Start Again
Day 37
This is how it begins. Tony’s spent the week avoiding Steve, which is easy given that he has the excuse of consulting for Stark Industries to avoid SHIELD. Pepper is pleasantly surprised when Tony submits a slew of new patents for her to market, all the way from nanotech solar cells to the next six iterations of the StarkPhone. He’s holed himself up in Pepper’s suite, where no one but Peggy knows he is.
He gets enough peace, interrupted by the pinging of his phone when Clint’s bird memes come through and Bruce’s worried messages guilt trip him into deciding to come into the lab.
‘Heard from the Director you’ll be gone for a week. Looking forward to having our discussions again. You still owe me for all those formulas.’
That last message really seals the deal for Tony. He does find himself missing Bruce, and knowing that Bruce misses him too? It’s a feeling of warmth Tony’s never been used to.
He avoids the fact that Steve hasn’t sent him a message at all. It shouldn’t matter, really. They were just friends. Anything more would end up in disaster. After the disasters Tony’s gone through time and time again, he thinks he’s had more than enough for a lifetime. He wants to fix things, not break them even worse than he already has.
So, Tony’s in the lab when it happens. Bruce isn’t in yet, and Helen’s out testing her Cradle on a man with third degree burns. The prosthetic design he was stuck on is coming along nicely at last, which calms Tony down, JARVIS fabricating a prototype in the far corner to the room.
“Sorry, is Bruce in?”
Tony freezes, breathing in deep before he swivels in his chair to face the doors, which are now open. “Pretty sure you can see from the glass that Bruce is very much no here, Doctor Rogers. The medical world hasn’t developed enough for invisibility.”
Steve blanches, his face furrowing into an even more harried look. For all of Tony’s faked glib, he feels bad for the man, and is about to ask when a little voice pipes up.
“Dad? Is that Doctor Stark? You didn’t tell me you know Doctor Stark.”
Letting his gaze travel down, Tony’s eyes land on a tuft of dark brown curls, a small, chubby face, and a shirt that has a triangle with the words ‘Find x! It’s here!’. The boy is hiding half behind Steve’s legs, eyes wide with wonder.
“I, uh,” Steve stammers, “would you mind watching Peter for a moment? Everyone else is busy, and Bruce said he’d be happy to, and I wouldn’t impose on you like this, except there’s a girl who really needs a kidney transplant, and Peter will just sit and read one of his books, he won’t bother – ”
“Hey, kiddo,” Tony cuts through Steve’s ramblings as he walks towards the little boy, crouching down so that they’re eye level. “It’s alright, Doctor, I think we scientists will get along just fine, won’t we, Peter?”
Tony looks up, and he sees the relief flash through Steve’s eyes, followed by worry and uncertainty that’s quickly replaced again by firm determination. “Okay,” he tells Tony, “thank you. I’ve got to go. Be good for Tony, okay, dear?”
Peter nods, Steve bends down to press a quick kiss on Peter’s head, and then the blond rushes down the hallway, leaving Tony to stand back up awkwardly in front of the boy. Tony clears his throat.
“I lied to your dad. This is going to be a disaster. I don’t usually do this. I don’t do this at all,” Tony tells the kid seriously, and the boy just tilts his head to frown at Tony.
“I read that you’ve helped a lot of children, Doctor Stark.” The boy is still standing where Steve left him, so Tony ushers him inside the lab. He can see the kid itching to touch everything.
“Yeah,” Tony replies, “and they’re usually unconscious by the time I come in the room. Why aren’t you in school?”
The boy freezes, hands hovering in front of one of JARVIS’ holograms. There’s a sheepish look on his face. “Imixedacidwithpotassiumanditblewup.”
“What?”
“I, um, mixed hydrochloric acid with potassium and it blew up. The school called dad.”
Tony barks out a laugh, and Peter smiles hesitantly back. “Jesus, kid, they let you near those stuff already?”
“I’m not a kid. I’m eight point thirteen years old.”
“Well, you’re a smart one.” Then, clearing the chair that Steve used to claim every morning, Tony pats it. “Come here, I think this might go better than expected.”
Peter eagerly sits in front of Tony. His eyes roam over the mess that is Tony’s working space, his teeth biting his bottom lip as if trying to stop himself. He fails.
“Doctor Stark, did you really figure out how to make neuro-controlled nanobots? Like you can just make them go whoosh just by thinking? And do they really change colour? Can they really freeze a cut to stop the bleeding? How does it even know what you want?”
It’s honestly refreshing to meet this unbridled excitement. The kid is vibrating with it, and his questions are actually good, intelligent. There’s a little hope, then, that waiting for Bruce will be less of a horror than Tony thought.
“Want to see something cool?”
Peter nods eagerly.
“But,” Tony adds, in a lower, conspirational voice, “you can’t tell your dad, and you have to call me Tony.”
The small frown on the boy’s face really looks like Steve’s. It’s amazing that Peter is adopted when they’re so similar. “I don’t like keeping a secret from my dad, and he says it’s impolite to call people their names straight away. Like, Doctor Banner is Uncle Bruce, not just Bruce.”
Hell, no, Tony thinks. There is no way he can form such an emotional bond with this kid. There is no way he can form any bond with any kid if his sanity and conscience were to stay as intact as possible. It wouldn’t be fair to Peter, too. Tony would keep comparing him to someone Tony didn’t even know, would keep wondering and wondering.
Luckily, Peter comes up with a solution. “Would Mr. Tony be fine, Doctor? Dad didn’t tell me if you’re an Uncle or a Grandpa.”
“You’re a little sh – shell clam aren’t you?”
There’s a wide smirk on Peter’s face, those brown eyes going wide and filling with innocence. “Weren’t you going to show me something, Mr. Tony?”
Good God, Tony thinks. “Yeah, okay, watch this.”
He pulls his sleeve up to reveal the glass face of his watch. Then, using his left hand to tap two fingers on it, Tony makes a circular, anti-clockwise motion and pulls. As the million tiny robots race up his wrist, his palm, his fingers, Tony looks up to see the unrestrained awe on Peter’s tiny face. When the glove forms completely in red and gold colours, Tony raises his palm towards Peter and lets his mind command a spark of electricity, the center of the glove lighting up in a pure white.
“Woah,” Peter gasps, his fingers reaching over the table between the two of them to brush against the tips of Tony’s gloved ones. Tony regrets for a second designing these bots to transmit feeling, because the touch of Peter’s small hands sends a shock of something through Tony that he has to struggle to contain.
“So, is there more to this than a really fancy flashlight, Mr. Tony?”
Tony sputters. “I’ll have you know, young man, that this is a portable EKG. Very useful for first aid, saved a few lives already.”
Peter didn’t have to know that it didn’t save the lives that Tony wanted it to, that in the wrong hands it could turn into a weapon of mass destruction, that it could scorch holes through walls and burn through flesh. There was a reason, after all, that Tony feared Obadiah Stane.
“Oh! I also heard you made an AI. Can I meet them? And your bots? Did you really make them when you were fourteen? Where are their brains? Do they have feelings?”
Tony’s taken aback. The cheer of the kid makes it really hard to be morose or bitter. Already, Tony can feel another wave of excitement crest over him at Peter’s genuine enthusiasm.
“Hey Butterfingers? Come meet Rogers Junior, here.”
When Peter teaches the poor bot how to play catch while simultaneously destroying half of Tony’s lab in the process of zooming around, Tony finds himself inexplicably smiling so wide and laughing so hard in a way he thought he’d forgotten.
Steve comes back five hours later. He finds Tony, Bruce, and Peter sprawled on the floor with a box of pizza between them, Butterfingers wearing a captain’s hat Peter folded out of Tony’s paperwork and JARVIS constructing a hologram chemistry kit.
Tony turns to greet Steve, and Steve’s taken aback by how happy Tony looks, and how Peter looks so comfortable leaning against the bot’s stand.
“Thanks for taking care of Peter,” Steve says, standing awkwardly over their little circle.
“How’s the girl?” Tony asks, offering a slice of pepperoni pizza to Steve, who takes it eagerly. Bruce scoots over, and Steve gives in, sitting down with the rest of them.
Around his bite of pizza, Steve answers, “she made it. Still in the ICU, but it should be safe to move her out by tonight.”
There’s a satisfied hum from his left where Tony sits. In front of him, Peter’s looking between Steve and Tony with a contemplative look that Steve’s beginning to learn to fear.
“Dad? Can I please stay with Mr. Tony for the rest of today? I’m sorry about school, and I know you still have work.”
Something in Steve’s chest tightens and loosens simultaneously. He studies the openness he realised he’d never seen on Tony, the fondness written clearly in the crinkles of his eyes. Steve knows, then and there, that whatever Tony might have been in the past, he can trust Tony. He can trust how Tony looks at Peter as if he’s the most miraculous thing in the world.
As for Peter’s apology, well, nobody could ever say no to that pleading look of Peter’s, could they?
At the end of the day, Steve’s exhausted by the time he swings by the East Wing’s labs again. It’s nine, and he’d gotten a message from Tony two hours ago that they’d ordered in some Chinese.
‘Made sure Peter got his greens ;)he’ll do anything to play with JARVIS.’
Steve had managed to text back a quick thank you before his pager buzzed again.
Bruce’s lab is dark, but Helen is hunched over her computer next to Tony, who’s balancing a sleeping Peter in one hand as his other waves about the hologram DNA sequencing hovering in mid-air.
It’s so domestic that Steve stops to stare for a while before he can compose himself enough to swipe his key card.
Tony looks up when he hears the doors slide open, the left corner of his mouth curving up slightly. “Your little guy fell asleep around fifteen minutes ago,” he murmurs in greeting. Helen gives Steve a little wave, too absorbed in equations to do anything more.
Steve walks over, holding out his hands so Tony can give Peter to him, and Peter clings tiredly onto Steve, burrowing his head into his shoulder. Tony follows them out, hands stuffed nervously in his pockets. Steve can feel the buzzing of his energy.
“Thank you so much for today,” Steve whispers.
When they’re out of the glass doors and in the deserted corridors, Tony clears his throat. “He’s really something else, Rogers. Double trouble with that brain and energy.”
“Yeah, I’m lucky to have him.”
Tony rocks back on his heels. “Well then, I, uh – ”
“Coffee? Tomorrow?” Steve bites his lips, trying to stop himself from blurting out even more embarrassing words.
There’s a small smile on Tony’s face, though.
“You know where to find me,” Tony tells him.
Underneath the bright glare of the white lights above them, the shadows on Tony’s face are chased away, and for the first time since he met this crazy, crazy man, Steve thinks that he’s finally starting to understand the Tony to Tony Stark.