Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my OCs. Anything you recognize as not mine belongs to Marvel Studios, Disney, Warner Bros. Entertainment, and/or their otherwise respective owners.

Author's Notes: Yes, I'm posting this a day early because if I waited to post this and the chapter of another story until tomorrow along with my shorter-chapter fics, I'd have five chapters to post, and I'm not feeling that. So, two tonight, three tomorrow. :)

This chapter is the longest in this particular fic (so far), and also the next to last before you guys are all caught up with me! After that updates will no longer be weekly because, y'know, I'm in college and it's the middle of the semester now lol. I'm sure y'all can understand.

Chapter title comes from Thunderstruck by AC/DC.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Until the next chapter,

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis

~the black and gold 'verse~

~black and gold~

~chapter 11: thunderstruck~

Of course, Tony should've realized that he wouldn't be able to go without using the suit for long.

The next morning, Natalie Rushman had her first meeting with the family. This might have seemed a little fast too some, but since she'd cleared her background check and she was only going to be their nanny for the summer anyways if she meshed well with the kids, he didn't see the harm in getting the ball rolling as soon as possible.

Before she arrived and all of the kids sans Dick, who had woken up early because his pregnancy was making him hot and miserable this morning (he was nursing an iced coffee at the breakfast table, looking like he would really rather be back in bed. Tony knew how that went), Tony made his second smoothie with medicine that Dr. Thompkins had made him, having made the first last night. Among the other ingredients in the smoothie, because there were another six, were spinach and almond butter, as both of them had a high content of calcium. Exactly what the doctor had ordered.

Tony grimaced as he took a sip of the smoothie. Dr. Thompkins had been right about the entire thing tasting like shit because of the medication. And the even worse thing was, he was already having to take the medication at least twice a day, per her prescription instructions. Twice.

He had felt a little bit better this morning, though, when he'd woken up, presumably because of last night's smoothie. Although he always had a bit of pain while breathing because of the arc reactor pushing up against his lungs, he'd been able to breathe a bit easier this morning. When he'd used the device to also look at his blood toxicity levels, it'd come back at 38%. That wasn't much better than 42%, of course, but it was a start.

As he set down the cup, he felt something soft brush up against his legs. Looking down, he saw that it was Alfie, curling her tail around him and bumping him with her head. Smiling softly, he reached down and picked her up, to which she did not protest. He knew that he wasn't one of her favorite humans in the world, that title went to Alfred and Peter first and foremost, but she had cuddled up with him more than usual back when he'd been pregnant with Edward and Gemma. She probably sensed that he was pregnant again...and potentially, that he was sick outside of that. He knew that cats and dogs had the ability to sense things like cancer and Parkinson's disease, so he didn't see why she wouldn't be able to pick up on radiation poisoning, too.

"Good morning, Alfred," he told the cat, pressing a kiss into her fur. "Thank you for offering me some cuddles."

"You're talking to your cat, Tony?"

Tony sniffed as he looked up at Pepper, both from faux-haughtiness and an attempt to do away with the tears threatening to come to his eyes. "I will have you know, she is a valued member of our family, Pepper," he said. But he put the cat down, letting her go, noticing how the beta woman was already dressed for business despite it being seven-thirty in the morning and Alfred the human hadn't even come down to start on making breakfast yet. "What's up?"

She answered his question with one of her own, looking less than pleased as she said, "Do you remember what you told Christine Everhart back at the Firefighter's Family Fund gala at Vauxhall Concert Center?"

"Um..." He had to struggle to remember. That was the night that he'd found out Obadiah had been double-dealing, after all. Yes, he had found out because of the journalist, because she had shown him the pictures of Gulmira, and then...oh. He cringed. "Are you referring to me telling her I would give her the scoop within a couple of weeks?"

"Yes, I am referring to exactly that," Pepper agreed primly. "And it's been more than a couple of weeks since then. She called yesterday while you were at the doctor's office about when you were going to set up that meeting with her – honestly, I'm surprised she didn't publish what you said to her already. I told her I would meet with her today if she was willing to fly out here. I didn't expect her to take me up on the offer, but she's desperate. She caught a red-eye."

"You don't have to do that," Tony said, still cringing. "I'm the CEO. I can – "

Pepper cut him off. "Yes, you can, I know you can, but you're also sick and pregnant, Tony, and I'm your personal assistant. It's what I do. Besides, Phil gave me some ideas to work with on any questions that she or other journalists might ask back at that debriefing after the events with Stane."

Tony spluttered. "You're calling Coulson 'Phil' now?"

She rolled her eyes. "His job right now is basically preventing the public from finding out you're Iron Man and keeping the family safe. So yes, I am."

Well, she did have a point with that...

Pepper left for her breakfast meeting with Everhart at some restaurant in Los Angeles at the same time that Alfred came downstairs to make breakfast. Then, about thirty minutes later, all of the older kids besides Dick and Jason (who was still in heat) came downstairs as well as Rhodey, who was holding Riri, Rebecca, who was holding the twins, and Happy.

"I could've gotten them," Tony protested to Rebecca because of this, Gemma making grabby motions for him with her hands.

Like Pepper, the female alpha rolled her eyes as Tony pulled Gemma out of the hold of her left arm. "I knew you were already downstairs. It's no problem, Tony."

"Yeah, Tony. Get used to it," Dick joked.

"Dick..." Tony started to scold, but he wasn't able to do it properly, his shoulders shaking with barely-contained laughter. It sounded more like something that Jason would say.

At ten o'clock on the dot, a silver 2006 Toyota RAV4 pulled up to the gate that led to the house. JARVIS let it in, and then the driver parked the car on the light brown driveway. Tony watched from the living room as a woman with dark red hair stepped out of the car, wearing a black dress that was a little too formal for the job title, but he figured that she was trying to dress to impress today. If she got the job, then she would probably dress in clothes that better suited her duties.

Alfred was the one to let her in. Tony met her in the sitting room instead of the living room; if things went well, he'd introduce her to the kids, but first he wanted to make sure what she was all about. This was his first time hiring a nanny that wasn't already connected to his and Bruce's social circle, after all.

"Ms. Rushman," he greeted her as she walked into the room.

"Dr. Stark," she returned, giving him a small smile. He held out his hand to her and she shook it. "Thank you for offering me this interview. You have a lovely home here."

"You're welcome – and thank you," he returned, winking. He gestured to the armchair that was opposite of the one he'd chosen to sit in. "Please, sit."

She did. But as she moved away from him, Tony took in her scent. Usually, almost always, he nor anyone else would think much about this, because the scents that distinguished one's secondary gender were basically just pheromones, unless they were scent-matches – but that was a whole different discussion for another time. And from her pheromones, he could tell that she was a beta, as the file Pepper had arranged on her information had said.

But.

There was something...different about her scent. It was like...he didn't know. He almost wanted to say that it was synthetic, like she was wearing scent-blockers, but that didn't make sense, because she was a beta herself. More than that, even if she was wearing scent-blockers, they smelled a lot better than the ones that even the Joker had developed for himself back when he'd been Red Hood. Only somebody with a trained nose would be able to pick up on it, and even then only barely.

He filed away the information for later.

"So, what do you know about my children?" Tony asked informally once they were both sitting down.

Natalie was still giving him that small smile. "Not much. I don't read the tabloids," she admitted, "and I know you and your husband have some strict privacy policies concerning them with the press as it is. You have eight, right? The older two are adopted."

"Dick and Jason, yes," he said. "But they're eighteen and fourteen, respectively, so your duties won't be centered around them. Basically, all you need to do with them is treat them with respect."

"Yes, I figured as much."

He nodded. Good. "But, as for the rest...Lili, Harley, Peter, Bea, Edward and Gemma, and also my best friends' daughter, Riri..."

The rest of the meeting was basically him going over the duties and behavior that he expected of her if she was going to work for him. Natalie gave him good responses, but her responses also weren't too good...if that made sense. He didn't think that she was faking it or anything.

But the most important test that she had to face even before meeting the kids was this:

"There is one thing I need you to do, regardless of if you're going to get the job or not," he said: "I need you to sign an NDA." He opened up the folder on the end table right next to his chair, picking up a pen along with it, though he didn't immediately hand either to her. "You can spend as much time in here reading it, but it basically says that you cannot talk about what you will be doing or seeing here in the house for the entire summer. If you do, well..." He smiled. "Let's just say the 'privacy policies' my husband and I have already employed are not as harsh as these."

"I understand," Natalie replied.

He handed her the folder.

Then, to his surprise, without her even reading the contents, she signed all of the pages that she needed to. "I trust I'll get a copy of this so I can read it more in-depth?" she asked.

Feeling both at ease and uncertain, he nodded again. "Yes." When she handed the folder back to him, he cleared his throat. "Alright, well, before we go to the living room, there are a couple of more things that I need you to be aware of: Dick and I are both pregnant."

Natalie's eyes widened. But there was something...off about the reaction. He couldn't explain what. "Your eldest son?"

"Yes. We've told the public that he has mono, but really we're just hiding his pregnancy. The public's reaction if they knew...that's not a stress that he needs right now." Again, he smiled, showing off his teeth. He was making a warning without using any words. "He's due sooner than I am, but there are no indications that he could potentially give birth sooner than that. Still, there is a chance that he could give birth before the end of the summer and he is showing, so I thought you should know. And as for me...Dick and Jason know, but the younger kids don't. They haven't noticed the change in my scent yet. I'm going to explain it to them soon, but...it's a complicated subject, and one I'm trying to figure out how to broach since my husband is on a business trip."

Natalie nodded herself. "Understood. Thank you for telling me. I'll make sure not to talk about it until you've told them."

This, he thought, was truly a genuine reaction from her.

"Alright, well," he said, standing up and slapping his palms against each other. "Let's go to the living room. Oh, and one more thing I think I should say: you won't be meeting Jason today, he's in heat, but if the rest of the kids like you he should, too."

The introduction of Natalie to the kids sans Jason went well. She was nothing but respectful and kind to Dick, and spoke to his younger kids like they were actual people, something which he appreciated. His kids were smart, and they could tell just as easily as he could when somebody was talking down to them because they thought all kids were the same until a certain age instead of at and with them. She even had some treats in her purse to give them: some cake pops that she'd bought at a common allergen-free bakery, meaning that Peter could eat one too and not have to worry about having an allergic reaction. Of course, that did make Tony stop and ponder just how she had known to get treats from an allergen-free bakery, but he supposed that she had figured that if even one of his and Bruce's kids had severe allergies, it was better to be safe rather than sorry...

All in all, he was satisfied with her. Pepper had done a good job in picking her out. After the kids present besides Dick had gone outside, supervised by Rebecca, Tony turned to Natalie and asked, "So, how soon can you start?"

"As soon as tomorrow morning, Dr. Stark," was her response.

And that was that.

On the 18th, Tony had his bone marrow biopsy at Dr. Thompkins' office although he didn't actually see her, which this time Rebecca accompanied him for. While he was given a numbing agent for the area of his skin and flesh where the needle was injected, there was nothing that they could do for his right hip bone, which meant that the process once the needle entered his bone hurt...a lot. Like a bitch, even.

When the biopsy was over and he was patched up, the technician told him that they would probably have the results two days later at his next appointment and sent him and Rebecca on their way. He hissed as he sat down in the front passenger seat of the SUV with tinted windows Rebecca had driven them here in. "So much for that numbing agent lasting for a couple more hours," he said, although he recognized that the numbing agent's capabilities probably didn't have anything to do with it. In all likelihood, it was his baby's DNA being at work, making the agent's effects last for a shorter time than it was supposed to.

"Here," Rebecca said, reaching for the space behind her seat, revealing that she'd apparently placed pillow there sometime before they left that somehow Tony hadn't noticed until now.

His eyebrows furrowing even as he laughed lightly, he accepted the pillow from her. "Thanks," he said. He put it between his ass and the seat, then let out a sigh.

"Better?"

"Yeah, thanks."

Rebecca rapped her flesh fingers against the steering wheel after she'd pulled out from the parking lot and was driving down the street. "You wanna go for some frozen yogurt?"

Tony gave her a look, unimpressed. "Frozen yogurt?" He knew what she was trying to do.

Rebecca knew that he knew it, too, but she acted like she didn't. "Yeah, I saw this frozen yogurt place while you were in there. I think I wanna go check it out."

Yogurt, of course, was another calcium-rich food, along with what he was putting into his smoothies.

But Tony didn't complain. The frozen yogurt place had a drive-through, and he turned his head to the side and stared out his window so that the employees of the shop wouldn't recognize him as Rebecca paid with the card he'd given her and accepted their cups – even though seeing the rich and famous probably wasn't out of place for the employees, because they did work in Malibu. Rebecca pulled into a parking space afterwards so that they could both eat.

"You know," the female alpha said, waving her spoon down at her blueberry-pomegranate-flavored frozen yogurt. "This is some good shit."

Tony snickered. He couldn't help himself. It was just always hilarious to hear Rebecca use modern language since she'd lived during the '20s, '30s, and '40s.

"How's yours?"

"Delicious," Tony said, before shoving a spoonful of shredded coconut yogurt into his mouth.

"Does it make you want to buy some for the kids?"

He pretended to consider it for a moment, before he shook his head with a stupid grin. "Nah. They have enough desserts at the house at is. Wouldn't want to spoil them."

"Oh, yes," she remarked blandly. "Because the frozen yogurt is what would do them in on that regard."

There was a pause, and then the two of them then swiftly began to laugh their asses off, even though it made both his chest and his hip hurt. When Tony started to calm down, he wiped a tear – one of joy – from his right eye. "Thanks for this, Rebecca. You're a good friend," he said. "This is just what I needed."

She gave him a grin back. "Anytime. And you're a good friend too, Tony. Hell, you're practically my little brother...in both the ways that it counts."

"Hey, fuck you."

Two days later, at his next appointment, which he was driven to once again by Happy, Dr. Thompkins had good news to give him: his bone marrow biopsy tests had come back with positive results, considering the circumstances. His palladium toxicity level was also continuing to come down, now at 32%. "You're not out of the woods yet until we get it down to below 20%," she told him before he could get his hopes up too much about that. But she did also give him a reassuring smile as she said this. "But it's a good start."

As another also, since there were so many complexities involved in his case, she was basically acting as his obstetrician for this pregnancy, although he was told that Dr. Maxwell was being involved since the other doctor was his primary obstetrician. He didn't know how Dr. Thompkins had explained to her that he was pregnant again, but that was one issue that he wasn't going to have to deal with, so he wasn't complaining too much.

But anyways, because Dr. Thompkins was his obstetrician while in Malibu, she performed the first ultrasound while he was there for this appointment. When he walked out of her office after the appointment was over, he was holding the pictures that she had printed off from that ultrasound, smiling softly.

You would think, after five other pregnancies, he would be used to seeing the first ultrasound pictures by now. But no, even after all of this time, it still filled him with a sense of wonder. He wanted to take the pictures back to the beach house and put up one of them on the refrigerator alongside the one from Dick's latest ultrasound. Of course, in order to do that, he would have to explain to his younger kids that he was pregnant again even though he'd told them about the tubal ligation and that the baby wasn't biologically Bruce's, but...

At the mention of his husband, he couldn't help but pause in his step and exhale softly. He wanted his alpha to be here too, right now, so that he could show him the ultrasound picture, or at least be able to call him and know that he would answer, instead of this uncertainty that he might not due to how he was now wherever he was and not in Gotham...

Shaking his head, he resumed walking and went to where Happy was parked. There was already a pillow waiting in the back for him, since he was still pretty sore from the bone marrow biopsy.

Happy picked up on his good mood. "Did you get better results this time, Boss?"

"Much," he said. It was all that he said on the matter.

The drive back to the beach house was smooth, as it always was. When they got back, Happy parking the car right next to Natalie's, Tony slung his satchel over his shoulder and opened the car, stepping out.

Just as soon as he had stood up, however, he almost fell back into the car. It was only by the strong grip that he had on the car door that he was able to remain upright, his eyes widening as the ground shook beneath him.

It wasn't just the ground, either. Before him, he watched as both the trees and the house, even though it was built with some of the sturdiest materials known to man, almost swayed.

For the second time in recent memory, coldness seeped into his bones.

They were experiencing an earthquake.

And, judging by how strong it was, it was a very powerful one, too.

"Boss!" Happy shouted. "Boss, wait – !"

It was only then that Tony realized what he was doing: against what all common logic was to do during an earthquake, he was running towards the beach house, rushing to go into it. But you couldn't blame him.

His children were in there. His babies. He couldn't let anything happen to Dick and his technical granddaughter that his eldest son was carrying, or Jason, Lili, Harley, Peter, Bea, Edward, and Gemma. Nor could he let anything happen to Pepper, Rhodey, Riri, Rebecca, or both Alfred the human and the cat. They were his family.

He had to keep them safe.

Thankfully, Natalie was a godsend. The beta woman was in the living room with Bea and the twins, keeping them in the center of the room and away from the windows or anything else that could break and/or fall on them. "Dr. Stark," she said, watching him rush into the house and nearly trip over his own two feet multiple times in the process with wide eyes. "What are you – ?"

He could barely hear her over the effects of the shaking, much less his younger three children cry out at the sight of him, "Omi!"

"It's okay," Tony assured them, trying to sound as soothing as he could for their sake. To Natalie: "Where are the others?"

"Dick's upstairs napping," she shouted at him. That was...good. There wasn't anything in the younger omega's room that he thought could fall down and hurt him. "Rhodey, Pepper, and Riri went out."

"Where?" he demanded. He hadn't even noticed that one of the other cars was gone.

"To the park, I think!"

Okay, that was also...good. If they'd taken Riri to the park that he was thinking of, it had a lot of clear area, so as long as they remained in one of those spots, it was unlikely that they would be seriously harmed.

But: "What about everybody else?"

Something flashed in Natalie's green eyes. But she didn't hide the truth from him, saying, "Alfred and Rebecca took Jason, Lili, Harley, and Peter down to the private beach."

Shit, shit, shit...

The earth was still shaking, but Tony didn't care about that as he took off for the side of the house that had the garage on it, where the lab was. Behind him, he heard Natalie shout, "Dr. Stark!"

Like Happy, though, he ignored her.

He did fall this time, his hands being scuffed up in the process. He hissed rom the pain, but it didn't stop him from moving. Once again, he crawled on his hands and knees until he got to the lab, opening up the door, which swung to the other side from the shaking, crashing with a bang! He expected the glass of the door to break because of that; when it didn't, he almost let out a sigh of relief. Almost.

"JARVIS!" he called out instead. "I need the suit!"

The various equipment that would be needed to put him into the suit came to life at the AI's metaphorical hand. "Sir, I know there is an earthquake going on right now," JARVIS began to say, "but I am not sure that – "

"Save it!" Tony growled. "The kids are down by the beach! Get me into the suit as fast as possible!"

JARVIS' demeanor changed, hearing his creator's obvious urgency. "On it, sir."

It took them two and a half minutes, many seconds of which were painful due to the rush and the fact that Tony's stomach had gotten even bigger over the past five weeks, to get the suit on. By the time that it was on completely, the shaking had stopped, being replaced by an eerie quiet behind the noise of the assembly. But this, along with how he hadn't heard any big crashing or crumbling noises to indicate that the small cliff that the beach house was next to, the small cliff that was above the beach, had fallen, did little to comfort Tony. Nothing would comfort him until he saw the proof that his children who were outside were safe with his own two eyes.

The second that the suit was all the way on, JARVIS opened up the roof door that functioned a lot like the tunnel to his lab back home, and Tony shot out of it like a rocket. He didn't go up very far, just far enough that he could survey the damage outside of their beach home.

Thankfully, it didn't seem to be too bad. The access path down to the private beach had had some trees fall on top of it that he would make sure to clear up, but the small cliff itself hadn't suffered a landslide. And when he saw the people standing down at the shore, he saw that there were six of them: Alfred, Rebecca, Jason, Lili, Harley, and Peter, all accounted for.

Thank God.

Tony flew down to and landed in front of them. Peter let out a yelp, but it seemed to be one of surprise. None of them appeared to be harmed. Still, he had to ask: "Are you all alright?"

"Yes," Alfred assured him. "We're fine."

"Omi!" Lili, Harley, and Peter cried then, rushing over to him, hugging his suit.

"Hey, hey, it's okay," he said, JARVIS lifting his face plate up so that they could see him. He patted Harley's back awkwardly because of the metal over his hand. "You guys are safe. It was just an earthquake."

"That wasn't 'just' an earthquake," Rebecca deadpanned.

Tony winced, but he had to admit that she had a point. "JARVIS, what are the stats on that?"

"From what I have access to, initial reports are saying that the magnitude of the earthquake was at least a 7.8," the AI informed him. Shit. Even in California, a 7.8 earthquake was bad. If his memory served correctly, the last one with that magnitude that had occurred here was the one in San Francisco in 1906. "The epicenter was in downtown Los Angeles. Serious damage is being reported."

The omither froze and the younger two of his children present, Harley and Peter, let out whimpers. "How bad is the damage?"

"I'm seeing it reported on social media that multiple buildings, including two skyscrapers, have collapsed, sir."

Oh, no.

"You've got to go out there!" Jason spluttered out.

Tony, though he didn't want to admit to it, agreed with his second-eldest son. With a 7.8 earthquake, Los Angeles had to have received a lot of damage, and that was damage that it was going to take the first responders ages to wade through. Even if he went out only for today in the suit, there were potentially so many deaths that he could prevent by being on the scene...

But he couldn't just think about them. He had to think about himself, too, and the palladium poisoning that was already affecting him, and the baby within his womb, and his family.

So, he said, as calmly as he could, "No. I'm going to clear those trees and help you guys get back up there safely, and then I'm going to get out of the suit."

"What? No!" Jason protested. "You can't do that! Those people need you!"

"Master Todd!" Alfred scolded the boy.

But the fourteen-year-old didn't listen to him and even shook Rebecca's loose hold off of his arm as he stepped forwards, his lips pressed into a hard line. "What do you think Bruce would do if he was here right now?" he demanded. "He'd go out there and help people, and he doesn't even wear a metal suit like you are right now!"

Tony gritted his teeth. He knew his son was coming from a good place, really he did. But, "This situation is completely different, Jason. You know tha – "

"I know that," Jason said stubbornly, crossing his arms defiantly. "But whatever happened to that one phrase that Bruce says? Not 'justice, not vengeance,' but – "

"Jason," Tony warned.

"'With great power comes great responsibility?'"

Silence fell over them all. Harley and Peter were looking back and forth between their omither and older brother with wide eyes, the younger boy's mouth dropped open. Tony's jaw locked as he shut his own.

He wasn't going to acknowledge out loud how much that phrase had resonated him with in the past several months, not when it meant giving Jason more fuel for his fire.

The boy, however, seemed to realize he'd hit a sore spot anyways. He wilted, though he didn't stop from continuing on with his point. "I know that you're sick, and that..." He looked at his younger siblings, visibly swallowing. "Yeah. But what if it was one of us, stuck under the rubble? Wouldn't you do everything to pull us out to safety?"

Even though Tony didn't reply to him, the other omega nodded viciously. "You would. You're Iron Man. You need to go."

Tony reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose, even though the metal encasing his hand made it hurt more than it would've otherwise, before closing his eyes. "Jason," he heard Rebecca scold his adoptive son softly.

"Omi?" Harley asked after a pause. When Tony opened his eyes and looked down, he saw those blue, blue eyes that the boy had inherited from his maternal grandmother, Tony's mamma, shining brightly with...awe. Admiration. "Are you gonna go save those people like Jason says? Are you gonna be like Dad and him and Dick? 'Cause that'd be – that'd be so cool."

And just like that, Tony felt his resolve crumble. Probably not the best of metaphors to use, considering the situation, but whatever.

(Wasn't this the moment he had wanted to happen way back when he'd been pregnant with Lili? Didn't he want his own children to see him as a strong, capable omega?)

"Master Stark, please, don't – " Alfred started to say, but there was a look in his eyes, just as there was one in Rebecca's. One of knowing that he wasn't going to be able to talk Tony out of this.

"I'm going to clear the trees for you guys and make sure the path back up to the beach house is safe," Tony said over him, interjecting. His voice sounded much calmer than how he actually felt. "And then I'm going to go to Los Angeles. I'll be back as soon as possible."

His face-plate falling back down, he ignored Jason's and Harley's cheers as he set about to do what he said, as well as the churning of guilt in his own gut.

Downtown Los Angeles was a mess.

Tony was unprepared for the amount of destruction that he saw. While California was equipped to deal with earthquakes more than most other places in the US, therefore the damage wasn't as bad as it could've been, there was still a lot of it. Four different buildings had collapsed, the two skyscrapers, neither of which Tony knew the name of; the other two were smaller buildings, but still offices. And since it was only three o'clock on a Friday afternoon...

He wasn't trained with years and years of experience like Bruce was to handle this. Hell, he wasn't even sure that his husband would've been able to handle this level of damage as well as Jason had expected that he would've.

Still, Tony wasn't going to back down from the task at hand. He took in a few deep breaths, preparing himself for everything that he was about to see, before he flew down to where several firetrucks were positioned in front of the wreckage of the largest skyscraper. It had crashed down on the fountain area and stretch of road on its one side instead of into the other tower next to it, so it hadn't caused as much damage as it could've. Still, it made him easy; 9/11 was still an ingrained memory in the public's conscious, after all...

The firefighters that were still near the firetrucks were alerted to his arrival by the sound of his repulsers when he got close enough. While they had to be good in high-risk and -stress situations like this, that was their job, it seemed that the sight of a man flying down from the sky in a metal suit was too much for one of them. "Holy shit!" he exclaimed. "What the hell is – ?"

"Iron Man, at your service," Tony said, his voice obscured by the voice modulating program JARVIS had quite literally just installed into the suit. The statement sounded awkward even to his own ears, especially since it didn't sound like it was his voice that was saying it. His voice sounded deeper, more like an alpha's. "How can I be of help?"

One of the other firefighters eyed him distrustingly. "Are you supposed to be like a superhero or something?"

"Didn't you see that fight he had in New York City last month with the other guy wearing a metal suit? They were calling that dude the Iron Monger," another firefighter shot back. "Gotta say, though, don't know what you're doing all the way out here in LA."

"We don't have time for the chitchat," said the firefighter that appeared to be the commanding officer, a female alpha in her late forties or early fifties. Although she didn't have the same accent or even most of the same facial features, she nevertheless reminded him of Anahita – mostly in the way that she held herself. It was a bittersweet thing to think about. He was almost afraid that she was going to try and deny his offer to help because of it, as contradictory as it seemed, but she remained steadfast, looking at him appraisingly. As if reading his thoughts: "If you want to help, Iron Man, I'm not going to stop you. We need all the help we can get right now with how many buildings gave out. They're already calling in everyone they can and then some. What are the capabilities of your suit?"

"I can lift at least ten tons – probably multiple times more than that and use my repulsers to slice through steel," he told them, giving them a short demonstration of the latter by aiming his right hand at a car that had already been totaled by debris from the tower collapsing. The laser sliced through it with no problem, causing the other three firefighters to practically gape at it.

But the firefighter in charge – the captain – wasn't phased. She barely batted an eye as she said, "Good. Great. I can think of million different ways I can put you to work right now."

And that she did. She swiftly ordered him to go to a section of the debris where they had already identified a small group of survivors and were working on getting them out. From what they could tell, no one in the group was trapped underneath the rubble, so the efforts did not need to be as delicate as they could potentially be.

Nevertheless, it was grueling work. The physical part of it wasn't that hard – he did what the firefighters, who like the leading firefighter quickly adjusted to the fact that they had a man wearing metal armor helping them, as surreal as it seemed, told him to do, lifting this and that, slicing through concrete when he needed to, and etcetera.

But the mental part of it was. Just the sheer amount of destruction that the building collapse had caused, the way that it was all in sight no matter where he turned, was like a punch to the gut. He had to push his own feelings aside in order to concentrate, and even then, that was difficult – especially when they realized that one of the survivors in the small group was a kid, sounding hardly any older than Peter.

"I want my omi!" the little boy kept on screaming from where Tony was able to see once he removed a large piece of rubble he was clutched in a beta woman's arms, who he didn't look to be related to. Judging by the look on her face, Tony had a feeling that she knew the boy's omither most likely hadn't survived. "Omi! Omi!"

"Hey – hey, kid," Tony said through the voice modulator. And God, the little boy wasn't just the same age as Peter, he kind of looked like him, too. His brown hair was a few shades lighter and his eyes were hazel like Edward's and Gemma's eyes were beginning to settle into instead of dark brown, but he was wearing almost the exact same brand of glasses, and that did a lot of the work. "It's alright. We're gonna get you out of here."

"Omi!" the boy bawled.

Tony racked his brain, trying to think of what to say. The firefighters had already told him that they needed to get the kid to calm down. "What about your other parent?" he asked as he waited for the firefighters to figure out where he needed to make his next move to clear out the rubble so that they could safely get down to the group. The hole he'd made wasn't good enough for that yet. "Do you have a dad? An ami? A themi? Where are they?"

His question worked as intended. The boy sniffled, beginning to calm down some. "My – my dad's at – " he started to say, but he couldn't finish before the progress was reversed and he was bawling all over again, though he wasn't shouting anymore.

"His dad's a doctor at the Los Angeles General Medical Center," the beta woman informed Tony. "His – his omi, Henry's my coworker."

Well, that was a start. "We'll get you guys sent over there when we get you out," he promised. "What's the last name?"

"Morin."

"JARVIS," Tony ordered.

"I have found one doctor who works at Los Angeles General Medical Center, a Dr. James Morin. I will be sending a message there now that we have found his son and that he is safe."

The omega couldn't even begin to imagine how bittersweet of a message that would be once the man got it, with no mention of his husband, but once again, he pushed aside his own feelings. "Good. Thanks."

When he and the firefighters finally made an opening big enough for them to work with, a handful of firefighters went into the pocket and started getting the survivors out, one by one. One firefighter grabbed the little boy from the beta woman's arms, and then when they lifted him out, Tony was right there to pick him up until the beta woman came out next. "You're a brave boy, you know that?" he asked the kid softly.

But by this point, the boy was too out of it from the swirl of emotions and the setting in of shock to really answer him. Not that Tony blamed him.

After that and making sure the boy and beta woman would be taken to the hospital his father worked at, he was ordered to go help clear out rubble somewhere else. And then after that another one, and then after that one –

He helped get more survivors out of the rubble, though there were no groups as big as that first one. The hours passed by and the faces of the people he rescued blurred together. Before he knew it, it was past way sundown, and he stopped to take his first break ever since he'd started, sitting down on a large piece of rubble he'd cleared and panting from the combination of wearing the suit for too long and the uptick in his palladium toxicity levels that he knew had to have happened because of that as well as skipping dinner despite being pregnant.

"Hey," a voice said, causing him to look up. The owner looked to be another leading firefighter – a captain or something like that. At this point, Tony could care less what they were called. "Are you this Iron Man that I've been hearing about?"

"Yeah," Tony said, uneasily getting to his feet. "You need me to help out somewhere else?"

"Whoa, buddy, slow down," the firefighter responded, waving his hands in the air and everything. He shook his head. "No, I'm here to tell you that you're off. Go home, or wherever it is you're staying."

"What?" Tony looked around, surveying the practical wasteland. "But there's still so much work you guys need me to do! I can't – "

"You're exhausted; I don't need to see your face to tell that. And if it's bad enough for us to walk around in all our gear for hours at a time, I don't want to think of how bad it is for you," the firefighter retorted smoothly. "Go home. It's what you need to do. Come back tomorrow, if you want. But I don't want to see your black and gold ass until then."

His phrasing of the last sentence caught Tony off-guard. He barked out a laugh as he thought of his kids back at the beach house, who also needed him and he'd promised them to be back as soon as possible (was six hours "soon?"), and how much he needed to get out of the suit. "Yeah, okay," he said. He was too tired to argue any further, which he supposed proved the firefighter's point. "Thanks."

"No, thank you," the firefighter responded. "We saved a lot more people today a lot faster than we would've been able to otherwise because of your help."

When Tony stepped out of the suit once he had gotten back to the beach house, he almost fell down to the ground as his knees gave out underneath him. It was only because Alfred caught him just in the nick of time that he didn't.

"'Hanks, Alfred," he slurred as the beta man led him over to the kitchenette in the lab, just like back at the Glass House, and to the chair next to the table there. The table had a plate of food on it, a pasta with cream sauce, spinach, and chicken Italian sausage, along with a glass of his smoothie. Tony reached out for the smoothie first, because his mouth was drier than hell to the point that he didn't even care about how awful the smoothie would taste, but his hand was shaking too bad to even close around the glass. Alfred nudged the glass forwards and then grabbed a plastic straw from the kitchenette's counter, taking it out of the wrapper and placing it in the glass. Tony slurped at the smoothie through the straw gratefully.

"Various news stations have been reporting on what you did for hours now," Alfred informed him.

"Mmph," was all that Tony said in response, clamping a hand to his forehead. Now that he was out of the suit, he was really beginning to feel awful.

"What you did today was a very good thing, Master Stark, but it was reckless and dangerous," Alfred pressed on. He paused, before adding, "I must admit, you have...frightened me more than Master Wayne ever has."

Tony glanced up at him, his eyes blinking out of sync. It felt like a good portion of his brain had vacated the building, but he was cognizant enough to force himself to formulate a reply to Alfred's words. "I'm sorry. I...didn't mean to do that."

"I know," Alfred replied. Tony couldn't help but notice how there were tears in the man's eyes, though he wiped them away. "You and Master Wayne...both of you are like sons to me, Master Stark. No, you are my sons. I don't like to see either of you get hurt. And it does not seem like it was that long ago that you were recovering from Peter's..." He trailed off, clearing his throat, presumably at the look on Tony's face. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought that up."

"No, it's fine," Tony said.

Before he could say anything else, there was the sound of someone knocking at the open door, which caused them both to startle. It was Rebecca. "Knock, knock," she said. She came into the room, and Tony saw that she was holding the device that monitored the palladium toxicity level of his blood in her metal hand. He swallowed. "Thought you might need this. The kids are upstairs with Rhodey, Pepper, and Happy. They're refusing to go to bed until they see you."

Translation: he needed to finish his smoothie, eat his pasta, and check his palladium toxicity level as quickly as he could.

Tony did not want to do that latter one. He knew that it was going to be bad, a lot worse than the 32% he'd gotten it down to over the past over a week and a half.

Still, knowing that he would have to do it, that he could not ignore the necessity of checking if only for the sake of his baby, he pricked one of his fingers on the device. His hands were still shaky, so the action was much sloppier than it needed to be, making him hiss.

It took only a few seconds for the result to come back. When it did at 39%, meaning he'd practically undone all of the progress he'd made since the 9th in a matter of hours, Tony couldn't stop himself from saying:

"Fucking shit."

Word Count: 7,801

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