'I'm so sorry,' Steve keeps apologising to him as they wait out of the way for the press to disperse.

'Cap, relax,' he laughs. 'It's fine; saves me the bother of calling them all in again.'

His son seems pretty unfazed by the attention and is far more interested in just hugging him.

'No harm done,' he interrupts, gesturing to Pete, before Steve can continue. 'And the first photos they have of him are with him clearly being happy to see me; should cut off many of the complaints, and having you there will have helped.'

'Sir, Ms Potts would like your input on drafting a press release. Also, would you like me to anomalously leak details of the surrogate?'

'I'm on my way and yes; like we discussed. And get some photos of me near a hospital on the internet dated over the last few months. Make them the normal 'omg it's Tony Stark!' postings and we'll see if anyone joins the dots and guesses about Jim.'

'Tony?' Steve looks so utterly lost.

'Jarvis is faking a history for Pete and Jim,' Tony tries to explain. 'Camera phone photos taken over a distance are easy to fake and he'll make it look like they were dated a while ago. If I leak the information in the right way they'll believe it's true. If I then publicly request that people stop calling up the lady that is my surrogate then they'll all be so busy trying to find her that they'll leave us alone.'

'That all sounds very complicated,' Steve blinks.

'Can't exactly tell them the truth; we might all be alright with him being a clone and Jim growing in a machine, but I hardly want everyone to know. Also it amuses me,' Tony admits with a grin. 'I'll probably have Jarvis put together some bland exposé from the surrogate and sell it to some rag; funnel the money into an adoption charity somewhere.'

Steve laughs but Tony's pretty sure he doesn't entirely understand.

He won't understand until Tony actually tells him that Jim literally has two fathers.

'Anyway,' Tony cocks his head, 'cheers for mostly looking after Pete.'

Steve looks embarrassed but at least he doesn't apologise again.

'We painted pictures for you,' Pete pats his chest with a small hand.

'Yeah?' Tony smiles at his son and shoots a glance at Steve. 'What did you paint for me?'

'I painted me and you, and you and Cap and everyone together,' Pete beams at him.

'You'll have completely decorated my fridge in no time,' Tony laughs. 'Cap, I need to go and see Pepper. Do you want to come up later for dinner? I mean, if you have plans don't worry...'

'I'd love to,' Steve beams at him and then seems to laugh at himself. 'Sorry; I just thought you'd be fed up of me by now.'

Tony shoots him a withering look and then carries Pete to the lift,

'See you later then,' he lifts his hand in a wave and his son copies him.

'Yeah,' Steve is gazing at him strangely again as the doors close between him.


'I'd like to point out,' Tony starts talking as soon as the doors open to reveal Pepper, 'that this was not my fault and, all things considered, I think I did ok.'

She rolls her eyes at him,

'Take a look,' she gestures to the TV as Pete scrambles out of his arms to go to his toys, 'the press are loving this.'

'How's it playing out?' he steps closer to read the scrolling captions.

'The initial pictures are circulating like crazy,' Pepper moves to stand beside him. 'You broke tumblr and twitter...'

'Hah,' Tony smirks.

'Looks to be mostly positive,' Pepper ignores his interruption. 'Some people are asking why they haven't seen him before but most seem happy that you haven't been shoving him into the limelight as a baby.'

'So, we're good?'

'There's speculation about his mother,' Pepper glances over to where Pete is digging out all his cars and ignoring them. 'And some photos have appeared which seem to show you near a hospital recently?'

'That's Jarvis,' Tony nods. 'He's leaking Jim's existence.'

Pepper nods,

'Remind me to remind you to tell Steve,' she pats his arm as she moves away to the coffee machine.

'Noted,' Tony sighs.

'This just in!' the reporter announces from the television. 'We have new images of Tony Stark visiting a hospital over the last couple of months! This added to reports that he has been sighted with an unknown, but heavily pregnant, blonde woman leads us to wonder if...'

'Mute,' Tony rolls his eyes. 'Blonde, Jarvis?'

'I'm sorry sir, what would be your preference for this fake woman's hair colour?'

'Don't you get snarky with me,' Tony claims the first mug from the coffee machine.

'So, what's the official line?' Pepper herds him over to the seating area.

'Surrogate,' Tony lounges while Pepper perches with a tablet on her knee. 'The same surrogate for both boys, though we aren't admitting Jim yet. We won't release her name for privacy reasons.'

Pepper is typing furiously,

'They'll want to know your relationship status.'

'They always do,' Tony shrugs. 'Single until proven guilty.'

'Nice line; they'll know that came from you,' Pepper reads back over what she's written and offers it to Tony who waves her away.

'Jay, proof read and then release,' Tony stands up and sheds his jacket and tie. 'If there's nothing else, Ms Potts, I'm heading back to the workshop.'

'That's all, Mr Stark,' she smiles. 'I'll let you know when the more serious side of the press decide to comment on the actual point of the press conference.'

'Great,' Tony rolls his shoulders. 'Come on, Pete, I have work to do.'