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: Alright, so as y'all already know, this is the last weekly chapter. Next one should be coming out...soon, but we're no longer on the weekly updates track.

I have posted one of the other two companion pieces to this that wasn't already posted (like pump it). It is called like omither, like son, to give you a rough idea of what it is about. I do suggest reading it because there are important things that are mentioned in it, but that's just a suggestion. ;)

Chapter title comes from Sat In Your Lap by Kate Bush.

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

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis

~the black and gold 'verse~

~black and gold~

~chapter 12: sat in your lap~

After eating his meal, getting the palladium core changed out (he'd blown through another one just like he had during his fight with Stane), and going upstairs to reassure his kids that he was alright before seeing all of them off to bed, Dick and Jason included, Tony went into his own bedroom, thoroughly exhausted. He changed out of the clothes that he was wearing for a set of pajamas, but before he did, he turned on the TV to CNN, just because he was interested to see if his antics earlier had made it onto the national – and thus, international – radar. Conveniently, the news station was currently doing a story on it, proving his suspicions, the headline reading: IRON MAN SPOTTED HELPING WITH 7.8 LOS ANGELES EARTHQUAKE, FIRST TIME SPOTTED SINCE IRON MONGER FIGHT IN MAY.

He set the volume on the right setting that he wanted to listen to them at, which wasn't all that loud because of the headache that was absolutely pounding at his brain. The anchor and the "experts" – how could they be "experts" in this kind of situation, when it was so unprecedented? – were all sitting at a table, talking right now, it seemed, about all the good that his actions had caused, though with a fair amount of criticism weaseled in. Shrugging his shoulders, wincing at the pain that it caused, he let them talk as he went into the bathroom to brush his teeth and wash his face, his typical night routine.

When he came out of the bathroom and settled down into bed, turning off the light on the nightstand, the only one that was left on because JARVIS must've decided to monitor him more than usual and turn off the other ones – that was a self-learning AI for you, learning things that he didn't necessarily want him to, just like his children – and listened with a much more eager ear to the next subtopic that the newspeople had turned to: just who was the man behind the mask? After all, that was a highly relevant plot point in all of this.

"I'm telling you, it can't be a coincidence that Iron Man first appeared in New York, where Stark Industries Headquarters is located, and now he appears in Los Angeles, which is only an hour drive from Malibu, where the Stark-Waynes own a beach house and have been staying at for the last couple of weeks," one of the two female experts was saying. A beta, judging by her outfit and makeup. "Iron Man is Tony Stark."

It was actually rather frightening, how easy it was for people like her to put it together. Tony hadn't thought about that when he'd been in the moment of rescuing people and although he didn't regret all of the good he'd done day, even with the effect it was having on his body, he couldn't deny that his own lack of forethought was making him cringe. God, he was somebody who was supposed to predict these kinds of consequences, with his precognition or not; he was not supposed to be surprised at them when they occurred.

Thankfully, this was the one time where society's expectations of how omegas should act proved to be useful. "That sounds like something out of a conspiracy theory," argued one of the male experts, obviously an alpha. He sounded like an asshole, but even assholes had a purpose. "Tony Stark is not Iron Man. He's an omega!"

The beta woman's lips thinned. "Are you saying that an omega does not have the capabilities to built that kind of suit? Because that art reactor is Stark Technology!"

"No, I'm not saying that," the alpha man was quick to correct himself. "But what I am saying is, Stark is the omither of eight children, which would be reason enough alone for him to not want to put on a metal suit and get himself into danger like that."

"Okay, I'm sorry, but that is misogy – "

A beta man in the group spoke up. "I don't necessarily agree with his reasoning, but it does seem unlikely that Tony Stark is Iron Man. It was only two months ago that he was found after spending two months being held captive by the Ten Rings. As far as we know, he may be dealing with medical issues as a result of that," he reasoned.

The beta woman was not impressed. "And what do you have to say about the arc reactor? Or how Iron Man appeared in Gulmira and decimated the Ten Rings' weapons stockpile there before the altercation in New York City even happened?"

"The claims about Gulmira are unsubstantiated," the beta man returned. But then, he shrugged. "I never said that he didn't make the suit. Why aren't we discussing the idea that Iron Man is his longtime friend, Colonel James Rhodes? Or what about his bodyguard and driver, Happy Hogan?"

...Huh, now there was a thought. Although Tony doubted that Happy would want to do anything even remotely involving a suit, Rhodey, on the other hand, with some proper convincing...

"What about Stark's husband, Bruce Wayne?" suggested the other woman in the group. She seemed to be an alpha. "I realize they haven't really done anything with each other's businesses before due to antitrust laws, but if he doesn't know how the suit is built, would this even still qualify as them breaking those laws?"

"You think, given the suit's capabilities from what we have seen so far, they're really going to care about antitrust laws?"

"Well, they've seemed to before, haven't they?"

As the group went further down that tangent, not even acknowledging that the suit was too small for the man behind it to be his husband, Tony yawned and turned down the volume on the TV some more, so that it could barely be heard. He then took off his glasses and put them on the nightstand.

At least they hadn't discussed Iron Man being him for longer than a few minutes; he knew that Phil Coulson was probably going to have his head regardless, since SHIELD didn't seem too enthused about his identity being known either, and Bruce's eventual reaction, depending on how reliable his access to the news was, probably didn't bear thinking about right now.

But, things could be worse. They could be a lot worse in a multitude of ways, like his palladium toxicity level being even one percent higher than it already was.

Closing his eyes, he let unconsciousness overtake him. He was asleep within seconds.

"Omi?"

On Sunday, Tony – who did not go back out into the suit again because of his own health, something which was extensively commented on by CNN and other forms of news – was working on making lunch for the younger kids: he had an Italian pasta salad that he'd made about two hours ago still marinating in the fridge, and he was getting a bag of chicken nuggets out of the freezer so that he could air-fry them up whilst he would cut up some apple slices and get out the caramel (no peanut butter, because of Peter's allergies) as well as the barbecue sauce and ketchup when he heard his oldest biological son ask for him. His back straightening, he turned around and saw that Harley was standing just outside the kitchen, the almost nine-year-old biting his lip in that way that most of Tony's kids had unfortunately inherited from him, the biological and not. It just went to show how some things were indeed caused by nurture instead of nature.

"What is it, mimmo?" he asked. "If you're hungry, lunch isn't going to be ready for about another fifteen minutes still, but – "

"No, it's not that," Harley said. He crossed his arms, hesitating.

Then:

"Omi...are you pregnant?"

The bag of chicken nuggets fell from Tony's hand and onto the ground. Cursing himself silently, he reached down to pick it up and set it on the island counter of the kitchen, before he gave his son what felt like a shaky smile at best. "What makes you think that?"

Harley gave him a look. "I'm not five anymore," he announced. "I can see that your stomach's gotten bigger and tell that your scent's changed, and I know what they mean."

Tony looked down at his stomach. He had thought just the other day how big his abdomen had gotten when he'd been getting into the suit, hadn't he? Jason had told him back in that SHIELD facility that his scent had been beginning to change, too. He was ten weeks pregnant now, both were to be expected. Also to be expected was how observant his children were.

Still, he'd wanted some more time to figure out how to explain it all to them.

He'd wanted Bruce to be here with him to tell it, too.

But, as the philosopher Jagger once said –

He let out a sigh. "Yes, I'm pregnant," he said.

Although Harley had clearly expected this confirmation, his eyes nevertheless widened. "But...how?" he exclaimed, his arms moving away from his torso so that he could wave his hands around exuberantly. "You and Dad said you couldn't get pregnant again!"

"I couldn't. Things changed," he agreed. Before his son could ask any more questions, however, he added, "I'll tell you and your siblings how it happened after lunch, but not until then. And please, don't tell any of them what you know!"

Harley didn't want to, it was obvious from the look on his face, but he nodded. "Okay, Omi," he said. "But...Lili and Peter already kind of know? We all talked about it together."

Tony sighed again. Of course they had.

That made his life both easier and more difficult at the same time.

Harley kept his word. After lunch, Tony allowed Alfred to clean up and told his kids that they were going to have a talk in the living room – just them, none of the other members of their family involved. Dick and Jason shared a look at this, already knowing what it meant. Lili and Peter looked like they had a good idea about what he was going to talk about, too.

Tony sat down on one of the couches in the room so his kids could snuggle up to him just how they wanted, which meant that Peter and Bea were sitting on either side of him while he held Gemma as she chewed on a teething ring, his youngest daughter's twin brother choosing to sit in the lap of Jason instead, who was sitting in one of the armchairs. Edward was also attacking a teething ring, not to be outdone by Gemma. Dick took one of the other armchairs, and Lili and Harley sat on one of the other two couches.

He started it off simple. "I know you – Lili, Harley, and Peter," he said, calling them out specifically, "have been wondering something lately, and you're right: I'm pregnant again." Lili's and Peter's eyes widened, the ten-year-old gasping as her younger brother made a squeak of surprise. Bea's mouth dropped open. "I was wanting to wait to tell you guys until Dad came back, but...I guess it is what it is."

Peter said the exact same thing that Harley had said: "But...you said you can't get pregnant again, Omi!"

"You're right," Tony said, echoing his own earlier words. "It's...a bit of a complicated story of how it happened. But, before I tell you guys about that, I want to make one thing very clear: it's okay if you have some big feelings about this, because Dad and I have some big feelings about it, too. But we still love each other, and all of you, and this baby, and that's what's important, okay?"

The seriousness of that statement had his four older biological children all abruptly become morose. And, sensing their older siblings' discomfort, even Dick's and Jason's, Edward and Gemma became quiet, too. "Okay, Omi," Lili said first. The other kids all quickly followed suit.

Tony vastly simplified everything that had happened, not just in terms of language so that his kids could understand, but also in what had really went on. He didn't want his kids besides Dick and Jason to know just how bad things were for omegas in some parts of the world, and he didn't want them to know either how miraculous it was that none of Zadran's men or the alpha himself hadn't used an alpha order on him to get him to do their bidding in any way that they could think of. The alpha order was a universal taboo, after all, but it wasn't that taboo among terrorists or other sorts of war criminals and the people that were attracted to them and their "causes."

When he finally got to the part about the baby being Anahita's, he fretted that the news would make them upset. But instead, the cogs in his biological children's minds practically visibly whirred, and it was Lili who asked, "So...the baby isn't Dad's?"

"Not biologically, no," he said as gently as possible.

To his immense surprise, rather than any of them freaking out, Lili nodded. Harley, Peter, and even Bea followed suit, though it was only his eldest daughter who said, "Okay."

Tony stared at them. "You're not...you're not mad that the baby isn't Dad's biologically?"

Lili stared back at him. "Dick and Jason aren't your and Dad's biological kids, but they're still my brothers."

Dick grinned at this. Jason, meanwhile, said, "Hell yeah, we are."

"Language," Tony chastised him absentmindedly.

He had...never really thought about it like that before. He'd been so caught up in worrying over how to explain what had happened to his kids, he'd been more focused on them becoming upset than the idea that they just...wouldn't really have a problem with it at all.

Harley got up from the cough that he was sharing with Lili. He walked over, squeezed himself in between Tony and Peter, who whined in protest, and wrapped his arms around his omither in a hug. "You came home. That's what matters," he mumbled, his voice muffled by Tony's shirt. "We're just sorry you had to go through all that, Omi."

All of his other kids were then either hugging him or coming to give him a hug as well, the ones that were old enough to voicing their agreement. Gemma giggled as she was caught in the middle of it all with him, clapping her hands as best as she could from where she was squeezed between him and Lili. Tony's vision became blurry; he really did have the best kids in the entire world.

Of course, after further reassurances on his kids' part, including by Dick and Jason, that they didn't care that the baby wasn't Bruce's and thus their biological half-sibling in the case of his biological kids, since he didn't need to say that Bruce would still have his name written on the birth certificate, the one glaring question had to be asked. "But, Omi," Peter began tentatively. "What about you being sick and the baby?"

"That's not going to affect them," Tony said, grabbing his hand and squeezing it gently. "Yes, I'm sick, but because of who their themither was...it's not going to harm them. Does that make sense?" At his six-year-old son's nod, he leaned forwards and pressed a kiss to his forehead. "We're both going to be fine, and so is our family, okay? We're going to get through this."

. . .

. . .

To himself, he chastised: Don't keep making promises that you don't know if you can keep, Stark.

Dr. Thompkins was less than pleased when he went in the next day and she saw his palladium toxicity levels. He was doomed to be having weekly appointments with her for the rest of the summer – if not until the baby was born and he could get the arc reactor taken out of his chest, although he didn't know how that would work when they went back to Gotham. Probably with him flying in and out every week until he couldn't anymore because of the pregnancy. Good grief, that sounded awful.

Anyways.

"What you did on Friday was a good thing, don't get me wrong," she said. "But I'd really prefer that you didn't put yourself in danger more than you already are."

"I know," Tony said in response. There was no point in trying to hide from her that he was Iron Man: she knew that he had an arc reactor in his chest, the exact same kind of which was used for the Iron Man suit, and there wasn't an easy way that he could even think of to explain how he'd gotten his palladium toxicity level so high again when they'd been bringing it down for his treatment. It wasn't like she was going to tell anybody that he was Iron Man, though, because of HIPAA and her status as a family friend, so he wasn't too concerned about her knowing.

His acknowledgment did little to sway her in that he did, in fact, know. "I'm serious," she insisted. "You are my patient. I care about your health just as much as you do. I want to see you getting better, not worse."

She sent him on his way once the appointment was over. The next few days were spent relatively calmly and entirely with his kids and the rest of their small family, sans Bruce. His husband hadn't contacted him since the Los Angeles earthquake, not like he'd expected him to, and Tony was trying not to worry about what that could possibly mean. Bruce could take care of himself, just because he hadn't checked in, it didn't mean that anything was wrong. They'd been through this once before not including Tony being kidnapped in Afghanistan and things had gone wrong then, but –

– No, that wasn't going to happen now. He didn't need to even think about if it would again.

That Saturday, June the 28th, there was some car-racing event going on in San Diego, which hadn't been cancelled because that city hadn't been as hard hit as Los Angeles and the rich people that ran it – like he wasn't a rich person himself – didn't really care about all the suffering that was still happening in LA. Since Tony owned a car that was participating in the race, he knew that he was going to be expected to attend the event because he was on this side of the country. He didn't actually want to go, but he knew that if he didn't his absence would be commented on by the press, and that was one additional thing he did not need right now.

So that morning he put on clothes in a way that would hide his bump: his dress shirt was patterned and tucked in the front, his black dress pants were technically a few sizes too big for his normal size but hemmed so that it wasn't all that obvious, and his casual black suit jacket provided an additional layer of distraction, even with it being left open. He didn't wear a tie, either, just to make sure that too much focus wouldn't be brought to his torso.

Tony said goodbye to his kids and left with Pepper, who was wearing a form-fitting dark blue dress that left her shoulders bare, and Happy. They arrived to the flashes of cameras and journalists asking questions, but that was nothing new. Like he and Bruce had at the Apogee Award ceremony until Christine Everhart had got in their way, he ignored them all besides a smile and a wave without comment.

"Oh, God," Tony muttered under his breath when he and Pepper walked into the restaurant that the racetrack had with a perfect view of the cars racing, exclusively for the rich and famous. Pepper had already called ahead to get them a table right next to the windows.

First, however, he had to get through the other rich people. All alphas and assholes, the lot of them.

Pepper pretended that she hadn't heard him. "Mr. Musk," she greeted Elon Musk, one of the two people in the room that Tony could see who he hated the most. She offered out her hand. "How are you?"

"Hello, Ms. Potts. Great," Musk said, shaking her hand with a wink. He really only had eyes for Tony, though. "And there's Tony."

"Elon, how's it going?" Tony asked noncommittally. If he gave Musk more than a few seconds of his time, he would try to take as many more as he could get. "Those Merlin engines are fantastic!"

Musk grinned. "Thank you. Yeah, I've got an idea for an electric jet."

"You do?" More like, your people do. I don't think you've come up with an original idea in your entire life.

Musk didn't pick up on his sarcasm. Typical. The man wasn't exactly that smart, though he liked to act like he was. It was his solely his parents' money that had gotten him as far as he was today. "Yeah."

"Hmm. Well, if you need any help, I'm sure we can make it work," Tony said. It was the perfect response: he looked all kind and benevolent, all the while he knew that Musk wouldn't accept his help. Musk couldn't admit to any of his faults.

As he and Pepper walked away, Tony winced, rubbing at his chest where the arc reactor was. He'd put a cover over it to prevent its light from being seen. Pepper glanced at him in concern. "Are you alright, Tony?"

"Just peachy," he said. "Peachy keen."

The expression on her face said it all: "I don't believe you."

They were most of the way towards their table when the other person that Tony hated the most – actually, who he hated even more than Musk – called out, "Anthony, is that you?"

"My least favorite person on Earth," Tony muttered to Pepper.

"I know," she whispered back, plastering a smile on her face. He did the same.

"Hey, pal," the alpha man said.

"Justin Hammer," Tony responded.

"How you doing? You know, you're not the only one here with a fancy car," Hammer obviously thought he "quipped."He waved his hand, and Tony was admittedly surprised when he saw Christine Everhart walk over. She could do a lot better than Justin Hammer; really, almost anybody could. She didn't look exactly happy to see him, either, undoubtedly because he hadn't given her that interview he'd said he would. But she did flash a smile at Pepper. "You know Christine Everhart from Vanity Fair, right? You guys know each other?"

"We're acquainted," Everhart replied. The bitter edge in her voice was impossible to ignore.

"B-T-Dubs," Hammer said, placing a hand on Everhart's waist. Tony internally cringed at both of those things: nobodysaid "by the way" like that. Absolutely nobody. With his other hand, Hammer waved towards Tony, "Big story in Tony's corner here. Since we all know that Iron Man suit was his technology, we're all trying to figure out who the guy behind that suit is. Tony, you willing to share it with her?"

Tony laughed. Hammer didn't pick up on how it was fake. "I already owe Everhart an interview of a different kind."

Everhart gave him the "if looks could kill" visage. "Yes, you do. But, Ms. Potts told me that you've been busy as of late."

"Very busy."

Hammer chuckled. "Well, that's alright, Tony. Christine here is actually doing a big spread on me for Vanity Fair right now." He squeezed Everhart's hip. She looked about ready to punch him.

Tony would be right behind her if she did. But she didn't seem to be to her breaking point yet, so he smiled with false sweetness. "Well, it was nice talking to the both of you, but Pepper and I have a table right next to the windows, and I want to make sure we get to see some of the racing."

"Oh, really? 'Cause I have a table over there – "

Tony was already turning away, Pepper right at his step. "God, I hate him," he muttered to her again.

The reason why he hated Hammer more than he did Musk – more than he did anyone else in the world, although Obadiah would've taken his place had he still been alive, was simple: Musk wasn't smart. He was dangerous, but that mostly just stemmed from the money he had at his fingertips and his bigoted views.

Hammer, on the other hand, had just as much resources as Musk and he was much more intelligent than he let on to boot. Don't be fooled by his act. He was just as bigoted as Musk and all the other alphas in the room and a sleaze, but he was cunning. He'd also probably been one of the contenders for Tony's betrothal contract before Obadiah had managed to sway Howard over to his side, before Bruce had stepped in and bought him out, too. As it was, Justin Hammer now had a daughter of his own who was the same age as Peter, named Justine. Justin had only been married long enough to her omega mother to have her before he divorced her; Tony had a pretty good idea as to why, especially since it was rumored that she'd had issues giving birth to Justine like him with Peter and Hammer didn't want to have anything to do with his daughter...

He and Pepper sat down at their table. A waitress came over to get their drinks. Not wanting there to be any speculation whatsoever that he was pregnant yet, he had the waitress lean down so that he could whisper into her ear, "Get me a non-alcoholic virgin mojito, please. Don't tell anybody it's non-alcoholic, either."

He made sure to hand her two hundred dollar bills underneath the table, winking at her as she stood back up.

The waitress smiled at him. "Of course, Dr. Stark. I'll be right back with your mojito and Ms. Potts' martini, extra dry and with extra olives."

Tony looked out the window at the track. It looked like the race was just about to start. "How long do you think this race is going to last? I want to get back home to my kids," he complained to Pepper.

"Oh, at least a couple of hours," she responded.

He resisted the urge to groan.

The waitress came back with their drinks and took their orders for food: they got an appetizer of calamari, he got the truffle Alfredo pasta with chicken and a request for them to put fried spinach in it (he had to keep up the calcium), and Pepper got their filet mignon. By this point, the race had indeed started, and they watched it absentmindedly as they talked. Other businessmen and celebrities in their circles came up to talk with him, making jokes that he wanted to roll his eyes at or throw his virgin mojito in their faces. He didn't, layering on the charm of Tony Stark, husband of Bruce Wayne, CEO of Stark Industries, and omither of eight children. But it was a very near thing.

They were most of the way through their meals, neither of them paying much attention to the race, when something, for lack of a better word, made them pay attention. It started with a commotion from the two sports commentators, who could be heard from the speakers of the restaurant, and the people that were actually watching the race inside the restaurant, which wasn't really all that many people, but still. "One of the pit crew members just stepped onto the track!" one of the sports commentators said. "He's standing in the middle of it!"

Tony looked out the window.

Sure enough, there was a man dressed in the orange jumpsuit of the pit crew standing in the middle of the track. One of the cars careened past him very narrowly, but he didn't seem to care about almost being hit. In fact...

...Was he seriously stripping on the track?

Just as soon as the thought had occurred to Tony, he realized what was going on. Because as the man took off the top of his orange jumpsuit, tying it at his waist, he revealed that he was wearing a set of armor. It was basically a chest plate with straps on his arms to keep it in place, along with a back that he pulled two whips glowing with electricity out of. But the only thing that Tony had eyes for was the glowing white circle on his chest, which he could see even from this distance.

It was the glowing of a miniaturized arc reactor – or, at least, something that looked very much like it. But for some reason, his brain doubted that it wasn't the real thing.

What the fuck? his mind silently exclaimed. Nobody else should know how to make the miniaturized arc reactor besides him. Nobody.

The people in the restaurant all began to freak out as the man cracked one of his whips at another incoming race car. The whip, thanks to the electricity, sliced the car in half cleanly. The side that had the driver in it went flying into the green that the track circled around, the other undoubtedly making a screeching sound as it came to a halt behind him.

Tony knew that he had to act. He got to his feet immediately, jostling the table in the process because he hadn't pushed back his chair far enough away. But nobody in his and Pepper's vicinity noticed besides the beta woman herself: all of them were too busy focusing on the track or even getting ready to get the hell out of dodge. That was rich people for you. They thought they were so brave and superior, but when crises actually happened, they became cowards just like everybody else.

"Tony," Pepper hissed as she stood up, too. She reached out and grabbed his wrist. "I know what you're thinking: you can't."

Of course, they both knew that the reason for why she was saying "you can't" was because of his health problems. But Tony flashed her a grin. "I'm not going to do anything. I'm going to call up a friend of ours."

He was always good at deflecting.

But Pepper had always been immune to his deflections. "Tony!" she said again as he grabbed his satchel, opening up his wallet to place more than enough hundred-dollar bills to cover their meal and buy further assurances of the waitress' silence. She followed him as he walked out the door to the restaurant, along with the other rich people that were fleeing from the place.

He looked up and down the hallway that led to the restaurant. Spotting a sign for a stairwell further down the hallway that people weren't using because the other set was right in front of them, a restroom sign right next to the stairwell sign, he said, "I'm going to go to the bathroom to place the call. Can you stand outside just to make sure that no paparazzi try to come in and take a picture of me?"

"Please, don't do this," Pepper said instead. "Please."

Tony almost caved to her. Really, he did.

But, in the end, the picture of the guy with the miniaturized arc reactor and the electric whips that was searing itself into his brain won out. "I'll be in and out," he said. "Just a few minutes."

They both knew that it wasn't going to be just a few minutes, but Pepper became resigned. She knew that she couldn't control him. Nobody could, not even Bruce. "Alright," she said, voice small. "Just a few minutes."

They went down the hallway to where the restrooms were, right next to the stairwell. Pepper made a show of opening the door to the restroom for omegas, beta women, and thetas for him, a shield that allowed him to enter the stairwell undetected. Tony tore down the steps, taking them two at a time, but he was careful enough to ensure that he wouldn't fall.

This particular stairwell led out on the first floor to the parking lot for the employees. The area inside and outside here was deserted, which meant that nobody spotted Tony as he ran outside. "JARVIS?" he asked after he took out an earpiece that he'd made specifically to connect to his AI and put it in his ear. "JARVIS, I need the suit!"

This time, the AI didn't bother trying to argue with him. He didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. "On its way, sir. ETA is two minutes."

That wasn't as fast as Tony would've liked, but it was better than the alternative.

There was a fenced-in dumpster in the employee parking lot, and the gate was one of the kinds that anybody could get into; it didn't have a lock on it that required a key. Tony ducked into it, closing it shut as best as he could behind him without being able to shut it entirely. "Delete any security footage of this too, if you can," he ordered his AI as well.

"Of course, sir."

All of the previous times that Tony had put on the suit, it had always been in the lab with the bots putting the pieces on one by one; he'd never had the pieces put themselves on, although he'd programmed the suit so that it was possible to happen. A wise move of thinking ahead, in his opinion.

This was to say, he had no idea what to expect when the pieces came down from the sky one by one, having detached themselves from each other to do it.

The left glove hit him first, and that wasn't too bad. The contact did make him wince, but that was mostly from the startle of it.

The left arm all the way up to the shoulder was next, followed by the right glove and arm. He breathed in a short breath as the right leg was next, which he had to lift up his foot for to make sure that the boot attached correctly. So far, so good.

Things started looking belly-up with the left leg. It hit him harder than the rest. "JAR, maybe you should – "

He was cut off by the crotch part of the suit hitting him with an intensity that made him gasp, even though he didn't have testicles like male alphas and betas did – the perks of being a male omega (or a woman, regardless of designation) and having most of your reproductive organs be internal.

But the crotch part wasn't nearly as bad as the plate that went over his stomach. It not only knocked the wind out of him, it not only hurt him, but he could've sworn he felt the baby inside him be jostled by it, too, despite how he should've been weeks away from the quickening yet. "Fuck!" he bit out, placing a hand over his stomach protectively. "JARVIS, is the baby okay?"

The parts of the suit stopped coming at him for now. "I am not detecting any distress from the fetus," JARVIS reported after a moment. Since he was connected to the suit and a good portion of the suit was currently connected to Tony, he was able to detect things like that.

Tony almost breathed out a sigh of relief. Almost. "Alright, keep it coming."

The rest of the suit, for the most part, came on alright. The only exception was the face plate: the force of it coming on nearly caused him to fall on his ass entirely, and he didn't really know why. It wasn't like he was wearing his glasses for it to smash into, as he'd already placed them inside his suit jacket and replaced them with his contacts.

But, once all of it was on, it was on, and everything seemed to be working as it should. There was no indication of faultiness from this different method of putting on the suit.

"Okay, JARVIS," Tony said. "Let's go kick some ass."

The fight with the electric whips guy went...mostly well.

Tony wasn't like his husband. He only had two previous fights of his to go off of, and that was his fight with Raza Zadran's Ten Rings, which had mostly been one-sided on his end, and his fight with Stane, which he had won but he had thought in the moment had been at the cost of his and his baby's life.

This fight hadn't threatened his life to the extent that his fight with Stane had. Granted, it hadn't been as easy as his one in Gulmira, either – he and the guy with the electric whips had done a lot of damage to the race cars and the race track itself. Nobody had gotten hurt, thank God, but Tony knew that he was going to have to pay millions and millions of dollars since it was so obvious that this suit of his was built with technology from his company. He wouldn't mind paying all that money, obviously, however that didn't mean he was entirely thrilled about having to pay it.

What had set him on edge during the fight and still was, though, was no longer the fact that the man had his own miniaturized arc reactor. He was continuing to want to know how he had made the device on his own, but that mastery paled in comparison to how, as soon as the guy had seen him descend from the heavens, he had laughed and exclaimed, "Stark!"

...So it wasn't just some lady on CNN anymore who had figured it out his identity.

It was a guy who had come onto the track and done all of this just to fight him.

Shit.

Tony had attempted to get the man metaphorically off of his back. "So, you know the identity of my benefactor; everybody does," he'd said in between shots from his repulser. "Big whoop."

But the guy had only laughed. "I know who you are! You can hide from them – " he'd waved a hand, and thus a whip, towards the bleachers, which had been in the process of being evacuated. The people had been too busy panicking to decipher what the guy had been saying, and Tony hoped that the footage of the track had been too grainy for the people at home to do the same.

(Thankfully, as he would find out later, the cameras had been turned off as soon as the chaos had broken lose."

" – But you can't hide from me!" the man had continued on. "You come from a family of thieves and butchers! And now, like all guilty men, you try to rewrite your own history! And you forget all the lives that the Stark family has destroyed!"

"Cool story," Tony had replied blithely. He'd hated himself for it, even with how he had a persona to maintain. He'd cocked his head during this lull in their fighting, the calm before the storm. "I'm to take it that somebody you know is one of them?"

The guy had sneered. "My father. Anton Vanko."

He and the – Vanko had gone back to their fighting. Tony had won, as the description "mostly well" implied. After he'd knocked out Vanko, the police officers appeared out of hiding to handcuff him and take him away. They'd eyed Tony warily, but they hadn't done the same to him.

Tony flew back to the Beach House in his suit, knowing that Pepper could come up with a way to explain that he had snuck out with her to the car during all the chaos without being noticed, and JARVIS would hack the security cameras of the building so that there was no evidence to the contrary. It was paradoxical: he needed to get out of the suit as soon as possible, he could feel the effects of the neutron bombardment taking their toll already, but in order to do that in a safe setting, he had to use the suit to get back home. Whatever. C'est la vie.

As he made that journey, his mind could only think about one thing besides the neutron bombardment, his kids, and everything that had happened. Against his will, he might add:

Just who the hell was Anton Vanko?

Word Count: 6,787

Next Chapter Title: TBA