Nanny, Pappy, Mammy

by Virodeil

The construction workers find a mysterious package when reconstructing Tony's penthouse post-Battle of New York. Nobody wishes to claim "ownership" of the package for the right reason, not even its supposed "owner," so Tony is forced to do it himself. And then, the real "owner" comes along, and they become… a pre-made family?

2. The Hunt for a Babysitter

Nanny, Pappy, Mammy
By Rey

Chapter 2: The Hunt for a Babysitter

"Ms. Potts has been asking after you for the past two hours, Sir," JARVIS nudges, after… well, a while.

Tony shrugs. "Shes alone."

"Ms. Potts is with Ms. Romanova, Mr. Barton, Mr. Banner, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Rhodes and a guest by the name of Mr. Wilson, Sir."

`Well, the whole gang, then. But… Rhody? What's he doing here? Only now? Why not before – when we sorely needed extra hand against the Chitauri? And what's with a guest here just three days after a huge battle?`

"What does she want," he pecks rapidly at the keyboard with the fingers of one hand, while the other is still busy with the holographic interior diagram of the freezer-crib.

"She wants to speak with you and see you with her own eyes, Sir. Her words, not mine."

Tony lets out a small snort, his first noise since… well, some time ago. "Tell her im busy but all right. Ill see her when I see her. Send away the rest too. Im receiving no guest at this time." Then, remembering what he tasked the AI to do, "Did you get the thing I want you to search."

"I found little regarding any being with blue skin and red eyes, Sir, and none that would match our young guest with acceptable accuracy. The mentions that I have managed to find are mostly in the realm of fiction of various genres and media. There is no unifying theme across the findings, moreover." The words feel… regretful, if typed words could do that. And, "I have not managed to find a nurse, doctor or home assistant that would match your criteria, either, Sir, and Mr. Hogan is still searching. Should I ask for SHIELD's assistance?"

Tonys heart leaps, before squeezing tight. Letting go of the hologram, he types, "NO!" most emphatically. "ILL REALLY GIVE YOU TO A COMMUNITY COLLEGE IF YOU TELL SHIELD!"

"It was only a suggestion, Sir, JARVIS' words feel… wounded; again, without the sounds that usually deliver the feeling.

Still, Tony huffs. "Be smarter j. I created you better. What would shield do with a BABY? And im not about to let them have full custody but I bet they want to have it."

"I would suggest that you search for assistance among the regular staff of stark Tower, then, Sir," JARVIS feels rather snippy now.

Well, Tony can be just as snippy. "do it."

And then he goes back to his diagram.

The lag between his command and the realisation on the hologram, although barely perceptible, tells him eloquently of how… disagreeable… his AI is feeling.

`Oh. Great. A baby, and now a sulky teenager.`

"Mister Stark…," Pepper sighs.

"Miss Potts…," Tony mimics her.

She glares through the screen of the Starkpad that the frazzled but victorious genius inventor is holding. She holds the expression for a long, long moment, in fact, while Tony paces back and forth just outside of the plexiglass doors that separate the lab area with the bank of lifts, equally silent.

Well, the silence is actually what makes her cave in, in the end, he thinks, since she asks about his health – mental health, specifically, through offering herself as company – instead of ranting about him shirking his duties.

But Tony feels good. He feels even better than three days ago, somehow, now that he has finished the mini freezer-crib for the baby, and a cooling onesie, and a portable snow-maker….

`But she doesn't know, does she? How long did I keep the communication ban up? How can I tell her about the baby without SHIELD shouldering and kicking their way in? What will she think about the baby? Hell, I don't even know what to think about the baby, myself!`

So, picking the – hopefully – safest, neutralest way, he asks for food instead. And he is indeed famished!

On the topic of food, though…. `Uh-oh…. What do I feed the baby? What's safe? Can they eat human baby food? How old are they, anyway? The letter didn't say anything!`

"Search for milk OR ANY OTHER LIQUID that you think everyone can drink INCLUDING ALIEN BABIES," he sends to JARVIS as soon as Pepper signs off. "Prep the medical wing. We need to do some tests on the baby. Need more data to prepare safe meals."

`So small in body; so large in problems…,` he grouses, meanwhile. `I really, really, really, really, really wish there's a manual for this! Why didn't those irresponsible bullshit adoptive parents send along a manual, instead of just a bullshit letter? Better yet, why did they take in a kid if they thought they couldn't handle a kid? It's another thing entirely if you're biologically saddled with a kid like Howard and Maria with me! Though I suppose they could've used condoms to prevent me from ever popping up, huh? Better for me!`

He halts at the sliding glass doors leading back to the lab, with his eyes trained morosely – and, he has to admit, a little sleepily – on the tubful of snowed-in blue baby still parked on one of his sturdy workshop benches. "What am I gonna do with you?" he bursts out, at last, after so long keeping his silence.

And, hearing his voice, the first ever noise to break the silence of the lab since the coffin-like box has been pried open, the baby's glowing red eyes pop open wide.

"Oh, damn."

Tony stares at the baby.

The baby stares at Tony.

The staring contest lasts for a long, long, long while, Tony feels. In that long while, he manages to examine those glowing red eyes in detail, and finds that:
a) the eyes seem to be pupilless, hence sensitive to light;
b) the glow seems to be like a cat's, hence night vision;
c) for a premature-looking baby, the said baby seems to take in everything just fine, like an adult;
d) the baby holds the unblinking stare comfily, as if there were a secondary lid that protect the eyes; and
e) the confusion and wariness in those eyes are more apt for an adult than a child, let alone a baby.

The last point is what actually ends the contest.

"J, gi'm my gauntlet." Tony says in his calmest, levelest voice while stubbornly keeping his own unblinking gaze on the not-so-babyish baby.

And, in response, the baby's eyes widen even more, however impossible it sounds. And those eyes look away towards Tony's still-bare hands. With the kind of alarmed-but-resigned look that an adult – an experienced adult, helpless but knowing, anticipating – would sport on such proclamation from their hostile interloqutor.

`Bingo.`

The vindication bears no satisfaction, though; not at all. `An adult trapped in a baby's body? How cruel. Even if it's Loki. This is just torture for the sake of torture!`

This makes the bit about "learning" in that letter a little more sensical… kind of… in the practical front… but still!

`How can anybody learn that their parents love them if the parents aren't present? How can any would-be caretaker care for them if the caretaker knows that they're actually an adult?`

Tony has to swallow back bile when, on raising one inactive gauntlet towards the baby, without even wearing it, the said baby tries to escape the tubful of snow without any avail.

He loses his fight against the escapist bile when he sees how terrified and desperate the baby is, even as they struggle to move, struggle to breathe, struggle to scream – for help, for mercy, in fear, or something else.

Loki or not, adult or not, the fact remains that before him lies a thin, tiny, feeble baby. And seeing a helpless little thing trying to flee from eminent death while trapped in a tiny space with him as the bringer of death….

Once, in his far premature days of senior high school, his class was exposed to a short propaganda film about how evil pregnancy abortion is. In one segment of the film, there was a moving illustration of a mostly-formed if small human fetus futilely trying to flee from a pair of scissors that was to end its life, while still being confined in the womb.

Once, he scoffed at the clear propagandaness of the short film, at the impossibility of such a crude method of abortion being ever used, at the ludicrousness of entertaining the idea that a not-yet-well-formed thing could acquire any level of awareness or even a semblance of sentience, and at the handful of schoolgirls who were moved – even to tears – by it.

Once.

Tony doesn't leave the loo until JARVIS nudges him again, telling him that Pepper's food order for him has arrived, and it consists of Japanese light seafood dishes. It feels both like a moment and an age, sequestered before the sink, looking at his own noxious vomit pooling on its bottom. Focusing on it, trying mightily to forget the memory of the scissors and the fetus and the helpless inevitability of it all from decades ago, and also the shadow of that tableau in his gauntlet held by his hand towards the adult-in-baby from quite recently.

He doesn't immediately return to the lab, either, to where the food has been deposited by one of his Iron Helpers, to where the baby is still there. No, he goes to his floor, takes a thorough bath, cleans his teeth fastidiously, chooses his attire carefully – simple, comfortable, casual, boring, clean, tidy, somehow – and inspects JARVIS' report about the candidates for the baby's caretaker among his staff while lying down on his bed.

And then, he asks JARVIS to prepare individual interviews with the eight candidates that the AI butler has gathered for him among all the people – not even just his people, as he asked for – in the tower.

"Sir, the baby…," JARVIS tries to interject.

"Any concerning behaviour?" Tony interjects back, hating how sort-of-wavering his raspy voice is presently.

He dismisses the concern when JARVIS reluctantly denies its presence.

No, he is not ready to return to the lab yet.

He wonders if he is ever ready, as long as the adult-in-baby is still there.

As long as his damned gauntlet is still there.

Sequestered in a small but well-defended – from spies, eavesdroppers and physical attacks – room on the ground floor, Tony flicks his way up and down the list of interview questions that JARVIS has proposed, sent to his Starkpad. He requested it on the way down to this level, frantically, when he realised that he really, really, really has no clue about what even a human baby will need, let alone an alien one, or an adult forced into a baby's body, beyond the very, very, very general notion of "safe and genuine and close enough." – He read all those materials about baby development and interactions. He has the secrecy part down pat. But implementing his knowledge into succinct and probing interview questions…? "Huh."

Worse yet, JARVIS' suggestions – such as "Do you like babies?" or "Do you interact with infants often?" or "If you were unemployed, and offered a job as a baby-sitter or a caretaker in a daycare for infants, would you accept it? Why?" – entail answers that can either take a long time to satisfy his criteria or digress all too easily into so many different things. He might spend eight days on this, one for each candidate, and he suspects he doesn't even have one day in truth… or even an hour, if SHIELD decides to be much more proactive and intrusive.

And, to come here, he crossed the lobby of the tower. Deserted as it looked, it's still not a guarantee that it's free of peeping-toms.

Peeping-toms who could inform other nosies, who could plan and mount an ambush aimed at him and the baby even now.

"Damn."

Once more, he looks over each profile of the eight candidates, trying to spot something – anything – that may hint at a strong, capable, experienced person with unshakable integrity who can and want to take care of an adult in a baby's body for… how much time? Certainly not a century?

`I won't even live half that long! Then what? Do I pawn the baby to somebody else in a will like some inherited baggage? Does that poor caretaking inheriter even want to shoulder this stupid, irreasonable responsibility for half a century? What if they dump the baby in a random orphanage somewhere? Will the baby even still be a baby by the time I croak? What if they're a comparably two-year-old hellion by then? What if today's baby-sitter is fed up on the first day? How many interviews like this must I give in my lifetime alone? What about the security concerns for both me and the baby? I was never babysat by the same nanny twice in two years when I was tiny-me….`

He buries his face in his hands, propped on the desktop before him by his elbows.

"Damn you, whoever and wherever you are, Loki's adoptive parents."

At length, Tony ends up with four candidates whom he approves of equally, from profile alone… well, and a hasty brainstorming session with JARVIS:
• Natali Salu from Maria Stark Foundation, Children's Home division, orphan since birth and self-appointed field operative in rescuing unwanted children from bad homes or the streets;
• Cintosha Chandra Avandia, otherwise Chan-Chan, R&D and household all-purpose assistant, Pepper's "internal affairs" counterpart, Indonesian immigrant, adoptive mum of seven-year-old twins;
• Cathleen Ruth Livingston, otherwise "Katie," Stark Tower's Starbucks most unflappable, most patient, most genuinely Tony-disinterested employee, who chose to stay during the battle because "even heroes need some coffee;" and
• Dr. Tioma, Doctors Without Borders current resident staff at Stark Tower, experienced in various places and situations, as unflappable as Katie but in a different way, frankly rather alien-seeming with the androgyny and neutral pronoun and single name.

And now, the field test.

"You Natali Salu?"

"Yes, Mister Stark."

"What do you think of a baby dropped on someone's doorstep?"

"Well, is the baby dead or sick or injured, sir?"

"No."

"Well, then I hope the owner of the house can and will take care of them, or give them to a reputable home."

"If the baby's dropped on your doorstep, what'd you do?"

"Depends, sir. Most likely I'll put' them with the others at the Maria Stark Home, so I can still drop by from time to time to see them and do my duties."

"So you've got no desire to be a long-time babysitter? Or even a mom?"

"Well, frankly no, sir. I don't know if I'll be able to be a good mother, and I like travelling, and making visible impacts. Trying to save as many as I can, too…."

"On a different note… what do you think if you see a baby with blue skin and red eyes? – No I mean not a sick baby, but a baby with literal blue skin and red eyes."

"Well, babies are babies, Mister Stark. Even a baby monster is a baby. And I don't mean blue skin and red eyes are signs of a monster. Just saying. I guess it depends on if the baby is harmful even as a baby. Harmful by nature, I mean. If not then why not?"

"Harmful as in?"

"Well, I guess, killing, paralising, injuring, crippling in any way, or in any length of time, that sort of thing, sir."

"And if the baby's that sort of baby?"

"I'd try to find why, if maybe the baby felt threatened, if maybe they could calm down, or be neutralised in not a bad way. I'd really hate to kill them…. It's not their fault to be lethal. If they know better, that's another problem."

"And if the baby used to be a grown-up? With memories intact?"

"I'd wonder what a sick experiment that poor thing had to experience beforehand and most likely try to hunt down the perpetrator, or at least let the authorities know."

"If you're to interact with such baby some time, and the baby isn't homicidal, would you?"

"Well, why not?"

"Without blabbing to anybody?"

"Of course."

"All right. Thank you for sharing your perception and opinions with me. If I got more questions can I call you?"

"Of course."

"Don't blab about this to anybody, okay? I'm holding you to it. In fact, please sign this so it's all legal."

"Yes, sir."

"Now, any advice for dealing with such a baby?"

"Treat them as both a baby and an adult? – I mean, Mister Stark, they got baby needs, but you can talk to them like an adult, I suppose."

"I notice you haven't asked if the baby's hypothetical or not…."

"You haven't indicated that they're hypothetical, sir."

"Huh…."

"I was in Puente Antiguo, last year, Mister Stark. Never went to a desert. Wanted to know what a settlement beside or in the desert is like, without going to high-end places like Vegas. Heard stories there. Human-like aliens having a spat with each other. That place was a wreck, a month after, when I came. Not quite like this, but close enough. And nobody was interested in it…. I came back with a couple of kids. Their parents died shielding them from pieces of their own homes. The alien spat ruined them. I doubt the town is back to normal yet. The kids aren't back to normal yet, in any case. They absolutely refuse to live in anything other than a tent in a big field."

"Huh…."

"Well… since we're talking about this… well, sorry, sir, but would you like to help those kids? Heard you're an engineer. Could you maybe convince them to live in a more sheltered area? Like, maybe, if they know there's a strong, anti-earthquake building and the new home's one of those?"

"Huh…."

Tony scratches the side of his head. The interview is getting prolonged and derailed. But the topic…. `Can I…?`

"J note it down for later when the babys situation is wrapped up," he types on his Starkpad, at the end. Then, addressing the dark-skinned, wavy-haired, practical-looking middle-aged woman seated across from him, he says, "Done, Miss Salu. Thank you. Glad to work with you in this case. Please keep your phone close and expect at least messages – if not calls – in probably odd hours. We'll settle the compensation after this. Remember, don't blab to anybody, including your fellow interviewees. And please call Miss Livingston in on your way out."

One down. Three more to go….

Sadly, Cathleen "Katie" Ruth Livingstone, the bukesome, patient, Tony-disinterested Stark Tower's Starbucks café employee, turns out not as unflappable as usual.

But then, he imagines, if Pepper died during the invasion, he wouldn't be unflappable, either. And Katie's girlfriend of ten years died that time, a few blocks away, trapped in the rubble of her workplace as head of the cleaning crew of an office building.

In fact, Katie came not for the interview, but to thank him for making and distributing the tool that could detect bodies – not just living bodies – which enabled her to bury her girlfriend Dea. She says so, firstly projecting stoicism with visible effort, then quickly downgrading into a blubbering mess.

No, he can't heap the baby on her when she's like this.

Still, "What do you think of alien babies?"

A wet chuckle is the only answer, for a long while. Then, "If I hate them? No, unless they've got an active hand in this. But I doubt it. Babies are innocent for a reason."

"And if one of the perpetrators is turned into a baby?"

"I'd say it's punishment enough, as long as the baby can't do or say anything. Let it be helpless, like we were helpless. Like Dea was helpless…."

`Oh.`

Two down. Two more to go….

"Chan-Chan… what do you think of adding a baby to your horde?"

"Parents?"

"None. Not me, either."

"How old?"

"Dunno. Tiny."

"Caretaker?"

"You, I hope."

"The twins need attention, Mister Stark. Not easy, to make them behave, far away from your things. I can try, but baby need much attention, too. Not fair for the baby. Maybe give the baby caretaker, then I visit the baby some time? To check the baby and the caretaker?"

Tony sighs and props his chin up with the ball of his hands, silently regarding the short, chocolate-skinned, curly-haired, bottle-bottom-spectacled, leg-braced young woman across from him for a long, long while. Cintosha Chandra "Chan-Chan" Avandia stares back, equally silent.

"The baby needs a constant," he bursts out at last, remembering his horrible childhood. "Can't you… do something? I don't know if the last candidate will accept this job or not. They're a doctor. – Don't you like babies? You can just work with the baby instead of everything if you want. Well, the baby and me, really, but no longer quite in SI, just a nominal presence in the administration. So what about it?"

The girl looks puzzled and disturbed, though, hearing that, instead of mollified or exasperated, like in other cases. "When did you get a baby, Mister Stark?" she asks. "Nobody came in with a baby here before battle. Nobody came with a baby here after battle, too. Did you build the baby in your lab?"

And, hearing that, Tony's face slides into his hands, no longer just propped up by them. He feels disturbed by that thought, himself. "Not that!" he groans out, through the calloused appendages. "Aliens sent it, okay? Not my choice either. N'now I gotta keep it for a hundred years."

"I'm sorry?"

"A century! One hundred years! Ten decades!"

"Oh…."

"Just 'oh'?"

"Well… what do you want me to do, or say, Mister Stark? I don't think I will live for a century, either. Or work here."

"No no no no no no! Don't you dare resign now! I won't accept your resignation! It's bad enough that I must find a nanny for the baby right now! I need my nanny, too!"

Tony is slumped dramatically over the desktop, by now, oozing down his chair, whinging into both his hands and the wooden top of the desk. He remains thus as he dismisses the young woman – "Just for now! Don't you dare run away! Don't tell anybody too!" – and asks her to call in Dr. Tioma.

With three failures thus far, all the same, he has little hope for the fourth….