"Peter has better taste than that," Stark said, not hiding his annoyance – especially when he saw the uncertainty that the comment caused in Peter's expression. "Why are you here?"
"I'm in a meeting," Hammer said, also annoyed. "A private meeting. Why are you here? And why is he? Shouldn't he be at the babysitter's? Or do you have a nanny for him?"
"I'm here because my name is on the building," Tony reminded the man. "Because it's mine. And some day, it'll be Peter's, so he'll come and go as he pleases."
"We're done, anyway," Pepper said, bringing her arms around the little boy in her arms and holding him in place, brushing a kiss against his cheek from behind, which made him smile, despite the animosity that he could practically feel in the room coming from the two men, who were facing off and clearly not friends. "Justin? You know where the door is," she added, pointedly.
"We only just got started…"
"I have an important meeting," she told him, squeezing Peter, lightly, when she said it, and proving that she didn't need Tony to save her from the man – although she was genuinely pleased to see him. "The answer is still no, but thank you for thinking of us."
"But-"
"Time to go," Tony interrupted. "Peter's going to tell us about his day and that's far more important than anything you might have to say."
The man scowled.
"I'm not leaving just because some little-"
"Do I call security?" Pepper asked, interrupting before Hammer could say anything that might hurt Peter's feeling – or really anger either of them. "Perhaps another restraining order…?"
"That was a temporary injunction," he snapped, standing up. "No wonder Chelsea didn't want the kid anywhere near you guys. I can't imagine what kind of terror he's going to grow up being, with Tony Stark as an example."
Without waiting for a response, the man turned and left in a huff, even going so far as to slam the door behind him.
Tony walked over to stand next to Pepper's chair so he could reach down and put his hand on Peter's hair – and maybe get a measure of how Hammer's words might have affected him. Peter turned and put his face in Pepper's collarbone.
"I don't like him," the little boy muttered into the fabric of her blouse.
Pepper smiled up at Tony, brushing her hand along Peter's back, and pressing a firm kiss against the side of his head.
"He isn't a very nice man," she agreed.
Tony frowned.
"Did he make your stomach hurt?" the billionaire asked his son, kneeling down beside the chair so they could be on the same level. "Like Sitwell did when you met him?"
"No. He's just mean."
"That, he is. Come here, son…" he said, giving Pepper a chance to loosen her hold on him, and Peter a chance to turn and look at him before he offered him his hands, which Peter accepted, allowing Tony to pluck him from Pepper's lap and hold him in his own strong arms. "Someone like that… he was already angry, and looking for a way to hurt the feelings of everyone else to make himself feel better. That's why he said those things. I'm surprised he didn't call Pepper a nose picker, or something."
Peter sniffed. He didn't know if he was supposed to cry or be mad, but he felt more like crying. And he'd trembled just a little at the reminder of Miss Marples – although it had taken him a moment to realize that the other man had been talking about the woman he'd lived with after leaving Eric's.
"I didn't like it."
"I know, buddy. I didn't like it, either. He won't be back."
Peter put his head on Tony's shoulder, but turned to he'd be able to see Pepper's reaction to almost being called a nose picker. She gave him a smile that made his heart feel funny and caused an entirely different kind of ache in his stomach. A wonderful one that left him warm and loved. It made him smile, too, and the urge to cry was swept away.
"I saw Dr. Bruce, today," he told her.
"I know. How did it go?"
"I told him that you're staying with us."
The boy lifted his head, now, and looked far more cheerful than he had only a moment before.
"You did? What did he say?"
"He asked me how I felt about it. He always asks how I feel about things."
Tony put Peter down, and the youngster climbed into the chair that Hammer had abandoned. Tony smiled at Pepper, and sat down, too.
Disaster averted.
"What did you say?" she asked.
"That I'm happy."
"Tell her why," Tony suggested.
"Because I like you," he told Pepper.
Awwww.
She smiled.
"I like you, too," she assured him.
"Thank you."
He reached for another cookie.
"We're going to skip daycare, today," Tony told Pepper. "What time will you be ready to go home?"
"Around five. What are you guys going to do?"
"When we're done with our snack, we're going to go to my workroom. My suit is done. There's some programming, still, to do, but I'm going to let Peter be the first to see it."
The boy beamed, practically wriggling with excitement, but not with surprise. Which told Pepper that Tony had already made this plan with him, and that it wasn't a way to cheer him up from the unexpected visit from Justin Hammer.
"That sounds like fun."
"It's going to be great," Peter agreed, happily.
Stark winked at her, telling her without words that he'd had a conversation with the doctor, as well, and then he reached for a cookie, too.
"Tell Pepper about the rest of the visit," he suggested.
She took a cookie and listened to Peter describe his appointment with all the care that she'd give one of her Vice Presidents – and a lot more smiles.
Even when he sprayed half-chewed cookie on her desk in his eagerness to tell her everything. Which was not something that any of her executives had ever done.
OOOOOOOO
The suit was awesome.
Tony would have let the little boy wear the thing, even fresh out of the manufacturing chamber, but it was much too big for him, and not flexible enough to make it fit the little boy.
"The next one is going to be different," Stark said as he set Peter on his worktable and put the right hand gauntlet on the boy's hand and forearm. It was so big that it went well over his elbow, but the excitement on Peter's face when he closed it up plainly said that the little guy didn't care. "JARVIS and I will be ready to try the nanite tech, and those will conform themselves to fit, perfectly."
"Even me?" Peter asked, turning his arm and 'aiming' the pulsar cannon at the far wall – where there was a convenient mirror that allowed him to see just how cool he looked in gold and red.
"It should," Tony told him.
"Wow."
While Peter played with that armored glove (which, of course, wasn't armed so there wasn't any danger of accidental discharge) Tony tried on the rest of the suit, all the while explaining the technology that he was working on with his AI. Peter had heard some of it, before, but it took on a whole new meaning when he was in the workroom, wearing a piece of one of Tony's suits.
By the time Pepper called Tony to let him know she was ready, the billionaire had snapped a couple of pictures of his son and sent them off to Natasha and the other avengers – along with one JARVIS took of the two of them side by side, both aiming their steel-clad hands at the camera. The replies back were amused, and Peter giggled when Rhodey's reply was a photo of himself in the War Machine suit, that had Peter and Tony's picture phot-shopped into it so the three were standing next to each other.
"Let's go home, son," Tony said, helping take the glove off Peter's hand.
He nodded, happily, and skipped beside Tony as they headed back to Pepper's office where they found her waiting for them.
"Ready to go home?" Peter asked, using Tony's turn of phrase.
It made her smile.
"I am."
Tony drove them, while Peter interrogated Pepper about her day from his spot in the back seat. She told him about her meetings, even though she knew that they would be of little interest to a little boy. He surprised her, though, and proved that not only was he listening, but he was following along with what she was telling her, by asking her intelligent questions.
When they arrived at the house, Tony pulled into the garage and parked beside Pepper's car.
"I want you to do your homework," Tony told him as they walked into the kitchen, greeted by JARVIS. "Pepper and I are going to make dinner."
"What are we going to do, tonight?" Peter asked, curiously, eyes excited, as they always were – even if he was just looking forward to watching a movie or playing Legos.
"Why don't we let Pepper decide?" his father asked. "She's the guest, right?"
"Okay." The boy looked at her, expectantly. "What do you want to do, tonight?"
"Let me think about it," she replied. "We'll discuss it while we eat."
"All right."
Peter ran off to his room, his backpack in his hand, and Pepper turned to Tony.
"What did you learn, today?"
"Justin Hammer is a bigger ass than I thought."
She smiled.
"I meant at the psychologists."
What a smart ass.
Tony smiled, too, and kissed her before he moved to open the fridge.
"Peter knows about sex – as we both already know. Dr. Wayne told me there's no point in keeping our physical relationship a secret."
"He said that?"
"He didn't say I'm supposed to ravish you at the dinner table in front of him," Tony clarified with an amused grin. "But kissing, touching… those are things that Peter will expect from us, and wouldn't be freaked out if he saw."
"That's good to know."
"I agree." He pulled hamburger from the fridge, and Pepper pulled out a pan. Dinner was going to be tacos for Peter, taco salad for Pepper, and burritos for Tony. Not as complicated as it seemed, since each of the choices had the same ingredients, just a different presentation. "I'd prefer something relatively quiet, tonight," he added. "But not a movie."
"Why not?"
"Because I want to put him to bed. If we watch a movie, he'll probably fall asleep. If we play a game, or something, then when bedtime comes around, I get to read to him, and watch him fall asleep."
Her expression was warm.
"That's nice."
He didn't even deny it.
"If you let me win whatever game we play, I'll let you join us."
Pepper rolled her eyes, amused.
"Chop the vegetables," she told him, putting the hamburger in the pan to brown.
"Yes, dear."