Chapter 3: Uncle Bruce and Uncle Tony


"Tony…"

"Uh huh?"

"Why is the baby playing with a laser?"

The genius immediately stopped tinkering with his Iron Man suit and whipped his head around so fast, Bruce was convinced he'd given himself whiplash.

Tony's eyes landed on the baby in question who was happily gurgling as his robot handed her various, potentially dangerous tools to play with and put in her mouth.

Tony almost had a seizure.

"No! Dum-E, you stupid robot! I told you not to give the baby stuff! Babies can't play with robot toys, that's what baby toys are for."

The berated robot chirped sadly, taking the dangerous tools from Sarah's strong grabby hold. The baby cried when her new toys were taken away from her and Tony and Bruce froze and stared for a moment.

"Err… someone should take care of that right?"

Bruce rolled his eyes and walked up to the baby. "We are supposed to be taking of her Tony." He responded as he picked the baby up. Sarah's cries only grew louder and nothing Bruce would do could settle her.

"Hey could you keep it down over there, I'm trying to adjust these flight propellers. One wrong move and Iron Man becomes the Iron Pancake."

Bruce paused from bouncing Sarah on his lap and raised his eyebrows at Tony's audacity. "You know you could help me out here, like you told Steve you would."

"Honey, I'm working."

Bruce rolled his eyes, "You're always working."

"Yeah because I'm always trying to improve the team and how we function."

"Well I have important work to do too, I can't just spend the whole day looking after the baby. We agreed we would do this together Tony, it's time for you to step up."

Tony blinked and turned towards his fellow scientist. "Is it just me, or did we just get real domestic?"

Bruce removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes in an attempt to wake up from what was clearly a nightmare. Just the thought of having to raise a child with Tony made him cringe. It's not that Tony wasn't a good man. He was. He proved that, every day he got up, put on the suit and fought for what was right.

It's just that Tony wasn't father material…

"Just having a baby in the room has turned us into an old married couple. Cap probably has a serious case of blue balls, which sucks 'cause he didn't even get down and dirty and he still ended up with a kid! Poor Cap missed out on the fun part."

…Like at all.

During their little squabble Sarah had quietened down and was now snuggled on Bruce's arm. The mild-mannered scientists smiled down at the innocent being, his chest aching a little with desire for what he could never have. He was startled out of his reverie when his phone buzzed in his pocket and a text revealed that his help was needed at the children's' ward of a hospital that he often volunteered at in the city.

"Something's come up, they need me at St John's."

"What?! But if you're there then you're not here…" Tony replied, staring dumbly as Bruce lay Sarah into her car seat and put on his jacket. Sarah started fussing, kicking her little legs and waving her arms at the change of position.

"Looks like you're going to need to hold her." Bruce said, quickly sending a text back to the hospital.

"What?! No! I'm allergic!"

"You're allergic to a baby." The scientist deadpanned

Tony shrugged. "It's not entirely impossible."

"Tony, just take care of her or Steve will kill you"

"Well shit, you'd better get me a gravestone on your way back 'cause I know I'm gonna fuck this up."

"Language. And no you won't." Bruce steered his friend towards the car seat where Sarah was starting to cry in earnest.

"Just pick her up and tell her a story. You like talking about yourself right? Now you can talk about yourself with someone who won't beg you to shut up."

Tony gulped and picked up the baby. She was squidgy and soft and loud. He held her at arms' length for a moment and she finally stopped crying in favour of staring at him through her watery eyes, which were a kaleidoscope of colours, but predominantly green. Tony held her to his chest and started mumbling to himself.

"Ok, I can do this. I can take care of Captain America's baby. No problem! I'm Tony Stark, I can do anything! How hard could this be?"

Sarah gurgled in agreement.


Steve was perhaps a bit apprehensive when he got out of the elevator and made his way to the lab. He hadn't really wanted to leave Sarah in such a dangerous environment, but Bruce had reassured him that it had been baby-proofed and that he would keep an eye on things. So one could imagine the state the captain was in when he received a text from Bruce saying that he'd had to leave Tony alone with Sarah.

Steve's mind kept running though different scenarios where his baby girl would end up flying away in an Iron Man suit, or left under one of Tony's cars.

Steve nearly had a coronary when he walked into the lab and saw an empty seat at Tony's workstation.

"Tony?"

"Sshhh. Over here cap."

Steve followed the direction which the quiet whisper had come from, only to find his sweet baby girl asleep on the floor in a toolbox that had been lined with her blankets. The billionaire was sitting next to her cross-legged as he worked on a tablet and beside them was Tony's child-like robot who was whirring and spinning as he (he?) attempted to get spare diapers off his 'head'.

"Hey, looks like you two had fun." Steve said, glancing at several of Sarah's toys which were strewn across the floor.

"Yup, we sure did. Turns out the little squirt gets a kick out of making Dum-E play fetch, she must have gotten her sense of humour from her momma."

Steve rolled his eyes, clutching the genius' outstretched hand and hauling him up. "Thanks for taking care of her Tony. You guys didn't have any issues did you?"

"Nope, everything was fine and dandy Cap."

The valiant super-soldier nodded his head in approval. "Good to hear."

Tony tapped his chin, seemingly trying to think hard about the words that were about to leave his mouth. Steve recognised that look, despite it appearing very rarely.

"Well everything was dandy… after we err… took care of a hiccup."

Steve took a deep breath and closed his eyes, but still couldn't manage to unclench his jaw.

"What hiccup Tony?"

Tony scratched his head and avoided the captain's steely blue gaze.

"The little squirt may have found herself locked into the Mark XII suit at one point…"


Author's note: Hey guys, hope you enjoyed this chapter, I love writing about Tony's antics, I might squeeze him into another chapter! Please leave me a review if you like where this is going! Thanks for reading!