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: Lmao, so the finishing of this chapter is purely coincidental, but yeah I'm posting it on a Saturday after saying no more weekly chapters. XD

Chapter title comes from Hey Jude by the Beatles. It was originally going to be something else, but I think that Hey Judecaptures the vibe I'm going for here really well. Plus, if you know the reason why Hey Jude was written, it's a pretty fitting song in that respect too haha

Anyways, as always, I hope you enjoy. Until the next chapter,

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis

(PS: I know the depictions of the Malibu Country Mart and the book at the end of the chapter aren't exactly accurate, but fwgehrtes multiverse y'all)

~the black and gold 'verse~

~black and gold~

~chapter 13: hey jude~

Anton Vanko, as it turned out, was one of the co-designers for the arc reactor, the other being Howard Stark.

The information, along with all of the other files that had still been around from the early days of Stark Industries at the time, had been digitalized in the early '90s, before Tony had presented as an omega. The catch to this, however, was that up until recently, these specific files had been behind an encryption that not even JARVIS had been able to notice for years. It was only after Stane had died and Tony had told JARVIS to do a deep-dive into everything in the company that he'd been connected to that the AI had found and broken the encryption of these files. Even then, Tony had not had the time to really look at them...until now.

Following his stint with Ivan Vanko, as he'd been identified as at his arraignment and by JARVIS' own research, his palladium toxicity level had gone over 40%. He'd had to go pay a visit to Dr. Thompkins as soon as he'd gotten out of the suit, feeling shaky and weak and all of those other side effects he hadn't noticed until he'd started feeling better with the treatment. She'd grimaced as soon as she'd seen how much further his veins had darkened from the arc reactor, some of them reaching up to the bottom of his neck. She'd ordered him to not only increase the amount of time that he took his medicinal smoothies, but also to go on bedrest for a week. They'd reexamine later to see if this was having a desirable effect, or if he needed to be on bedrest for even longer.

So, yeah, he had a lot of time on his hands for the next seven days. Or actually, five days, since those first two had already passed.

Tony rubbed at his growing stomach absentmindedly as he read through the files on Anton Vanko, as well as the information on him that JARVIS had gathered. Alfred the cat was laying curled up to his right leg, sleeping peacefully. She was being more clingy with him as of late than she had been even during his pregnancy with Edward and Gemma. He was trying not to think about what that could possibly mean.

Apparently, not only had Anton Vanko been a co-designer of the arc reactor along with Howard, but he had also been one of Howard's closest business associates. Tony would even go as far to say that he would've been the closest, had Vanko not sold his designs for the arc reactor on the black market. He'd been fired from Stark Industries after that, and his reputation had been ruined. He'd been forced to leave the United States entirely and go back to the Soviet Union, and the void he'd left was what had allowed Stane to get the position in the company that he'd had.

After Vanko had gone back to the Soviet Union, he'd gotten married and had had his son Ivan with his beta wife, who had died not long after Ivan had been born. Anton Vanko had tried to get work again in his native country, but he'd burned just as many bridges there before he had come to the States as he had in America afterwards. He'd wound up descending into alcoholism, and had died two years ago on November 25th, 2006, from liver cancer. It seemed that his son blamed Tony for the sins of his sire. How fucking typical that was.

When he was finished reading, Tony briefly took off his glasses so that he could rub at his eyes and not just his stomach. His vision obscured, he did not see the person at his doorway, but he did hear her quiet giggling. Smiling despite himself, he asked, "Aren't you supposed to be down for your nap, Bea?"

The giggling intensified. "Yes, Omi," she said.

"Are you wanting to nap here?"

More giggling. "Yes, Omi!"

He opened his eyes and put his glasses on, taking in her beaming face. "Alright, then," he said, putting his StarkPad down on the nightstand so that it would be out of her reach. He patted the left side of the bed. "Come here."

Bea ran into the room and jumped up on the bed, crawling the rest of the way to where his hand had indicated. She burrowed into his side not entirely unlike Alfred the cat. She automatically placed a hand on his stomach, because even though she could be a bit of a jealous thing, she was also fascinated by it. More so than she had been when he'd been pregnant with Edward and Gemma.

Tony petted her hair with his left hand. "Oh, my carina," he whispered.

He and Bea just remained like that for a while, basking in each other's presence, but not sleeping. But the four-year-old must have had something on her mind, because then she was twisting around to look up at him with those gold eyes of hers. "Omi?" she asked.

"Yes, Bea?"

"When Daddy come home?"

All at once, he was reminded of that one question that Lili had asked him back when Bruce had been tracking Rebecca down to Siberia: "Is Daddy dead?"

His throat tightened. Not just tightened, but felt like it was actually strangling his vocal cords as he said, "At the end of the summer, sweetie. But it could be longer than that."

Bea seemed to ponder his answer. "He meet us here?"

"No, we'll all see each other again back in Gotham, at our home. This is just the Beach House."

"Oh," she said. There was a pause. "I miss him, Omi. Why did he have to go? Did the bad people take him like you?"

"Oh, no, no, no, baby, nobody took him," Tony replied. He gathered her up in his arms, pulling her even closer to him than what she already was. His daughter allowed this, always willing to cuddle with her omither. "Remember when we said goodbye to him before we got on the plane back in Gotham?" At her nod, he continued. "Dad went on a business trip not long after he left. It's a very long business trip, but...it hasn't ended up like the one I went on, and it won't. He's as safe as can be, okay?"

"Okay," Bea agreed sleepily.

Sure enough, she did fall into her nap only a few minutes after that. But Tony was wide awake, staring off into space as he petted her hair. Guilt churned in his gut.

He knew...he knew he hadn't been the best omither as of late. There was a lot going on in their lives that was affecting him; he could only imagine how it was affecting his children. But all the same, he hadn't thought – he hadn't thought –

The sound of a phone ringing an indeterminate amount of time later broke him out of his reverie. Blinking away his tears, Tony first looked down to make sure that Bea was still sleeping, which she was with her thumb in her mouth – not the best of habits, but for now he felt too guilty to try and correct it – and second reached over to the nightstand that the StarkPad was on, grabbing his phone off from it. He saw who was calling him, which was both a relief and yet worsened his bad feelings even more to the point where he felt like he was going to throw up.

He accepted the call and put the phone up against his ear. "Hey, honey. Long time, no talk."

"I know," Bruce replied as a wisecrack. "How are the kids? How are you?"

Tony winced. He could tell by his husband's tone that the alpha had a pretty good idea of what he'd been up to as of late. The news must've travelled all the way to wherever he was. He chose the easiest of the two topics to talk about first. "The kids are fine. Dick's a little miserable right now because of the heat, so even though he was enjoying the beach, he's been staying inside the past couple of days. Jason's second heat went well. And Bea's currently using my stomach as a pillow...where are you, by the way? How's everything going?"

His tacking on of the two questions was absolutely deliberate, and he knew Bruce knew as much. He could imagine Bruce pinching his nose on the other end of the line. "I'm in Iran. And I haven't found what I'm looking for yet, but I'm close to getting there. But, don't change the subject? How are you?"

"How...up to date on the news are you?"

"I know about the earthquake, and your fight with Vanko. They said he was broken out of jail?"

Oh, that was a fun tidbit that Tony had forgotten to mention – because yep, it was a thing. Yesterday, the day after Ivan Vanko had been arraigned and processed, he had been broken out of the San Diego Central Jail. Law enforcement was still not completely sure how it happened – which said a lot about them, but he digressed – but as far as they had been willing to report so far, it had been an outside job. They didn't know who yet, and JARVIS and Tony weren't sure of who either, because it didn't seem like Ivan Vanko had had much of a life outside of his stint in a Pakistani prison for fifteen years for selling Soviet-era weapons and then taking care of his father until his passing afterwards. He was a loner, not the type to take on a partner for this mission of revenge of his.

"Yes." Tony stopped petting Bea's hair to pick at a loose thread he saw on his blanket. He'd have to ask Dick if he could repair it later for him. "And as for me, well, um...I'm fine. I mean, I'm on bedrest, but – "

The sound of Bruce sighing stopped him. "Tony."

"It's only for a week. I have five days left now."

"Tony, what happened to not using the suit?"

"I..." He wasn't able to say anything more than that, trailing off.

Because really, why couldn't he give up the suit? It was affecting his health, for Christ's sake. It was affecting his children's wellbeing, current and future. They needed their omither in their lives. He didn't need to be doing this.

He let go of the thread to rub at his forehead. "Do you want to talk to the kids?" he asked. "I'm sure they'd be happy to hear from you."

Bruce didn't try to fight him on this. "Sure."

Tony shook Bea first until she stirred, blearily blinking her eyes. "...Omi?"

"Daddy's on the phone," he said. His heart felt like it turned into mush at how she was immediately sitting up, wide awake. "Do you want to talk to him?"

"Yes, yes!" she answered, making grabby motions for the device in his hand.

Tony held it up to her ear. As Bea promptly began to talk her father's ear off, he cleared his throat. "JARVIS, can you tell the other kids to come up here, please?"

"Right away, sir."

The sound of five different pairs of footsteps marching down the hall, as loud as a stampede, made him smile. Harley was the first to rush into the room with a face-splitting grin. "Dad!" he crowed, jumping up onto the bed like Bea had, but with much more oomph.

Lili and Peter were right behind him, and right behind them was Jason. Dick led up the rear, not daring to get caught in front of them with his shift in gravity. They all wound up sitting on the bed, the phone being passed around them, so that all of them could be asked by Bruce how they were doing, what they were up to, and etcetera.

When Dick was finished with his little update about him and his baby – his last ultrasound had gone well, everything was right on track – it was time for Bruce to go. Actually, they probably should've ended the call before then, but Tony knew how much he missed their kids. "Bye, Dad!" the kids all shouted into the phone, Jason and Dick included. "We love you!"

Tony grinned as he held the phone back up to his own ear. "Did you get all of that?"

"Yes. I love you all, too, and Edward and Gemma." The two of them were down for their nap, hence why they hadn't been included. "Tell them that."

"Don't worry, I will. And I love you. Bye, Bruce."

"Bye, Omega."

Once Bruce hung up, Tony looked at the six kids thoughtfully. They were all lounging on the bed, looking ready to lay down. "Do you guys want to watch a movie up here with me?"

"Yeah, yeah!" was the general response.

"What do you want to watch?" JARVIS had a whole host of movies in his database, so there were plenty of options for them to choose from.

"Can we watch The Shaggy Dog?" Peter asked.

"You mean the movie that has the bad guy that kind of looks like Omi?" Harley teased.

Peter nodded.

"Sure, we can do that, if it's what everybody else wants," Tony said. As all of his other present children agreed, he added, "Alright, JAR. Get the TV ready. And Dick, why don't you come up here. It'll be more comfortable for your back."

"I'll go make some popcorn!" Jason exclaimed, getting to his feet.

Tony sighed fondly, but allowed it. Ten minutes later, they were all crammed onto the bed, the movie beginning to play. Within twenty minutes, Bea had fallen asleep, and not long after her went Dick, the pregnancy fatigue wearing him out. One by one, Peter, Harley, and even Lili followed him, until by the end of the movie, the only ones that were up were Tony and Jason, who was still munching away at the giant bowl of popcorn he had made.

When Natalie came to check on them for the second time since the movie had started after it was over, a large smile appeared on her face. "You have a beautiful family, Dr. Stark," she murmured quietly. So quietly, that Tony had to strain his ears to listen.

He smiled back, carding his fingers now through Dick's hair. "I know."

"Tones, you're shitting me."

"What do you mean?" Tony yelped.

Rhodey glared at him. "What do you mean, 'what do you mean?' You made me a suit!" he retorted, uncrossing his arms to wave them towards the hunk of metal in question. "Why the hell did you make me a suit?"

The omega looked at where he was gesturing. Honestly, while he'd expected there to be some pushback from the beta, he'd also expected him to be impressed. The suit was just as impressive of a piece of machinery as his own was. It was black and silver, not to mention bulkier, with a machine gun attached to the right shoulder. The arc reactor's glow was red rather than blue.

"Because...I thought you'd want one?"

"Why would I want a suit, Tony? I'm in the military! I can't just use a weapon that is not cleared by the government!"

"Bold of you to assume that I'm not in the process of getting it cleared," Tony replied. He placed his left hand on his accompanying hip. "Seriously, Rhodey, it's basically just a bunch of paperwork. And even though my company's not technically going to be a military contract anymore, the government will be salivating at the thought of getting their hands on this suit – although I'll be making sure to have a clause in the contract that they can't tamper with it and you'll be the only one allowed to use it. They already saw what a suit like this is capable of."

"And are you intending to reveal your identity to the government in order to get this contract through?" his best friend demanded. "Because you know they'll be demanding to know who the person wearing your suit is, right?"

Tony blinked. That...hadn't occurred to him.

That felt like it should've occurred to him. He was off bedrest now, Dr. Thompkins having cleared him from it just yesterday. Hence why he'd been up late last night, making sure that JARVIS had built Rhodey's suit according to the blueprints and specifications that Tony had made.

Why hadn't it occurred to him?

"See?" Rhodey said, crossing his arms again. "You can't get this suit for me cleared without revealing your identity to the government outside of SHIELD, and you're not going to do that because..." He trailed off, his expression abruptly becoming worried. "Tones, are you alright?"

Tony suddenly realized that he wasn't standing anymore. He was sitting down on the chair that he'd been sitting in when Rhodey had come into the room, and that he was rubbing at the skin surrounding his arc reactor through his shirt.

He managed a grin that felt as stretched as his mind and entire body felt. "Just fine, platypus," he answered. "But, what if I can get the government to sign the contract without revealing my identity? Would you be willing to wear the suit then?"

Rhodey was not appeased. "I mean, maybe, but – "

"Great! It's settled, then."

"Tony, I'm going to repeat myself: why did you make me a suit? It's not just because you think I'd want one," Rhodey accused. "You've been my best friend for thirteen years now. I know you. There's something more here going on. What is it?"

Silence.

Tony refused to meet Rhodey's gaze again. He looked down at his feet, fidgeting uncomfortably, lowering the hand that had been rubbing at his chest to rub at his stomach.

Unfortunately, this answered Rhodey's question, because he was right: he did know him, inside and out. Tony heard him shift the distribution of his weight on his feet. "Tony...do you think something's going to happen to you?" the beta inquired softly. "Your doctor just gave you a clean bill of health yesterday, didn't she? Or – "

"You mean as much as a 'clean bill of health' is for somebody who is slowly being poisoned by radiation," Tony corrected him.

The way how Rhodey didn't immediately say anything, and his best friend's visage when he lifted his gaze, told him everything that he didn't want to know. He exhaled loudly, changing the position of his hand once again to run it over his face. "Look, I'm not saying that anything's going to happen to me. I'm not," he insisted. "You're right. My doctor has a good plan put in place for me, I just need to stop screwing it up. But if something...does...happen to me, I need to know that my family is safe, and that doesn't just mean my kids and Bruce. That means you, Pepper, Riri, Rebecca, Happy, and Taryn, too."

"Bruce is the Batman. You know he can protect us all," Rhodey attempted to argue.

"But nobody can find out about his identity," Tony countered. "Please, Rhodey. You know I wouldn't be asking you to do this for any other reason. Just...just humor me."

It was a bit of a standoff, because Tony wasn't willing to give up, and neither was Rhodey. Just when he was about to really start getting worried, however, Rhodey gave up. "Fine," he said. "I'll do it. I'll put on the suit."

He walked over to Tony and reached down to pull him into a bone-crushing hug before the omega could so much as say "thank you." "But you know, nothing's going to happen to you," he whispered into his ear. "You survived two months being held captive in Afghanistan and then wandering in the desert for two days and nights after that. You're going to get through this. If anybody could, it's you."

Tony sniffled. "Thanks, Rhodey." His voice was muffled because of the beta's shirt.

When Rhodey pulled away, his eyes were watery. But, there was a grin resting on his face. "Anytime."

The moment wasn't allowed to last any longer than that. The sound of somebody knocking at the door to the lab and then opening it took away their focus. "Sorry to interrupt," Natalie spoke, eyeing the suit that was on display warily. "I just wanted to inform you that the kids are about ready to go."

Tony smacked a hand to his forehead. "Oh, right." Rhodey held out a hand for him, helping him get to his feet, although he didn't really need it. "Don't worry, we're coming."

He'd planned a little excursion for the kids today – minus Dick, because of how they were still hiding his pregnancy, but really it was probably too hot outside for it to be bearable for him anyways, and he'd said that he was looking forward to some time "alone." The emphasis highlighted on Dick's part, not his.

They were going to the Malibu Country Mart, which was basically an outdoor mall. It had shops that he thought all of the kids would enjoy, restaurants that Tony had arranged a reservation at one of by paying for the whole room so they wouldn't be disturbed by other customers, and a playground built for all ages so that Edward, Gemma, and Riri would be able to have fun on it along with at least Bea and Peter; Lili was getting to the age where she was more interested in shopping than playing and he knew that Harley would probably act like he wanted to do the same. Rhodey, Pepper, Alfred, and Happy were tagging along, so it wasn't like there wouldn't be plenty of adults for supervision. They could all do what they wanted. Natalie was being given the time until they came back, which would be around three o'clock so the younger kids could get their nap in still, off.

The kids were waiting in the foyer, but Tony sneaked into the living room before he joined them. Dick was laying on one of the couches, a giant bowl of popcorn to his right and Alfred the cat on his left, although her upper half was mostly splayed out over his belly. He was watching a movie that had come out last year, The Nanny Diaries. Tony had never thought much about it before, but the woman that was playing the main character did look quite a bit like Natalie...huh.

"Hey, bambino, we're about ready to go," Tony said, still eyeing the TV a little. "You sure you'll be fine on your own?"

Dick was unimpressed. "I'm not on my own. Bucky's around here somewhere," he pointed out. "And I'm eighteen and expecting a baby of my own. I'll be fine."

Tony clucked his tongue. "I know you will, I just worry...that's what omithers do, we always worry, as you're soon going to find out..." He hummed as he glanced back at the TV. "You know, we haven't had a movie night with just each other in a while. Would you be interested in doing that?"

It was something of a tradition of theirs, although they hadn't been doing it as much since Dick had become Robin. Around once every three or so weeks, he and Bruce had watched a movie together with Dick, just the three of them. They'd started doing it with Jason too, once he'd come into the family, but...Tony kind of just wanted to spend time with his original kid tonight, even though Bruce wasn't here to join them. The movie afternoon from last week had been making him a little sentimental for the days of old.

Dick's eyes brightened. "Really?"

"Really, really," Tony confirmed. "You can pick out the movie. I'm not picky. And we can eat more popcorn, if you want." Eating too much popcorn wasn't the greatest idea for a pregnant person, because it was filling without having too many calories or nutrients – but he figured an exception could be made. Just this once.

Dick grinned. "I'd like that. And...how about we watch Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?"

"Ah, yes: So Long and Thanks for All the Fish."

"Exactly."

Tony's conversation was once again interrupted as footsteps came rushing down the hall. "Omi!" Harley protested. "Come on, let's go!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming," Tony assured him. He walked over to Dick to kiss the air next to his cheek. "Love you, bambino. We'll all see you when we get back."

"Love you too, Tony."

They went to the restaurant first, because the kids were more likely to be well-behaved now rather than later when they were all tired and wanting to go home. Since it was the weekend, the restaurant was serving brunch, so he ordered some pancakes for Edward and Gemma (their favorite food. Thank God they weren't much fans of syrup) and Peter decided that he wanted the French toast. Tony also ordered the grilled artichoke and fried calamari appetizers for everyone, got himself a Caesar salad with a sliced filet mignon because he didn't feel like eating chicken and lemon wedges on the side because of his pregnancy cravings, and asked if there was any way that he could order some dishes that he could pick up later for Bucky and Dick.

When he was told that he could before they closed for two hours at three o'clock, although ordering from the dinner menu instead of the brunch would come at a higher price (like he cared about that), he ordered steaks for both of them with sides that he knew they would like, and made sure the meat was rarer than their usual preferences so that it would heat up better. He gave a one-hundred-percent tip for the entire check, and the waitress about lost her mind when she saw it. But she didn't say anything about it, just smiled back at him pleasantly, and for that he left another couple hundred dollars underneath one of the plates still on the table. He always enjoyed it when people treated him and his family like they were just people, and not celebrities to be gawked at.

After their lunch was over, they all went their separate ways. As he'd expected, Harley wanted to go shopping along with Lili and Jason, so Rhodey would be supervising them. Peter and Bea wanted to go play on the playground, so Tony and Pepper accompanied them there, pushing the twins and Riri in their strollers. Happy walked behind them, playing up his bodyguard role for the sake of privacy, but he would take Peter and Bea through the shops if they wound up wanting to go to one.

"Remember, you've got to stay in places where I can see you, okay?" Tony advised his younger-middle kids before they ran off towards the part of the playground that was more fitting for their age range. Sunscreen had already been applied before they'd left the house, so they didn't need to worry about that. "And if you can't see me, that means that I can't see you."

"Yes, Omi," Peter and Bea chirped in unison.

"Alright, go on. Have fun."

"This was a good idea," Pepper remarked to him minutes later. They were taking turns of pushing Edward, Gemma, and Riri down the slides. The three toddlers were all having a blast with it.

Tony grinned. "You think so?"

"Definitely. Feels like something we'd do back in Gotham and New York City. Gives the kids a sense of normalcy. It's something they need right now."

She didn't mean anything by it, he knew that she didn't. Yet still he found himself stopping short, just briefly, just for a moment.

His kids deserved not just a sense of normalcy, they deserved normalcy, period. They deserved to have their two parents in their lives, and not one or the other missing or away for the past five months, and their omither possibly, within the next five to ten years, going to –

"Tony?" Pepper prodded him. "Are you feeling okay?"

He plastered a smile on his face. "Yeah, why wouldn't I be?"

"I don't know, you just..." She trailed off, shaking her head. "You know what, never mind."

Edward, Gemma, and Riri got tired of the slides after a while, so they went over to the sandbox, which offered pretty much the same view of the playground for the older kids as the slides. Tony watched Peter and Bea running around with some other kids for a moment fondly, before he saw something out of the corner of his eye.

"No, Gemma!" he admonished, stopping her from throwing sand on top of her head at the last second. Out of all of his kids, she had the curliest hair, even curlier than Peter's, and he did not want to deal with the consequences of that decision. As while her hair wasn't that long, chances were likely he'd have to use the nozzle of a vacuum cleaner to get most of the sand out of her hair before then using the shower head in the bath. "Let's not throw sand all over ourselves, okay?"

Blue eyes darkening into hazel glared up at him. "Omi!"

"Believe me, you'll thank me for it later." He almost sighed when he glanced over at Edward. Like he had with Gemma, he grabbed his son's hand gently. "And Edward, let's not eat sand, either. Geez, you guys usually are more well-behaved when it comes to a sandbox than this."

"That was before February," Pepper reminded him, again not unkindly. "Back when you were still introducing them to sand."

"...Right." He gathered the twins into his arms, much to their discontent, and stood up. "Well, since they're being little buttheads, I think I'm gonna take them for a walk again in the stroller."

The space between Pepper's eyebrows crinkled. "Are you sure? I can come with you – "

"No, it's fine," he cut over her. Riri was having an absolute blast in the sandbox, and he didn't want to take that away from her. Especially since they'd had to make adjustments to her first birthday, between them being in Malibu and thus away from Pepper's and Rhodey's families (they'd decided to have a larger celebration after they got back from this vacation, instead of flying everybody out here, although Tony had offered to do that) and his bedrest (he hadn't been able to help out nearly as much as he'd wanted to, giving his best friends the break that they properly deserved). "I'll take Happy with me. Don't worry, we'll be safe."

"Alright," she relented. "We'll meet up outside of that restaurant towards two-thirty, if not sooner?"

"Yeah. I'll text you if there's a change of plan."

After he got Edward and Gemma strapped into their stroller, he pushed it over towards the other side of the playground. "Peter! Bea!" he called out. His kids came over quickly, much to his delight. "I'm going to go walk around the shops some. Do you want to come with me, the twins, and Happy, or do you want to stay here with Pepper and Riri?"

It was a bit of a trick question with these particular two. "We want to go with you, Omi," Peter said. Bea nodded in agreement.

"Alright. Bea, hold onto my hand." She slipped his hand into hers. They walked over to Happy and Tony told him what they were doing, and then they were off.

There were a few shops that caught the kids' eyes. Bea got a plush bumblebee, her favorite animal, from a toy store. Peter got a science kit that he could make seven different crystals with. And Tony allowed them all to get ice cream at a place that had a table outside where they could sit down, because honestly he figured that the extra sugar wouldn't do too much to impact his kids' nap time. The ones he had with him were all starting to get tired, even Peter.

Hell, even Tony thought that he might end up napping later. It'd give him more energy for his movie night with Dick, at any rate.

He was just spooning some of his ice cream into Edward's mouth when the wayward members of their group found them. "Tony!" Jason exclaimed as he ran the short distance between them, Lili and Harley following him and Rhodey taking up the rear.

"Wow, you guys have got a lot of stuff there," Tony said. Each of them had a couple bags hanging from their arms. "Are you having fun?"

"Yeah," Harley agreed enthusiastically.

Lili smiled. "We think we might've found a present for Dad."

"Really?"

"Yeah, but we want it to be from all of us? Can you come see?"

Tony checked the time. "How about we let Peter and Bea finish their ice cream first? Do you guys want some too?"

"They already did," Rhodey interjected, before he chuckled at how Harley's face scrunched up. The almost nine-year-old wasn't too pleased about being denied more ice cream. Oh, well. He'd live. "Where's Pepper?"

"Still at the playground with Riri."

"Do you mind – "

"Go ahead," Tony said. "Happy and I've got the gremlins covered."

Lili mirrored Harley's expression. "Omi, we're not gremlins!"

"Then why do I have to make sure I don't feed you guys after midnight?"

When Peter and Bea had finished their ice creams and they were joining in with Jason, Lili, and Harley to go off to the shop that the latter three wanted to go back to, Tony heaved himself to his feet. His fingers skirted along the edge of his growing bump, which he'd worn a patterned shirt that was tucked in the front over once again to keep the attention off of it.

All of the sudden, he felt a lot older than his twenty-eight years. He felt tired, and wrung out, and weak.

But he wasn't going to let his kids catch on to that.

He followed after the kids to the store in question. He was a little surprised at first that it was a bookstore, even with Jason's love for books, but then he let out a laugh when they went inside and he saw what they wanted to buy: a hardback book titled The Book of Unusual Knowledge.

"Don't you think it would be a good book to get him?" Lili inquired.

"Oh, definitely," he said, still laughing. He picked up the book and tucked it under his arm; now that they were here, they might as well spend a few more minutes here, just to see if there were any books he'd like to buy for himself. Yes, he was acting like he'd have the time to read them. "I think he'll like it very much."

Word Count: 5,840

Next Chapter Title: live and let die