Chapter 7
2008
3 days, 1 week, 0 months, 0 years
Waiting for the inevitable, completely unavoidable conversation with Pepper and Rhodey was starting to feel like torture to Tony before twenty-four hours had even passed.
He was sat on the floor next to Peter as the kid drew a stunningly inaccurate but still identifiable drawing of Ariel and a yellow and blue blob that must be her fish friend. His back was complaining but he ignored it in favour of fiddling with the piece of paper in front of him.
It was ingrained in muscle memory, carefully tearing the paper into a square before folding and unfolding. Twisting and manoeuvring the paper out of nervous habit, Tony gently placed the little origami dragon on the coffee table between him and Peter.
“Woah,” Peter gushed.
The kid was wearing the blue and red frilly Snow White top with the green shorts from the dinosaur set Tony had bought. They showed of his arms and legs, pale and seemingly very little more than skin and bones. His elbows and knees were knobby just as Tony assumed his ankles must be below the pair of mismatched socks.
Tony was also in his pyjamas. Grey sweatpants, an old red t-shirt and his slippers.
“That’s so cool. How did you make that? Can you teach me how to make them too?”
Tony chuckled. He reached up a hand to playfully ruffle the kid’s brown curls.
“Sure kiddo.”
Tearing the paper into the right shape was too difficult for Peter to do. He kept accidentally tearing through the square he needed. Tony relented and did one for him, handing it over with a small wink and a smile before Peter could get caught up in his annoyance.
“Fold in half and the unfold it,” Tony explained.
His fingers expertly manipulated the paper, practiced ease clear in his movements, following along with each step he explained so as to show Peter what he meant.
“And then fold it in half the other way and unfold it and then do the same for the diagonals.”
Peter did his best to follow along. The end of his pink tongue poked out from between his lips as he poured all his concentration into the craft. His folds were a little wonky but Tony didn’t mention it.
Tony was no longer thinking about his upcoming talk with his friends.
“That’s it, good job,” he praised. “Then you fold it like this and this and this.”
Tony moved slowly but as they went through each step of making the origami dragon, Peter got more and more confused until he’d created some kind of distorted form instead of the little reptile he had been trying to recreate. He let out a frustrated cry and threw the ball of paper across the living room angrily.
“Hey, hey,” Tony said. He kept his tone soft but with a stern undertone. “Underoos, we do not throw things just because we’re annoyed. Go and pick it up. If you don’t want it, put it in the trash.”
Peter grumbled but pulled himself up off of the floor. Once he had deposited it in the box of paper recycling tucked niftily inside a cupboard, he re-joined the older man at the coffee table.
“I can’t do it, it’s too hard!” Peter whined.
It was obvious that he was fed up.
Tony let himself wrap an arm around Peter’s shoulders and pull him close.
“Why don’t you decorate the paper with patterns and colours,” Tony suggested. “And I’ll make it into baby dragons.”
“Yes please,” replied Peter.
He was already pulling out a fresh sheet and his well-used red crayon to begin decorating.
“This one is going to be called Ned.”
Tony found himself powerless to stop the fond smile that spread across his face.
“I like it. What about this one?”
He pushed the plain white one he had made first across the wood towards the kid. For a moment, Peter seemed to ignore him, focused on drawing squares and zigzags to adorn what was going to become Ned’s scales.
Without looking up, he replied, “Karen, and the other white one is called Horance.”
By the time they were one, they had made a little army of twenty-eight paper dragons all covered in different colourful deigns and with individual names carefully chosen for each them. Peter picked out his favourites that he insisted he had to take with him to put by what had come to be his bed. It was oddly endearing that he had grown so attached so quickly.
Karen was the first one he picked up, followed by Ned with the identifiable scrawled red and white skin. He had also picked out one with blue and pink stripes across the wings, Gwen, and one with multi-coloured curly swirls all over, MJ.
Tony was careful to remember to say goodnight to each of them by name when he tucked Peter in that night.