To Build A Home

The next few days until Natasha arrived were hard to say the least.

Morgan was going back to school that following Monday and so was Harley which meant that they only had two more days until a routine had to start which was also going to be incredibly hard when they had Peter who wasn’t in school yet.

Either way, they would figure everything out and it would be okay.

Hopefully.

It just didn’t seem that way right now for the Stark’s.

Peter was in a fairly good mood on that Friday and both Tony and Pepper knew that it was because Natasha was coming which they hated because they knew that in Peter’s mind, he would be going back ‘home’.

It was so draining for the parents since they thought that they were making progress with Peter. They had so many mood times throughout the day with Peter laughing and bonding with Harley and Morgan and even smiling at Pepper and Tony but now, they felt like they were way back at the beginning and it was frustrating.

Peter was sitting on the steps of the stairs, silently waiting for Natasha to ring the doorbell.

Tony walked past the door and looked at Peter. “She’s not coming for another hour so how about you come outside with Morgan and Harley before they have to go back to school on Monday.”

Peter continued to stare at the door as he slowly shook his head. “How about you leave me alone and let me do what I wanna do.”

Tony was going to let that slide but he couldn’t. If any one of his other kids spoke to him with that attitude, he would tell them off and Peter was his kid so why was he letting Peter get away with that. “Excuse me. You do not speak to me that way. I was giving you an option before but now I’m not. Stand up and go outside.”

Peter looked up at Tony with daggers in his eyes. “No. I told you I don’t want to.”

“Peter. Get outside. If I have to ask you again, I will pick you up and take you out there myself.” Tony debated on sending Peter to his room but he knew that Peter hated being alone and he also didn’t want Peter to associate his bedroom with anger and punishment.

Peter debated whether or not Tony was bluffing before he decided not to test the man. He stood up with a groan and stomped his way outside but Tony counted that as a win either way.

He followed Peter outside and watched as Peter sat himself down on one of the pool chairs rather roughly then he pulled his knees to his chest and crossed his arms with a permanent frown on his face.

Tony looked away and sat down next to Pepper who was busy doing stuff on her computer. “At least you got him outside.”

“Yeah. I can not wait until Natasha comes so I can ask her if it’s best to start telling Peter the unfiltered truth.” Tony was counting down the hours almost as much as Peter was so when he got a text from Natasha saying that she is outside, he was immediately standing up and going to answer the door.

“I’m so glad that you’re here. Come in but don’t go near the backyard windows.” Tony warned her as he shut the front door behind her and locked it.

“And why not?” She asked and looked around the house.

“Because Peter is dying for you to come but Pep and I want to talk to you first about some stuff.” Tony rushed out as he led her towards the back doors but Natasha continued to follow him. “Stay here while I get Pep.”

“Tony, I’m going out to say hi to Peter. I’m not going to ignore him while I talk to you guys.” Natasha said to Tony who rolled his eyes but let her come out with him anyways.

Natasha looked around the backyard and spotted Peter so she greeted Pepper and then walked towards Peter sulking on the pool chairs.

“Hi Natasha!” Morgan yelled then jumped into the pool.

“Hi Morgan. How are you?” As always, Morgan was too busy to answer so Natasha continued to walk over to Peter who had bolted up to look at her. “Hi honey. How are you doing?”

“Is it time to go home? Did you find my dad?” Peter asked her desperately.

Natasha was already ready for these questions that she hated answering. She reached out to rub Peter’s knee after she sat down on the edge of the chair. “No, Peter. We talked about this before.”

Peter pushed her hands off and laid back down. “Then go away.”

Natasha held her hands in her lap and looked at the child. “I want to talk to you later but I’m going to talk to your parents first.”

“Not my parents.” Peter mumbled.

With that, Natasha stood up and walked over to Tony and Pepper and followed them inside after Harley was left in charge of watching his two siblings.

“How has it been?” Natasha asked, setting her folder and purse down and sitting back on the couch to listen to the parents.

Tony sighed loudly. “Not easy. It was actually better in the beginning. He uh, him and Morgan are really getting along. Those two are always getting into trouble when left alone and actually have a lot in common. Peter and Harley are bonding a lot. Probably most out of everyone um… Harley’s trying to teach Peter how to swim but Peter refuses to take off his life jacket.”

“Bedtimes are hard.” Pepper budded in. “As always though. He refuses to go to sleep so we end up sitting around for hours until he actually gets into bed so there’s that.”

“Bedtimes are always a huge adjustment. Does he have his own room now?” Natasha asked them.

“Yeah. He picked out his own stuff so he sleeps in there now. It’s still looking like a spare room. We bought him lego stuff but he hasn’t opened them up yet.” Tony answered and let out another frustrated sigh. He just wanted to bring some life into Peter’s room.

“That will take time. As everything else will.”

“Yeah, so we wanted to talk to you about this whole Steve the kidnapper being called dad by Peter. Still.” Tony started. “He stills refers to Rogers as dad and as fucking hard as it is, especially for me, we let it slide because you told us to and we agreed but now we don’t.”

“It’s just that…” Pepper paused to try and find the right words to use. “It’s hard but we would put up with it if it meant it was helping Peter heal but now it’s not. It’s not letting him move on and heal because right now, he still thinks of… his kidnapper as dad and we don’t correct him.”

Natasha was nodding her head and getting ready to speak when they were done. “Of course. In the beginning, everything was a huge adjustment and it still is but that is true. As of now, it will be best for Peter to stop calling Steve Rogers his father. When he does that, you can explain to him in your own words that that is not who that man is.”

Tony was so happy to hear that they could start doing that now.

“Also,” Natasha continued. “if you don’t already but it’s important for you guys to start speaking to Peter as mom and dad. So Tony, if you are talking to Peter about Pepper you would refer to her as mom. Same with you, Pepper. Tony will be referred to as dad and when speaking in general terms, parents.”

Tony listened to her. He had already wanted to do that from the beginning but he stopped himself for Peter’s sake. He was glad that they could now. Baby steps.

“As well as when he says ‘you’re not my dad or you aren’t my parents’, you correct him and say ‘yes we are your parents Peter’. It’s important for him to start associating that part of title with you guys.”

“Okay. Okay that’s good. And what about…” Tony looked over at Pepper because he couldn’t find the words to ask his questions since his mind was running a mile a minute.

Pepper finished for him. “What about what we tell him about Rogers? Are we sugar coating anything or are we telling him how it is?”

Natasha thought about it for a few moments. “What have you told him so far?”

“Uh…” Tony thought about it. “Just that he stole you away from us when you were a baby. Um,” He looked over at Pepper who was just staring at him. “That’s it. Just saying that over and over again.”

Natasha nodded. “Alright. I think it’s best to continue on saying just that right now. It might be too much for him if you start explaining the mental illness that comes from kidnapping a child and raising him as your own. Plus he’s too young for all that right now so that can be saved for a time when he is older.”

Both Tony and Pepper agreed but they already knew Peter was way too young to hear about that right now.

“So, how are his legal documents coming along?” She asked, pulling out some paperwork from her folder.

“Good. I got everything under control. Uh, my lawyer’s work fast so um, they got everything under control but it’ll take a few more days.” Tony clapped his hands together and tried to look at the papers that Natasha was pulling out.

“Perfect. And school? Any talk about that or too soon?”

“Oh. Well… Tony and I talked about it and we are going to send Peter to Morgan’s elementary school and then after that we don’t know. We also don’t know when he will be starting.” Pepper answered and leaned back to run a hand over her face, just thinking about all the stress that was to come.

“As long as you guys have some sort of plan then it takes away from any uncertainties a bit.” Natasha reassured them and then slid a stack of papers between the two. “Alright. A lot of stuff to go over. These are Peter’s transcripts from kindergarten all the way to grade three. There are teachers notes in there as well and his grade four teacher said that if you want to call him to talk about Peter and how he is in school, you are more than welcome to.”

Tony looked at the most recent years and couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across his face. His baby is incredibly smart.

Natasha must have picked up on it as well. “He’s smart, isn’t he?”

Tony nodded and showed Pepper his recent marks. “Yeah. He gets that from me. Oh my god. Look at that, A plus in science. Look at our baby go.”

Pepper wiped a few tears from her face but they were happy tears. “Yeah. I knew it though. He’s a baby genius. Our baby genius.”

“Fuck yeah he is.” Tony looked over the grades again but put it down. He would look at it more thoroughly later tonight. If Peter went to bed quickly.

“I want to know that you guys are ready to see the face of Steve Rogers, the man who raised your son before we move forward?” Natasha had gotten more serious and that made a shiver run down Tony’s spine.

He reached out to hold onto Pepper’s hand and looked over at her as he answered. “Yes. No but we need to just so we know. So we know if he ever tried to approach Peter since he’s still on the run.”

Pepper didn’t speak but she nodded her head. Natasha then placed a single picture onto the table so both parents looked at it but didn’t move it any closer.

Tony looked at his features. He tried to remember if he saw that man in the park that day. Maybe he had been watching their family for days, maybe weeks.

He tried to memorize every single detail so he could be on the lookout for that man.

After staring at the picture, Tony felt sick.

The face that he was looking at was the same face that Peter recognized as his dad. The same face that raised his kid. That taught Peter so many things and got to hold and cuddle him. The face that Peter had been crying for since he got back to them.

Without another thought, Tony pushed the picture away from them. “Okay. Get that out of here. I don’t want my kids seeing that.”

Natasha took it off the table and back into her folder.

“Their house was located and searched for any type of evidence of anything. Nothing came back strange but everything was collected. All of the pictures from the time Peter was kidnapped until now.” Natasha explained to them which got their interest peaked.

“Do you have some of the pictures here?” Pepper asked, letting go of Tony and sitting up on the couch more.

Natasha nodded. “I brought a few but I need to ask some questions first. Of course there are thousands of pictures but Steve Rogers is in a lot of those pictures with him so my question is, would you guys want to see those pictures or simply just pictures with Peter?”

Tony thought about it. He was dying to see Peter at every age of his life and wanted to know what he was like but the only person he could ask was the person he wanted to kill.

He didn’t think he could stand the sight of Peter with that bastard holding and smiling next to his son. “Um… right now, no but I don’t, maybe some time in the future.”

“I don’t ever want to see those pictures. I want the pictures of our son, just our son but that’s it.” Pepper spoke strongly and wiped at her cheeks.

“Alright. Some detectives are sorting through every single picture right now and then the ones of just Peter will be ready for you in about a week.” Natasha explained but Tony was having mixed emotions.

Either way, for Peter the pictures would bring back so many memories. Happy and sad so maybe it was best to not bring those pictures into their home. Tony was so frustrated because as much as he didn’t want to see photos of Rogers with his son, he was torn between wanting to know every single possible detail and not wanting to know anything at all.

Tony rubbed at his eyes. “Can we see some pictures of him now?”

“Of course.” Both parents watched anxiously as Natasha started looking through her folder. “I have four. One from age five, two from age six and one from age seven.”

Natasha placed all four pictures in front of Tony and Pepper and watched as their faces lit up and they immediately reached for one.

Tony grabbed a picture of six year old Peter who was looking at the camera with so much Stark attitude. He let out a wet laugh and leaned over to Pepper. “Look at our baby. Look at his hair, oh my god.”

Pepper couldn’t contain her tears again. It was between her crying happy tears and her crying sad tears over Peter. She leaned against Tony’s shoulder to look at the picture of Peter that he was holding and grabbed it from him. “Oh my gosh. And look at those baby teeth in mine.” Pepper handed Tony her picture and he felt his own tears start to burn his eyes.

He missed so much.

He missed this stage. Peter was looking into the camera, posing the way that Pepper always poses for photos, always so naturally. He let out a dry laugh and picked up another picture. “He would be Morgan’s age in this picture.”

Pepper looked at it and smiled, almost sadly. “Yeah. He’s so tiny though.”

Tony agreed. Peter was born three weeks premature so maybe that would explain it. He’s also been an extremely picky eater so they always struggled to feed Peter something that wasn’t Pepper’s breast milk from the time Peter was with them for the first two years of his life.

“That’s okay. I like it better that way because I just,” Tony put his head in his hand and looked down at the picture. “I just want to hold him.”

“One day, you will get there.” Natasha reassured them but it did little to help the touch starved parents.

“One day when? Five years from now when he doesn’t even want to cuddle with us? I can’t-” Tony sighed loudly and stood up to run his hands through his hair. He walked over to the kitchen window and looked outside.

He saw Peter sitting down on the pool chair, curled into a ball and it hurt him so much to see Peter hurting like that and not know how to help him.

It hurted him to hear Peter calling for another man that wasn’t him.

“I can’t give you an answer, Tony. You need to help Peter understand that that man who he calls dad, is not his dad and that you are.” Natasha put everything into her folder and shut it before tucking it away into her purse. She stood up and walked over to Tony to rub his back. “It’ll be okay. Trust me. Everything will be okay one day.”

Tony found that hard to believe. How could everything be okay when they had Peter back but it still didn’t feel like they actually had him back?

“Just because you don’t see a light at the end of this long tunnel right now, doesn’t mean there isn’t a light waiting for you at the end. You just have to go day by day and be patient.” With that, Natasha walked outside to go and talk to Peter, leaving Tony and Pepper alone with their thoughts.

Natasha walked over to the pool chair that Peter was still curled into a ball on and she sat down. “You’re gonna get burnt if you sit out here any longer with no sunscreen.”

Peter lifted his head up to look at Natasha. “Well daddy always puts it on for me and he’s not here.”

“That man was never your daddy, Peter. I know you know that. Tony is your dad. He always has been, Steve was just playing a part.” Natasha rubbed Peter’s back and he turned towards her.

“That’s not true.” Peter whispered, reaching out to play with the ring on Natasha’s hand. “Are you married?”

Natasha smiled at the change of topic so randomly. “Yeah, I am but this,” Natasha held up her other hand with her ring finger on it. “is my ring.”

Peter reached for her hand to look at the ring. “Oh. It’s pretty. Do you have any kids?”

Natasha knew what Peter was doing. She knew that he was trying to change the topic so she would stop talking about Steve but she decided to play along for a bit. “We don’t have any kids yet.”

“Why?”

“Well… I guess we were never in any rush to have any. I work with kids all day and so does my husband. He’s a paediatrician.”

Peter frowned. “What’s that?”

“A paediatrician? It’s someone who is a doctor to little kids like you. So when you go to the doctors, you will see a paediatrician.” Natasha explained to the boy and crossed her legs.

“Well… I’ve never been to the doctors before. My dad used to just take me to um, like what do you call it like a walk in clinic.” Peter explained to Natasha.

She nodded her head. “Yeah, and do you know why you were never brought to the doctors?”

Peter looked away from her and started playing with the string on his pants. “Ummm… well because I never got sick so I never needed to.”

Natasha was shaking her head so Peter looked up at her and frowned. “Everyone should be going to the doctors at least twice a year for a checkup. Especially children because they are still growing.”

“What’s a checkup?” Peter asked her, moving so he could put his feet together.

“When the doctor looks at everything to make sure that you’re working properly. To make sure your heart is still beating,” Natasha reached over to tickle Peter’s chest which caused him to start giggling. “And your ribs…”

Peter laughed even harder when Natasha ran her fingers over his rib cage.

After Peter’s laughing died down, he stared up at her so she decided to start the hard topic now. “I want to go talk to you so where do you want to go?”

Peter looked away and tried to turn back onto his side but Natasha stopped him. “No. I don’t want to talk to you.”

“How about we go talk in your bedroom? You can show me around.” Natasha was already standing up so Peter didn’t have much of a choice but to follow her.

She let Peter lead the way to his bedroom even though she already knew where it was. When they got upstairs, Peter walked into his room and sat on his bed with a pout on his face.

“I like my old bedroom more.” Peter said sadly.

Natasha looked around the room. It was nice but nothing screamed Peter in it. It just looked like a well put together guest bedroom.

She sat down on the bed, across from Peter. “Why do you say that?”

“Because,” He groaned and threw himself back on the bed with his arms above his head. “I had all my toys and my comfy blankets that I always had good dreams in and it was messy but I liked it messy because all my toys were there.”

“I know your mom and dad would happily buy you some toys if you ask them to. They want to but they don’t know what you like.”

Peter turned on the bed so he could put his legs up on the wall. “But I don’t want any toys because then I’ll be leaving soon to go back to my dad.”

“That’s not true, Peter. You only believe it to be true but it is not true.” She told him and watched as it processed through Peter’s mind. He moved closer to the wall so he could bang on it with his feet. “Stop that.”

“No.”

Natasha reached over and pulled one of Peter’s legs down so he would stop. “It’s really important for you to understand what we are telling you, Peter.”

Peter smiled and looked over at her. “You’re telling me pee pee poo poo. That’s all I hear.”

“Okay.” Natasha looked down at the boy defeately. “Let’s let your mom and dad come up and talk with us.”

“No! I don’t want them to come up and he’s not my dad.” Peter pushed himself up halfway so he could be closer to Natasha’s face.

“Tony’s not your dad? But what about Pepper?” She asked him curiously because Peter hadn’t said anything about Pepper not being his mom. She knew it was because Steve was already filling in the spot of a father figure in Peter’s eyes so that was going to be hard to work on.

“No. My dad said my mom’s dead so I never knew what it was like to have a mom.” The thought of even having a mom was crazy to Peter but he didn’t know how to react. He didn’t know how.

Natasha continued looking at him, wanting to know what was going on in Peter’s mind of his. “I can’t even imagine how hard that was for you. How hard this all is for you but you know that you are never alone. You have a family here that loves you so much and is waiting for you to love them back.”

Peter nodded his head. He knew that they all loved him but he didn’t understand why. He wasn’t their kid. He didn’t belong with them. “I think I’m gonna miss Morgan and Harley the most when I leave.”

“Where are you going?” Natasha asked him, sadly already knowing the answer to that question.

Peter looked at her like it was obvious. “Back with my dad.”

“I’m going to bring up your parents, okay? Then we will all talk together.” With that, Natasha left the room to go and get Tony and Pepper who were sitting anxiously outside.

When they arrived in the bedroom, Peter looked over at them from where he had his feet on the wall still. He watched carefully as Tony and Pepper sat down on the bed and Natasha pulled up his desk chair to sit down on it.

“Peter and I were just talking. How about you tell your parents what we were talking about?” Natasha waited for Peter to correct her but he didn’t.

“We were talking about pee pee and poo poo.” Peter said with a grin and looked over at the adults who weren’t smiling so he stopped smiling and looked back at the wall.

“Can you sit up and face us please?” Pepper asked him and tapped on Peter’s arm so Peter reached his arms above his head to grab onto her hand.

“No.”

“Peter.” Tony warned, looking at his son and wishing he didn’t have to always be the bad guy but Peter didn’t listen and it was frustrating for everyone, including Peter.

Peter sat up, looking at Tony with a dirty look on his face. He moved closer to Pepper so he was sitting at her side.

The action made something flutter in Peppers stomach to have her baby close to her but she also knew that Peter was doing it to make Tony angry.

“I want to go home.” He said quietly then looked up at Natasha.

“You are home now, Peter. We talked about this.” Peter stood up and walked closer to Natasha. He let out a puff of air and whined.

“I want to go back to my dad.”

“Back to Steve?” Natasha asked and Peter nodded with a silent ‘yeah’. “Tony is your dad. I know you know that.”

Peter started chewing on his nails and looked over at Tony who was staring at him. He looked exhausted and Peter felt a bit bad because he knew that was his fault. He turned back to Natasha. “I mean Steve. I want to go back to Steve.”

“Steve is a bad person, Peter. What he did was so wrong so you can’t go back to him because this is your family. They always have been and always will be.”

Peter groaned. He felt like they were on a broken record and he was tired of hearing about it.