Friday Nights
The rest of that week passes by the same. Tony and Aniyah would be joined by Pepper for breakfast in the morning, Rose would arrive, and Tony would depart with Pepper. Each day that passed got a little easier in terms of Tony leaving without Aniyah having a complete breakdown. There was still some clinginess and slight combativeness, but to everyone’s relief, it seemed Aniyah was starting to accept this new routine.
Friday finally rolled around again, and Aniyah was practically bouncing off the walls by the time Tony got back around mid-afternoon. While this may seem odd to an outsider, Tony knew it was only due to her excitement for what Friday evenings meant.
In the Stark household, Friday evenings were the one time of the week that both Rhodey and Peter would come to spend time at the Tower -as long as Rhodey didn’t have any sort of mission or important business to attend to. Aniyah -Tony came to learn- loves Friday evenings, not that he could really blame her.
Rhodey is the first one to arrive, and he is promptly greeted by Aniyah crashing into his side with the force of a small bear.
“Hi Uncle Rhodey!” the girl yells before she suddenly falls silent, face turning red in mortification.
“Well, that’s a new one,” Rhodey says, looking down at Aniyah in surprise. “It’s alright kiddo,” he adds, seeing her embarrassment. “I don’t mind if you want to call me that. In fact, I’d really like it.”
“Okay,” Aniyah says, hugging him around the legs before spotting the bags in Rhodey’s hands. “What’s that?” she asks curiously, moving to her tiptoes to try and see into the bags.
“Some stuff your Dad asked me to pick up for dinner tonight. I hope you like homemade pizza.” Rhodey replies, heading towards the kitchen, bags, and four-year-old in tow.
“I love pizza,” Aniyah says excitedly as they enter the kitchen. Tony is standing at the counter, reading the instructions on one of the tubes of dough for the pizza crust.
“I figured you would,” he says as he pops the tube and starts rolling the dough out. Rhodey sets the bags down on the counter and circles around to wash his hands. Just as he does that, the elevator dings again, and Aniyah practically squeals with excitement.
“Peter’s here,” she yells, running out of the kitchen, leaving two amused adults behind her. She skids across the floor, making a beeline for the teenage boy standing in the middle of the room, sporting a backpack.
“Peter,” she yells, and the boy turns and grins as he spots the child.
“Hey Aniyah,” he says, catching her quickly and spinning her around in the air. “I was wondering where you were.”
“Daddy and Uncle. Rhodey is in the kitchen making dinner,” Aniyah chirps, wrapping her arms tight around Peter’s neck.
“That’s good, why don’t we go see if they need any help?” Peter replies, setting his bag on the couch and heading for the kitchen.
“Hey Pete,” Tony calls from where his head is stuck into the fridge.
“Hello Peter,” Rhodey adds, looking up from the dough he was trying to mold into the correct circular shape.
“Hey,” Peter replies, “do you guys need any help in here?”
“I think we’re good kiddo,” Tony says as he emerges from the fridge, arms filled with several bags of cheese. “You two can go find something to do, we’ll call you when the food is ready.”
“Alright, I do have some homework to do, and I brought Aniyah some molding clay that the art teacher at school wanted to get rid of.”
“Sounds good, you guys can do that at the table in here if you like. That makes things a bit easier so we don’t have to track you two down again.” Tony fixes the two of them with a look, referencing back to the time Peter and Aniyah had hidden away in an extra storage room. Aniyah had wanted to play hide and seek, and they both had ended up in there, much to Tony’s panic when he hadn’t been able to find them.
“Right, I’ll just go grab my bag,” Peter mumbles, setting Aniyah down at the table and going to retrieve his bag. He hands Aniyah the block of grey molding clay and pulls out his homework. The two soon are occupied with their own activities.
Twenty minutes later, the pizza is in the oven, and both Rhodey and Tony are seating themselves at the table. Rhodey takes some of the clay from Aniyah, busying himself by helping her build the robot she was absorbed in. Tony, on the other hand, pulls his chair closer to Peter and looks down at his homework.
“Do you need any help?” he asks, glancing over the paper.
“Um, yeah, actually. I’m trying to figure out this one equation for this problem, but I can’t quite get the right answer.” Peter replies, indicating with his pencil the problem number he was having issues with.
“Well let’s see what I can do,” Tony says, pulling the paper closer and reading over the problem.
Time passes quickly like this, Rhodey occupies Aniyah while Tony helps Peter complete the rest of his homework. By the time that’s done, the pizza is ready to pull out of the oven. Tony does so, and brings it over, sliding it carefully onto the hot plate on the table. Peter and Aniyah gather plates and utensils, while Rhodey busies himself with getting everyone drinks.
Dinner is relatively uneventful, mostly filled with stories of what was going on for Peter at school and Aniyah’s rambles on what she did with Rose this week. Peter and Aniyah volunteer to do the dishes - or rather, Peter volunteered, and Aniyah simply agreed to help because she wanted to be with Peter instead of the “boring adults.”
After the kitchen is clean, the lot of them pick out a movie - not surprisingly a Disney one considering Aniyah’s age - and settle down with some popcorn and candy. Aniyah falls asleep halfway through the film and Peter volunteers to take her upstairs and settle her into her bed.
Thirty minutes later, Tony goes upstairs to see what was taking Peter so long only to find him passed out next to Aniyah on her bed. Tony shakes his head and chuckles quietly, tucking the covers around the two of them and exiting the room. A quick phone call later ensures that May knows that Peter won’t be home until tomorrow morning, and the rest of the evening is spent with Rhodey and Tony talking aimlessly as the hours tick by.
Rhodey leaves somewhere after eleven p.m., and after quickly checking on Peter and Aniyah, Tony retires to his own room. He doesn’t know exactly when he fell asleep, only that he is suddenly startled awake by a loud peal of thunder and a bright flash. He glances over at the clock, realizing it was close to two a.m., and then glances out the window. It was a downpour outside.
Lightning flashed across the sky, quickly followed by another loud peal of thunder. Tony faintly hears a scream, followed promptly by one, then two pairs of footsteps. Aniyah comes running into the room, sobbing frantically, Peter hot on her trail.
Tony catches up with the shaking four-year-old, tucking her carefully against his side. She cries out again when the thunder sounds once more, but Tony only hushes her, rubbing his hands gently over her back. He looks up and spots Peter standing uncertainly by the door.
“Find some more comfortable clothes, kid,” Tony says quietly, “and then come back here. I’d feel much better having the two of you in here with me at least until the storm passes.” Peter blinks in surprise but nods, quickly locating some clothing he left behind - which consequently had been washed, folded, and put in a spare drawer in Tony’s room- and disappearing into the bathroom to change.
Two minutes later he comes back out and cautiously clambers onto the bed with Tony and Aniyah.
“It’s okay Aniyah,” he murmurs to the sobbing girl, “it’s just a storm. It’ll pass soon.” He lies down next to Aniyah, and rubs her back as well, keeping up the quiet reassurances. Aniyah quickly tires herself out and thankfully falls back asleep.
Tony slips from the bed and goes to the restroom. When he returns, he is greeted by the sight of Peter curled around Aniyah, fast asleep once more.
Tony smiles faintly and gets back into the bed, lying down to watch the two kids sleep. Both of them mean so much to Tony, enough that it scares him. Aniyah was his daughter, and as such, he adored her and was quickly coming to love her with everything he had. Peter, on the other hand, was suddenly claiming his own place in Tony’s heart. He was the closest thing he had to a son, and he cared and even loved Peter as such. Lying next to him, he realizes, is his entire world.
These two kids meant everything to Tony, and he would be damned if he let anything happen to either of them.