Once again thanks for everyone's feedback, and reviews. You all area the only reason I've made it this far, and I'm not slowing down at all.
Chapter 7
Tony held the crying child protectively in his arms until the spiderlings sobs began to slow down to the occasional hiccup. Then Rhodey, always there to bring him back to reality, reminded him of something important. "Tony you should probably check to make sure the kid doesn't have any injuries."
"Oh… yeah," the billionaire shifted the boy slightly in his arms. This caused Peter to snuggle closer into the man's chest, squeezing a bit of Tony's shirt his tiny fingers, and hiding his head in the crook of the man's shoulder. "Friday scan the kid for injuries?" Tony asked his A.I. and as if by instinct he began the rocking the child from side to side in his arms. The movement seemed to make the child sigh in contentment, and he melted even deeper into the man's' embrace.
"I have detected multiple contusions, several non lethal abrasions, and severe dermatitis on his buttocks," Friday listed off in her robotic irish voice after a few moments.
Dermatitis on the kid's backside? What was that supposed to mean. Did the kid contract some weird disease while he was roaming about, and now his skin was breaking out. The billionaire looked over at Rhodey with confusion in his eyes. "Diaper rash," the other man whispered by way of explanation. Tony nodded in understanding, now it made sense. He really needed to change Friday's language settings so, so that she spoke in more modern day language. Now that the kid's diaper was brought to the front of his mind, it certainly smelled like the kid needed a change, and the man was nothing but ready for give the child a pass, considering how long he was buried under a collapsed building. But this was a problem that could be dealt with later. "We should probably find a way to get him in clean diaper. The longer he stays in a dirty one, the worse the rash will get," Rhody added.
Scratch that, getting this kid changed was next on the 'to do' list. "Ok, I don't think the kid is in any condition for me to be flying him back with the iron suit. So here is what I propose…" Tony looked down at the child in his arms. He had stopped crying at this point, and looked almost half asleep against the man's chest. "I'll call Happy, and have him pick us up and take us back to the compound. While we're waiting for him, let's go to the nearest store and get what we need to get this kid in a clean diaper."
"Sounds like a pretty good plan," Rhodey nodded in agreement.
"Great. Want to come with me. I have absolutely no idea how to treat a diaper rash and I would appreciate the help."
"I'm not sure how much help I'd be in that department, but I guess two heads are better than one."
Tony shifted Peter so he could hold the child with one arm, and unzipped his own jacket. Peter groaned slightly at the shift, but rested his little head on the man's shoulder and sighed tiredly. "Friday call Happy?" the billionaire ordered shrugging off his jacket.
"Calling Happy Hogan," the A.I. responded and a few seconds later the the internal ringing sound was heard.
The other man picked up on the first ring, which probably meant that he had been waiting around for the phone to ring. Which wouldn't have been surprising, considering that the only order he had given the man was to wait at the compound in case Peter returned. It was obvious now that Peter wasn't at the compound so Happy wouldn't have anything to do but wait around for the phone to ring. "Tony?" Happy asked over the phone by way of greeting.
"Hey Hap we found him," Tony said without ceremony. He now had his jacket pulled off, and he wrapped it snuggly around the child who was now asleep in his arms.
You could almost hear the relief in the other man's voice, "That's good to hear. Is he ok? Where did you find him?"
"Yeah," Tony glanced down at Peter's pale sleeping face. You could see the tear trails running down his grimy face, and he rubbed a soothing hand over the child's back causing Peter to give a satisfied sigh in his sleep. "He's fine, just a little beat up. It's a long story, I'll tell you later- listen I need you to come and pick us up."
"Sure thing," Happy replied quickly. He seemed eager to be doing something. "You guy's in Queens?"
"Yeah," Tony replied. "Call us when you get into town and we'll let you know where we're at."
With that the billionaire ended the call. "Should we get going?" Rhodey asked after a moment, and Tony nodded in agreement. Rhodey led the way out of the old building. Tony planned to make a call about the buildings structure later. Someone would certainly need to do something about the place if it was beginning to collapse within itself. He followed closely behind his friend, holding the sleeping child in his arms as if he were made of glass. Even though the boy was dead asleep at this point, he still made small whimpering sounds anytime he was shifted, which caused Tony to worry more. Either Friday missed an injury, or that diaper rash the kid had was more painful than he was thinking.
They managed to find a Target store just a couple of blocks down the road from where the warehouse was, which should be able to serve their purpose. The moment they stepped into the store, they were greeted by an employee wearing the typical Target red shirt and khaki pants. The employee was a young girl, probably no older than 16 or 17 years old with long brown hair and wearing glasses. Her reaction to him was typical, "Oh my gosh- it's Ironman…" she said with a breathless gasp, placing a hand over her heart. Several people nearby stopped at stared at overhearing her.
It took a few moments before she was able to get a hold of herself, but the young girl finally managed to take a few steading breaths and get back to her job of customer service. "M-May I help you fi-nd something Mr. Stark- Sir- Mr- Ironman…"
Tony had to fight not to roll his eyes at the girl. She seemed totally smitten with him; hopefully she wouldn't wet herself. He thought of a million different things he could say to this girl, that would send her over the rails, and probably totally embarrass her. He knew that Rhodey wouldn't approve, so he kept it cool. "Thanks, I'm looking for diapers?"
The girl didn't seem at all take aback by the unusual prospect of Tony Stark coming into a store like a regular person and asking for diapers. "T-They would be in the infant section?" she responded breathlessly.
Infants? He thought that he had already established yesterday that Peter no longer fell into the category of infant. He was more of a toddler, being two years old. Maybe in her fangirling mind, she thought he was looking for infant diapers. "No. You see I need them for him?" Tony motioned at the sleeping Peter. "He's two, so he's not an infant."
The girl looked suddenly terrified, as if she thought that she had offended Ironman for misunderstanding her. She stood there shell shocked with her mouth slightly opened, and didn't respond. "All our diapers are in the same section," a different voice responded, and Tony looked around in the direction of where the voice came from. It was an older woman with shoulder length blond hair, probably in her mid twenties, also sporting the red shirt and khaki pants. She approached the smitten girl, and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Bev, we're kind of backed up. So can you help out on lane 8?"
The young girl nodded dumbly, and headed for the direction of the check out lanes with the help of a gentle push by the other employee. "Sorry about that?" the woman said after a moment. "But I'm sure you probably get that alot Mr. Stark."
The billionaire just nodded without giving a verbal response. He arm was beginning to get tired from holding Peter for so long. Sure the kid wasn't that heavy right now, but carrying 25 pounds on one arm for an extended amount of time, anyone would eventually get tired. He as gently as possible shifted the boy over to his other arm, causing the child to wake up with a soft cry of protest. Tony gently made shushing noises into the spiderlings ear, rubbing his back and rocking from side to side. Slowly the tired child fell back into a partially content sleep sighing into the man's shoulder, his tiny fist wrapped around the hem of his neckline. The blonde haired woman smiled at the adorable scene. "Wow, Mr. Stark I never knew you were so good with children. In fact I didn't even know that you had a son- Anyway's our infant second is is down that way past housewares."
The employee pointed towards the left of the store. However Tony wasn't wasn't really listening to her anymore. To be honest he stopped listening to everything she said after the word son. This kid wasn't his son, and he couldn't have people going around thinking that he had one. That would ruin his image. Everyone would think that Tony Stark was going soft. Then there would be a big scandal of who the mother was… The whole business sounded like a shitstorm ready to hit the fan. "N-No he's not my son. He's… a friends kid. I'm j-just watching him."
Tony felt Rhodey press a hand on his shoulder, causing him to start moving forward. "Thank you," his friend called back to the woman, as they went towards the direction of infants. Rhodey also seemed to pick up on the direness of what just occurred. "I think we better get this done quick, so you can get out of the public eye."
It was easy to tell which section was the infant section, as there were pictures of babies everywhere. They made it to the diaper aisle after a few moments, and both were shocked by what they found. Both sides of the aisle were filled all the way with boxes and bags of diapers. Tony never in his wildest dreams realized how many different brands of diapers there were. How do you know which ones are the right ones. "What is this?" the billionaire asked in shock. "I see Huggies, Pampers, Luvs, Up n Up- and what's with the numbers. Some have the three, two, five. How do we know which is the best diapers to pick with so many options?"
"Ok… don't panic," Rhodey said, placing a hand on the other man's free shoulder. But he also looked lost and trying hard not to panic. "Let's take this one step at a time. We'll start with a brand, then decide on which number we need."
Tony walked up and down the aisle a couple of times looking at all the brands, and skimming over all the advertisements written on the packaging. All of them seemed to be the perfect diaper according to the labels. "Ok… let's go with Huggies or Pampers. There seems to be more of those brands then any of the others," he decided after a long time of contemplating.
"Ok, let's just go with Huggies," Rhodey decided, starting to run out of patients.
"All right sounds good." Tony stood directly in front of the large collection of Huggies brand diapers. "The number probably means the diaper size right?"
"Probably."
"So what size do you think he is?"
Rhodey ran a hand over his forehead and went to pinch the bridge of his nose. "I don't know Tony, what size of diaper is he wearing right now?"
Tony shifted the child ever so slightly, so he could look down at the child's pants. He pulled the child's pants back just a little bit to look down at the diaper. He didn't like what he saw, and the smell was even worse. He was certainly not looking forward to changing that diaper. The billionaire pulled his head up quickly, trying to get as far away from the smell as he could. "I have no idea, and I'm not checking right now." His friend only responded with a knowing smirk. "Ok, so the kid is two years old, so maybe that means he's a size two?"
"I don't know Tony?" Rhodey sounded doubtful. "It looks like the sizes go all the way up to 6, and I don't think it's normal for six year old's to still be in diapers."
The other man shrugged. "Don't look at me, I wouldn't know this stuff."
Rhodey picked up a purple box. "Ok this one had a picture of kid on it who looks about the same age as Peter, and it has has 3 through 6 sizes. With this we have four sizes to try, at least one of them ought to fit the kid."
"Sounds good to me, what else do we need?" Tony was eager to move this along. His other arm was beginning to tire, so he had to switch Peter around again. Luckily this time he didn't wake up, but a soft whimper still fell from his lips.
"Probably some baby wipes so you can clean… you know," Rhodey suddenly looked awkward, and Tony chose not to respond.
They found all the baby wipes on the next aisle over, which surprise surprise, was also filled with a ton of different brands and options. It wasn't as bad at the diaper aisle, the wipes were only about half of one aisle. But there were still different brands and different scents. How could any parents do this without getting overwhelmed. "We can't spend all day trying to pick out the best brand of baby wipe," Rhodey said, and grabbed a pack at random. "Hey look here's some diaper rash cream," he then grabbed one of the brands of cream that were next to the wipes, and then grabbed a bottle of baby powder. "Baby powder probably wouldn't hurt to have as well. That's probably good enough."
Tony waited with Peter near the store restroom, the child was still fast sleep on the man's shoulder. It was decided that, to save on more publicity blunders, Rhodey would buy the stuff and Tony could hide in the corners away from prying eyes. He hoped there would be some type of diaper changing spot on the men's room. Rhodey had told him that there usually is, and the billionaire would just have to take his friends word for it because he never paid attention to what was in a men's public restroom.
Rhodey approached where the two were waiting, with the box of diapers under one arm, a shopping bag in one hand, and a water bottle in the other hand. "Here?" the man held out the water bottle out to Tony. "The kid's probably really dehydrated, so we should try and get him to drink something."
"Thanks," Tony accepted the bottle. He had to shift Peter around slightly in order to give both of his hands access to twist open the bottle cap, and the child cried out in weak protest at the movement. Once the water bottle was open, the billionaire used his free hand to hold the tip of the bottle to Peter's lips. "Hey kid… wake up," he spoke gently giving the child a shake.
Glassy blue eyes cracked open, and the child instinctively opened up his mouth at the feeling of something against his lips. This allowed Tony to dip a little bit of water into the child's mouth. They heard the boy swallow and then smack his lips together. The man dipped the bottle again, and this continued for a couple of minutes until Rhodey stopped him. "That's probably enough for right now. We can get him to drink some more later."
Finally it was time for the deed to be done. Rhodey ripped open the diaper box, and Tony examined the different sized diapers. All four sizes didn't look much different from each other, and all seemed like they could probably fit the kid. The size six looked a little big, and the size 3 looked a little small. He'd probably only use those sizes in an emergency. After a couple minutes of debating with his best friend, Tony settled on the size four diaper. With one arm filled with a sleeping baby spider, and the other arm filled with wipes, baby powder, diaper rash cream and the clean diaper in his free hand; Tony went into the men's restroom.
The man panicked for a second when he didn't see any spot for changing diapers. Just as he was about to go back out and tell Rhodey that they needed another place to try, he saw what must have been one inside the handicap stall. It was pinned onto the wall with a picture of a koala in a diaper on the front of it. If that wasn't a diaper changing spot, he didn't know what was. Having it inside the stall was a plus, now they'd have a bit of privacy.
He had to set the wipes and stuff on the floor so he could use his other hand to pull the changing table down, and saw that the surface didn't look clean at all. This caused Tony to really hesitate and reconsider whether it was worth it to change Peter now. Yes he'd been in a dirty diaper all night and most of the day, and according to Friday he had a severe rash already. But he really didn't like the idea of changing the kid on something that could contain God knows how many diseases. He finally settled on just changing the boy now, as it seemed like the lesser of two evils, but wiped the surface down with a couple of baby wipes before laying the child down on it.
A soft groan fell from Peter's lips as he was laid down, and glassy blue eyes cracked open for just a second before closing again. The kid must have been up all night, to be so tired now. There was a buckle strap on either side of the changing table, making Tony wonder if the table was going to start moving of its own accord. Why else would you need to strap your child to the table. He decided to take the chance of not using the buckles, he could always strap the kid in later if he felt that he should.
Tony mentally prepared himself with a deep breath. He sure wouldn't be breathing deeply in a few moments, he knew that this was going to be really bad. More whimpers squeaked out of the child as the man pulled his jeans down. Tony was trying to be gentle, but it seemed like any type of shift around his bottom caused pain. He just hoped that getting him in a clean diaper would help make it less painful. Once the pants were down, it was time to check out the damage that festered under that diaper. Very slowly, Tony undid one velcro strap, and then the other. Inch by inch he began peeling the front of the diaper down. It's going to be bad, it's going to be bad, it's going to be bad-
"Wow!" Tony couldn't help but let out a gasp, and turn his head away. It was indeed bad. Worse than he expected actually. What was under that diaper was more diarrhea, but it had been sitting for so long that quite a bit of it had dried and clung to the boys' skin. Chunky, partially dried stool covered the kid's entire backside and all up the front as well. He probably should have gotten multiple packages of wipes. He now regreted using two of them to wipe down the table.
With one hand he held the child's legs up so knee's were tucked against his belly, and with the other hand he grabbed two wipes and made a swipe over the kid's left bottom cheek. Peter's bright blue eyes flew open, and made a loud whimper of pain. Tony new why, after wiping away some of the feces he could see that child's skin was an angry red color. "Sorry buddy," Tony gently said with a wince and gave the skin another swipe trying to be more gentle this time.
Peter still scrunched his face up in pain, and a soft cry escaped his lips. "...hurts…" the child said with a groan, trying to wiggle away from the billionaire's hand.
Tony made soft shushing noises and responded with, "I know… but you're going to feel so much better once we're done." He continued cleaning up the child's backside. Even being as gentle as he could, Peter still wiggled, groaned, whimpered, and cried through the whole process; large tears leaking out of his blue orbs.
The more stool that was cleaned away, the worse the kid's backside looked. Under the feces were red tender skin and angry blisters. It didn't help that Tony had to practically scrub to get off the stool that had dried onto the skin. Once his bottom was all clean, the man had to lay his legs down so he had access to clean the front of him. The whole process took almost fifteen minutes, and more than half the wipes were gone. Peter was sobbing mess by this point, and in his half asleep state he could do no more then just lay there sobbing his little heart out. "Ok, all done. The worst is over," Tony soothed and tossed aside the last dirty wipe he had been using. The kid still stunk and there were remnants of feces left on his skin that weren't going away no matter how much he wiped at it. But at least the majority of it was gone.
The sobbing child didn't appear to have heard, or just chose not to acknowledge, what the man said. He continued crying into his little hands, laying on the changing table with his whole backside looking like it got a bad sunburn. It was a pitiful sight, and Tony's heart went out to the kid because ouch that looked painful. He picked up the diaper rash cream and read the directions. It seemed simple enough, apply liberally as often as necessary. The directions also said to wait for the area to dry before applying, so he spent a few minutes carding his fingers through the boy's brown locks, whispering soothing words into his ear.
After a few minutes the child's sobs and whimpers slowed down, and he fell back into an uneasy sleep. Tony checked his backside again, and deemed it dry enough to apply the cream. He opened up the tube and squeezed a generous amount onto his fingertips, and began rubbing the cream into Peter's red skin. The boy whimpered slightly at the touch, but after a moment a sigh of relief was released from his mouth, and he continued sleeping through the whole procedure. By the time the man was done applying it to all of the boy's red and blistered skin, the tube was almost empty. He should probably go buy more before they leave the store.
Now it was time to get the kid's backside clothed again. He picked up the clean diaper and was about to put it on before he remembered the baby powder. He wasn't totally sure how it was supposed to help, but figured it couldn't make it worse. So he set the diaper back down again, picked up the bottle of baby powder, and tried to unscrew the cap. It moved but a bit, but wouldn't come all the way off. The billionaire struggled with the bottle for a moment, until he got a sudden face full of power when he squeezed the bottle two hard. He spent the next couple of moments coughing and waving powdery dust away from his face. Did the top just explode? The bottle's cap didn't look any different, besides being covered in powder. But upon closer examination of it, he saw that he could see into the little holes on top of the lid when before all he saw was white plastic.
Tony played around with the cap of the bottle a few more moments, before finally figuring out how it worked. He dearly hoped no one ever found out about his fight with a bottle of baby powder. Right now the score was Baby Power: 4, Tony Stark: one. He'd never live this one down. The man sprinkled some of the power over the child's painful looking bottom, and then but the clean diaper on. The kid was still fast asleep, and barely stirred even when Tony pulled his pants back up which shuffled him around pretty good. The boy seemed much more at ease now. Tony tenderly lifted him back into his arms, positioning the boy's little sleeping body so that his arms were still free to clean up the mess left behind. There wasn't really a trash can that the billionaire felt comfortable leaving a soiled diaper and baby wipes around, so he opted to throwing it all in a plastic store bag and sealing it up with a tight knot. There were trash cans outside the store he could leave the bag.
A good thirty minutes since the man went into the restroom, Tony met up with Rhodey again. "Was about to go in there and make sure you didn't fall in," his friend teased with a soft smile at the sleeping child in the other man's arms.
"Shut up!" Tony responded with a mild glare. "Next time I'll give him to you and see if you can get it done any faster."
"Thanks but I'll pass," Rhodey laughed and pulled a couple of items out of the shopping bag he was holding. The items were a hat and a pair of sunglasses, both very different from the style he normally wore. He offered them to the billionaire, "Here while I was waiting, I got us a few things that will help us not stand out in the crowd so much." Even though Tony would normally not be caught dead wearing such dorky sunglasses, and seriously a fedora. But even as they stood there, people walking by stopped to stare at them and a few even held out phones as if taking a picture of the celebs. So the sooner he stopped looking like Tony Stark the better, and quicky snagged the items.
Figuring it was best to lay low somewhere while they waited for Happy, the two man left the store in search of a place that wouldn't have two many people around. This would be a difficult task considering they were in the state of New York. Tony was now wearing the new sunglasses Rhodey bought along with the dorky brown fedora. It seemed to work, as no one seemed to be paying attention to them anymore. They were now just two regular people walking down the streets of Queens. The billionaire shifted a still sleeping Peter onto his other arm again. The kid was no longer whimpering every time he was shifted and seemed to be sleeping peacefully. The child snuggled deeper into Tony's chest making soft suckling noises around the thumb in his mouth.
"Do you want me to carry him for awhile?" Rhodey asked.
Tony's first instinct was to decline the offer, as he was very hesitant to let go of his kid. Afraid that it he allowed the child out of his sight for one second he would disappear again. But he had been carrying the kid for over an hour and even with switching Peter back and forth between his arms, they were both beginning to get very sore. So with a little bit of hesitance, he eventually nodded. "Yeah… just be careful…"
Using the gentleness one would use when handing over a priceless very breakable antique, Tony gently placed the child into his friend arms. The boy barely stirred at the transfer. Even when the spiderling was in the arms of the other man, Tony still took a bit of extra time making sure the kid was wrapped snugly enough to keep him warm. Satisfied that he was, Tony hummed in approval and the two began walking again. "This kid is really Spiderman?" Rhodey asked in disbelief after a minute of silence. Tony really couldn't blame him for doubting this, as Tony needed to have a blood comparison before he believed.
"Yeah…" the billionaire nodded. "Hard to believe I know?"
"What were you thinking Tony? Bringing in a fourteen year old kid in on that Sokovia Accords business. I mean, God I knew that kid was young by the old movie references he made but seriously? He was kid! He's still a kid?"
Tony sighed. He had known this was coming. "To be honest Rhodey. I was thinking about how much of an asshole Cap was being, and trying to stop him from tearing the Avengers apart. We needed extra hands, and I heard about this masked vigilante from Queens and tracked him down. I didn't know how old the kid was, in fact I didn't even ask until the whole business was done. But honestly. The kid had been doing this stuff long before I got involved, in fact I helped him out by giving him a safer suit to wear."
"Maybe by giving him that suit, you only added to his confidence to go out and do more dangerous stuff?"
"He'd be doing the dangerous stuff with or without the suit, I'm sure of that. I once tried taking the suit away from him; and the little dummy almost got killed by still trying to do that dangerous stunts without the suit." There conversation tapered off after that. Rhodey never did give his approval, but both seemed to have come to the agreement that if teen spiderman was going to insist on being a hero it was best for Tony to stay involved as much as he could to help keep him safe.
They never did find a secluded enough place to wait, so they settled on a bus station that had enough activity they could blend into the background. Tony took Peter back into his arms when they found seats, and coaxed some more water down the kid's throat. All three relished in the fact that they could stop and take a breath for a moment. It wasn't until around 4:30pm that Happy finally called to let them know he was in town. The first thing out of Happy's lips when they all met up at the bus station was, "You just couldn't keep a low profile could you?"
"What are you talking about Happy?" Tony asked irritably while opening the back door to the limousine and glancing inside. It looked like Happy did get around to buying a car seat because there was one set up in the back.
"Have you looked online recently? It's all over the news!"
The billionaire placed Peter into the car seat, he was still dead to the world, and buckled him up before answering. "I've been a little busy Hap," once he was satisfied that Peter was buckled in safely, Tony looked up to find Happy's phone right in his face.
It was a news article titled 'Tony Stark's Secret Love Child?' and below the title was a clear picture of himself holding a sleeping Peter. The picture had to have been taken when they were in Target because there was a lot of red in the background. Tony didn't know how else to respond. He swore loudly.
Hey look at that... Fluff! And more to come folks! I tried to jam pack as much fluff as could think of in this chapter for you guys that have waited so patiently for it. I am also ashamed to admit that I've put a self insert in this chapter. I used to work at a Target store and I can't help but add my own cameo when I put a Target store scene in my writing.
