The Pirate
Once Tony woke Peter up, the two went out to find something to eat. Tony decided to use the suit and give his son a thrill. Tony had only flown with Peter a handful of times and only for short distances at a very slow speed and low altitude so Peter was beyond excited to be flying around with his father.
After a while, the two stopped for donuts which ended with them eating in the giant donut on the roof.
“Sir! I’m gonna have to ask you to exit the doughnut.” A voice called up to them from the ground.
Tony and Peter looked down to see Fury motioning to them to follow him inside.
Peter looked to his father. “Is that the pirate?”
Tony looked at his son over his sunglasses. “I’ll buy you whatever lego set you want if you ask him that.”
“But I’ll get in trouble.” Peter said.
Tony fought the urge to laugh. His kid was too damn polite. “He’ll blame me.” Tony stood up and picked Peter up and flew down to the ground. “Remember, you don’t know anything about Shield. No Aunt Ria, no Aunt Peggy, no Sharon, no Natasha. Nothing. Got it?”
Peter nodded in understanding. The two made their way inside and saw the director of Shield sitting in a booth by the windows with coffee on the table so father and son slid in across from him, Tony still in his suit minus the helmet, which was in his hand.
“I told you I don’t wanna join your super-secret boy band.” Tony said as he poured himself a cup of coffee.
Fury laughed. “No, no, no. See, I remember, you do everything yourself. How’s that working out for you?”
“It’s… It’s… It’s… I’m sorry. I don’t wanna get off on the wrong foot. Do I look at the patch or the eye?” He looked over to Peter. “What do you think?”
Peter shrugged as he looked at Fury who was looking straight back at him.
Fury looked back at Tony. “Is there a reason he’s here?” Fury asked as he pointed at the seven year old.
“You’re the one who interrupted his breakfast.” Tony told him before looking around. “Where’s the staff here?”
Fury leaned over the table and pulled down Tony’s collar to get a better look at the scarring from the palladium poisoning. “That’s not looking so good.”
“I’ve been worse.” Tony told him as he pulled away
“We’ve secured the perimeter but I don’t think we should hold it for too much longer.” Said a familiar voice walking up to the table.
Tony and Peter turned from a grinning Fury and saw Natasha standing there in her Shield uniform and Tony couldn’t help but stare at her until Peter poked him in the back of the neck and remembered he had to act. “Huh…. You’re fired.”
“Cool.” Was all Peter said.
Natasha smirked. “That’s not up to you.” She played along as she sat down next to Fury.
Fury gestured to her. “Starks, I want you to meet Agent Romanoff.
Peter smiled. “Good morning Ms. Romanoff.”
Natasha smiled at Peter. “Good morning Peter.” She then looked to the elder Stark, who was still staring. “I’m a SHIELD shadow. Once we knew that there was something wrong with you, I was tasked to you by Director Fury.” She told him the original cover story.
“Uh, I suggest you apologize.” Tony told her, staring into her eyes.
Fury started speaking again.”You’ve been very busy. You made your best friends girl your CEO, you’re giving away all your stuff.” Tony finally looked back at Fury. “You let your friend fly away with your suit. Now, if I didn’t know better…
Tony interrupted. “You don’t know better. I didn’t give it to him. He took it.”
Fury held his hands up. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. He took it? You’re Iron Man and he just took it? The little brother walked in there and took your suit?” He then turned to Natasha. “Is that possible?”
“Well, according to Mr Stark’s database security guidelines, there are redundancies to prevent unauthorized usage.” Natasha told her actual boss, still not breaking eye contact from Tony.
Tony was looking back and forth at the two sitting across from him. “What do you want from me?
Natasha then got up to leave. “What do we want from you? What do you want from me?” Fury asked, getting agitated. “You have become a problem, a problem I have to deal with. Contrary to your belief, you are not the center of my universe. I have bigger problems than you in the southwest region to deal with. Hit him.”
Natasha had returned to the table and injected something into Tony’s neck, catching him off guard.
“Oh, God, are you gonna steal my kidney and sell it?” Tony asked, alarmed as he moved closer to protect Peter. “What did she just do to me?”
Natasha bent down and looked at his neck as the scarring on his neck began to recede.
“What did we just do for you? That’s lithium dioxide. It’s gonna take the edge off. We’re trying to get you back to work.” Fury explained.
“Give me a couple of boxes of that. I’ll be right as rain.” Tony told him
“It’s not a cure, it just abates the symptoms.” Natasha explained to Tony.
“Doesn’t look like it’s gonna be an easy fix.” Fury said while peering at Tony’s neck.
Tony looked at the director of Shield. “Trust me, I know. I’m good at this stuff. I’ve been looking for a suitable replacement for palladium. I’ve tried every combination, every permutation of every known element.”
Fury looked right back at him. “Well, I’m here to tell you, you haven’t tried them all.”
Before anyone could say anything else, Peter chose that moment to chime in. “Are you really a pirate?” He asked Fury innocently, though his face was scrunched up like he was really trying to figure it out.
Fury looked at Peter with disbelief that someone would be bold enough to actually ask him that while Tony roared with laughter. Even Natasha had to hide a laugh.
“Is he serious?” Fury looked at Tony while pointing at Peter.
Tony was still laughing. “Apparently.”
“I can’t believe I now have to deal with two Starks.” Fury grumbled as he stood up from the booth and Tony had to hide a laugh with a cough at how wrong he was.
A little while later they were back at the mansion and Tony, without his armor, and Fury were sitting in chairs in the living room while Peter was on the floor playing with his new legos.
“That thing in your chest is based on unfinished technology.” Fury told the elder Stark.
Tony shook his head. “No, it was finished. It has never been particularly effective until I miniaturized it and put it in my…”
Fury quickly interrupted him. “No. Howard said the arc reactor was the stepping stone to something greater. He was about to kick off an energy race that was gonna dwarf the arms race. He was on to something big, something so big that it was gonna make the nuclear reactor look like a triple-A battery.”
At the mention of his grandfather's name, Peter’s head perked up and looked at the pair.
Tony poured the two of them a drink. “Just him, or Anton Vanko in on this too?”
“Anton Vanko is the other side of that coin. Anton saw it as a way to get rich. When your father found out, he had him deported. When the Russians found out he couldn’t deliver they shipped his ass off to Siberia and he spent the next 20 years in a vodka-fuelled rage. Not quite the environment you want to raise a kid in, the son you had the misfortune of crossing paths with in Monaco.” Fury filled him in.
Tony pressed on. Fury was surprisingly upfront with information today if what his sister and cousin had told him was true. “You told me I hadn’t tried everything. What do you mean I haven’t tried everything? What haven’t I tried?”
Fury took a sip of his drink. “He said that you were the only person with the means and knowledge to finish what he started.”
Tony was skeptical. “He said that?”
“Are you that guy? Are you?” Fury leaned forward towards Tony. “Cause if you are, then you can solve the riddle of your heart.”
Tony just shook his head. “I don’t know where you get your information, but he wasn’t my biggest fan.”
“What do you remember about your dad?”
Now Peter’s complete attention was on the two adults, his legos forgotten.
Tony glanced down at his son and gave him a sad smile before looking back at Fury. “He was cold, he was calculating. He never told me he loved me. He never even told me he liked me, so it’s a little tough for me to digest when you’re telling me he said the whole future was riding on me and he’s passing it down. I don’t get that. You’re talking about a guy who’s happiest day was when he shipped me off to boarding school.”
“That’s not true.” Fury told him, setting his drink down.
“Well, then, clearly you knew my dad better than I did.”
“As a matter of fact, I did.” Fury told him as two agents brought a case into the room. “He was one of the founding members of SHIELD.”
Tony had to feign shock at Fury’s revelation. “What?”
Fury stood up and looked at his watch. “I got a two o’clock.”
“Wait, wait, wait, wait. What’s this?” Tony asked and pointed at the mysterious case. He had no clue what that was.
“Okay, you’re good, right?”
Tony was beginning to get agitated. “No, I’m not good.”
At this point, Fury was completely ignoring Tony’s confusion. “You got this? Right? Right?”
Tony stood up. “Got what? I don’t even know what I’m supposed to get.”
“Natasha will remain a floater at Stark with her cover intact. You remember Agent Coulson, right?” Fury told him as he put his coat on, still thinking that Natasha’s cover hadn’t been blown on her first day.
Tony sighed. “Yeah.”
“And Tony, remember, I got my eye on you.” Fury told him before he left which caused Tony to simply roll his eyes before he looked at Natasha.
“We’ve disabled all communications. No contact with the outside world. Good luck.” She told him before she turned to leave, not before she gave Peter a smile that he returned.
Tony turned to Coulson. “Please. First thing, I need a little bodywork. I’ll put in a little time at the lab. If we could send one of your goon squad down to The Coffee Bean, Cross Creek, for a Starbucks run, or something like that, that’d be nice.”
“I’m not here for that.” Coulson said with a fake smile. “I’ve been authorized by Director Fury to use any means necessary to keep you on premises. If you attempt to leave or play any games, I will taze you and watch Supernanny while you drool into the carpet. Okay?”
Before Tony could say anything, Peter stepped between the agent and his father. “You’re a bully.”
The Shield agent looked down at the child. “Excuse me?”
Peter was actually able to muster a glare, something that surprised his father. “You said that you were going to hurt my dad. You’re a bully.”
Coulson was finding this humorous. “I promise you I’m not a bully.”
Peter looked up at his father who nodded at his legos.
“Impressive kid.” Coulson complimented Peter.
Tony nodded in agreement. “Yeah.”
“Enjoy your evening’s entertainment.” Coulson told him as he left the room.
A while later, Tony was going through the notes his father had left behind with Fury while a film reel of his father played on a projector. Peter sat on the floor in front of his father, watching the film with rapt attention.
Suddenly Peter called out. “Dad it's you.”
Tony looked up at the screen and saw himself as a child, slightly younger than Peter was now. Peter was loving watching his dad until he saw how his grandfather reacted to his father messing with the model of the Expo.
Before Peter could ask his father about it, Howard spoke. “Tony. You’re too young to understand this right now, so I thought I would put it on film for you. I built this for you. And someday you’ll realize that it represents a whole lot more than just people’s inventions. It represents my life’s work. This is the key to the future. I’m limited by the technology of my time, but one day you’ll figure this out. And when you do, you will change the world. What is and always will be my greatest creation is you.”
Tony wanted to throw his glass at the projection of his father but restrained himself. The only compliment that he remembered receiving from his father and it happened almost 20 years after his death.
“Dad?” Peter asked, looking up at his father from his spot on the floor.
Tony put the notes from his father down. “Yeah bud?”
“Why was your dad so mad at you for just touching something?” Peter asked curiously. Peter touched things his dad built all the time and never got yelled at.
“Well.” Tony began trying to figure out what to say to his son. “My dad and I didn’t have the best relationship when I was growing up.”
“What about Aunt Ria? Did she get along with your dad?” He asked innocently.
As soon as Peter asked that, it dawned on Tony that because he and Maria never talked about Howard, Peter did not know that Maria had grown up never meeting the man.
Tony rubbed his temples. “Your Aunt Maria never met … our dad.” Tony told his son, having fought the urge to say something else.
This confused Peter. “Why? Did she not know your dad? Did your mom not like him?”
And that's when Tony realized that there were a lot of things that Peter did not know about his grandfather and aunt.
“Peter. Your aunt and I didn’t meet each other until after my parents' funeral. We have different moms.” Tony explained slowly.
Peter scrunched up his face, obviously deep in thought. “But…” For as gifted as Peter was, he was still a child and was having a tough time understanding what his father was saying.
Tony sighed. He really did not know the best way to explain the situation. “My dad.” Tony really hated referring to Howard as dad. “Dated another woman while he was married to my mom.” Tony and Maria both suspected there were other women but as far as they could tell, she was the only child born from these affairs. “The other woman got pregnant and had your Aunt Maria.”
Peter still looked puzzled. “But you’re not supposed to date more than one person.”
Tony loved the fact that his son still thought such innocent things. “That’s right.” Tony told him. “My dad wasn’t the best person. He liked to pick fights with people and he ignored his family.”
“You don’t do that.” Peter said.
Tony just gave him a small smile.