence again.

"Uh, Angela, what we spoke about in the kitchen...about babies and so on."

"Yes?"

"If you ever got married to...someone like me, would you try for another baby?"

"Well, I'd have to hurry. My childbearing years will soon be over."

"Oh, come on, you still have lots of time, Angela! You haven't answered my question, though: would you want to try for a baby or not?"

"That's a very hypothetical question, Tony."

"You can answer it hypothetically if you want."

Angela intertwined her fingers and looked at them. She chewed her lower lip. She was well aware they were both dancing on a tightrope, speaking about their hopes and dreams without clearly naming them. Isabelle's advice came to her mind, to speak up and tell Tony what her true feelings were for him. But somehow, there was a silent agreement to keep their relationship on the level it was right now. So she did not speak up, at least not in the way Isabelle had hoped she would.

"Hypothetically speaking, I mean, if I ever got married to...someone like you," she looked up and directly into his eyes before she answered his question, "I would want to try for a baby, yes!"

"I bet that...someone like me would also want to."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Well, who wouldn't want to try for a baby with you? You're wonderful!"

Angela blushed and didn't know what else to say. The tightrope was swinging back and forth and if they didn't stop it here and now they would lose their balance and fall, without having a safety net below.

"Guess we won't be needing this stuff for a while," Tony changed the topic pointing to a cardboard box on the floor marked 'baby toys' in Angela's neat handwriting. It eased the tension, the imaginary tightrope stopped swinging so badly, but they both still had to do an effort keeping their equilibrium.

The box would make its ways back into the attic tomorrow. Together with Jonathan's cradle, that lovely, ancient cradle Angela had touched so dreamily earlier that day. Tony pictured her as a young mother in a robe and with unkempt hair, exhausted from waking up every night to feed Jonathan and rock him back to sleep. She might've carried around a post-partum baby bump for a while, but she sure had been beautiful in her motherly pride, with her eyes sparkling every time she looked at her baby boy, her cheeks rosy from bliss, and her breasts full from nursing. He remembered how alluring Marie had been after she had given birth, and how long the wait had seemed for him until the doctor had cleared her to have sex again.

"Guess the next baby around here will be Samantha's," Angela said out of the blue.

"Bring him to me! I'll kill him!"

Angela chuckled. "In several years! When she gets married! You'd be a grandfather!"

From this point of view, Tony sort of liked the idea. He also liked the idea of still being around Angela at this stage of his life. "Grandpa Tony! Yeah, I like it!"

"Oh, it sure is quiet around here without the Clintster," Angela sighed, but Tony couldn't help thinking, 'Nobody to disturb us next time we're necking.'

Then they heard tango music coming from the kitchen. They looked at each other in surprise, jumped up from the couch in unison to find out what was happening next door.

They found Mona with a red rose between her teeth, teaching Jonathan how to dance the tango, closely watched by Samantha. The kitchen table and chairs had been pushed aside and the cassette recorder was at full volume. Samantha had demanded Jonathan to pay her for a tango lesson earlier that day and felt ousted by Mona who was offering her services for free.

Tony and Angela were amused by that lovely, easy family moment and Angela couldn't help teasing Tony, "Uh, Grandpa, do you still have a tango in you?"

"I think I got one!"

Tony grabbed Angela's hand, pulled her close and tangoed with her through the door frame into the living room. Dancing was an innocuous way of being near her, of being allowed to embrace her and letting his thoughts wander to a time and place where things might be different between them. And when she followed him so willingly, their movements fluid and harmonic, and when he was able to hold her so effortlessly, he silently told himself, 'Yep, I'd love to be Grandpa Tony one day, but even more so with Grandma Angela at my side.'

They should become very skillful tightrope artists over time.