When It’s Meant To Be

Tony was having one hell of a day.

Pepper had been gone for a few hours and Peter was just starting to calm down. Tony didn’t think it was possible but Peter cried practically non stop for an hour straight, only stopping when Tony shoved a bottle into his mouth but then he was going at it again after a few sips.

Tony wanted to have it all together and he did… to some extent.

Of course he loved Pepper but before she came into their life, he didn’t have to worry about Peter crying for someone else because that someone was always him and if he was gone then that was someone else’s ears problem, not his.

But now, there was someone else for Peter to cry for and it was breaking his heart. He was trying. He really was but sometimes it just got too much for him to handle, like now.

He is currently sitting in the bathroom with the door closed just so he could get away from Peter for a bit. He just needs five minutes of peace and somewhat silence while Peter whined and threw a tantrum in the living room.

After about a minute or two, Peter must have noticed he was missing and somehow found out he was in the bathroom because there were little fingers poking their way under the door.

“Dada?” Peter called for him. Tony could hear the sadness in his baby’s voice and it broke him. This was just a part of the life that Peter was going to have to get used to; Pepper leaving every so often for days on end.

Tony stayed silent in hopes that Peter would leave and move onto the next closer door in the house. He watched the fingers move under the door and then they were gone. The shadow shifted and then there was banging on the door.

“Dada? Dada.” Peter cried out and tried his best to reach the door handle but he couldn’t so he started crying even harder. “Dada?!”

Tony couldn’t take it. Peter knew he was in there and it wasn’t fair to the poor toddler. So he opened the bathroom door which caused Peter to fall forward onto his hands and knees which of course started the screaming that echoed through the whole house.

It was a good thing their neighbours lived far away.

“Daddy’s here. You’re okay.” Tony picked Peter up and set him on his hip while rubbing his back to try and get his two year old to calm down. He wondered if he should put Peter down for a nap right now. Then he could get two hours of uninterrupted peace.

Instead, Tony caught eye of something by the office that they had yet to use and he was extremely excited for it.

He carried Peter over to the box, thankful that Peter’s cries had died down significantly. The box was huge so Tony didn’t know how they hadn’t opened it and used it before.

Inside was a stroller for Peter.

Tony had spent a whole night picking out the best one. Of course they had more than one, the second one was somewhere in the garage, yet to be used and the two other ones were still on order, which was taking a very long time to arrive.

“Petey. Look.” Tony placed Peter on the floor but Peter started crying harder, demanding to be picked back up so Tony scooped the baby back onto his hip. “It’s a stroller, Petey. Aren’t you so excited to sit in it?”

Of course, Peter didn’t respond but Tony was excited to get it set up and go for a walk somewhere to explore the area more.

The furthest that they had gone since they moved there was up and down the street and through one of the paths that led to the ocean from their house. It wasn’t much because they had been enjoying the backyard and the pool as well as everything inside the house so Tony was excited to do some exploring with his favourite boy.

Once the stroller was unpacked from the box and ready to go, Tony grabbed Peter’s hand to bring him out to the front of the house. “Are you excited to go for our walk?” He asked and let go of Peter’s hand so he could bring both the stroller and two year old out of the house.

“Birdy, daddy!” Peter stepped out of the doorway and immediately caught his eye on a bird sitting on the top of the roof of the car. He went to go chase it off but Tony grabbed his hand.

“Come sit in your new stroller.” Tony grabbed Peter’s wrist and led him towards the stroller then picked him up and sat him inside.

The stroller was black and faced him so he could keep an eye on Peter while he pushed him but Peter was still able to look at everything around him. He found himself getting excited for something he never ever thought he would be excited for. A stroller.

“Daddy and ‘dare some’ping.” Peter tried to point in the opposite direction while Tony was attempting to get his tiny arms through the stroller straps.

“I can see that, Petey.” Tony had said even though he had no idea what Peter was pointing at. He just wanted to get him secured into his stroller so he could snap a few pictures and send it off to Pepper who he was missing immensely.

She had barely been gone for a full day but it felt like weeks had already passed. He loved his little boy more than anything but over the past few months, the three of them had built a small but beautiful family together and had gotten into a routine that worked for all of them but now they were missing part of their family and it was really hard.

He wanted to call her and tell her to come back because him and Peter needed her here but he wanted to prove to her that he was capable of looking after Peter by himself. And he was. He’s done it before, when Peter was first de-aged back when he knew absolutely nothing about changing diapers and how to properly care for a toddler, it was just different now.

He knew what it was like to have someone else in his corner and it felt good.

After sending a few pictures off to his girlfriend of Peter grinning wildly into the camera and even trying to reach for it which looked adorable, Tony put his phone back into his pocket and stood up fully, stretching out his aching legs.

“Are you ready to go for a stroll, Pete? Just you and daddy.” Tony began pushing Peter in the stroller, grateful that he got the one that faced him so he could keep an eye out on Peter at all times.

Peter happily kicked his tiny feet and looked up at the sky with wide, curious eyes. As much as Tony wanted to just live in the moment and enjoy it, he couldn’t stop himself from pulling out his phone and take more pictures of his little boy to show Pepper later because it felt like she was missing out on so much and she was.

There wasn’t going to be a moment like this again. It was gone. Peter’s first time in this stroller and their first walk around the neighborhood, it was just gone just like that, forever in Tony’s memories but not Pepper’s and he wanted her there to enjoy all the moments.

By the time they walked down to the park, Peter was in an incredibly bad mood. He was trying to get out of the stroller straps but Tony didn’t want to take him out until they were at the park.

“Wait like two more minutes, Peter.” Tony told him, becoming incredibly frustrated at Peter’s outburst. He looked around him to see if there was any eyes on him but it was mostly moms who were way too busy with their own kids crying to pay any attention to him but he was just glad he wasn’t the only one with a screaming child since the mom sitting on the bench currently looked like she was ready to start crying herself.

“Out! Out!” Peter cried and kicked his legs out, rather aggressively. They were still too short to reach Tony so he didn’t have to worry about getting kicked by chubby toddler legs.

“Wait, okay, we’re here so stop crying, Pete.” Tony pulled the stroller up to a park bench, away from everyone else just to have a little bit of privacy. He sat down and unbuckled his screaming child from the stroller and went to set him on his lap but Peter wiggled out from his grip so Tony sat him in his feet on the ground.

Peter continued to cry but his screaming stopped as he looked around the park. Tony watched him and waited for Peter to make his next move.

It took a few minutes but Peter was getting onto his hands and knees and crawling towards the park instead of walking which Tony knew he was perfectly capable of doing. He’s seen Peter run before so he didn’t know why he was suddenly crawling, and on the dirty ground too.

Tony stood up and crossed the distance between him and Peter so he could pick the toddler up and set him on his feet. “Walk, Pete. I know you know how.”

Once Tony let go of him, he fell onto his butt and started crying loudly. Tony didn’t even care at this point who was looking at him since he was more concerned about why Peter was in such a bad mood.

“What’s wrong, Pete? Why are you crying?” He asked but knew he wasn’t going to get an answer. He wished Peter could talk at times like this. He felt so helpless but he knew Pepper would know what to do.

Peter pushed himself up on Tony’s legs then put his thumb into his mouth and stopped crying. Tony was cringing at the dirty thumb in his mouth but he couldn’t do anything about it since he knew if he took it out, Peter would start screaming.

So Tony let him. He stood up fully when he watched Peter walk across the sand and over to another kid who looked to be his age. She was wearing a bright yellow dress and was playing with a shovel and a bucket.

Peter waddled over to her and bent down to grab the bucket that she was filling up, picking it up and carrying it back over to Tony. The little girl immediately started crying so Tony had to step in since Peter just snatched that kids toy.

“No, Pete. That’s not yours.” He took the bucket from his kids hands, knowing what was about to follow. Once he handed the bucket back to the little girl, she immediately stopped crying but Peter wasn’t going to stop now so he scooped him up and tried to bounce him a little bit.

“Shh, that wasn’t your toy. I should have brought some, daddy’s sorry, baby. Next time I’ll bring some toys for you.” He felt awful. He came so unprepared and now Peter didn’t have anything to play in the sand with and that was his fault.

Peter continued to cry and wasn’t stopping so Tony was really regretting bringing Peter for this walk. He clearly wasn’t in a good mood but Tony didn’t blame him. He was in a pretty grumpy mood himself.

“Do you want to just go back home, Pete? I think we should.” Tony didn’t know what to do. He was at a loss. He wanted Pepper. He needed Pepper and so did Peter.

When he went to go place Peter back in the stroller, he arched his back, making it impossible for Tony to set him inside and then he started screaming even louder so Tony placed him on the bench next to him, not knowing what else to do.

Peter sat there and cried for about five minutes before he suddenly stopped and turned around to climb off the bench before he made a dash towards the park again. Tony was immediately getting up to follow him to see what he was up to because it looked like Peter was trying to do something.

Peter ran over to the little girl again and her mother where she was sitting on the bench. Peter grabbed the shovel from her and sat down to start digging in the sand with it. Tony would have found it amusing if he wasn’t already extremely stressed out and exhausted.

He bent down to try and grab the shovel away from Peter. “I’m sorry. I forgot to bring toys to the park so he wants your daughters toys.”

The mother laughed and waved him off. “Oh don’t worry about it, it’s not a problem at all.”

Tony looked up at her and saw the she was breastfeeding another baby so he looked back at Peter, feeling incredibly guilty for being so drained when he had only one kid to look after while this mom had two kids and was feeding a child while remaining so calm.

He didn’t think that he should even feel tired, he shouldn't, right? He wasn’t feeding a whole child. He didn’t have four little legs to chase around, he just had two so there was no excuse for him being so tired. Right?

“Yeah, come on, Pete.” He pried the shovel from his kids hands and picked Peter up, ignoring the screaming that followed. He walked back towards the stroller so they could leave because he was done.

He couldn’t stay here when he clearly didn’t come prepared and failed as a parent in that aspect. Also, Peter clearly didn’t want to be here either so there was that.

He set Peter on his feet so he could get the stroller ready but Peter was squatting down and making his poop face which Tony knew all too well. He sighed because now he had to change his diaper before they left so he went to grab the wipes and diapers out from the bottom of the stroller, only to find it empty.

Tony felt like crying. For the first time, he felt like crying over feeling like a failure of a father. He wasn’t really new at this whole thing anymore. He’s been a dad for months now and yet he was still screwing up.

Tony went to pick Peter up to put him in the stroller so he could get home as quickly as possible before a rash sets in but when he went to pick Peter up, he noticed that Peter had a diaper blow out.

He defeatedly sat back down on the park bench because he had no idea what the hell he was going to do. Peter was sitting on the grass and crying while he just stared at him. He was aware that he probably looked like the worst father right now but he didn’t know what to do. He had zero diapers and zero wipes and he wasn’t about to go ask that mom for any extra ones.

Tony groaned. He stood up to look at the mess at the back of Peter’s butt by pulling his shirt away from him and cringing. He couldn’t let Peter sit in his own filth. It was at least a twenty minute walk back to the house and he was positive that a really bad diaper rash would set in by then.

He really didn’t want to go through that again.

He looked in the direction of the mom and sighed. He could suck up his own shame and ask the lady for an extra diaper and wipes because he was doing it for his son, not himself.

So he grabbed Peter’s hand and led the crying toddler across the playground to go ask for some parent help. “This is kinda embarrassing but do you have an extra diaper I could have? My kid, Uh,” He wasn’t sure how to explain it so he gently turned Peter around so the mother could see the damage.

“Of course. It happens to everyone. No need to feel embarrassed, when I had my first kid, you don’t even know how many times I had to ask random mothers for extra diapers and wipes.” She pulled out a diaper and a package of wipes to hand to Tony.

“Thank you so much. Thank you.” Tony couldn’t have been more grateful. He took both items from the lady and picked Peter up, laying him on the picnic table so he could get him quickly cleaned up.

It was disgusting. Peter had gotten it everywhere and it wasn’t possible to clean him up fully with one package of wipes alone plus he wasn’t going to use all of the wipes of the generous mother.

He removed all of Peter’s clothes, cringing when he got it on Peter’s face so he quickly wiped that off. He would be putting Peter in the bath as soon as they got home.

Peter’s crying had thankfully stopped and was now hiccuping sadly. He didn’t want to prolong the process by trying to calm Peter down since they were already past the point of no return now. Peter was in a horrible mood and Tony needed to get them home straight away.

He made quick process of cleaning Peter up the best he could while he had an audience and was trying so hard not to use up all of the women’s baby wipes. Once he had a clean diaper on Peter and disposed of the dirty one, he lifted Peter into his arms and grabbed his dirty clothes along with him.

“Thank you so much. I’m Uh, Pete’s mom isn’t here and she’s usually the one on top of everything so I’m kinda lost at the moment.” Tony couldn’t shake the mother’s hand or anything since he was pretty sure he still had poop all over his hands and possibly clothes.

“Of course. All moms look out for other moms. And dad’s.” She gave him a genuine smile and looked down at her baby to burp him. Tony didn’t have anything to possibly pay her back with so he desperately dug in his pocket to hopefully pull out some money and was extremely grateful to see that he had $100 in his pocket so while she wasn’t looking, he carefully tucked it under the package of wipes and left.

Getting Peter back into the stroller was an impossible task.

Peter was screaming and kicking at him, making it nearly impossible for Tony to get Peter into his seat without physically hurting him so Tony hoisted Peter back onto his hip and began walking home.

He had Peter in one arm and was pushing the stroller in the other which was entirely useless at this point.

Tony was regretting bringing Peter out for a walk so much at this point. The walk back to the house was tiring, both mentally and physically.

When they got to a hill they had to walk up, Tony stopped at the bottom because Peter was full on crying now and Tony’s arm had lost feeling in it a long time ago. Not to mention he was so hot and thirsty but of course he didn’t think to pack any water or bottles for Peter who was probably extremely thirsty as well from all the screaming and crying.

“Wait, Peter. I have to put you in the stroller. My arm is killing me.” Tony mumbled the last part to himself, knowing Peter was too young to care about that since all Peter was focused on was crying and apparently being held.

When Tony tried to place Peter back into his stroller, Peter started screaming even louder and arched his back, making it harder for Tony to try to buckle him into his stroller so for a second time that day, Tony gave up trying to get his two year old in and set him on his hip once again.

It was a huge relief to be back at home, even if it didn’t fully feel like home without Pepper there.

Tony missed her so much and was mentally counting down the seconds until he got to see her again.

He left the stroller outside of the house in the front and practically kicked the door open. The first thing he had to do was get Peter into a bath to clean him before a rash started so that’s what he went to go do.

“Shh, what’s wrong, Petey? Why are you crying so much?” Tony had no idea what the problem was. It clearly had nothing to do with the toy bucket that he had taken away from Peter at the park because if it was, Peter would have forgotten about it by now so it was something else but Tony didn’t know what it was.

He listened to the crying as he went upstairs and walked into the master bathroom to begin the dreadful process of bath time. Usually, it was both Peter’s and Tony’s favorite time of the day but today, it definitely was not.

The whole day had been awful and it wasn’t even halfway done yet.

“Peter, it’s time for a bath so just…” Tony didn’t even know what he was asking for. He would appreciate it if Peter stopped crying and went back to his happy, toddler self but that wasn’t going to happen again so he had to deal with the hard part of being a parent which was this.

It wasn’t always going to be happy giggles and laughs in the park, he knew that and if the past few hours was anything to go by, he had to really appreciate the good days.

Tony set Peter onto the bath rug to try and take the diaper off of him but Peter was standing up and trying to run away but Tony was faster and managed to shut the door before Peter got to it. “Stop. Peter, calm down for two seconds. There’s nothing to cry about.”

If anything, that only made Peter start crying even harder. He grabbed onto the side of the bathtub and tried to bang his head on it so Tony quickly took the diaper off of him and lifted him into the bathtub.

Peter reached his arms up for Tony to take him out but Tony didn’t. He grabbed the baby soap that was extra gentle on Peter’s skin and started to clean him up so he could get him out of the bath as quickly as possible.

Peter stopped reaching up for him once he realized that Tony wasn’t going to pick him up and instead stood up himself. He looked off in the distance and continued to cry.

“Mama!” Peter cried out which had Tony pausing. He turned around just to see if Pepper was there but there was no one behind him. Peter cried even harder and started bouncing on the spot, desperately wanting to get out. “Mama mama! Wan’ mama.”

Tony’s heart was breaking. He wanted Pepper as well but they had to wait a few more days, even if he was going crazy without her.

“Aww baby. I know. I know, baby. I miss mommy too but she’ll come back home to us soon and then we’ll all be back together.” Tony leaned into the tub to press a quick kiss to Peter’s cheek and then pulled away so he could quickly finish cleaning up Peter and get him out of the bath, hoping there was going to be no more blowouts tonight.

It took less than twenty minutes for Tony to completely clean Peter up and lift him out of the tub, wrapping him in a warm, fluffy towel. He couldn’t help but let his thoughts wander off and think about Pepper and what she was up to or what they would all be doing together as a family if she was at home with them where she belonged.

He hated that she was in a different state, practically on the other side of the country.

After carrying Peter into the master bedroom where all of his stuff currently was, Tony was going to let Peter air dry for a bit but he didn’t want to risk any messes so he grabbed a diaper, rash cream and a bodysuit to dress Peter in.

He laid Peter out on the bed and unwrapped him from his towel, grateful that the crying had stopped for now although he knew it was bound to start up again. He just hoped he got a few minutes of silence before that happened.

Tony looked down at his son and felt so bad for him. Peter didn’t understand what was going on, he just knew that his mommy was gone and he didn’t know why or when or even if she was coming back.

If Peter still had his teen mind intact, which Tony was almost certain was completely gone, otherwise Peter would have been freaking out about him currently applying the rash cream onto him. He sighed with his thoughts, at times like this, he did miss his teenage son but that was what he had to look forward to in the future. The way, way distant future.

He just wasn’t able to tell Peter that Pepper would be home soon.

He needed to try anyways since it was hurting him to see Peter hurt like that. “It’s okay, Pete, mommy’s coming home soon.”

Peter stared up at him. “Mama home.”

He nodded. “Soon, Petey. She’ll come home soon.”

Tony got a clean diaper on Peter as he started kicking his legs out and his face scrunching up. “Mama.”

“She’s in New York, Pete. She’s not here right now.” Tony told him once again just before Peter bursted out crying again.

Little did Tony know that it wasn’t going to stop for the rest of the day and carry into the night as well.