First time's charm

Being called to the principal's office on your very first day in elementary school, now that was a record even Tony had not broken. However it looked pretty easy for his eldest son, Edward to achieve such a thing.

It would be difficult for him, they knew that. It wasn't that Ed had spent the early years of his life inside the Stark mansion or that he hadn't learned to play with other kids. On the contrary, he liked sharing pretty much everything and had no problem playing with a hundred other kids when they visited the LC Home every other Sunday. It was that he would be completely alone for the first time, even Marie wouldn't be there with him and that would be difficult for her too. So, blowing up the science lab to make an impression and get some friends, was what Tony expected to happen but not on the very first day.

They had called them an hour or two before lunch break. Pepper had been working at home and Tony had been down in his workshop working on his latest obsession, the SRK 8 for the Stark Racing. Once Jarvis informed them they had a phone call from Malibu's Elementary school they both knew what it was about. Pepper was thinking about damage control as she was dressing up while Tony practiced a few lines to charm the headmistress.

"Mr. and Mrs. Stark." The old woman said when the couple entered her office. It was a woman in her sixties, with big glasses and a bun of grey hair on her head. Tony opened his mouth to talk but the old woman raised a hand to stop him and then gestured for them to sit down.

"Mrs. Stark, I am happy to meet you, I am Mrs. Dawson, the headmistress of the school." The woman said and gave her hand to Pepper.

"Nice to meet you too." Pepper said kindly frowning to Tony who seemed to be ignored.

"Does that mean you are not happy to meet me?" Tony said pretending to be hurt but all he got was a severe look. He had no chance of charming her, that was for sure.

"Mrs. Dawson, you called us for Edward, was there a problem?" Pepper asked worried. She was more worried about Tony than her son actually.

"I won't lie to you, Mrs. Stark, the first day at school is difficult for every kid especially when he's so much younger than his classmates."

"He'll turn six in a few weeks." Tony interrupted and got another glare. He felt like he was six years old again and called to this very office for blowing up the science lab; said science lab was blown up again by his son. They had quite a tradition in the family after all.

"I don't know in what kind of environment this kid has been growing up but it's obvious he doesn't understand the hazard of playing in a science lab." Mrs. Dawson said and looked at Tony once again along with Pepper.

That had been his mistake. Time after time Pepper yelled at him he shouldn't get the kids down to the workshop and let them do whatever they wanted unattended. She was alright with him teaching Edward about mechanics or working with him on the hot rod BUT she had made it clear that, iron man gadgets and experimentations were OUT of the question. He may or may have not been listening to that. That was how a very expensive pair of boots ended up destroyed.

"Clever minds need stimulation." Tony said in his son's defense.

"Oh, we are very aware of that Mr. Stark, it seems that our poor lab has been haunted by your family." The old lady said making Pepper frown.

"You must be very proud that your son has surpassed you. Even you waited for a whole week before you showed us your talent in chaos." She said giving him a cold, professional smile. It looked like the one Pepper was giving him whenever he did something wrong.

"You keep files so way back?" Tony said surprised. It had been almost thirty six years ago!

"I don't need a file to remember that chaos, Anthony Stark; I spent two years dealing with it." She said surprising both Starks. Tony leaned over the office and looked at her better. It couldn't be, could it?

She couldn't be… Ms. Patterson, his first and second grade teacher? She was so beautiful with long, black hair and green eyes; said eyes were giving him the same look he used to get from her as a child. God, had he been a pain in the neck back then. Even he admits it.

"Ms. Patterson?" Tony said recognizing her. It couldn't be anyone else; no other teacher had stuck with his class for more than a year. There had been a time they were changing teachers every two months. Yeah, he was not the only one naughty in there.

"Actually, it's Mrs. Dawson, now." She said straightening her back.

"So, you were dating the couch, I owe Davis a bike." Tony said looking at Pepper referring to a childhood bet.

"Tony, behave!" Pepper said making the old woman smirk.

"But, honey, it's Ms. Patterson! She had been my favourite teacher until I left for MIT. I can't believe you're a principal now, remember that time I upgraded your car?" Tony said grinning.

"Of, course I do, Anthony, I crashed with every car in the parking lot as soon as I started the engine." She said not amused. Pepper looked at Tony in wide eyes. She knew what this man was capable of doing but she was now afraid of what she had to deal with in the foreseeable future.

"It reached 200km/h in les than two seconds. I don't know why I got suspended for it, really, you should be thanking me. Other people pay a bunch of money to get cars such that, including me." Tony said very serious.

"I got thirty two lawsuits for that!" the old woman exclaimed.

"If I remember correctly, my father paid for that." Tony said.

"Honestly, Mr. Stark, I wonder how your company is still standing." She said.

"I have the answer to that." Pepper mumbled receiving a full mouth grin by Tony. She smiled softly at him and looked at her clock. She actually had a brief-meeting in less than half an hour and she needed to go home.

"Mrs. Dawson, can we go back to Edward please? Don't be offended but we have busy lives." Pepper said. The old woman nodded and proceeded to list the damages of the lab.

As soon as she finished Tony got up and put on his glasses.

"I'll tell you what, I'll send a crew first thing in the morning and we'll make you a new high-tech lab, would that be ok? And I'll put a label on the door, Stark Lab, just to make amends with the bad spirit of mischief that's haunting the place, how's that?" he said leaving her speechless.

"You should still talk to your son about those flying boots." Mrs. Dawson said and Pepper sighed and touched her head.

"Oh, those boots! I thought I had hid them." Pepper said.

"You can't hide anything from Edward, Pepper, he knows were you put things, besides, he has Marie finding them for him." Tony said and Mrs. Dawson popped her eyes out.

"Marie Elisabeth Stark? I should have imagined she was yours." She said.

"Oh, no." Pepper said.

"Don't worry, Mrs. Stark, she didn't destroy any property of the school. However, maybe you should explain to her the difference between exploration and breaking in." she said.

"What?!" now both Tony and Pepper yelled surprised.

"Their teacher had let them explore the playground and your daughter thought it would be fun to pretend she was in a mission and break in the glass-house on the back of the school." Mrs. Dawson said smiling.

"Is anyone hurt?" Pepper asked.

"No one except for the plans." She re assured her.

"Maybe the teacher should have defined the bounds of the ground that was allowed to be explored." Tony said.

"That was exactly what Marie told Mr. Murray." The headmistress said and dismissed the couple.

"That went good." Tony said on the way to the car.

"Our six year old blew up a lab and our four year old broke into a glass house, yeah that went smooth." Pepper said.

"Well, it's not easy to adjust to an environment with so many rules." Tony said getting the door for her.

"Don't mess with the workshop, don't pick up locks and don't get things blown up, are rules we have at home."

"Relax, Pep, it was their first day." Tony said getting the engine started.

"That's what I'm afraid the most; what will happen next."

"They'll be fine, they're good kids, once they blend in things will go better."

"I know, I guess, first time's charm." Pepper said and smiled as they headed back to the mansion.

As soon as they reached the house, Pepper locked her self up in her office to get to that cyber-brief-meeting. It was something about the new head of the engineers department now that Millie was officially CEO of the company. Tony walked to the kids' room to check on Logan and his nanny.

"How is he?" he asked her and she replied in Italian. Yes, their nanny was Italian and she was an old friend of his mother's. She knew English she just felt more comfortable in her native language and since Tony understood... Well, she used that.

"Ok, you can go if it's an emergency; I'll take care of him." He said and the woman looked at him with eyes wide open .

"Pepper is in the office, she will be finished in an hour!" He said in Italian. The old woman smiled and kissed him before she left.

"Hi there, baby evil genius." He said to his son as he opened his big brown eyes.

"Sir, Mrs. Stark has repeatedly told you not to call the baby that." Jarvis said.

"Oh, come on Jarvis, you wont tell her that, now will you? Remember who upgrades you." Tony said reaching in to caress the baby's red head.

"My memory seems to be short, Sir, maybe I need a new one." The computer said.

"Blackmail, Jarvis? Ok, I thing I have given you a little more intelligence than I needed to." Tony said and picked up Logan.

"How about going to the workshop and watch daddy do some awesome stuff?" Tony said raising him high making him laugh.

"You liked that, didn't you?" he said and shook him.

"Sir, I believe getting young Mr. Stark to your workshop is not a good idea. The possibility of an accident is 70% within the first minutes and raises up to 99% after an hour considering you tend to be absorbed by your work and the baby will be unattended." Jarvis said.

Tony gave it a thought. Yeah, maybe he had a point there. No one would like Logan drowned into safety foam by Dummy or a baby playing with an Iron man gadget that just happened to be lying on the floor forgotten, like half of his inventions.

"Maybe, you are right. Ok, let's take the computer and do a few calculations on the designs then." Tony said and turned to leave but Logan started crying.

"You don't like the idea?" Tony asked him and the baby shook his head stretching his hands towards the shelves.

"You want to play too, that sounds fair. Do you want a teddy bear?" Tony said and grabbed a fluffy puppy that Marie called Toto.

The baby gave the toy a punch and got it on the ground. "Ok, remind me to introduce you to Agent Fury." Tony said getting another toy from the self, a small car. Thinking it twice he put it back. He didn't want him to chock on it.

"Ok, what do you want?" he gave up and got the baby near the self. Logan mumbled a few incoherent words that made no sense as usual and started to touch everything on the self. "God, you're picky." Tony said. At last the baby laughed and got a toy off the self.

"Transformers? Really?" he said and walked out of the room and down to the workshop to get his computer before he settled in the living room putting Logan on the floor. After getting Edward and Marie to the hospital with head injuries he had learned that a carpeted floor is safer than a comfortable sofa. You can't fell off a floor.

He started working on his new F1 model slowly cutting himself off his surroundings and the various sounds his baby son was making while disassembling the toy. It was his favourite activity really, taking things apart. Pepper called it genes and Tony called it curiosity. The truth should be somewhere in the middle.

After a while he felt someone grabbing his jeans.

"Just a moment, Logan, daddy is in the middle of something very important." He said not looking down. For the past few minutes he was trying to solve an equation he had created a month ago about the energy recovery of the car. Logan tacked his jeans once more trying to get attention.

"Dada!" he said in a determined tone smacking Tony's knee.

Tony stopped and looked at the boy frozen.

"What did you say?" Tony asked him not quite sure he had listened an actual word and not some kind of nonsense again. The boy grabbed the toy that was now formed into a robot and pretended it was flying.

"Dada!" he repeated. Tony watched the baby in awe.

"Jarvis, what just happened?"

"I believe, Mr. Logan just said his first word." Jarvis said giving Tony a full mouth grin.

Eddie's first word had been 'mama' and he had lost that due to a mission in Mexico. Marie's first word had been 'suit' and he barely remembers that because he had a concussion, not because of a mission but because of a fight he had had with Rogers. However, now, he was there, fully aware of his surroundings and he had heard it very clearly. 'Dada'; Logan's first word had been 'Dada'.

He grabbed the baby and ran upstairs taking the steps two at a time to reach Pepper's office.

"Pepper, Logan, just said his first word." Tony said entering like a tornado.

"Tony! I'm in the middle of a meeting!" Pepper yelled before realizing what he had told her. "What?" she added.

"His first word! Listen!" Tony said and let Logan talk but the baby was busy playing with the mini robot.

Tony took it away and asked him "Who's that?"

"Dada!" the baby cried and he took the toy back.

Pepper was stunned forgetting all about the four people that were waiting online. She got up and walked to them caressing her sons red hair.

"Oh, my God!" she said.

"Dada, you heard too right?" Tony said grinning from ear to ear.

"I heard it, big daddy, I guess he's not such an evil genius after all." She said kissing Logan's head.

"Oh, he is, he totally is, but he likes me more than I thought, I think he actually may love me after that." Tony said tickling him.

"I don't think there's anyone who can resist you, Mr. Stark." Pepper said and she heard several people coughing on through the speakers.

"The meeting." She said and got back to her office apologizing for the interruption. Tony walked out of the office thinking what to do next to celebrate his success.

"Jarvis, call Rhodey." He said playing with Logan as he got down the stairs.

Tony spent the rest of the day trying to get words from Logan. He had managed to teach him say 'mama', 'Ed', 'Dummy' and 'car'. When Ed and Marie came back from school, Pepper made him give them a big lecture. He didn't actually like doing things like that, not that Pepper did but she had fifteen years of experience on lecturing… him. He just didn't have it in him; he was the funny parent, the clown, the toymaker. That was why Pepper insisted he should be the one lecturing them about stuff as serious as explosions. When the funny man is not laughing any more then things are serious and they had to know that.

It didn't take long actually but he really didn't like it, especially the punishment thing.

"Oh, and you're both grounded." He said trying to sound as serious as possible.

"What?" Eddie and Marie said in one voice.

"You are going to help me clean up the workshop…" Tony said thinking it was more of a self punishment than a lesson to those two.

"Cleaning?" they both said and got their puppy faces on to make him succumb. Damn his genes! They looked so cute when they did that.

"Cleaning the benches, tidying up and staff." Tony said crossing his arms in front of his chest to make a point. He could not break. Eventually they both nodded and walked to their rooms like wet cats. Tony let out a breath he was holding.

"You did very well." Pepper said hugging him from behind.

"I don't like it." Tony said.

"No one likes it but they need to learn boundaries." Pepper said.

"I don't like cleaning up my workshop." Tony said making her laugh.

"Well, it had to be done some day!" she said giving him a peck on the lips.

"Sorry to interrupt, Sir, but you have an incoming call from Ms. Mildred." Jarvis said and he passed the call.

"How's my little CEO?" Tony said hugging Pepper from behind and kissing her cheek.

"Dead." Millie answered and took a deep breath.

"Already? It's only been a week." Pepper said.

"Yeah well, I got more than twenty people thinking they are filling me in or explaining things to me but all they do is giving me a headache." The girl said.

"That comes with the job. I told you to get a P.A." Tony said and winked at her through the video call.

"She has to be filled in anyway." Pepper argued.

"Pepper, can't you just help me? I know I said I didn't need any help but … well, I might need a little. Just a week or so, please, I can't stand them, especially that Phil from the Financial Department. I think I'm going to stab him with my pen every time he opens his mouth." She said and sighed.

"I never liked him, either." Tony agreed and swayed them a little resting his chin on Pepper's shoulder.

"Ok, I guess it's only fair to guide you for a few days." She said and smirked. Tony knew that smirk, it was one of triumph. Had Pepper Potts Stark already knew that would happen? Of course she did! Pepper knew everything.

"Good, thank you, now would you like to drive down to the beach and have some pizza? I really think I'll go nuts if I don't leave this building." Millie said.

"I honestly cannot understand your preference to the Industry's basement rather than our huge room at the end of the house that has a great ocean view. I could make a separate entrance if privacy is what you want." Tony said. He would never let it go.

"I'm a creature of darkness." Millie joked and added. "Ok, so I'll be at Mario's, I'm waiting." She said and hanged up.

"Family dinner at Mario's?" Pepper said.

"Leaving the kids with Millie and walking next to the sea on a full moon?" Tony suggested.

"Is there a full moon, tonight?" Pepper asked him and he nodded.

"No wonder everyone's gone crazy today." She said and freed herself from him to get the kids ready.

"Can we go with the Audi?" Tony asked making a puppy face.

"No, we're using the Monster." Pepper said referring to their big family van.

Well, I have named it monster for a reason, honey, Tony thought and smirked as he went to change as well.