Tony's Girls
By: InitialA
Disclaimer: I own nothing in the Marvel universe.
Author's Note: Hi, wow I'm finally updating! Yes, a long, dark winter has passed and the glory of Iron Man 3 has brought the sunshine back into my writing life. Purple prose, sorry. Anyway, assume from here on out that there are spoilers for IM3.
Even after so many years, and countless hours of therapy, the nightmares were still there. They weren't as frequent. But it seemed like the moment he let his guard down, there they were.
So fairly often, it turned out that he was the awake parent when one of the girls would have nightmares of their own. Kids, it seemed, had more nightmares than their parents, and at their age it was still acceptable to come running out of their room and to a pair of waiting arms that would keep them safe from their night terrors. Their nightmares had less to do with death-defying, world-saving stunts and the very real possibility of losing everyone who meant something to him and more with things like giant rabbits and not being able to run away from them. He dreaded the day when some new superdouche showed up and tried to kidnap his girls. He could barely handle his own nightmares about that, let alone theirs.
Pepper asked him after the first couple of times if this ever bothered him, particularly when they spent more time with him during the day as well; but the truth was, if it ever did become a problem he would want Bruce to recalibrate his brain. He was not the perfect parent, but he loved those little twerps. He did his best. And if he spent a big chunk of his nights in the living room so Pepper could sleep, then he could keep the girls from waking her up as well.
There was something else, too, about holding one or both of his girls that made his own terrors slip away. Feeling them go limp with sleep against his chest made his brain turn off—his brain. And more than once, he found himself waking up hours later from a dreamless sleep. He knew Pepper knew—not that she ever said it outright, but he'd once seen her computer's background before she had brought up a window to cover it and it had been a picture of Tonia, Cleo, and himself all fast asleep on the couch. Later, he'd quietly asked JARVIS to make a copy of that picture. Now it was displayed in his workshop next to a photo he'd taken of Pepper, half-asleep in bed, her hair mussed up every which way.
Pepper didn't know about that picture either.
So he really couldn't be too upset about the nightmares. They sucked, but he didn't deny that there were some silver linings.
((I reread the story and was pleasantly surprised that I hadn't made any mention of the RT in Tony's chest, considering it's now gone. I think I made Cleo quip about running on batteries at one point, but that could just be a family joke at this point. Nice thing about something just being an integral part of a character, it's not necessary to mention it. As for any mentions of living in the California house, assume they have another house there by this point, if they aren't in the Avenger's Tower, which is where most of my Avengers universe fic takes place. Thanks for reading and being patient with the downtime. Now that I know how Tony canonically deals with kids (by treating them like he treats everyone) I should be able to get a few more plot bunnies out!))