AN: I'm hoping to do this story (and any other stories linked to this one) for NaNo. You'll get a chapter whenever I write. I'd like to thank all of you for your reviews, many alerts, and favorites. You are all a great inspiration!

"What are you talking about?" Rhodey asked as he offered Tony a hand. Tony's suit made mechanical whirring sounds that didn't sound as smooth as usual and it really shouldn't have been as hard as it was to get Tony on his feet.

Tony huffed and stepped aside so that War Machine could see the tiny hallway with the tiny closet. The toddler's eyes were bigger than they had been earlier and just staring up at the silver and bulky suit, a trail of drool at the corner of his mouth. He twitched back slightly when War Machine's faceplate hissed and then showed Rhodey's face.

"Boo!" the little boy shrieked as he pointed from Rhodey to Tony.

"I think he's saying blue," Rhodey put in helpfully. He took a step forward, thunking loudly on the wood floor. "Where are your parents, little guy?"

"I think he only knows how to say 'blue', though," Tony supplied helpfully as he began to shed his metal armor. There was no point in carrying the extra weight of the suit around when the suit, or JARVIS for that matter, wasn't responding. It was probably some glitch or another that he needed to work out since he made his last upgrades after the whole Monaco escapade. "Hey, can you pull my gauntlets so that it can initiate the suit to come off?"

Rhodey glared from where he was crouching to stare at the toddler. He rolled his eyes but stood long enough to yank at Tony's silver and red arm guards enough that the metal hissed and began to retract from his arms. The chest plate made a grinding noise and moved forward a bit and then stopping three inches from Tony's body.

"That's as far as that's going to get?" Rhodey asked with a frown. "I thought it was automatic."

"It's not responding. I thought it was an EMP field that shut down my suit but you're still functioning so that's not it," Tony shrugged. He moved his arms up awkwardly to get his hands on top of the plate to yank down. "It's not a glitch, either. I rechecked everything after Vanko nearly cut me in half with his stupid whips. Did any of the guys in the air notice some kind of change in energy patterns? I was flying one second and the next I was just falling."

Rhodey nodded and pointed up at the hole in the ceiling. "I asked them to look around for anyone that would have made you drop like that. The group captain is making sure that this place is actually empty. We can obviously say that there was someone here since there's a kid here and he couldn't have gotten here by himself. The closest population is far enough that you'd need a car to even get here."

Tony yanked at the chest plate again and finally the suit began to retract from his clothes. It was slow going and it kept making whining noises that made Tony cringe and Rhodey to eye him warily.

"Is it just me or is it kinda quiet?" Tony asked as he put the now square metal case on the ground. "Rhodey, where's the kid?"

Rhodey moved aside and stared at the empty spot where the little boy had been not five minutes ago. Tony walked around him and looked at the closet door warily before peeking inside. He made a strangled noise in the back of his throat as he saw the little kid curled up around a blanket with stars on a cot on the ground. His eyes were closed and he had one fist in his mouth and one socked foot was peeking out of the blanket, twitching every couple of seconds before settling.

"He's asleep," Tony murmured and pointed at the closet. "Someone intentionally put a kid in there because there's a tiny bed in there and I think those are toys around him. Is this place monitored? Is it normal for people to leave kids in abandoned places and, I don't know, hope for the best or something?"

"I'll call this in," Rhodey commented as he lowered his faceplate and moved to the side slightly.

Tony crouched down and looked inside the room. There was a spider crawling in the corner of the closet and a ball of lint or dust or something at the foot of the cot. There was an ugly plush elephant that looked like it had been fighting the ball of lint because it was covered in it. Beside it there was an owl made of black and white polka dots and huge yellow eyes staring at the closet. There were tiny, green army men littering the topside of the closet along with a bunch of broken toys that were probably not a good idea to have around a toddler because of the choking hazard.

"He can't have been in this place for long," Rhodey commented as he stepped beside Tony and leaned down to stare into the closet. "It's the winter and he has no food in there. He wouldn't have survived long if he had been here longer. He was probably dropped off before we ever got here."

"Is the air force going to look for his parents or whoever did this?" Tony asked, standing from his position and leaning on the wall directly in front of the closet opening. "This place has no heating," he continued as he frowned. "He can't be left here by himself; even I know he's too puny to do anything other than cry and crawl around."

"The chopper will drop down in a park not that far from here," Rhodey said. "We need to get him to a doctor to see if the cold affected him or where he's from… something," Rhodey murmured as he put an arm on Tony's shoulder. "He doesn't look all that bad and I think we got here before anything too bad could happen to him."

Tony huffed and ignored the plume of white that curled around his mouth. He took his jacket off and draped it over the sleeping toddler. He made a mewling noise and kicked at the air before curling himself into a ball and ducking his head underneath the jacket.

"We should probably go now, Tony," Rhodey said and motioned to Tony and then the bundle in closet. "I'll show you where to go."

"Wait, what? You want me to carry him?" Tony asked taking a step back away from Rhodey and the closet and straight into the wall. "He was sneezing earlier! What if he's sick? He could get me sick! I don't like germs, Rhodey."

"Tony, pick him up," Rhodey growled and pointed at the boy. "We're going to the park and taking the chopper back to the base. We'll find the boy's parents and then you can go back to your hotel and make believe this never happened. Maybe you can even figure out why the suit stopped working in the middle of the air," Rhodey took a breath and frowned at Tony, the worried frowned that Tony had gotten used to after all the years of knowing the man. "What if it had been a longer fall? You could have died, Tony. You need to fix it so that things like that don't happen again."

It wasn't that Tony was afraid of kids as much as he was afraid of getting their illnesses or of getting them sick themselves. Kids had ridiculously bad immune systems and got sick a lot easier than adults and it wasn't that Tony was a kid or had a ridiculously bad immune system himself but he was an awful sick person. Tony was worse when he was sick than when he was completely and utterly drunk off his ass.

"If I get sick you're taking care of me," Tony grumbled and snatched the ugly elephant and the owl and shoved them into Rhodey's arms. He crouched down and tucked the blanket and the jacket around the toddler to make a baby burrito. The little guy made grumbling noises and poked his head from the blankets to stare at Tony with sleepy green eyes.

"Boo," he mumbled and plopped his head on Tony's shoulder. He wiggled on Tony's shoulder for a second making displeased noises until he managed to get a hand out which he stuck in his mouth.

"I got him," Tony said, his head as far away as he could keep it from the messy hair tickling his chin. As they made their way to what looked to be the front door, Tony scooted the toddler unto one arm as he walked over to the stairs and picked up the suitcase that the Mark V had turned to.

"Hey, are babies supposed to be this warm?" Tony asked as Rhodey opened the door sharply enough that the doorknob came off and the door swung open with a sharp squeal. "Are you gonna have to pay for that? Just for the record, I didn't break something this time."

"You left a hole in the roof," Rhodey pointed out and Tony made a strangled noise that could have been agreement or knowing Tony probably a comment on how it hadn't been his fault.

The walk to the park was a lot more horrible than Tony expected, since the boy had decided to wake up and look around him and because the wind had gotten worse since Tony didn't have his suit on. Tony got slapped a couple of times in the face with a wet hand only to have the kid stick his hand back in his mouth.

"I hope you know that I'm being slobbered on," Tony growled as he glared at his best friend and ducked another flying fist trying to make contact with his face. "Do you understand baby talk? He's been trying to say something but all I got was 'blue' and I think 'bunny' but I might be reaching here."

Tony ducked his head and crouched as the blades from the chopper rotated above them. Rhodey threw the two plush toys into the chopper into the waiting arms of one of the pilot officers while another helped Tony get in. War Machine gave a motion and shot up into the sky while Tony got situated into a seat.

He was startled from the noise of the rotors by whimpering and then shrieking. He looked down and stared into scared, watery eyes.

"Hey there, little guy," one of the men sitting inside the copter said as he moved forward and wiggled the ugly elephant in front of Tony's face. "Look, here's the elephant. Come on, look at Mr. Elephant," the man cooed to stop the crying.

The screaming got worse as the man moved the elephant closer.

"That's not going to help," Tony said and bounced his leg, hoping that it'd do something about the screaming and the tears streaming down the pink cheeks. "Hey, shh," Tony tried as he kept bouncing his leg. He rummaged in his pants' pocket until he found what he was looking for. "Hey, kiddo, you want some blueberries? See, blueberries," Tony shook the plastic package in front of the tiny splotchy face.

"Boo-boo, boo-oo," the little boy cooed while rubbing his face on Tony's shirt. He left a trail of snot and tears and just shrieked into Tony's shoulder harder. He took a deep breath with a hiccup and settled his head down to continue crying a little quieter.

"They're really good," Tony tried again as he took one out and presented it to the quivering lips. "Yum-yum," Tony said and then stopped himself when he backtracked to what he just said. "I can't believe I just said 'yum-yum' to get a kid to eat blueberries."

The crying stopped long enough for the little boy to lean forward and nibbled the blueberry. He gave a gasping little breath and took another nibble of the remaining blueberry, catching Tony's fingertips on the last nibble.

"See, I told you blueberries are good," Tony grinned as he took another one out and presented it. "Point for me for carrying snacks in my pockets. In your face, Pepper," Tony said with a grin and popped another blueberry into the eager mouth.

"Boo-beh-ee," the little boy cooed while he chewed with his mouth wide open. "Boo-beh-ee!"

"That's right, blueberry," Tony smiled.

"What's your name, little fella?" one of the men asked as he sat forward and stared at the open-mouthed chewing going on on Tony's lap. "I'm Ian."

"Ee-ah!"

"That's right," the man said with a grin. "What's your name?"

"A-wee!"

"A-wee," Ian frowned and looked up at Tony as he fed another blueberry to the toddler. "Harry? Your name is Harry?"

"A-wee!" He squealed as blue drool dripped down the side of his mouth. "A-wee, A-wee, A-wee!"

"I guess his name is Harry," Tony said conversationally.

Tell me what you think of it so far :D Thank you for reading!