Getting Settled
After dinner Tony was passed around by each of the Avengers as they all proceeded to tidy the kitchen and lend a hand. At some point he was sat down on a counter which was, much to his dismay, far too tall to jump off of. So, in classic two-year-old fashion, he started making little noises that sounded like a mix between a hum and a cry, and hoped they'd inspire someone to come save him. He didn't entirely notice the noises he was making til' Bruce approached him with a questioning look.
"You okay Tony?" He felt his face go hot with embarrassment, but it didn't stop him from lifting his arms in an obvious request to be held. At first the Bruce looked resistant to the idea, and Tony, having already noticed that Bruce had been the only Avenger not to pick him up yet, lowered his arms in resignation and decided he'd have to wait for another team member to come collect him. He shoved one tiny fist into his mouth chewing absentmindedly on his knuckles when suddenly, the scientist scooped him up and held him stiffly. He shrugged when Tony raised his eyebrows at him, "I was nervous the other guy would come out when I picked you up. I don't know why. Sorry, it's stupid I know. It's just... you're so small and-" he was cut off by the feeling of something pressing against his chest, and looked down to see the young engineer giving him the tiniest hug he'd ever experienced. Any worries he had slipped away. The other guy wasn't coming out any time soon.
Bruce took Tony out to the living room, where Clint and Natasha were settled on the couch arguing over what movie to watch (a day of battle tradition), and Thor and the Captain were discussing the creatures they'd been fighting that morning. Thor was planning on leaving earth the next day to confront the army of beasts, which made Tony feel very satisfied. Bruce had informed Tony on the way to the living room that he was allowed to join them, but he had to at least try to fall asleep. True to his word, Bruce, who'd settled next to Natasha, wrapped Tony in a blanket, and was cradling him so he couldn't even see the screen properly. He squirmed a little in his friends arms, and saw Natasha reach her hand over and stroke his head.
"Settle down baby."
"Not a baby." He retorted almost instantly.
"Hmmmm, really? You've got soft baby hair." Her voice was so quiet it was a hum. Tony squirmed a little more knowing that she was trying to relax him into falling asleep. It was only seven for christs sake! She leaned over more, and pulled him from a relieved looking Bruce's arms. "Come on squirmy. Let's go for a walk." She stood up with Tony in her arms, and began walking around the floor. They travelled mindlessly around the floor, Natasha bouncing Tony the whole time, and speaking gently to him in a language he didn't understand but found comforting. He liked the way the words rolled of her tongue, and the subtle way her r's bubbled and her k's clicked in the back of her throat. Finally after twenty or so minutes, he felt sleep tugging at his eyes, and gave in. He managed to murmur,
"God dammit." As he was pulled further away from consciousness.
Tony's first day as a two-year-old was wholly tortuous right from the moment it started. Upon waking up, he found himself in an unfamiliar room with an unpleasant sensation originating from in between his legs. He felt cold and wet, and he knew instantly what'd happened. He sat up, straining his eyes to look around the dark room. He'd been curled up in a love seat, and across from him in a bed, he identified a sleeping figure as Clint. Tony couldn't help the soft whine that escaped his lips, but despite how quiet it was, it jolted the archer out of his seemingly deep sleep instantaneously.
"Morning bud." He sat up and stretched his arms out, then walked over to Tony. "How was your sleep?" Tony couldn't respond. He simply looked down in humiliation. It didn't take Clint long to figure out what was wrong. "Oh, Tones." He sounded pitying, and Tony hated it. He pulled back the sheets, revealing that they were still dry. "At least the towel worked. I'm sure that the stuff we ordered has been delivered by now. We can probably find you something more comfortable to wear." Tony whined again,
"NO! No Cwint, don' wanna." He winced at how he suddenly sounded like a real two year old. How long would it be till his language skills regressed? Clint tried to hide a smirk at Tony's pronunciation.
"Come on, don't you want to get out of that?" He was trying to appeal to Tony's adult side, but at the moment, Tony was feeling very much like throwing an age-appropriate temper tantrum.
"Nooooo!" Clint sighed, and grabbed Tony under his arms before he could wriggle away. "Let's go pal. Time to get you changed."
When they reached the communal floor, Tony found out that Clint was right. In the living room, Steve was constructing a play pen, and a high chair (Tony decided in that moment that he'd use neither), and Natasha was unpacking a bag of various baby items ranging from toys to pacifiers and bottles, but worst of all, a pile of the supplies necessary for changing a diaper. Natasha smiled at the pair when then entered the room, but Tony just continued to whimper. Clint smiled back at her,
"Hey Nat. Sorry about this one, he's a little fussy. He had an accident," he put a strange emphasis on the last word, "and when he woke up this morning his speech was well... different." Tony buried his hands in his face to avoid looking at either of the smirking assassins.
"Right. Well, the changing supplies are over there."
Tony never wanted to think about what happened next ever again.
Once Clint had finally managed to get a kicking Tony into a clean diaper, and an iron man snap onesie, he helped him up, and guided him into the kitchen. He couldn't help but chuckle a little at how cute Tony looked waddling shakily with his legs spread a touch to accommodate the diaper. In the kitchen, Bruce was busy cooking pancakes and scrambled eggs. He grinned at Tony when he entered the room.
"Hey Iron Man! Look at you!" He picked him up, and swung him in the air making playful vrooming noises. Tony giggled childishly, before realizing what he was doing, and stopping abruptly. Bruce felt his heart melt a little at the noise. "Breakfast is almost ready bud. Clint, can you go grab his high chair from Steve?" Clint left momentarily, as Bruce settled Tony on his hip, and returned with not only a high chair, but a little plastic plate and utensils, as well as a sippy cup. Tony wrinkled his nose at the objects. Clint smirked and said,
"If you cooperate, I'll let you have juice with your breakfast, even though it's way to sugary for the morning." He was teasing, but was surprised to see that Tony actually looked interested in the offer. He took the momentary distraction as an opportunity to slip Tony into the highchair, and fasten the straps. For the second time since he'd transformed, Tony began to cry.
"No Cwint! Pwease!" Clint sighed and lifted Tony back up out of the chair. His face was pressed into Clint's shoulder, but he caught Bruce giving Clint a curious look. Tony felt the archer shrug underneath him.
"His speech was changed when he woke up this morning." Tony huffed into Clint's arm as the tears slowed. The archer smiled down at the toddler, and carried him over to the fridge, holding the sippy cup in his other hand. He sat Tony down on the island, and filled the cup with apple juice, which was only in the fridge because Thor had recently discovered the beverage, and had suddenly gone through what could be described as an apple juice cleanse. He screwed the lid on, and tilted it towards the child, allowing him to calm down and begin enjoying his drink before transporting him back into the dreaded chair. This time, Tony only gave a soft whimper as he was clipped in. Clint handed him the sippy cup as the others began filing into the dining room. Bruce placed a Cap's shield shaped plate of eggs and cut up pancake on Tony's tray. By the time the other Avengers had finished loading up their plates and were beginning to eat, Tony was still frowning angrily at the plastic utensils he'd been given. Trying to encourage Tony to start eating too, Bruce lifted a spoonful of eggs towards Tony's mouth. Tony kicked and turned his head away, but after a few minutes of fussing and realizing that it wasn't deterring Bruce, Tony finally turned and accepted the food. Bruce smiled proudly, and offered the spoon to Tony, who snatched it from him. He tried to get another spoonful of eggs, but whined realizing it was a lot harder than he thought. Bruce gave Tony a sympathetic look before taking the spoon from him, and proceeding to feed him the whole plate of food, small bite by small bite. It was a slow process that took almost an hour. But, by the time they'd finished, everyone was still lounging in various places around the dining room drinking coffee, which much to Tony's chagrin he hadn't been offered any of. Tony found it strange that while the team rarely ate breakfast together (infact, rarely ate breakfast at all), they were all still sitting there long after they'd finished eating. Eventually, Bruce unbuckled Tony, and lifted him into his arms.
"I'm going to take him down to the medibay to give him a check up. I realized I never got the opportunity to look him over yesterday." Tony squirmed at this, but Bruce ignored it. He smiled at the little boy in his arms seeing that his eyes were beginning to glaze over. "Tired already Tony?" Tony shook his head, trying to wake himself up.
"Body jus' wanna' sweep an' cwy." Tony frowned in frustration at his current situation, while Bruce on the other hand was laughing. He stopped in the living room to grab a few things from the pile of baby stuff Natasha had unpacked, careful to keep them out of Tony's eye line. He hoped that he could get Tony to take a nap in the medbay so he could do the checkup without complaints. "Wha' hiding?" Bruce shook his head,
"Nothing Tony." Tony looked disbelieving, but didn't press any further as they boarded the elevator.
Down in the medibay, Bruce took Tony into a private room, and set the items from the pile on a counter, afterwards setting Tony down on the examination table. The toddler lay down on the table without being asked to. He still looked extremely tired.
"Take a nap bud." Tony perked up just enough to give Bruce a nasty look.
"No' tiwed!" Bruce hummed in disbelief. He decided that if he was going to present the baby items to Tony, he might as well do it sooner rather than later. He grabbed the iron man plush from the counter, and sat down on a stool in front of Tony presenting it to him. He raised his eyebrow, curious to see Tony's response. Tony pushed it away crankily, just as Bruce had expected.
"I'm gonna' have to draw blood Tony are you sure you don't want something to hold?" Tony still looked offended and cranky, but behind the look Bruce could see childish fear at the prospect of a needle. This time when he offered the toy to Tony, the little boy took it silently with a touch of pink in his cheeks. Bruce smiled and ran a comforting hand through Tony's hair before turning to prepare the materials needed to draw blood. He slipped on gloves, and turned back to the child. Tony had had blood drawn many times, and it never scared him, but this time he bit his lip and held the plushie closer as the needle punctured his skin. It wasn't til' the needle was retracted that tears flooded his eyes. Bruce placed a bandaid on Tony's arm, and kissed Tony's arm consolingly. This seemed to calm him down, and thankfully, the tears never fell. "You did so good," he said softly. "I want to have a look at the arc reactor now. Maybe you should try to sleep." Tony frowned, still looking red faced from the near-cry.
"No' tiwed Bwuce." Bruce decided it was time to introduce the other item he'd grabbed from the pile. He ripped opening the packaging on the green hulk-themed pacifier he'd grabbed. He winced a little when he noticed the theme. He hadn't meant to do that. He turned to show Tony, who looked absolutely mortified. He must have been tired though, because he didn't protest when Bruce slipped in between his slightly open lips. It only took a seconds for him drift into sleep.
Tony woke in the playpen he'd seen being built earlier. In the crib with him was the iron man plushie, but now it was accompanied by the rest of the avengers. He rolled over, and sat up with some difficulty. Jarvis spoke up from the ceiling,
"Sir, would you like me inform to someone that you've waken?" Tony went to tell Jarvis to get someone to take him out of the cage he was in, but all that came out was a garbled noise, when he realized he still had a pacifier in his mouth. He spit it out promptly, looking at it with disgust before making his request to JARVIS. Natasha was the first to enter the room.
"Hey babe. You had a long nap!" She commented as she picked him up. He rubbed his eyes trying to wake up as much as he could. "Steve is off briefing SHIELD on the situation, and Bruce is down in the lab checking your blood. So, you're stuck with Clint and I for the next few hours." She gave a small smile, but it was largest genuinely kind smile he'd ever seen her give. He nuzzled closer into Natasha. "Movie?" She asked him. He was happy that unlike the others, she was asking him what he wanted. He nodded,
"Yes pwease." Natasha settled on the couch with Tony cuddled on top of her.
"JARVIS, can you please inform Clint that he's needed immediately in the communal living room?" Tony giggled when Clint entered a few minutes with his battle gear and weaponry, looking confused.
"Is there a mission?"
"No. We're watching a movie."
"Oh. I thought it was something serious" Clint shot Natasha a nasty look as he settled next to her on the couch.
"Movie is impor'an'!" Tony declared. Clint smiled and ruffled his hair. Tony turned in Natasha's lap to face the screen. Slowly, his fist made its way into his mouth as he began to relax.
"Don't chew on your hand Tony." Tony ignored her, and continued gnawing on his knuckles. He quickly learned that was the wrong choice when she reached down and grabbed a second pacifier off the pile of stupid baby stuff. She took the soother (this one was Thor-themed) out of the packaging, and wrestled Tony's hand from his mouth, before popping it in as a replacement. She held her finger over it for a moment, until Tony quit trying to spit it out. It really wasn't that bad once he got used to it, he just wished he didn't have an opportunity to get used to having a fricking pacifier in his mouth. He was an adult, but for some reason, none of them seemed to understand that. Clint ruffled his hair,
"Sorry bud."
"I'm not," deadpanned Natasha. "chewing on your fingers is gross, and bad for your teeth."
"Come on Nat, he's just a baby." Natasha referenced to Tony,
"He looks more uncomfortable with that statement than with the pacifier." Tony was getting tired of their arguing, and reached over to grab the remote from Clint. He was planning on playing the first movie he found just to get them to stop arguing.
"Hey punk! Clint snatched back the remote from Tony. He selected Star Wars: A New Hope. All three of them settled down, and no one spoke after that, enjoying the movie. That was the way Bruce found them when he came upstairs an hour or so later. Natasha paused the movie to ask the scientist if he'd seen in anything in Tony's blood.
"No. I'm not sure if I should be annoyed I didn't find anything to change him back, or glad his blood toxicity level isn't higher than it should be. All I can say is that we're lucky the arc reactor shrunk with him. Bruce sat down on the couch next to Clint, looking scruffy and tired. Tony sighed with satisfaction at the scene around him. Yeah, being two wasn't fun (actually Nat had informed him that Bruce had discovered he was just under two), but at least he had a team by his side to help him through it, and that made him feel pretty lucky. Little did he know that his night was going to take a turn for the worse.