The Magical and the Mechanical: Chapter Four
November 23, 2014
It was bad enough that James was failing school and that he and Sirius had been bullying Remus and Meriam into doing their homework for them, but now all five of them had gone behind his back and stolen enough Kevlar mesh for five entire suits after he had expressly forbidden it. Well, he hadn't forbidden it outright but the fact that they snuck around his back to do this proved that they knew he wouldn't approve.
As soon as DBC aired the helicopter footage, JARVIS had alerted him that the kids were on TV. When James went careening off the side of a six story brownstone, Tony experienced a mini heart attack. If it had been live footage, Tony would have sped out of the lab, fully suited up, to rip Batroc a new one for thinking he was allowed to just kick Iron Man's babies in the chest and fling them off buildings. Tony would send Spider-Man a gift for catching James. Nothing tech, he'd learned his lesson. Maybe a bottle of wine or some whiskey? He wasn't entirely sure if Spider-Man was drinking age. He'd work out the details later.
In the time it took for the kids to slink back to the Tower, thoroughly embarrassed, Tony paced the lab no less than fifty times. Each step he imagined something worse happening to them. If Spider-Man was even a second later, James could be dead. If he was a few seconds later, Lily could have had her chest caved in. What if Remus cracked his head open or Sirius fell on his sword? Or Meriam could have worked herself up into a heart attack, all that running around.
And he would have been none the wiser until he realized they hadn't come home when they said they would. Tony didn't pick them up from school directly or check the location of their phones. They could have died and it would have been Tony's fault.
As soon as JARVIS announced the kids were in the elevator, safe and sound but for a few bruised ribs, Tony was speeding out of the lab and down the hallway. He wasn't entirely sure of what he was shouting, but he was beside himself with worry and fear.
"You could have been killed!" Tony screamed. "And you have actual weapons on you. Sirius, that is a real sword. You could hurt someone or fall on it or… how could you be this reckless?"
"We just wanted to help," Lily said. Her face was red with emotion.
"I tried to talk them out of it, honest," Remus whined. He looked like a whipped dog. That did nothing to soften Tony's clenched iron heart.
"You are children," Tony snarled. How did they not see that? How did they not see how terrible it was that they'd been hurt under Tony's care. "And you are all grounded until I say you're not."
"That's not fair!" Sirius shouted.
"Not fair?" Tony turned on him.
Sirius shrank a bit. He was the same height as Tony at 5'10, but suddenly he felt a foot shorter. Tony was nearly as red as his armor he was so mad.
"Not fair?" Tony snarled. Sirius could have died. This precious boy who was so enthusiastic about motorcycles and tinkering in the lab with Tony that he glowed had almost died. "It's not fair, is it?"
"I'm sorry," Sirius whimpered.
"I was worried sick about you five! You could have gotten yourselves killed! You were clumsy and uncoordinated. Practically tripping over your own feet and doing nothing but getting in each other's ways. How is any of this not fair? What part of putting yourselves in a situation where you could have died not fair to you? Point it out for me, I'm having difficulty following your logic."
"I didn't mean it like that… it's just…"
"Room! Now!"
"But…!" Meriam tried to get a word in.
"ROOM NOW!" Tony bellowed.
Tony violently pointed towards the door leading to the bedrooms. He didn't see how it made Sirius and Remus flinch and cower away from him.
"And I want those suits outside your rooms where I can collect them!" Where they couldn't get any more half brained ideas that got them hurt when Tony was supposed to be protecting them.
"But…!" Meriam tried to insist.
"This," He swung his finger around so it was inches from Meriam's face, "is not a democracy, young lady," Tony's voice was quiet again, but the rage still boiled.
They lost the second battle of that night, but this loss was more bitter than Batroc. They slunk back to their respective rooms, tails tucked between their legs and faces red with shame. They only wanted to help.
Sirius had only ever seen that shade of red on a person's face when his mother found him with a muggle record player. His heart hadn't stopped pounding against his chest. His hands were shaking and he didn't think he'd be able to sleep for a month, at least. What a way to celebrate his birthday month. Sirius slipped out of his bed and padded towards James' corner. He froze when he heard a small sniffle drift from Remus' bed. Padfoot, with soft fur and a wet nose, crawled into the bed next to Remus and the pair of them managed a fitful sleep, wrapped cozily around each other.
November 24, 2014
Tony had all five suits laid out on a table. He had intended to dismantle them, burn them, lock them in a safe, throw the safe into the ocean, and throw the key into the sun. He had to do something, anything that would stop the kids from getting them again, but he knew he couldn't. It seemed pointless keeping them since he didn't plan on letting any of them take up arms against crime until they were twenty five and by then they'd have long since grown out of them. But he couldn't get rid of them either.
He was staring at them numbly when JARVIS reminded him there was an emergency Avengers meeting. It was about the kids and what they did last night. Tony didn't know if he could handle it. Every time he closed his eyes, all he could see was James' broken body in an alleyway between two brownstones and the children's blood staining Tony's hands, mingling with the gallons of blood already caked there. The blood not even Iron Man could get rid of completely.
What if they had tried to take on someone more dangerous than Batroc? What if it had been Greyback, Hydra, Hammer, AIM, or one of the many other incredibly dangerous enemies the Avengers had made? That Tony had made. They were children. They were his children.
He didn't think anyone could tell he hadn't slept last night. Steve and Nat could, but they didn't count. Steve knew him better than anyone and was in a position to realize Tony hadn't come to bed last night. And Nat was just plain scary with how well she could read people.
He slid into the meeting and slumped into his chair. Steve tried to say something but all he could manage was a grumble. Tony put his head in his hands as casually as he could.
"Friend Stark, have you not slept?" Thor asked.
"I slept," Tony answered; perhaps a bit too quickly.
"My childhood was spent with Loki, the God of Lies," Thor reminded him. "Do not think you can pull a speedy one over me, as you Midgardians say."
"That's not… whatever," Hawkeye sighed. "Tony, they're fine. Nothing too bad happened."
"They almost died," Tony's voice cracked.
"They're rough around the edges, sure, and they handled that situation poorly," Steve said. "But they've got the right spirit and with a bit of…"
"They are not doing that again!" Tony's head snapped out of his hands and he shot Steve a scathing glare.
"Tony, aren't you being a bit…"
"I am not being unreasonable!" Tony's voice reached a fevered pitch.
"Is this not why we are training them?" Thor asked. "Is it not natural for Midgardian children to seek out the trails of battle to prove themselves to their elders?"
"No!" Tony said. "They could have been hurt or…"
"They're the same age I was when I started this gig," Hawkeye said.
"You let me be an Avenger when I was seventeen," Falcon added. "I'm eighteen now, but still. SHIELD Junior Agent training starts at fourteen and they're very close to that. It doesn't start with combat or field training, that's for sure, and Fury only put me in the field early because… well…" he gestured to Cap, who had been presumed dead at the time, "but we can still give them something. Why don't we draw up basic training, like teambuilding games, strategy, and damage control theory."
"I was four when my training started," Nat added. "I didn't choose it and if I had a choice, I wouldn't have become this. They have a choice, but I'm not sure they're making the right one."
"Thank you, Nat," Tony said.
"So we can make the decision for them?" Hawkeye snorted.
"We're their… their… adults. That's my job," Tony snapped.
"Whether we agree with it or not, they'll be safer if they have supervision and training," Steve said. "I think they're too young as well, but that's not going to stop them. They think it's the right thing to do; they'll do it regardless of what we say. It's best they're doing it with us instead of behind our backs. Sam's right, we can find a way to let them feel important without putting them in danger. Games and theory work is an excellent idea. They'll stay out of trouble that way."
"I am not having this conversation," Tony snarled.
"Making it difficult," Hulk grunted. "Kids like to smash. Smashing's fun. Let them have fun, Tony."
"It's not fun when the kids are the ones getting smashed! How do none of you see this?"
"I'm not saying you overreacted last night," Steve tried to calm him down. "They did need a bit of discipline, what they did was wrong, going out and looking for trouble like that, but…"
"No buts! No! I am their legal guardian, got it? I don't care if… if they've come to you for some one on one training or… they're my kids, alright? What I say goes, I'm laying out the ground rules and I say they are not going to do this! There's no way to make this kind of thing child friendly! It's dangerous and wrong and I won't stand for it!"
"You really think you can stop them?" Steve said. "I've been where they've been, with everyone telling them they're too small or too helpless. The best thing for them is to make sure they know what they're doing when…"
"Stop, Steve," Tony growled. "Just stop. They're my responsibility and I'm not letting them put themselves in dangerous situations on my watch. End of story."
"Actually, can I get custody of Lily?" Hawkeye raised his hand.
"No," Tony snarled.
"Alright, fine, hog all the kids, why don't you," Hawkeye frowned. "She's my sidekick."
"They are not sidekicks! This is not… some comic book ideation version of Captain America and Bucky! That's not real, Hawkeye. It's fine when it's a… a… fantastical comic book series or…"
Tony lost his plot half way through his rant when he realized that mentioning Bucky was the equivalent of punching Steve in the gut, even if he was referring to the fictional young sidekick version of Bucky from the 50s and 60s. The real Bucky Barnes was a year older than Steve and still very much MIA.
"All I'm saying is there's five kids and only one of you and…" Hawkeye sputtered. "Just because I think magic is stupid doesn't mean I think the kids are stupid!"
"The suits are really well made," Steve's voice was stoic.
"They wouldn't go through all that effort just to give up the first time they got caught," Nat sighed. "I agree with you, Tony, they're too young. But it may already be too late to stop them doing this."
"I still do not understand why seeking out combat is wrong," Thor scrunched his face in confusion. "Is this not a rite of passage?"
"They're too young for a rite of passage, Thor. That's what this is about!" Tony snapped. "I realize you think of age in centuries and not years, but to us mere mortals, thirteen is a hell of a lot different than eighteen or twenty-five or…"
"They don't think so," Falcon added. "They…"
"You will not gang up on me," Tony snarled. "And I'm not changing my mind."
"Will you reconsider given enough time?" Steve asked.
Tony frowned, "When they're off to college and not my problem anymore."
"Next summer," Steve bargained.
"Eighteen."
"Fifteen," Steve countered.
"Sixteen and I'm not going lower. If they can't drive they can't fight crime."
"Deal."
"Fine, good meeting," Tony rushed for the door. "Oh, before I forget, I'm building them a robot body guard. I'll be done with him by Monday. Don't go nuts if he needs some calibration and tries to take off a few heads protecting the kids. I'll have all the kinks worked out by Friday at the latest. Class dismissed."
"Actually, I have some other Avengers business to go over," Steve said. "Since we missed out last meeting; half the team was out on various solo missions and…"
"Brief me later, I need a drink," Tony slunk out of the room, more exhausted than he'd been in a very long time.
Remus woke up cocooned between James and Padfoot. For a few brief moments he thought Padfoot was Gwyllgi and he nearly cried from relief. Then he remembered that Sirius could turn into a dog and he was several times larger than Gwyll. And that his good girl was gone and Lyall didn't want him but Greyback did and his friends were stupid and Mr. Stark was furious with him and…
Remus rolled out of bed to brush the grossness out of his mouth and then maybe brave the world outside of their room to find some breakfast. When he was done in the bathroom, James pushed past him, jumping back and forth. Padfoot had slunk off the bed and was sprawled on the floor like a sad rug. When Gwyllgi did this maneuver, her soulful brown eyes would melt Remus' heart. The pair of silver eyes dolefully gazing up at him looked more crazed than anything else. Dogs with light colors eyes often had that effect.
"What?" Remus grumbled at Padfoot.
Padfoot whined.
"Use your human words, Sirius."
Padfoot barked.
"You know, contrary to popular werewolf media," Remus spun on Sirius, "I don't actually speak dog."
Padfoot squeaked.
"While your vocabulary is impressive, it's still meaningless to me," Remus grabbed a pair of slippers and left the room.
Remus found Lily and Meriam nursing bowls of cereal in the kitchen so he joined them. Remus was halfway through scarfing down his bowl when James emerged from their room, groggily rubbing sleep from his eyes. Padfoot was on his heels, his nails clicking against the marbled cement floor.
"Man, we didn't really do much, but I'm still sore," James yawned.
"Batroc can kick hard," Lily said. "If we didn't have the enhanced runes on our suits, he probably could have collapsed our chests like that."
"Oh, yes, he should be more careful not to hurt anyone next time someone tries to stop him from robbing a bank," Remus grumbled. "I knew it was a bad idea, but you four didn't listen."
Padfoot stood up on his back legs, putting his feet on the table. He whined and nudged Remus' cereal.
"Get your own food," Remus snapped. "You two have got, what, five bruised ribs between you," Remus said to James and Lily. "My arse still hurts. And Meriam most certainly overexerted…"
"I most certainly did not," Meriam scoffed. "This thing works," She patted the glowing light on her chest. "I didn't feel any tightness or lightheadedness."
"Regardless," Remus said. "We got beat up and it was so embarrassing that Sirius is apparently permanently a dog now. Sirius! Don't eat that off the floor, you don't know how long it's been there!"
Remus sprung from his seat and hauled Sirius away from some gunk caked on the floor next to the fridge. His previous dog owning instincts overriding the fact that he knew Sirius was a boy and not a real dog.
"Bad dog!" Remus scolded.
Sirius whined and pawed at the fridge.
"I'll make you some breakfast, Padfoot," James said.
"No, if Sirius insist on being a dog," Remus said, going to the pantry. "Then he'll eat dog food."
Sirius growled and thumped his butt on the floor.
"Well, Sirius, you should have thought of the consequences before you decided to stick to this stupid bit."
"You're not stuck, are you?" Meriam asked.
Remus' entire body froze for a second. He hadn't thought of that as a possibility. What if Sirius was so emotionally distressed from Mr. Stark yelling at them that he lost control of his powers and turned into a dog permanently. And Remus was teasing and scolding him and…
Sirius shook his head in a very undoglike manner.
"Oh, that's good at least," Lily rolled her eyes. "He's just being dramatic."
In that case, Remus had better stop fretting and make Sirius pay for being dramatic by feeding him dog food, since he insisted on sulking as a dog. Might as well play the part. Sirius took one whiff of Gwyllgi's old dog food and then scarfed the whole thing down in a matter of seconds.
"That's disgusting!" James and Lily both said at the same time but in vastly different tones. James was delighted; Lily was horrified.
"I don't know what I expected," Remus sighed. "Well, I'm done with breakfast so if you need me I'll be hiding in my bed, where maybe the depression and anxiety can't find me."
By lunch time, Sirius was still a dog. And he was whining at the door, like a dog.
"You have thumbs!" James shouted at him from across the room. They had been banned from playing games, but that didn't mean they couldn't watch Hawkeye play.
"Isn't he going to change back to go to the bathroom, at least?" Hawkeye asked.
Padfoot barked at the door.
"I guess he's really committed to the bit," James sighed. "Can I take him for a walk?"
"Better ask Tony, he's pretty annoyed right now. Think he'd kill me if I let you outside unsupervised and I don't feel like pausing because then Hulk will probably come in and delete my save file."
"But I don't want to talk to him."
"Then ask Cap," Hawkeye shrugged.
Cap told them to ask Tony, so they asked Widow. She also told them to ask Tony, so they went to Thor, who said the same thing. They thought there was no way the Hulk would defer to anyone, least of all Iron Man, but he got mad that they interrupted his meditation, so they went to Sam, who thankfully didn't think it was too much trouble, as long as Sam went with them. Afterall, they were grounded not on house arrest.
They made it to the elevator before JARVIS informed them that they were in fact on house arrest until after Thanksgiving, when they would be allowed to go to school but were to be back home no later than 3:30 or Tony would go get them himself and drag them back.
"Bogus," James grumbled. "Thanks anyway, Sam."
"No problem," Sam sighed. "I know Tony's really strict right now, but that's because he really cares about you kids."
"Sure," James sighed. "Just wish he didn't have to be so… loud and controlling. Doesn't he knew that scares the crap out of Sirius and Remus? You didn't see them after Tony yelled at us. They looked like they thought Tony was about to skin us alive."
"Tony is prone to… emotional bursts," Sam winced. "He keeps everything bottled up and sometimes it explodes out of him. I've never seen him angry, but I have seen it happen when he's really sad. He shuts down and sulks. Usually only Cap can bring him out of it."
"Yeah, Sirius gets like that, too," James sighed. "Tries to act all aloof all the time, but as soon as it gets to be too much he… explodes. Takes a few windows out every time. I'm surprised he hasn't done that already. Maybe that's why he's staying as Padfoot."
November 24, 2014
Was Tony being unreasonable? Possibly. Did he care? Most certainly not. They were his kids and they'd do what he said, regardless if they liked it or not. He would not let them go galivanting around putting themselves in situations where they could get hurt, just because they thought it could be fun. The very thought of them getting hurt sent shivers of ice down his spine. He would not stand for finding them absent from their rooms only to get a call that they'd been killed by a supervillain while his back was turned.
Was he turning into his father? Was he better or worse? If this was how Howard felt about him putting himself in horrible situations, then maybe he had been too hard on good old Dad. Either way, Tony would be better than Howard. He wouldn't fail to keep his kids safe from a world that wanted to break them. His kids would never get hurt ever again, not by Greyback, not by Hydra, and most certainly not by some random themed bank robber. He'd see to that personally.
"This is the final test of Phase One," Tony said. "Are you online?"
"Hello World. Ultron Online."
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