Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my OCs. Anything you recognize as not mine belongs to Marvel Studios, Disney, Warner Bros. Entertainment, and/or their otherwise respective owners.

Author's Notes: Me: The next one-shot in this series will probably be shorter than what I was planning.

Also me: *writes 8k instead of the 3-4k I'd been planning*

Yeah...I have no real excuses here. Oh well, you guys will enjoy this extra content, right?

Sincerely,

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis

~the black and gold 'verse~

~in sickness & in health~

Tony knew from the very beginning that something wasn't...wrong with this pregnancy, per se, but definitely not right.

With his pregnancies with Lili and Harley, there had been a discernible pattern. His nausea had started within two months, then had tapered off around the same time his Braxton Hicks contractions had begun. There had been nothing else bothering him besides those things, no spotting or other bleeding. And he'd started showing during the second trimester, which had been the same time they'd found out the gender.

This pregnancy was...different, to say the least. Although they found out the gender around the same time – they were having a boy, which made baby names a bit easier – he started showing at eleven weeks, still within the first trimester. His nausea was far worse than it had been before, only seeming to intensify where previously it had abated. By sixteen weeks, he was diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum after three separate trips to the hospital, and was given anti-nausea medicine and placed on a specific diet to help him regain the weight he'd drastically lost.

Then there was the bleeding.

Shortly after reaching twenty weeks, Tony woke up one night to a distinctive, wet feeling between his legs. Grumbling about his pregnancy making him produce excess slick, he walked into the bathroom. He turned on the lights and used the toilet, and didn't think anything at all about how sticky his thighs were. That is, he didn't think anything of it until he stood up from the toilet and turned around to flush it –

– Only to see red.

The horror which flashed through his system was a very palpable thing. He gasped, dread twisting in his stomach as he spun on his feet and ran back into his and Bruce's room. He shook his alpha's shoulder, even though the man had fallen asleep not even an hour ago after spending a couple of hours as Batman. "Bruce, Bruce, wake up," he begged, pleading.

"...Tony?" his husband mumbled, brown eyes blearily looking up at him. "What's wrong?"

"I'm bleeding," he said. "I think...I think we're going to lose the baby."

The way which Bruce was instantly awake at his words cut at his soul. Quickly, his alpha got up, shrugging on the clothes he'd previously discarded and forcing Tony into sweatpants and a loose AC/DC t-shirt as well. He was the one to explain to Alfred what was going on in hushed tones; Tony could barely focus on the beta's rapidly paling face, let alone what he said.

At the hospital, they waited hours and hours for what felt like the inevitable. He was hooked up to an IV, something which he was well-acquainted with at this point, and clutched Bruce's hand so hard in his own each of their knuckles turned white.

Finally, just when he felt like he was going to go insane, one of the doctors came in. He had a grim face.

Tony's heart instantly sunk.

"I'm going to lose the baby, aren't I?" he asked, trembling.

"No," the doctor replied. "Not today, at least. But it isn't good news."

He'd had a mild placenta abruption. At twenty weeks, this was not a good thing: the baby wasn't viable. The doctor ordered him to be on a strict bedrest for the rest of his pregnancy where he could only get out of bed to go the bathroom, and to eat another special diet to help the baby get as much nutrients as possible.

Even then, he warned, there were no guarantees. He could still lose the baby before viability.

Or his life.

"Do you want this?" Bruce asked him on the car ride home, their hands still clasped together. "I know you want this baby, but Tony – "

He didn't even have to think about it.

"I want this," Tony told him firmly, leaving no room for argument. "Abortion wasn't an option with Lili, and it's not an option now. Not unless my life is truly at stake."

Thankfully, his alpha knew to accept his answer.

The bedrest was fine. Knowing how precariously the baby's life was hanging in balance, he was practically willing to do anything to keep him safe and sound. His mother and Ana visited often, taking turns with keeping him company and helping Bruce and Alfred take care of the kids.

"I was like this with you," his mother told him one day, smiling softly. Her hands were busy with work, knitting a baby blue blanket, while Peter Brook's The Mahabharata played on the TV. "Bedrest to make sure you were healthy. It's not fun, is it?"

"It sucks," he groaned, falling onto his pillows dramatically for emphasis. "I mean, what am I supposed to do? I hate just laying here, only getting up to use the bathroom, and I hate not being able to do anything! How do I do this?"

"Well, you could try knitting."

He tried to keep himself busy. Like his mother had suggested, he took up knitting, although his projects were not nearly as brilliant as hers at a beginner's level. He read books, breaking out the first edition copy of The Great Gatsby Bruce had given him for what felt like the first time in forever, and an abridged version of the book Peter Brooks' movie was based on. He even prayed the rosary a few (read: several) times, because though an agnostic he was, he figured it couldn't hurt.

...Okay, so maybe his bedrest wasn't fine.

But everything else was fine.

Up until his water broke at thirty-three weeks.

The first thing he sensed when he woke up was the pain.

Even before his memories came back to him, he knew whatever had happened, it must've been bad. He felt like he'd been run over by a truck, his abdomen hurting something awful and his mouth tasting like cotton. Grimacing, he stirred slightly, trying to shift into a position which didn't make his torso twinge.

A hand squeezed his. "Tony?"

Abruptly, just like that, it all came back to him.

(He grunted through another contraction, his arms wrapped around his belly protectively, as if he alone could stop whatever was going on inside. "I can't – I can't – " he babbled. He shook his head. "It's too early!"

"Tony," his alpha tried to soothe, but it didn't work. He was practically shaking at how his body was betraying him – no, their baby for a final time, and nothing except a miraculous reversal of his water breaking could fix it. "Tony, you need to calm – "

. . .

"Fetal heartbeat is dropping," one of the doctors, an alpha fresh out of residency by the looks of him, said. His expression was deadly serious as he looked down at him. "Mr. Stark, we need to do an emergency c-section."

"Now?" he breathed.

The doctor nodded.

"What – what will that mean?"

"We need to place you under general anesthesia, there's no time for an epidural or spinal block," he explained. "We'll also have to give you a blood transfusion, as you're losing too much blood. You're A+, correct?"

He tried to get his tongue to move, so he could say something.

It didn't work.

"Yes," Bruce said for him. "Yes, he is."

. . .

"Promise me," he whispered. Around him, the nurses and doctors were bustling, trying to get him prepped for surgery, but he only had eyes for his mate. "Promise me you'll go with him and make sure he's okay, no matter what happens with me."

Bruce looked pained, but nevertheless agreed. "I will."

"Promise it."

"I promise."

"Good." He felt the anesthesia the second it entered his veins; he didn't know how, because it wasn't something you were supposed to feel, but he did. He blinked. "Bruce, Alpha, I love – ")

Before his eyes had even snapped open, he moved to sit up. "The baby," he panted. "Oh God, the baby – !"

Two strong hands pinned him back down to the hospital bed. Gazing upwards, he saw they belonged to his husband. "Tony, don't move, you'll tear your stitches," he said. When he still struggled against him, he repeated, "Don't move. The baby is fine. Peter's okay."

That, the name of their son, made him stop. Like with Lili and Harley, they'd never referred to their third child by name during the pregnancy. Call it superstition or make-believe, but they hadn't wanted to jinx things.

"He's okay? Peter's okay?"

"Peter Benjamin Stark was born on August 10th; today's date is August 11th. He weighs four pounds, two ounces, and is sixteen inches long. His lungs are still a little underdeveloped and I've been told by the doctors he's looking at a six week-long stay in the NICU minimum, but other than that he's okay. It's still too early to tell for sure, but they don't think he will have any brain damage from the placental abruption or c-section. He's okay," Bruce assured him, reaching over to the table next to the bed to hand him his glasses. "You, however, are a different story, Omega."

His eyes flitted meaningfully.

After he'd put on his glasses, Tony followed his gaze: first to the IV pole from which a bag of blood was still hanging, and second to his abdomen. It was obscured by both the hospital bed and his gown, but the omega pushed them aside. He saw that there, below his belly button, was a vertical incision, the kind usually only used in emergencies. It was covered up by a bandage, but he could see the imprints of stitches and surgical glue beneath the gauze, and how it most likely went through his linea nigra by how the dark line was placed above.

He swallowed.

"How...how bad was it?"

"We almost lost you," his mother spoke, much to his surprise. He somehow hadn't noticed her sitting at his bedside up until now. Her face was pale and worried, her eyes brimming with tears. "The doctors...they thought you weren't going to make it, diletto. They told me as much before you got better. It was a miracolo you did."

Tony tried to process that information.

He'd almost made his mother and Ana outlive their only child, Bruce a widower, and left their children without their omither, all in one go.

His own tears blurred his vision. "I'm sorry," he whispered, hastily wiping them away. "Oh my God, Bruce, Mamma, I'm so sorry."

One of the nurses came in a few minutes later, as if summoned. She checked his vitals and asked him if he was feeling alright, and when he said yes, went to go get the doctor.

To his surprise, it was his gynecologist who came, Dr. Maxwell, and not one of the doctors that always worked at the hospital. "Mr. Stark, what are we going to do with you?" she asked without preamble, holding a clipboard in her hands.

He winced. "Uh..."

"One out of three is not a statistic I would like for non-traumatic births," she continued, walking over to his bedside. She took a look at the heart and blood pressure monitor hooked up to him. "Are you experiencing any severe dizziness?"

"...How would you define 'severe?'"

"I'll take that as a no, then." She paused to adjust something. "We can probably lose this soon," she gestured to the blood bag, "but I would like to be sure we can first. Do I have your permission to perform a physical exam?"

This time, the exam was different than it had been before. There was more emphasis placed on his abdomen rather than his pelvis, although she did take a look down there as well to make sure he wasn't bleeding or experiencing discharge more than he should've.

Once satisfied, she nodded. "I'm going to tell the doctors attending to you here to keep you here for at least three more days, maybe more. They and the nurses will keep an eye on you, but if you experience a high or persistent fever, trouble breathing, abnormal drainage from your incision, excessive median bleeding, or severe or persistent pain, please let them know. This includes after you are discharged, but through my office instead, or 911 if it's severe enough to be an emergency."

"...What if I have no pain?"

Her stare was unimpressed. "That's just the combination of pain meds and coming off of the anesthesia, Mr. Stark. It'll wear off quickly."

It took him some cajoling in order to get her to allow him to leave his bed and go see his son so soon, but eventually he complied. He stood up from his bed, before crumpling as what felt like all of his blood went rushing into his legs. "Oh."

Bruce caught him in the nick of time. "Careful, Omega," he warned. "It's going to be a while until you get back on your feet."

...Tony might or might not have stuck his tongue out at him, causing his mother to scoff and Dr. Maxwell to roll her eyes.

He was led to the wheelchair in the room, then wheeled down the hallways, IV pole and all, to the NICU. It was a...strange, terrifying place to say the least. There were so many babies laying in incubators. They were so small and fragile, his heart ached, seeing them

When they got to the incubator containing his own baby, he hardly couldn't believe it. Four pounds, two ounces and sixteen inches already sounded small enough on its own, but compared to Lili and Harley, who had been six precisely and eight and a half pounds each...shit, Peter was tiny.

He was precious, though. His dark brown curls were fewer than Lili's and Harley's locks had been, but they were adorable. And when he cracked his eyes open, as if sensing his omither's presence, Tony was able to see they were already beginning to darken, undoubtedly into his own dark brown.

"He's your mini-you," Bruce said softly, chuckling.

He made a face. "Not quite."

"No, you looked just like him when you were born," his mother replied, disagreeing. "You were bigger than that, but still. Identico."

"Will they let me hold him?"

Bruce looked at him like it was a trick question. "Of course."

He had to wash his hands and his upper chest in order to hold Peter, but he was able to do so. Once more, the fragility of his child struck him, as did how early he'd arrived. At thirty-three weeks, his milk hadn't come down yet, and it was still seeming like it wouldn't. They were going to have to formula-feed him.

"Hello, Peter. My little pebble," he murmured. At this size, his son didn't feel like a "rock," not like his namesake – again, he was agnostic, but the Bible had been a nice crutch for him while on bedrest. "I'm your omither. Sorry it took me so long to meet you."

"He doesn't mind," his mother said, brushing a finger against the infant's hair. "You're here, Tony. That's all that matters."

Because you almost weren't.

The next day, Alfred brought the kids over for a quick visit, since Tony fell back asleep not long after he'd gotten back to his room.

Dick nearly cried when he saw him. The eleven-year-old had been pulling back from him and Bruce the past couple of months, entering that phase of pre-teen angst, but the shining in his eyes was unmistakable. "I thought you were gonna die," he mumbled into his shoulder, his arms wrapped firmly around the omega in a hug.

Tony tried to pat his head comfortingly. "Well, I'm still here. It's gonna take a lot to do me in, kid."

"I miss you, Omi," said Lili, her thumb momentarily popping out of her mouth. "When you come back?"

"Oh, a few days," he answered, sharing a look with Bruce.

Harley merely babbled his name for the most part. At one point, however, he did perk up, cocking his head. "Baby brother?"

"Yes, you have a baby brother. His name is Peter."

"Meet him?"

"He's still too small. Maybe soon."

His middle son looked put out at the information, but before he could throw a tantrum proper, his mother and Alfred took the two toddlers from the room. That just left him, Bruce, and Dick.

His husband took out his wallet, handing the kid a few dollar bills. "Can you give Tony and I a moment?"

The kid gazed at the money speculatively. "Can I get something to eat from the cafeteria?"

The alpha handed him a couple more dollars.

Greedily, Dick took them. "Thanks," he said. Then, adding to Tony, "Please don't die while I'm gone, it would suck if you did. Bye!"

The sudden change of his tone gave his adoptive omither whiplash. He blinked, surprised. "You know, if I didn't know any better, I would almost say he doesn't care about me."

"He's just being a pre-teen."

"I know. I was one once, too, unlike somebody I know." When Bruce didn't immediately take the bait, he glanced up at him. "Are you okay, Alpha?"

It wasn't the right thing to say. His husband laughed, but it was a mirthless sound. "'Am I okay?'" he quoted, incredulous. "Tony, you almost died, and you're asking me if I'm okay?"

...Oh, that was what was bothering him.

"But I didn't."

"But you almost did," was the retort. Bruce sighed. He nuzzled Tony's mating gland gently, causing his pheromones to be released. The scent of his mate seemed to calm him down some, but not much. "Omega, you don't know what it was like. I followed Peter to the NICU and made sure he was going to do okay, but when I got back...the doctors were talking to your mother, and she was sobbing. Everyone thought that was it. I thought you were gone."

"I'm still here, Bruce."

"You made me choose." It wasn't an accusation, but it was a statement. A not-so-gentle one, too. "It was either you or Peter, and you made me choose which one of you I was supposed to stay with."

"It'll always be the kids, Bruce," he said softly, cupping his alpha's cheek with a hand and caressing his face tenderly. "They matter more than me."

Bruce scowled. "Don't say that, it's not true."

"In matters of life or death it is. I know you might not like it, but that's how I want it," he rushed to say the second sentence as the other man tried to disagree with him. "I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if something happened to Peter because you weren't there, and I know you feel the same way. Don't try to deny it."

His husband sighed again. "I love you, Tony. You and the kids, you're my world."

("She was my world, and you took her from me.")

"I know." He smiled. "I love you, too. But it's like my mamma said: I'm alive, that's all that matters."

Four days later, he was released from the hospital.

"No sex for eight weeks," one of the doctors, who was an older and grumpy omega, said. Tony had liked him pretty much from the start, because he actually got what it was like to be an omega, no matter how much he hated what he was currently saying. "And I would highly advise you not to get pregnant at all again within the next two years. Your gynecologist might disagree with that statement, but I doubt it."

"But I'm more fertile than – "

The doctor raised a hand. "I don't want to hear it. You nearly died, Mr. Stark; I can't downplay the severity of that. I don't care how you and your husband go about it, even if it means you two do not have sex in the traditional sense at all for the next two years. Just do not get pregnant again until August of 2003 at the earliest. Your body needs time to heal."

Since Peter was still in the NICU, he went home without him. It felt weird, leaving without his baby. To be more precise, it felt almost like cheating, and a lot like torture at the same time. He wanted nothing more than to bring his youngest child home to meet his older siblings, and to get settled as omither and baby.

But, Peter was doing a lot better than the NICU doctors had thought, so there was that. Maybe even enough to come home by the 11th of September.

At the Glass House, he tried to settle into a routine. He was still limited to a bedrest, although this one was not nearly as bad as the first. He was only restricted to one floor and no sitting down on the ground. Still, it was tiresome. He made a note to see if there was some way he could add an elevator to the "upstairs" of the house as he continued his work on his doctorate in Engineering, helped tend to Harley and Lili when they were upstairs with him, and...painted.

The latter hobby came about because he was having those strange dreams again, the ones with the ash and dust. He hadn't had them since Lili was born, but now it seemed as if they were returning with a vengeance. They woke him up in the middle of the night, covering him in sweat on more than one occasion and making his pulse skyrocket.

"Bad dream?" Bruce asked him more than once, waking up each time he did.

Tony never outright answered him, only ever said something like, "Something like that."

He didn't want to divulge the contents of his dreams to anyone, not even Bruce. At least, not all of them.

("You're unlike any human I've ever met, Mr. Stark."

"You mean 'man,' right?"

"...Yes, I apologize.")

After one night of dreams which bothered him in particular, he told Bruce to go to the store to get him some art supplies. Thankfully, his alpha complied, getting him a variety of things: paintbrushes, watercolors and oils, canvases, etcetera. He had a fun afternoon with the kids with them, though he quickly moved on to painting the contents of his dreams.

After all, it was something to do in between his near-daily visits to Peter at the hospital, no matter how the hobby felt strange to him, more so than knitting.

He was an engineer: he was supposed to build things with his hands, not smear things around with them.

Once, however, Alfred caught him making one of those paintings. "That's a very nice picture," he commented over his shoulder.

Tony nearly jumped out of his skin. He almost knocked the water dish he'd been using onto the floor, too, which would've been a catastrophe all around. "Shit, Alfred, you scared me!"

The beta ignored his outburst. A curious look coming over his visage, he gestured down to the canvas. "What is this supposed to be?"

Tony glanced down at his creation. This one wasn't much: only a swirl of particles of dust as a figure of black and gold stood in the middle, while around him were murky figures one could barely make out. One of them was red and blue, and the other was wearing a red cloak...

"I don't know," he said.

Strangely, the response made the man huff. "You sound like my wife did," he mused. "She used to paint, too."

The omega felt his mouth drop open. "You had a wife, Alfred?"

"A daughter, too," the man commented without much thought. He frowned. "What, have I never told you that? I'm surprised. I thought I would have gotten around to it already." When Tony shook his head, he hummed. "My wife's name was Marie. We got married when we were only seventeen, back in England at her parents' insistence. Julia was a...bit of a surprise. We weren't expecting her."

Tony resisted the urge to snort. He knew how that went.

"Anyways," Alfred pressed on. "Marie always liked to paint, but sometimes, she said she wouldn't have the slightest clue of what she was painting. Her mother used to say it was a gift from God – she was very religious, that woman. I've wondered, though, if there was some truth behind her thought. Once, Marie painted a picture of a car on a snowy night, and, well..." He trailed off.

"I'm sorry," Tony whispered.

The beta gave him a smile. "Don't be. It's been over thirty years now. Besides, if it wasn't for that, I never would have joined my country's armed forces, or have started working for the deceased Master Wayne. I have a family here now, and I enjoy it very much." Abruptly, his smile turned into a smirk. "Even if both of my surrogate sons are far more reckless than I would prefer them to be."

"...Hey!"

After Alfred's reveal, he didn't stop painting, but he did take to hiding the finished canvasses where nobody except him would find them. Not because he didn't want anyone to see them, because although indeed he didn't...

He also didn't want the figure of black and gold to become true.

("The truth is, I am...")

Tony looked up as he heard three short raps against his and Bruce's bedroom door. Hiding a smile, he set down the book he was reading, Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. "Come in."

The door opened, revealing his husband and their three elder children. Dick was holding a food tray in his hands, which despite the distance the omega could see was full of a variety of things: blueberry pancakes with a ramekin of honey (his preferred condiment for pancakes, not syrup), a bowl of blackberries, a plate of turkey sausage, and a pitcher and glass of warm spiced milk and more honey.

"The kids wanted to give you room service," Bruce explained.

"Room service!" Lili agreed loudly. She and Harley toddled over to the bed at lightning-quick speed.

He grinned.

"Why, thank you," he said. He smacked a kiss on both of his toddlers' cheeks, then accepted the tray from Dick and ruffled his hair. The kid squawked, but nevertheless crawled up on the bed, curling up against his adoptive omither. Bruce followed after him, making for a bit of a tight squeeze on the upper half of their bed with Lili and Harley, but still enjoyable.

"This is a lot of food," Tony noted. He wouldn't have been able to eat it even before the hyperemesis gravidarum he'd developed had completely ruined his appetite. "Do you guys want to help me eat it all?"

Harley giggled. "I eat! I eat!"

The kids made a mess of everything, as was their wont. "Come here," he told Harley, holding a baby wipe in his hands. "Let me get that stuff off of your face, bambino."

Shrieking with laughter, the toddler stumbled back. His face was absolutely covered with the remnants of blackberries. "No! No!"

"Harley James, come on."

"No, Omi!"

He tried to jump off of the bed, but a quick-thinking Dick was able to pin him down. Harley whined, a cry coming up from his throat, but after some good-placed swipes on Tony's part, he was clean. "Jeez," he muttered. "Somebody would think I was mutilating you."

In comparison, Lili was much more compliant. She grunted and shook her head, but she didn't try to run or cry. She knew better.

"Alright, kids," Bruce spoke gently. "Omi and I need to get ready to go see Peter. Alfred's gonna take care of you, okay?"

Lili's face scrunched up. She wanted to be by her omither's side, no doubts about it.

Dick picked up Harley. "Let's go watch some Powerpuff Girls, Lili."

At the mention of her favorite show, his daughter brightened up considerably.

After they were gone, Bruce massaged his shoulders tenderly. "I would've liked you to eat more, Omega."

"I'm trying," Tony replied, closing his eyes. He let out a content sigh. "I thought we weren't gonna go over to the hospital for another few hours?"

"I want to take care of you first."

That made him open his eyes.

He watched as Bruce walked into their bathroom. Although he couldn't see what the other man was doing, the sound of running water which followed made it obvious. He smiled.

When his husband was ready, he came back and scooped him up onto his arms bridal-style. Tony's smile turned into a light laugh. "What are you doing?"

Bruce grinned. "Taking care of you."

The tub was full of water, nice and warm. His husband set him down in it, and he felt his back arch at the feeling. Dr. Maxwell had given him the approval for soaking in the bathtub and swimming three days ago, but he hadn't gotten around to doing either of them yet.

Grabbing his favorite bottle of shampoo, Bruce squirted some of the liquid onto his hands before he ran them through his hair. The sensation felt so good, he moaned as he took off his glasses and put them on the table next to the tub. "Have I ever told you how much I love you?"

The other man chuckled. "Often enough. I love you too, Tony."

Bruce washed the shampoo from his hair and replaced it with conditioner. Then, with a natural loofah and his own touch, he lathered him up with soap. Unable to stop himself, strangled noises escaped from him, his body tending as something within him twisted and coiled, and then –

He slumped. "Damn."

Bruce smirked. "Was I that good, Omega?"

"You know you were," Tony grumbled. Reaching up, he pulled his alpha down for a kiss. "But that's okay. I'll just have to repay the favor when you get seriously injured again or when you go into rut in March, whichever comes first."

In the weeks since Peter had been born, Tony had gotten used to the fragility of his and Bruce's youngest child – or at least as used to it as one could be.

The severity of the infant's condition as a moderate preemie had not been downplayed by the doctors, or indeed the experiences of the first month of his life: Peter had a caught a bout of the flu during his second week of life. It had been mild, thank God, but his immune system was still a little iffy. The fact Tony had been unable to breastfeed him only compounded this, since passive immunity from his omither was yet another advantage his siblings had had but Peter did not.

But at four weeks old, the infant was also fairly strong and healthy. He was over six pounds now, weighing roughly the same as Lili had been when she'd been born. And since Tony was at the point in his doctorate where he could be doing most of what he needed without going to MIT every day or even every week, he and Bruce could bring their son back to the Glass House. Home.

"Hmm, what do you think about that?" Bruce asked, rocking the baby in his arms. "Would you like to go home and meet your sister and other brother, Lili and Harley? You've already met Dick before; you liked him."

Peter whimpered, turning his head slightly.

"I see," the man replied, as if he actually did. "Well, would you like to go home and sleep in your room? We made it just for you. It's astronomy-themed."

This, the infant seemed to be more agreeable to. He yawned, then grasped one of Bruce's fingers with his hand. Tony hid a stupid grin.

Who knew alphas could be such saps?

"Remember," one of the neonatologists told them before they left. "Developmentally, he's going to be seven weeks behind the average baby for a while. He'll most likely catch up soon enough, but don't be surprised if he doesn't start doing things at the same time your previous two children did."

"Right," he said.

"If colic occurs, it will most likely begin at around nine weeks. But keep in mind, he might be crying because of sensory issues. The NICU can be a loud place, and during a time of crucial brain development for infants, it doesn't come without its costs." The doctor's expression softened then, a gentle smile forming. "But, if there's one thing I can tell you about Peter, it's that he's a fighter. He's been a fun patient to have, everyone here will agree."

Tony didn't say anything in reply to that, not wanting to admit just how much their words scared him.

Having a preemie could be a terrifying thing.

When they got home, they were greeted by the entire family. Harley let out a shriek at the sight of them, causing Peter to mewl into Bruce's shoulder. Pepper, who was working at the Glass House for the day, shushed him. "You have to be quiet, Harley," she said, patting his shoulder for emphasis. "Remember what we said about being quiet?"

Chastised, the toddler nodded.

Although Dick had already held Peter several times, he got to do it again. They had him sit on the couch just in case, but after Lili and Harley he was quite the experienced baby holder at this point. "He's still smaller than Lili was," he said, his nose wrinkling. "And his skin, it's more soft."

"Softer," Bruce corrected.

Tony snickered as Pepper rolled her eyes. He knew better than to do the same, English having been one of his alpha's majors in undergrad.

Lili sat next to her older brother, peering down at her youngest curiously. "He's cute."

"Glad you think so," remarked her omither dryly.

"When play?"

"Not for a while, princess." Lili huffed. "I know, I know. But he just came home from the hospital, and it's like Dick said, he's too small. You gotta be patient."

The novelty of the new baby wore off quickly, his two toddlers having the attention spans of...well, toddlers. Tony took Peter upstairs and to the bedroom they'd set aside for him, one of the ones overlooking the lake. He sat down in the rocking chair, silently admiring the constellation wallpaper and planets hanging from the ceiling. Lili's nursery was floral-themed, and Harley's was Winnie the Pooh. Each of the children was different; he wanted them to be proud of such.

The sound of Peter whimpering drew him out of his thoughts. He laughed quietly, looking down at those now-dark brown eyes which were so much like his own. Identical to his own.

"I have a feeling your eye color isn't going to be the only thing you inherited from me, is it? You're going to be to me the way I was with my mamma: the handful child," he wondered out loud. "Except, with you I don't think it's even going to be intentional. Somehow, someway, trouble is going to find you even when you don't want it to, isn't it?"

Peter let out a gentle cry, as if in agreement.

"Well, that's okay. Omi's always going to protect you, I promise, Daddy too. And I'm sure your older siblings will be the same way."

He was right.

Three days later, Peter had his first sensory overload at home. To be honest, Tony wasn't exactly sure what started it: it seemed a lot to him like his youngest son was fine one moment, sitting in the baby rocker as he worked on the paper work for his doctorate, but in the next –

Peter was crying, and there wasn't anything he could do about it. He tried to hold him and rock him, but the baby only jerked away, his eyes and fists squeezed tight and his face tomato red. He tried to let him simply rest in his crib with the lights turned off, but this only made Peter wail miserably as he jerkily kicked his arms and legs. He tried to feed his son a bottle, but it simply resulted in him spitting it back up and crying louder.

It felt a lot like when their entire family had gotten the flu back in November of 1998, and Lili had been beyond miserable. It felt a lot like the three days when Harley had gone colic as a baby, which had been three of the most agonizing days of Tony's entire life.

It felt a lot like he was failing as an omither.

By the time Bruce got home from a day at his company around dinner, he was in tears. Unlike his older siblings whenever they'd been upset this small, Peter had yet to calm down. He was still bawling as his father entered the room, still dark with the lights turned off and the curtains covering up as much as they possibly could.

"Omega," Bruce whispered, standing in front of Tony. He could barely hear the sound of his voice over their child's wailing. "Omega, give me Peter."

He shook his head, his shoulders trembling. "No, I – I need to get him to calm down, and I need to be here for him. He's in pain, Alpha, and there's nothing I can – "

"You need to eat and calm down yourself," his husband countered. He brushed one of the tears sliding down his face away with the pad of this thumb. "I know you don't want to hear this, but your being upset is probably only making it worse. Please, Omega, hand me the baby."

Reluctantly, he did. Bruce then shooed him away from the room, and he went downstairs to eat the homemade pasta Alfred and Dick had made for dinner. With how much he was worrying, the fettuccine tasted like ash in his mouth.

He ate it anyways, since he still hadn't been putting on as much weight as anyone would've liked after his surgery. He didn't really have any weight left to lose.

He moved to go upstairs after he was done, but the sound of Dick's voice stopped him. "Tony, can you play a game with me, please?"

So he found himself playing a couple of rounds of Parcheesi with the kid, then putting his other two kids to bed when Dick was victorious both games. In a strange change of pace from the past several months, the kid also requested him to read him a bedtime story: a chapter from My Side of the Mountain.

Thus, it was nearly nine o'clock once he found himself back in Peter's room. The first thing which greeted him was the noise, or lack thereof. There was a complete and utter silence as he stepped past the doorway, the baby sleeping soundly in his crib and Bruce sitting on the floor next to him, an exhausted smile on his face.

Amazed, Tony walked over to him. "What did you do?"

"I held him until he fell asleep. It didn't take long," his alpha replied. "He just needed a calm shoulder to cry on."

A part of him hoped after the episode that it would be the only thing they and Peter would have to deal with, the sensory overloads. They were dreadful and terrible, but manageable after they'd learned how to calm their fourth child down with utter darkness via high quality blackout curtains and silence with some soundproofing tiles. Tony didn't want his suffering anymore than he already did, and already had a few ideas with how to help with them if they didn't go away as he got older.

But, naturally, the sensory overloads weren't the only thing they had to deal with.

At seven weeks, he and Bruce started to notice a worrying set of symptoms in their baby. He was having trouble breathing: he panted in fast gasps, his belly moved with exaggerated movement, had a persistent coughing, and seemed to be disinterested in eating.

They didn't hesitate to take him to the hospital, already fearing the worst.

"I don't understand, Mamma," he whispered to her before they left. She'd come over immediately at their call – Ana, too. But once again it was her he needed most right now. "What are we doing wrong? With Lili and Harley, it was so easy, but Peter..."

"You're not doing anything wrong, Tony," she told him, hugging him firmly. "Every child is different, and their needs are different. Whatever is wrong with him, the doctors will figure it out. I have faith in them, and in God."

Their return to the hospital's ER felt like a horrifying episode of déjà vu, except now Tony sat in one of the hospital chairs right next to Bruce. One of the technicians came in and did some X-rays and other tests; it felt like an eternity, waiting for the doctor to analyze the results.

"Mr. Wayne and Mr. Stark?" he asked when he came in, rapping his knuckles against the door.

They both nodded uneasily.

"I don't mean to alarm you, but Peter does have inflammation and what looks to be extra mucus in his airways," he began. Tony moaned, rubbing at the bags under his eyes, but otherwise let the man continue. "It says on his file he spent four weeks in the NICU. Has he shown any signs of being sick since coming home?"

"Besides the sensory overloads? No," said Bruce.

The doctor wrote something down. "Has anyone else been sick in your family?"

"No," Tony bit out. "Our eldest, Dick, is in the fifth grade, but nobody's been sick in his class."

Another note.

Finally, the doctor put his clipboard down. "I still want to do some more blood tests and have you follow up with your pediatrician for allergy tests to be sure, but I believe Peter has asthma," he said slowly. "Asthma is when the airways become inflamed and produce – "

To Tony's surprise, Bruce's gaze hardened. "I know what it is," he growled. Quickly realizing what he had done, his face blanched and he sighed, wearily running a hand over his face. "I apologize."

The doctor waved him off with a hand. "It's fine, Mr. Wayne. Your child is sick, and I'm not exactly giving you good news. I understand."

"Is it treatable at his age?"

"There are treatments. Depending on the severity of symptoms, your pediatrician will prescribe several medications: bronchodilators to quickly relieve sudden symptoms, inhaled corticosteroids for maintenance, and combination medicines for both. These would be given with a nebulizer."

"How severe do you think his symptoms are?" questioned Tony.

The doctor didn't immediately answer him.

He scowled, then repeated his question.

"It's hard to say right now," was his answer at last. "But my initial assessments would suggest they're fairly severe."

Bruce closed his eyes, his chest rumbling with grief.

"Like I said, I don't mean to alarm you," the doctor rushed to say. "There are treatments if it is asthma, Mr. Stark, Mr. Wayne. And your son is a fighter. As long as you keep an eye on him, he'll push through."

Fighter? Fighter? Tony wanted to say – no, scream. Why does my baby have to be a fighter at only seven weeks old?

But, he didn't.

He didn't say anything at all.

Tony hadn't been feeling good for the past couple of days now.

He'd been having some cramps and pain going to the bathroom, as well as some general malaise. Usually, he wouldn't think much of it, especially not now with everything that was going on with Peter. But Bruce had noticed him feeling off yesterday afternoon and had asked what it was about, and when he'd told him, he'd insisted on him calling up his gynecologist.

Alphas could be irritatingly concerned like that at times, his most of all.

So, here he was now, laying on a patient's table, trying not to squirm as Dr. Maxwell performed her exam. "I thought when I and the other doctors at Gotham General spoke with you, we told you with great emphasis that you needed to rest and your body needed time to heal," she remarked.

Tony winced. "You did."

"Then why haven't you been doing it?"

He didn't even question how she knew he hadn't been. "Peter hasn't been doing well. He's been having sensory overloads, and now the doctors think he has asthma. The other kids have needed my attention, too, and my doctorate – " Abruptly, he stopped as he saw the look on her face. "What?"

"I'm hearing a whole lot of excuses here, but not much of actual reasons," she commented.

"They're my kids!"

"Yes, but you had a traumatic, nearly life-ending childbirth, and instead of resting and recouping you're busying yourself with other tasks. And now you have an infection."

He felt his face pale. "My incision?"

She shook her head. "No, your median. Don't worry, it's only mild. But your incision also isn't healing as much as I would like it to. You need rest, Mr. Stark. Rest."

"What do you suggest I do?"

"For starters?"

He nodded.

"Take a break from your doctorate. You said you're getting towards the end of it, but you're only in your third year. Most people, it takes four to six years to get. You can afford to take a break," the last three sentences, she said over him when he tried to protest. "I also want you to restrict yourself to holding nothing heavier than Peter again, to keep working on your scar exercises, and no more sex for an additional three weeks? Got it?"

"Yeah," he groaned. There had been one thing he'd been looking forward to. "Anything else?"

"Just that you look into seeing a therapist, but I know you wouldn't be willing to do that."

"No," Tony replied immediately, shuddering. He liked Dr. Maxwell, and the additional doctors he'd seen either at the hospital or his regular physician, but he didn't need anymore. No thank you.

At the end of his appointment, he walked out of the patient room and into the lobby. Bruce, who had been waiting in one of the chairs, stood up at once and fell into step with him, his hand reaching out to squeeze his own. "How did it go?"

Tony handed him his prescription script as he adjusted his satchel. "We need to go get that taken care of, I have an infection." As he felt his alpha tense, he hurried to add, "Not at my incision or PID, don't worry. Just...a median infection." He blew out a puff of air. "She also said I need to rest more."

Bruce raised an eyebrow. "That wouldn't be such a bad thing."

"I don't like it," he returned. "I need to keep my hands doing things."

"You've been painting."

"I need to finish my doctorate, too. I need to take care of the kids. I need to – " I need to make sure whatever's coming doesn't actually happen.

"Alfred and I can take care of the kids – we've been doing it. We might not be omegas, but we're not helpless." The usage of his own words against him had Tony snorted. Bruce squeezed his hand again. "And if you're really that concerned, we can always have your mother or Ana, or both, stay with us again for a little while. You're just one person, Tony. You're not a superhero."

"...No," he agreed uncertainly.

(Not yet, a voice in the back of his mind whispered.)

Taking his hesitation to mean something it didn't, Bruce stopped them just before they entered their car. He embraced him, the omega's back leaning against the car's passenger door. "Do you remember what we promised?" he murmured. "To love and cherish one another, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, for better or worse – "

" – as long as we both shall live?" Tony finished for him. "Yeah. I still do."

"Good. I still do, too." His husband kissed him. It wasn't a long kiss by any means, but it still left him breathless when they separated, the other man's thumbs massaging the insides of his wrists comfortingly. "We'll get through this, Tony. I promise you, we will."

"I know," he whispered. "It's like Howard says, 'Starks are made of iron.' And it's not like you dress up as a bat to fight crime or anything."

It was Bruce's turn to snort. "You make it sound so honorable."

"I mean, we've been over this. Your costume choices are honestly – "

(Two weeks later, they did have his mother stay with them, if only to give him the peace of mind. "Tony, of course I'll come stay," she said when asked. "Nothing more will make me happier."

She stayed for three weeks. During that time, she made him laugh a lot, and adjusted to living in a house with an infant with sensory issues much smoother than he thought most would. Although she loved all of her grandchildren equally, holding Peter was a favorite past time of hers. "It's just like holding you," she told him at one point, smiling sadly. "Sometimes I still can't believe you've grown up, bambino. Where did the time go?"

Later, he would realize, there was a sense of finality to her visit, like the chapter of a book closing despite the chaos with Peter that was going on in the background.

Because besides that Thanksgiving, her visit would be one of the last memories ever had of his mother.)

Word Count: 8,252