I can't thank you all enough for the kind reviews, follows and favorites! You guys are very inspiring!
Through the pulsating beat of his usual Black Sabbath background music, Tony smiled as he heard the thud! of Peter sticking yet another landing in his floor routine. After seeing the boy's delight with his new trampoline and all the tricks he could perform with it, it was only a couple of days later that Tony tracked down and hired a gymnastics instructor who would come out to the house and work with Peter for a couple of hours every afternoon. This not only gave Tony some much-needed time to work on things that were not exactly appropriate for little eyes to see, but also had the added effect of helping tire Peter out so he'd hopefully be able to sleep better.
Thud! Tony heard again, followed closely by the shout of praise from Peter's teacher, a short, compact Ukrainian woman in her mid-fifties that treated Peter like a long-lost grandson. Tony shook his head, grinning even wider as he tightened a bolt on the knee joint of his new prototype armor.
Instead of building another suitcase suit—which, Tony had realized, was quite bulky and heavy and too conspicuous to easily carry around—he decided to try and build a more lighter-weight suit that could be summoned to him via an electronic signal transmitted from a pair of metal cuffs worn around his wrists. It had been tricky tinkering with the density of the gold/titanium alloy, as making the suit lighter also variably reduced the protection it offered. But if Tony's math was correct, and it always was, he believed he'd been able to find the perfect balance between durability and portability.
He of course wouldn't know for sure until he was able to test out the suit for himself, which wouldn't be for awhile yet, but things were looking good so far. With any luck he should be able to have the Mark VII suit finished by the time he and the kid returned to New York in a couple of weeks. School would be starting in a bit less than a month, and Tony wanted Peter to have some time to get back into the swing of things in New York before he started the new school year, especially since they still needed to design Peter's new bedroom at Stark Tower. The tower wasn't completely finished quite yet, but the contractor had promised Tony that the living quarters would be ready to move into by the time he and Peter arrived in New York.
Tony had been relieved to learn that the school Peter attended wasn't just a regular New York City public school, but instead a prep school for gifted kids that required the passing of a difficult entrance exam prior to admission. Even better was the fact that the school was actually located in Midtown, not Queens, and as such was only about ten blocks away from Stark Tower. Since his own schooling had been so convoluted as a child, with skipping grades and entering college when he was only fifteen years old, Tony was pleased that Ben and May Parker had instead chosen to keep Peter in his age-appropriate grade and send him to this special school for especially smart kids.
An eager knock on the glass door startled Tony from his thoughts, and he looked up to find Peter, bouncing up and down on his feet and sporting a cheeky grin.
"Mr. Stark, Mr. Stark!" the boy exclaimed, rushing into the garage once JARVIS unlocked the door. "Ms Toddie said that I can start on the tall balance beam next week! She's gonna bring one for me to try!"
"Really?" Tony said, his lips curling into a smirk. "That's great! Now you'll make even more noise when you land. And I wish you could time your jumps better with my music, because the beats never seem to line up correctly. It really throws me off when I'm trying to work."
Tony had meant the comment to be lighthearted, and so was alarmed when Peter's face fell and his shoulders hunched forward. "Hey!" he said, reaching to ruffle Peter's sweaty curls. "I only meant that I'm proud of you, kid, that's all. I know how much fun you have jumping around upstairs everyday."
"Ms Toddie says I'm good at it," Peter mumbled.
"And Ms Tatiana is correct," Tony stated firmly, gripping Peter's shoulder. "I was just giving you a hard time, kid. I know you're good at it, and I know you love it."
Peter drew his shoulders back, nodding at Tony as he tried to smile. "I do love it. I'm gonna miss it when we have to leave here."
"Well, maybe we can find a gym for you to practice at after school?" Tony suggested. "You can get your Lego-builder friend to join you too, if you want."
"I don't think so," Peter said, shaking his head. "Ned can't do gymnastics like me."
"Okay, we don't have to decide now," said Tony. With a final twist of his screwdriver, he removed the knee joint and placed it carefully onto its stand. "Wanna try out your new boots for a few minutes?"
It was as if Tony had flipped a switch with the way Peter's eyes widened and the smile stretched across his face. "Can I?"
"I wouldn't have asked otherwise," Tony replied with a wink. Lifting Peter onto the counter, he retrieved the mini Iron Man boots he'd just yesterday finished building from their locked storage cube and slid them onto the kid's socked feet. "So. Whaddya think?"
"Whoa," Peter breathed, clinking the toes of the bright red and gold boots together. "They look just like yours!"
"They are just like mine," Tony said proudly. "Just a bit smaller. And non-flyable, of course."
"Aww, but I wanna fly too!" Peter whined as he jumped off the counter, dropping down in a perfect imitation of Tony's signature Iron Man landing. "Why can't I fly?"
"You're still a bit young for that, I think," said Tony with a chuckle. "Besides, I don't think Ms Wilson would be too happy if she thought I had you flying around the garage."
"But I wouldn't tell her!" exclaimed Peter. "Just like I didn't tell her that you let me stay up watching movies when I can't sleep!"
Tony grimaced. He didn't like being reminded that the poor kid had trouble sleeping from time to time. "I know, Peter. But watching Star Wars for the eightieth time because you had a nightmare at three in the morning and flying around a garage in homemade rocket boots are two pretty different things. Don't you think?"
"They're repulsor boots. Not rocket boots," Peter corrected. "Right? You told me that you don't build rockets anymore."
Grinning, Tony nodded. "Yeah, that's right. But I highly doubt Ms Wilson would care too much about that particular distinction."
"Yeah, I guess not," Peter muttered. He took a step, smiling as the boot made a loud clanking noise against the garage floor. "They're still pretty cool boots though, Mr. Stark. Thank you."
"Tony," Tony said suddenly, tapping his fingers on the counter. He glanced sheepishly down at Peter. "You can call me Tony, you know. Mr. Stark was my father's name; it's not mine."
Peter brushed a sweaty curl from his forehead, swallowing hard as his huge brown eyes locked with Tony's. "Auntie May always said it was polite to call grownups mister or missus," he said quietly.
"Well, Auntie May was right about that," replied Tony, his heart thudding in his chest as he knelt down in front of Peter. He'd been wanting to bring this subject up for most of the summer, but hadn't found what he thought to be the right time. "But I think we've established by now that I'm not just your average adult. Haven't we?" I'm your… what am I, exactly? Your guardian?
Your… dad?
Would you even want that from me?
"Yeah," Peter said slowly, his sweet, boyish grin stretching across his face. "Yeah, I think so. Okay, Mr… I mean, Tony. Thank you."
"Good," Tony said with a relieved smile, patting Peter's shoulder as he got back up to his feet. "Glad we got that settled."
"How long can I play in these?" Peter asked as he stomped over to his workstation, modeled to look just like Tony's, where he was working on rebuilding an old tractor engine Tony had scavenged from a nearby scrapyard. He picked up a socket wrench, looking over the various engine parts with a critical eye while Dum-E watched from over his shoulder.
"Until you break the floor," Tony said, winking as he tapped commands into his monitors. A blinking light, indicating a new message from JARVIS, caught his eye. "Or until dinner time, whichever comes first."
"Uh huh," replied Peter, biting the corner of his lower lip as he attached two parts together. He always would bite down on his lip when he was concentrating extra hard, which both Tony and Pepper happened to find adorable.
"What's going on, JARVIS?" Tony asked quietly, tapping the message icon on his monitor. He'd developed this new upload into JARVIS's system after Peter nearly overheard he and JARVIS talking about some things that Tony had no desire for Peter to overhear. Tony wasn't sure how in the hell the kid did it, but Peter was so quiet on his feet at times that you didn't even realize he was standing right next to you until he opened his mouth. As a result, JARVIS was now silent in the garage when Peter was around, unless specifically spoken to by either Tony or Peter.
"Is the coast clear, sir?" asked the AI.
"As long as you're quiet," replied Tony, shooting a furtive glance over at Peter, still with his teeth clamped down on his lip. "What's up?"
"I've been able to retrieve some more files pertaining to Richard Parker from an old, now-defunct SHIELD database," JARVIS said in a loud whisper. "But unfortunately many sections of the files are redacted, making them nearly unreadable. I would estimate that only ten to twenty percent of the text is legible."
"Damn," Tony grumbled, tapping his chin. So far the only information he'd been able to dig up on Parker was that he was a geneticist—which he knew already—and that he somehow knew or had worked in the past with Agent Peggy Carter. Tony was familiar with Agent Carter, as she had not only worked closely with Tony's father on Project Rebirth, but was also a founding member of SHIELD. Unfortunately, Peggy Carter was now a near-invalid, suffering from Alzheimer's Disease, and therefore not a reliable source of information.
"Let me take a look at 'em anyway, JARVIS," said Tony. "Maybe there'll still be something useful in there."
A scanned copy of an old, typewritten page appeared on Tony's monitor, listed as page 1 of 216. "Very good, sir."
"Hmm," Tony grumbled as he scanned the page, which was littered with harsh black lines striking out most of the text. A quick swipe to the next page revealed more of the same, and by the tenth page Tony was rapidly losing his patience.
"JARVIS, pull all of the non-redacted text of this file and condense," he said.
"It'll likely only be gibberish, sir," warned JARVIS.
"Yeah, maybe. Do it anyway and let's see."
A few seconds later a new, thirty page file appeared on his screen. Tapping the first page, Tony read through the random, oft-repeated leftover words, his jaw tensing tighter and tighter as the seconds ticked away.
RESEARCH. DNA. GENETICALLY ENGINEERED. STRENGTH. SPEED. DURABILITY. FOREIGN. WEAPON.
And the final words, printed towards the end of the last page, repeated three times.
TRAITOR. MUST ELIMINATE IMMEDIATELY.
Tony swallowed hard, a sharp ache flaring in his chest as the realization of what this likely meant washed over him. He shot another glance over at Peter, who was busy tightening a bolt with his socket wrench like a pro, blissfully unaware of what was going on only a few feet away.
According to this information Richard Parker was a traitor, and had likely been killed for it. Whether or not Mrs. Parker had been in on her husband's work or was simply just collateral damage Tony couldn't tell, but the evidence seemed clear that Richard Parker had been trying to sell a weaponized… something to a foreign government, and had gotten caught.
"JARVIS," Tony croaked softly. "Triple encrypt this file and store it away under the kid's heading."
"Very good, sir," replied JARVIS. "Should I then begin preheating the oven? It is getting close to the boy's dinner hour."
"Yeah, sure," said Tony with a heavy sigh. He hadn't been quite sure what he thought he'd find when he started this particular information dig, but it definitely hadn't been that.
Poor kid, he thought. Howard Stark had also been accused of being a traitor, and in fact had been forced to flee the United States for a period of time while that was all sorted out. But his name was eventually cleared, and that mess had all occurred before Tony was even born, although it no doubt contributed to the bitterness Howard carried with him as an older man.
He doesn't need to know. There's no reason for him to know. Peter had been only three years old when his parents were killed, and had admitted to Tony a few times that he didn't remember them very much. There was no good reason Tony could see for sullying the kid's few remaining memories of them with such horrible information.
"Hey, Peter, why don't you finish up there and get ready for dinner, yeah?" Tony called to the boy. "You have to be hungry after all that noise you were making earlier."
With a final stroke of his wrench, Peter set it down and nodded. "But can we come back down here afterwards?" he asked as he clomped back over to Tony, holding out his arms so Tony could lift him onto the counter. "I'm almost done with the engine you gave me."
"Yeah, sure, whatever you want," Tony forced out past the lump in his throat. Sliding the kid's boots off, he locked them in their storage unit. "You've only been working on that engine for two days and you're almost done already?"
"Well, yeah," Peter said, holding onto Tony's hand as he jumped down off the counter. "It's not really that different from a Lego set."
"No, I suppose it's not," Tony said with a chuckle. "But the real test will come when we try and turn it on."
"Oh, I wanna try!" exclaimed Peter as they climbed up the stairs and headed for the kitchen. "When can we try?"
"Probably after your friends leave next week," Tony said. Rummaging through the fridge, he pulled out the various food items that comprised Peter's dinner for the evening. Pepper had ordered a weekly meal-delivery service shortly after they arrived in Malibu, telling Tony that while Peter may enjoy living on orange juice, Lucky Charms, and the occasional frozen pizza, it likely wasn't the healthiest of diets for an active, growing little boy. All Tony had to do was pull out the color-coded boxes that corresponded to that day of the week and heat things up. It was easy enough, and, Tony realized, even somewhat enjoyable. He and Pepper would usually eat their dinner together after Peter went to bed, but Tony would always sit with Peter and have a snack while he ate.
"I can't wait to see Disneyland!" Peter exclaimed fifteen minutes later through a mouthful of mashed potatoes and gravy. "Ned's never been to Disneyland either, so it's gonna be so much fun!"
"Yeah, I can't wait," Tony said, trying desperately to keep the sarcasm from his voice. Peter's eighth birthday was during the week that they'd be returning to New York, and Tony had planned on having a small party for him with some of his school friends once they'd gotten settled into Stark Tower. But then Peter found out that his best friend, Ned, was going to be visiting his grandparents for the last two weeks of summer break and sadly wouldn't be available for Peter's birthday. So, in a rare moment of weakness, Tony had offered to fly Ned and his father out to Malibu for a few days instead. It had seemed like a great idea at the time, but as it grew closer to their arrival date, Tony was starting to regret the offer more and more. Three days of Peter socializing with his friend meant three days where Tony would be expected to socialize with said friend's father, and making small talk with non-genius people wasn't one of Tony's strong suits. Pepper was, of course, exempt from that category.
"Are you gonna go on all the rollercoasters with me, Mr—, I mean, Tony?" Peter asked as he took a sip of his milk. "I love rollercoasters! Uncle Ben took me on the Cyclone once when I was six, and it was so much fun!"
"Yeah, I've been on the Cyclone a few times," Tony replied. He didn't mention that the last time he'd ridden that ride he'd been nearly falling-down drunk; not something he cared to remember.
"Whoa, they had it way back when you were a kid?" Peter asked, biting off a chunk of a dinner roll. "I didn't know that!"
"That coaster's been around since my dad was a kid," Tony retorted, winking so Peter wouldn't think he was truly angry. "And I'm not really as old as you make me sound, you know."
Peter let out a giggle. "Are ya sure?" he asked with a maniacal grin.
"Positive!" Tony stated, ruffling Peter's hair. "Besides, I still play with toys, so I can't be that old."
Giggling again, Peter popped the last bit of his roll into his mouth, swallowed the rest of his milk, and jumped down from the kitchen stool, heading for the hallway. Tony just watched him go, that painful ache in his chest flaring up again as he recalled what he discovered today.
He doesn't need to know. Kid's had enough heartbreak for one lifetime.
Peter paused in the hall, looking back when he realized that Tony wasn't following him. "Are you gonna help me wash my hair tonight, Mr—, I mean, Tony?"
"Yep," Tony choked out. "You just go on. I'll catch up once I clean up in here."
"Okay," the kid said as he skipped away.
"JARVIS?" Tony said once Peter's footsteps had faded down the hallway. "You got that file encrypted yet?"
"Triple, sir, just like you asked," replied JARVIS.
"Good. Any way you could work on pulling the text from the redacted lines?"
"Not likely, sir, given the poor quality of the initially scanned file. But I can try."
"Yeah, why not," Tony said. He slammed his palm onto the countertop, nearly knocking Peter's milk glass into the sink. Why hadn't he just left well enough alone? He'd always been too curious for his own good. But now it wasn't enough that Peter's birth father had been branded a traitor, Tony wanted to know why. "When you're not busy with other things."
"There is very little time when I'm not busy with other things, sir," quipped the AI.
"I know, I know," replied Tony. "And it goes without saying that not a word of this gets to the kid, right?"
"Absolutely, sir," said JARVIS. "As always, you can count on my discretion."
"Thanks, JARVIS."
The rest of the summer seemed to pass in a blur, including—much to Tony's relief—the trip to Disneyland with Ned and his father. Both of them, who were about as round as they were tall, talked so nonstop that Tony and Peter could barely get a word in edgewise during the entire three days of their stay. Ned was even able to keep up a running commentary about some movie he'd recently seen while they were riding on the Matterhorn, while his dad proceeded to give Tony an entire detailed history lesson on the original Polynesian settlement on the Hawaiian islands, and how his family then came to migrate to New York City.
In the end, even Peter seemed a bit relieved once they were shipped back off to New York. And Tony was relieved to no longer have to fend off the curious stares, side-eyes, and loudly whispered questions of onlookers as they strolled through one of the busiest amusement parks in the country.
"Isn't that Tony Stark? Over there, next to that kid wearing the science-nerd t-shirt?"
"Nah, Tony Stark's taller than that dude. And you know he wouldn't be caught dead carrying around a Mickey Mouse balloon. I'll bet he's more of a Buzz Lightyear guy."
It was still a miracle that a gaggle of reporters hadn't yet descended on them, another testament to Pepper's excellent work behind the scenes. Tony knew it was only a matter of time before some reporter that was out of Pepper's reach would be able to put the pieces together, but he was still grateful for the time he and Peter had had to get to know each other in relative obscurity.
The move into Stark Tower two weeks later went as well as could be expected, and once Peter resumed school, he and Tony were able to fall into a fairly easy daily routine. Tony was impressed with Peter's teachers, most of whom were remarkably supportive of him as Peter's guardian, and the smaller class size and the general intelligence level of the faculty helped ease any concerns he might have had about the quality of Peter's education. The Principal's promise to treat Tony the same as he would any other parent, instead of a billionaire celebrity/ superhero, was also a relief.
Being more of a morning person than Happy, Tony would get Peter up and off to school in the morning, with Happy picking him up in the afternoon and bringing him to his after-school gymnastics class, then back to the Tower for dinner and homework. Afterwards, they'd work some on Tony's new Mark VII suit, or watch a movie, or whatever else the kid wanted to do until it was time for bed.
And it still never failed to amaze Tony how easily the kid was managing to thaw his frozen heart. Even though he was still dependent on his chest piece to survive, Tony hadn't realized how little he was actually living before Peter came along. Pepper had helped to awaken a part of him that he'd thought was long dead, but it wasn't until Peter came into his life that Tony truly understood the concept of unconditional love.
"Hey," Tony said one cool, mid-November evening, his brow furrowing in concern as he watched Peter only pick at his dinner. "What's going on? Not that hungry tonight?"
"No, not really," Peter said, pushing the plate away. "I'm pretty tired, actually. Can I go to bed early tonight?"
Tony's brow furrowed even more, and he scrubbed his palm across his eyes. The kid never, ever asked to go to bed early. If anything, he was always begging to stay up late so he could watch the construction people working on the upper floors of the tower.
"They work you guys extra hard at the gym today?" Tony asked.
"Yeah, I guess," Peter mumbled, even as he laid his head down on the table. "'m tired, Tony. Wanna go bed now."
"Okay, sure," Tony answered warily. "Go on and get ready and I'll come tuck ya in."
"Thanks," Peter whispered as he practically slid from his chair, stumbling twice before he managed to exit the kitchen.
What the hell are they teaching at that gym? Tony wondered as he cleaned up the kid's discarded dinner. Maybe he should think about dropping Peter down to three classes a week instead of five if they were going to start working the kid to death.
"You sure you're okay?" he asked Peter as he tucked him in a few minutes later, after making sure that he'd remembered to brush his teeth.
"Uh huh," Peter mumbled, already half asleep. "Jus' 'ired."
"Hmm, okay," Tony said, still not convinced but knowing that trying to hold any kind of conversation with a half-asleep Peter was pretty much a hopeless cause. He gently ruffled the kid's curly hair. "Sleep well, buddy."
Exiting Peter's bedroom, Tony proceeded downstairs to his interim workshop, already pondering on how to solve the annoying communication problem between the new suit and the metal cuffs. Once he was able to solve these issues, he'd then have armor that would essentially wrap itself around his body on command, instead of having to rely on his complex robotic systems for suit-up and removal.
"How're those numbers coming, JARVIS?" Tony asked as he tapped his monitors to life.
"Sir, please understand, these are very complex calculations," JARVIS said. "And if a single variable is missed, we run the risk of the suit wrapping itself around the nearest lamppost or mailbox instead of around your person."
"Well, it'd be one hell of a handsome lamppost," Tony muttered as he grabbed at the air in front of one of the monitors, throwing the schematic into the open area off to the side and expanding it. "Where's the current problem? In the radio signal?"
"I believe it's a matter of fine-tuning the frequency, sir," JARVIS replied.
"Hmm." Tony stepped into the holographic field, tapping his chin as he scanned the bright blue design. Pinching his fingers around one small portion, he brought it closer, eyeing it critically as he tapped in commands with his free hand. "Try it now."
"We're getting closer, sir," said JARVIS a few seconds later. "The only problem is that your head would now have to be pointing backwards."
"Hmm. Having eyes in the back of my head would come in handy more often that not," Tony mumbled as he tossed his holographic handful off to the side. He walked towards the opposite end, reaching for a different corner this time. "Let's try this one next."
"Pardon me, sir," JARVIS suddenly said a few minutes later. "But Master Peter appears to have fallen out of his bed."
"What?!" Tony exclaimed. Slamming his palms together, he closed out his holographic program and took off running for the stairs. "JARVIS? Is he all right?"
"If I had to guess, sir, I'd say he's become ill," replied JARVIS.
"Ill?" demanded Tony as he rounded the corner towards Peter's room. "Who the fuck got my kid sick?"
"It could very well be the flu that's been going around, sir," JARVIS said. "I believe it's been reported in the news."
"Peter?" Tony said, nearly choking as he approached the boy, crying and writhing in pain on the floor next to his bed. He carefully lifted Peter onto his lap, brushing his sweat-dampened hair from his eyes. "Peter? Talk to me, buddy. Are you hurt? Tell me what's going on."
"I don't feel so good," Peter said, his words slurring like he was drunk. Tony's heart dropped into his stomach as he pressed his palm to Peter's forehead, which was burning hot.
"Shit," Tony muttered. "JARVIS, the kid's head is burning up!"
"Don' feel so good," mumbled Peter, shivering so hard it was difficult for Tony to keep hold of him. "Head hurts, legs hurt… I hurt!"
"Might I recommend an age-appropriate dosage of a fever-reducing medicine, sir?" JARVIS asked. "While a mild fever can be beneficial during a viral illness, an especially high fever can lead to rapid dehydration and possibly seizures in small children."
"Seizures?!" barked Tony. "Holy shit, JARVIS!" He carefully lifted Peter back onto his bed, tucking George in under his arm. "I'm gonna go get you some medicine, buddy. I promise I'll be right back."
Racing into Peter's bathroom, Tony pulled out the fully stocked first aid kit from the medicine cabinet and tore it open, rifling through its various contents until he found the bottle of paracetamol. He tried to squint to read the appropriate dosage, but the dim bathroom light and the lack of his glasses made it impossible to read. "He's almost fifty pounds, JARVIS. How much of this stuff am I supposed to give him?"
"Two teaspoons, sir," replied JARVIS after a second's pause. "Might I also suggest calling 911, sir?"
"Um, you said this bug's been in the news?" Tony asked, pouring the dark purple liquid into a dosing spoon.
"That is correct, sir. There have been several schools in the Midtown area that have been forced to close due to excessive student absences."
Tony repressed a shudder. "Then the hospitals are already gonna be chock full of sick people. No. Get Rhodey on the phone instead."
"Very good, sir."
Tony vaguely remembered seeing a couple of fleeting news reports on the severity of the approaching flu season amid the usual reports of political scandals and a couple of random suicide bombers, but had shrugged them off like he always did anything having to do with the health of the general public. His heart condition notwithstanding, Tony never got sick; his germophobia wouldn't allow it. He'd always had a strict policy of avoiding sick people… well… like the plague.
Besides that, the Tower had an air purification system that Tony himself had designed to keep out most known harmful germs. It rankled him to no end to think that this fucking flu bug had been smarter than him.
Grabbing Peter's medicine and a glass of water, Tony crossed the room back over to Peter's bed. "Here ya go, buddy," he said, gently raising Peter's head to feed him the medicine. Peter sputtered and choked, but managed to swallow the entire dose, even taking a small sip of water before curling into a ball on his side and huddling under his blankets.
"Don' feel good, Daddy," he mumbled, causing Tony to freeze in his tracks. Surely he didn't mean—
"Tony?" came Rhodey's voice from Peter's television screen on the opposite wall, so suddenly that Tony jumped, spilling some of the water onto the floor. "What's going on?"
"Kid's sick," Tony said, jerking his head towards Peter. "I need you up here. Can you get away?"
Rhodes shot him a confused look. "I'm not a doctor, Tony. You should get him to a hospital if you're—"
"You're a fully trained field medic!" Tony snapped, placing his hand on Peter's head. "With the best combat medical training the Air Force has to offer. So get your ass up here and help me treat my kid!"
"Tony—"
"Rhodey, please," pleaded Tony. "You've heard about the flu bug going around, yeah?"
"Tony, everyone's heard about this flu going around. Practically all the hospitals on the eastern seaboard are full of flu victims. The Air Force has even had to relinquish some of its emergency antiviral stockpile. It's been all over the news, how haven't you heard about it?"
"Well, then that's even more reason why I need you here," Tony said firmly. "Grab some of that and whatever IV fluids you'd need for a kid and get up here ASAP."
Scowling, Rhodes finally nodded. "Fine. But after this, I'm having you go through the damn field medic training."
"Whatever," grumbled Tony.
"I can be there in two hours."
"I know you can fly faster than that," Tony said. "Even that old Mark II's designed to go faster than that."
Rhodey rolled his eyes. "I'm not flying in the suit, Tony. I can't carry an entire mobile medbay with me if I fly in the suit."
"Yeah, yeah, just get here," muttered Tony.
"Daddy," Peter croaked from his bed as Rhodes clicked off, reaching a shaking hand towards Tony. "So cold."
Kid's delirious, thought Tony, even as he grabbed a spare blanket from Peter's closet and tucked it around him. "That better, buddy?" he asked softly. He ran his fingers through Peter's curly hair, trying to soothe him.
"Uh huh," Peter whispered, burrowing so far under the covers that only the very top of his head was visible. "Better."
Tony sat down next to him on the bed, his hand resting on Peter's shoulder, and leaned back against the headboard. "Just try and sleep now, kid. Rhodey will be here soon, and then we'll get you all fixed up."
"My legs hurt," came the muffled voice from the depths of the blankets. "Back hurts. Everything hurts. Don't feel good, Dad."
"Body aches are a common symptom of the flu, sir," piped up JARVIS.
"Yeah, yeah," Tony muttered, fighting back tears at how helpless he felt. The kid's dad must've taken care of him the last time he was this sick. "I know you don't feel good, buddy. When Rhodey gets here he'll be able to help you feel better. Just try and sleep for a bit, okay?"
"Mmm," mumbled Peter. "Throat hurts too."
"Then stop your jabbering and get to sleep. Okay?"
"Mmm-hmm."
Peter was quiet for about twenty minutes, while Tony's eyes alternated between watching the clock and the lump that was Peter under the blankets, making sure he didn't do anything stupid like try and stop breathing.
"Dad," Peter said suddenly, throwing off his heavy blankets in one fell swoop. Tony immediately noticed that his pajama top was now glued to his skin with sweat. "Too hot, too hot, too hot!"
"Hey, hey, hey!" Tony said, trying to catch Peter's flailing hands before he managed to hurt himself. "Try and calm down, kid! You need to be resting!"
"It appears that Master Peter's fever medicine has kicked in," said JARVIS. "Perhaps some fresh pajamas and a cold cloth over his forehead would help with his discomfort?"
"Yeah, okay," said Tony, vaguely remembering Jarvis doing something like that for him when he was sick once as a kid. "I'll be right back, Peter."
"Don't go!" Peter cried, grabbing for Tony's hand. "Please! You promised you'd never leave me!"
"I'm just gonna get you some clean pj's, kid," Tony reassured him, ruffling his damp hair. "I promise I'm not leaving you."
"Don't feel good, Dad," Peter said as he flopped back down onto the bed, still clinging to Tony's hand. "Don't go."
Tony's lower lip was starting to shake. Does he really mean…? "Hey," he said softly as he gathered Peter's small body into his arms. "I'm not leaving you. I'm just gonna get you some clean pj's and a cold washcloth. It'll help you feel better, kid, and you can watch me the whole time. Okay?"
Peter's eyelashes fluttered as his bleary brown eyes opened, such a stark contrast against his flushed, pale skin. "Promise?"
"Absolutely," said Tony. Squeezing him close, he planted a quick kiss on the top of Peter's head. "I promise."
"M'kay," Peter finally said.
After sponging the sweat from Peter's body and dressing him in a fresh pair of pajamas, Tony had just gotten him tucked back into bed when he started shivering again, this time so violently that Tony was afraid he'd break his teeth.
"JARVIS, how far out is Rhodes!" Tony barked as he wrapped his arms around the shaking boy. "He's getting worse!"
"Colonel Rhodes has just now landed," JARVIS replied. "He's being admitted into the Tower as we speak."
"Rhodes!" yelled Tony, covering Peter's ears with his hands. "Rhodes, get up here! He's getting worse!"
"Dammit, Tony, don't yell at me!" Rhodey snapped as he rushed into the room, a silver suitcase clutched in one hand. "I got here as fast as I could!"
"Kid's bad, Rhodey," Tony said worriedly. "He's shaking like a leaf, says everything hurts, goes from shivering to sweating in the blink of an eye—"
"It's the flu, Tony," Rhodes said, opening up his suitcase. "I'm surprised the kid's school didn't send a note home about it. All the schools in D.C. did."
"Shit!" Tony exclaimed, slamming his palm against his forehead. "I completely forgot to check his backpack!"
It hadn't taken long after the start of the school year for Tony to realize that he needed to ask Peter on a near-daily basis if there were any notes or other information sent home from school, because Peter simply wouldn't remember to tell Tony otherwise. It also didn't help matters that Peter was already on his third backpack of the school year. Which, from what Peter had told him, was nothing unusual for him.
"Bad word!" Peter whimpered through his chattering teeth. "Dad said a bad word! That's another dollar in the jar!"
"Dad?" Rhodey asked, raising an eyebrow. "You got something you wanna tell me?"
Tony shook his head, his eyes flicking down to Peter then back at Rhodes. "He doesn't mean me," he whispered. "Kid's out of it."
"When we get a hundred dollars in the jar, Dad said he'll buy me the Lego AT-AT," Peter mumbled.
"I'm pretty sure he means you, Tony," said Rhodes.
"Just get him fixed up, will ya?" Tony snapped. "The poor kid is sick!"
Rolling his eyes, Rhodes pulled out a pair of exam gloves, a butterfly needle kit, and a bag of IV fluids. "There's not really much I can do for him," he said, drawing up the sleeve of Peter's pajama shirt. "Unfortunately, treatment for the flu is really only supportive care. You just gotta let the bug work its own way out."
"Then, support him," Tony said, with only a hint of sarcasm. "Just tell me what I need to do."
"Hold his arm steady," said Rhodes. Opening the needle kit, he wiped Peter's forearm down with an alcohol swab and tied a tourniquet around his upper arm above his elbow, looking for a vein to stick.
"Hurts!" yelped Peter as Rhodes jabbed him once with the needle, swearing under his breath as the vein immediately blew out. "Daddy, it hurts!"
"Rhodey, you're hurting him!" Tony cried.
"No kids in the Air Force, Tony!" snapped Rhodes as he prepared a second needle. "Not used to veins this small!"
"Ow!" Peter wailed, the pathetic sound squeezing Tony's heart like a vise. "Hurts!"
"Rhodes!"
"There, I got it!" Rhodes said, handing Tony a roll of medical tape. "Tear off a piece of that and place it right over the needle while I hook up the fluids."
"Hurts!" Peter moaned as Tony carefully taped the needle into place on Peter's arm, propping it up next to him on an extra pillow.
"I know it hurts, buddy," he said. He ran his fingers through Peter's hair, which seemed to help soothe him. "But it's only gonna hurt for a little while, then you're gonna feel a lot better."
"I'm gonna give him the antiviral now, along with something to help him sleep," Rhodes said, drawing up liquid into two syringes. "I'm afraid there's not much else I can do other than that."
"It's okay," Tony murmured. "Anything's better than nothing." As Peter's eyes fluttered closed and the anguished look faded from his face, Tony dropped his head back against the headboard, wincing at the painful tension in his neck and shoulders. "Thanks for coming, Rhodey."
"Like you gave me much of a choice," Rhodes said, but the slight smile on his face belied his harsh words. "But you know, eventually you're gonna have to stop deluding yourself."
"What do you mean?" asked Tony. "How am I deluding myself?"
"I heard that kid call you Dad, Tony," said Rhodes. "I heard it with my own two ears, and I heard it multiple times."
"He didn't mean me," Tony protested. "He's half out of his mind—"
"Tony, I heard him! He very clearly called you Dad, and he was a lot more lucid than you gave him credit for."
Tony looked down at his hand, still stroking through Peter's hair. "You think so?" he asked in a small voice. "I thought maybe he was just… looking for his real father. You know, the dead one."
"You told me yourself the kid doesn't hardly remember his father," Rhodes reminded him. "Tony, trust me. He looked right at you and called you Dad. I'd bet the War Machine armor that he meant you."
"Okay, then I'm gonna adopt him," Tony blurted out. "I'm gonna make it official. I'm gonna call Pepper and have her tell my lawyers to draw up the paperwork, and I'm just gonna do it."
"Whoa, slow down, Tony!" Rhodes protested, holding up his hands. "I didn't mean—"
"Then what did you mean?" asked Tony, his eyes narrowing at his best friend. "What exactly were you trying to tell me?"
"I don't—, I mean—" Rhodey sputtered. "You understand what adopting him would mean, don't you? For you? And for him?"
"What, that he'd be my heir? I think that's kinda the point, Rhodey!"
"But I mean… what if you and Pepper… someday—?"
"I think there's enough money in Stark Industries to go around," Tony said, rolling his eyes. "Besides. That kinda thing, if it ever were to happen, would be a long way off." He looked down at Peter, whose small hand was holding fast to the hem of Tony's shirt. "This kid needs me now."
Rhodes shook his head, his eyes wide as dinner plates. "Wow. Who would've thought."
"Yeah. Who would've thought."
As life-changing a decision as is adopting a kid, the process itself turned out to be remarkably simple. It only took a few phone calls and a couple of meetings with the lawyers and the DSS office to draw up the appropriate paperwork, and three weeks later, Tony found himself sitting with Peter in the living room of their apartment in Stark Tower, with Peter smiling so wide his face could've lit up the entire city. Signing the adoption papers under the sparkling lights of the first Christmas tree Tony had put up since 1991, and in the presence of Pepper, Happy, Rhodey, and Rita Wilson, Peter Benjamin Parker officially became Peter Benjamin Parker Stark.
They celebrated with cake and ice cream—peppermint, of course—afterwards, and two days after Christmas, at Pepper's urging, Tony held a small press conference to announce the adoption, during which he pleaded with the assembled reporters to please give his son the privacy he deserved to live as normal of a life as he could.
As it turns out, Tony needed not have worried all that much. Not all that much changed, save for the occasional passers-by pointing at them on the street, but that had been going on before Tony had even met Peter, so he was somewhat used to it by now. Trying to shield the kid from paparazzi and other curious strangers took some getting used to, but in a city where there lived hundreds of other celebrity children, the hype surrounding their news eventually fizzled out and they were able to resume their somewhat normal daily lives.
Unfortunately, since Peter's illness, part of their normal daily lives now included nebulizer treatments for Peter three times a day and carrying around a rescue inhaler. His battle with the severe flu bug had left him with an asthma-like condition that had yet to resolve, forcing Peter to have to withdraw from his tumbling classes for the time being.
And if that wasn't enough, Peter brought a note home from the school nurse in early March, citing concerns that he was having trouble seeing the whiteboard during class. Sure enough, a trip to the pediatric opthamologist the next day revealed that Peter was now near-sighted. Tony offered to get the boy contact lenses in addition to his new eyeglasses, but Peter declined, too squeamish about attempting to place foreign objects into his eyes.
And even with the eye doctor's warning that it would take some time for Peter to get used to his new glasses, Tony was still livid when Peter came home from school the first day with the glasses nearly broken in half. Peter first tried to tell Tony that he'd merely dropped them on the floor during his lunch period, but for how smart the kid was, he was an absolutely terrible liar, and it wasn't long before Tony learned that some punk kid named Flash had ripped the glasses from Peter's face—as a joke, he'd said—and thrown them across the playground during their recess time. It had taken all of Tony's self-control—and a lot of begging and pleading from Peter—to not march down to the school and punch the lights out of that kid.
Yet despite the nebulizers and glasses and occasional nightmares, Tony and Peter managed. Spring arrived, and with it the completion of the top floors of the tower. Tony was given the go-ahead to start wiring in the large arc reactor he'd designed and built to power the building. If successful, the arc reactor would effectively take the tower off of the city's power grid, making it the first completely self-sustaining building in the city of New York.
"Talk to me, JARVIS," Tony said, walking into his brand-new lab located on one of the top floors of the tower.
"We should be able to begin conducting tests on the reactor within the next couple of days, sir," replied JARVIS. "Everything is proceeding according to schedule."
"So we're looking at a light-up date in about two weeks?" asked Tony, tapping his monitors. "That'll make the kid happy."
"It appears so, sir."
"All right, keep going on the—"
"Pardon me, sir," JARVIS interrupted. "But I'm tracking a new communication trail from SHIELD."
Tony's head snapped up in surprise. SHIELD had been quiet for a few months now; pretty much ever since the incident in Harlem. "Oh? What's the old pirate Fury up to now? More little green men?"
"Not exactly, sir. It appears that they've finally had a successful outcome to an ongoing search."
His brow furrowing, Tony tapped the icon on his monitor that allowed him to eavesdrop on the SHIELD communications. "Ongoing search for what, JARVIS?"
"Not what, sir, but who," replied JARVIS. "SHIELD has finally located the final resting location of Captain Steve Rogers. And remarkably, sir, he is still alive."
So, quite a lot going on in this chapter! And now we've arrived at the events that lead up to the Battle of New York. Next week's chapter is going to be quite exciting. ;)
I can't wait to see what you guys think! Please don't hesitate to leave me a review!