Town
Tony mindlessly watched the sky, swirling patterns in the dirt beneath him. Surprisingly, the weight of the boy curled up against his lap was… comforting, to say the least. Tony wondered how he had gained the kid’s trust already, and whether he would be able to sustain a real relationship with someone who’s past was ravaged by experiments and torture.
Peter’s chest rose and fell evenly, and Tony kept one protective hand rested against the small of his back.
“Piccola piuma,” he murmured softly. The words sounded right against his tongue, and he wondered whether Peter spoke anything aside from English.
The boy squirmed slightly, reaching up blearily and rubbing one eye with his fist.
“T’ny?” He asked quietly. The mechanic looked down to his lap and smiled as Peter stared up at him with wide eyes.
“Hey kiddie,” he greeted softly. “How’d you sleep?” Peter looked down and then back up with a small blush on his cheeks.
“Did I sleep here the whole night?” He asked sheepishly.
“No, not the whole night. We still have a few hours of darkness left.” Tony smiled, watching Peter shyly lift his head away from his lap. “And yeah, you slept on me the whole time.” Peter’s cheeks brightened under the faint light of the moon. “But it’s okay, I don’t mind.”
“You don’t?” Peter asked timidly. Tony shook his head adamantly.
“You’re like a little space heater,” he joked. “It’s all good, you don’t have to worry about me,” he pressed. “But you do need to get enough sleep,” Tony eyed the dark rings marring the pale skin below Peter’s eyes. “You deserve proper rest for once in your life.” Peter flushed slightly pink before nodding gratefully.
“Um… do you want me to move?” Peter asked quietly, gesturing to where his head was still hovering above Tony’s knee.
“No, you’re good where you were,” he mumbled, settling in himself and wincing as his back scratched against the rough wall of rock. “Once the sun comes up, we can trek into the little town I pointed out earlier and get some proper camping gear.” He sighed, watching Peter tentatively shuffling back into place, his small head coming down to rest against his knee.
“Are you gonna stay with me?” Peter asked.
“What do you mean?” Tony tilted his head at an odd angle to look down at the boy who was currently blinking up at him curiously.
“I mean… what’re we going to do? A – are you gonna give me back? Do we just keep walking through the forest until we find something? Is there a plan?” Peter nibbled at his lower lip and Tony softened immediately.
“I’m never giving you back to HYDRA, kid.” Peter seemed to visibly calm at that, his metaphorical hackles lowered as he shifted a bit further into Tony’s lap. “But, to be honest… I didn’t really get as far as a plan, so I guess we’ll wander around until I can find us a place to live somewhere away from here.”
“M’kay,” the boy murmured, his chin shifting to the side and his feet awkwardly stretching out like Tony had encouraged him to. The man watched Peter wriggling around until he finally settled, his eyes fluttering shut as he nodded off.
“Night kiddie,” he said softly. Peter smiled in his sleep.
----
When Tony next opened his eyes, there was sun piercing through the pine trees and lighting up the small cover beneath the rock wall. Peter was still asleep, his head resting in his lap with an arm clutching the bottom of Tony’s shirt. His eyes moved beneath his eyelids and his fist clenched and unclenched every few minutes.
Tony stretched as best he could without disturbing Peter. He looked down and smiled when the boy wriggled closer in his sleep. He was far more trusting when he slept, he wasn’t afraid to cling on.
Eventually, Tony decided he needed to wake Peter up. “Kid?” He asked. “Peter, you awake?” The boy wrinkled his nose and clenched his fist. “Come on, up and at ‘em,” Tony encouraged.
“Hmph?” Peter made a small noise in protest, his eyelashes fluttering. “T’ny?” He slurred tiredly, his fist untangling from the man’s shirt and instead lifting up to rub at his eye.
“Morning,” Tony greeted, watching Peter wake himself up. “If we want breakfast and proper clothes, we should probably get moving soonish.”
“Breakfast?” Peter asked curiously, tilting his head to the side in confusion. Tony wondered whether or not Peter had ever been given a properly sized meal.
“Breakfast,” Tony repeated. “You know, eggs on toast, cereal, fruit, bacon, pancakes, the whole lot.” Peter blinked, clearly lost. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll find you something nice.” Tony stood, his knees cracking, joints popping uncomfortably. Jeez, he was too old to sleep on the floor, he reminded himself.
Peter did the same, except his joints didn’t pop and crackle like fireworks. He was young, incredibly young, Tony thought as he watched the boy shrugging the guard’s coat over his small frame. But despite everything, Peter buttoned the coat and looked up at Tony, a smile on his face as they began walking.
Tony took the lead, but occasionally he looked down to his right and felt the young boy brushing against his side. The terrain wasn’t rough, but the pine needles were slippery and small pinecones poked against their feet irritatingly.
After only twenty odd minutes, Peter picked up on the distant sounds of other people, and Tony noticed the trees beginning to thin and spread out.
Peter shuffled closer, his fingers itching against the air to reach up and hold the sleeve of Tony’s shirt as his mind whirled. He wondered whether there were HYDRA agents at the small village, or if there were people that would want to hurt him, or even Tony.
Peter glanced up at Tony wearily, his eyebrows furrowing. “You should tuck your wings away,” the man suggested. Peter wiggled his back and managed to press his wings up against his back. He looked back up, expecting a pleased nod from Tony, but instead the man looked confused.
Tony leaned back to survey what Peter had done exactly, before asking, “may I?”
“Uh huh,” Peter murmured.
“So, these here,” Tony began, gently ghosting a finger over the largest bone, “are the bones that you tuck up against your back here…” Peter hesitantly lifted his wing as Tony peeked beneath it to tap at the space on either side of his spine.
Peter let Tony lightly guide his wing back, his feathers felt soft against his own spine, but Tony worried as he felt the thin, brittle texture of Peter’s feathers. “And then all you need is a proper coat to hide the little lumps your wings make, then nobody should be the wiser.” He forced a smile, his hands lifting away from the boy’s wings as he pulled the guard jacket on overtop of his shirt and wings.
Tony wondered if it was the malnutrition that had degraded the state of Peter’s wings, or if there was another issue he wasn’t aware of. “So, the plan is to get us both some proper jackets, then some warmer clothing, and then food.” He glanced over at Peter, noting the tiny diameter of his wrists, the gaunt look caused by the overly accentuated cheek and collar bones. “And lots of it,” Tony added.
He spoke as he walked, reminding Peter to stay close to his side, to call out if anything was wrong, or even if he was overwhelmed by the people. “It shouldn’t be busy, it’s still pretty early in the morning,” he thought aloud.
“What if there’s people from HYDRA?” Peter asked timidly. A branch snapped beneath his foot and he stumbled awkwardly, letting Tony steady him with a gentle hand on his arm.
“Then I’ll protect you,” he said simply. Tony made a point to not point out the flush rising on Peter’s cheeks or the small smile he tried to hide. “You’ll be unrecognisable after I’ve found you some normal clothes and gotten you cleaned up a bit.” Peter smiled wider at the forest floor.
Tony wouldn’t deny he might have been biting back a grin as well.
----
When they came to the treeline, Tony hastily wrapped Peter’s coat a little tighter around his small frame and gingerly stepped out onto the nearest road.
It had to have been about six or seven in the morning, and along the street were lamps illuminating the already opened store fronts. Tony counted three separate bakery’s along the street, two clothing stores, a beauty parlour, a restaurant and a café. There was a mechanics at the end of the street and a florist which hadn’t opened yet.
“Jackets first,” Tony mumbled as he walked across the road and onto the pavement. The stones were uneven and luckily it connected to three other streets which must have offered more stores.
“I don’t… um…” Peter began shakily. “I don’t really know a – about… about money.” Tony turned to see Peter reading the chalkboard sign in front of the first bakery.
“That’s okay,” he assured evenly. He continued walking along the street, looking through the windows but not drawing attention to himself or the small boy trailing along after him. “I would never have expected you to pay for anything.” Peter looked at the ground, nodded once, and continued to follow after Tony as he turned into one of the clothing stores.
The bell rang, Peter flinched in response. The woman at the counter looked tired, her eyes were half-lidded, acrylic nails lazily dragged down the side of the till and she smiled at the two of them unconvincingly.
Peter touched each article of clothing as he passed the racks, marvelling at the fabrics and the softness of it all. He had grown up in a wrinkled, stained and often damp shirt, he had boxer shorts and nothing else aside from the small amount of protection his wings gave him. The clothing hanging around him on racks felt like the warmest, softest things he’d ever be able to feel in his life.
Tony was across the room, holding up a puffy jacket that was labelled as ‘downing feathers inside.’ He looked over to Peter and rocked the hanger back and forth like a question. “Well, do you wanna try it on?”
Peter opened his mouth to answer before closing it again and nodding hesitantly. He crossed the room and watched Tony unzipping the jacket and holding it out, so Peter could slip his arms into the sleeves. The material felt better than anything Peter could ever imagine. It was cold at first, but the amount of fluff he could feel made everything warm up as soon as it came in contact with his skin.
Tony watched Peter hugging himself, pushing his hand against the fabric and watching it puff back out as the downing expanded. “It’s a little big on you,” he said, noting the way Peter’s hands were swallowed by the sleeves.
“I like it,” Peter mumbled softly. “It’s perfect,” he repeated eagerly, looking up with shining eyes.
“Okay, do you want to try more on though?” Tony tried.
“I – I like this one the best,” Peter said definitively. Tony laughed quietly.
“Well, yeah. But you can get more than just this one.” He gestured to the entire wall lined with sweaters and hoodies. “You’ll probably want three or four based on how cold it was yesterday,” he shrugged. Peter blinked and began running his hands across the rest of the clothes, stopping on a few and gently wrapping them around his shoulders before hanging them over his arm.
He looks like a real kid on a shopping spree, Tony thought to himself as he shrugged on his own jacket.
In the end, Peter padded across the store and held up three jackets, the feather stuffed one he had tried first, a fleece-lined winter coat and a simple cotton sweatshirt. “Here, blue or red?” Tony asked, taking two cashmere scarfs off the rack and holding them both out to Peter.
“Um, b – blue?” Peter asked, looking as if he were afraid there was a wrong answer.
“It’s nice,” Tony praised as he wrapped the scarf around Peter’s neck. It draped over his chest slightly and his chin was buried beneath the fabric, but he could still make out the wide smile painting the boy’s face as Tony pulled the red scarf around his own neck. “Time to get you some proper shoes,” Tony said with a small chuckle.
The bottom of Peter’s pants were stained with green from the pine needles, and his socks had pinecone fragments flicking off in all directions as he bounded after Tony with the same wide grin on his face.
“Would you like me to hold these at the counter for you while you finish browsing?” The woman at the front counter asked. She sounded more awake as she spoke.
“Yes please, that’d be lovely,” Tony said with a smile. He turned on his charm on to distract from the fact that Peter had no shoes on his feet and looked like he had trampled through green food dye.
He turned back around to see Peter watching him with those round eyes, he was half-hidden behind a rack of pants, his gaze wearily shifting from Tony to the woman at the counter. Her view of Peter was blocked from where she stood, but Tony understood Peter’s hesitance to interact with anyone, he hadn’t been around anyone besides HYDRA agents and scientists up until forty-eight hours ago.
Tony set the clothing down at the counter and moved towards Peter, smiling in a way that he hoped settled the poor kid’s nerves. To his relief, Peter’s stance relaxed minutely, his shoulders dropping in a way that implied the smile had helped, or at least somewhat helped. “So, what size are you?”
Peter tilted his head to the side in the same adorably confused manor which he had already done quite often since Tony had met him. “Shoe – what size shoe, I mean,” Tony said, hoping it clarified things a bit. Peter still looked up at him with a hint of anxiety, worrying his lack of knowledge would be cause for some kind of discipline or punishment.
Tony, to his credit, merely nodded once and reached for the nearest shoe box with a relatively low number written on it. “Try these?” He phrased the sentence as a question. Both of them seemed to be as lost as each other.
The blue and grey sneakers slipped right over Peter’s pine-green socks with ease, and Tony lifted his hand to his chin in thought. “Okay, try them out, go for a little walk…”
Peter lifted his foot to take a step, but when his socked toes touched the floor again, he realised the shoe had fallen right off, not even having moved an inch. Tony laughed; Peter cracked a small smile. “Might be a tiny bit big,” Tony managed as he pulled down a second box.
“Pretty,” Peter murmured quietly. The shoes were blue with darker stitching, Tony had to loosen the laces so Peter’s foot could slip in, which was a good sign in terms of size.
“Where’s your toe at?” Tony asked, gently pressing down on the edge of the shoe until he located Peter’s big toe near the tip of the shoe but not too close. “Ah, there we go, that’s better, right?”
Peter nodded eagerly, a curl falling loose over his eye. “Alright then, lace ‘em up and have a little trot around the store, see if they’re comfy.” Peter bent down, his hands hovering over the shoe before lifting to his mouth where he began nibbling at his thumb nail nervously.
“Um… I – I don’t… I don’t know how,” he mumbled. “I’m sorry,” the boy croaked.
“Hey, no it’s cool,” Tony said quickly. He stepped in and crouched down on one knee to relieve the coil of anxiety riddled fear of doing something wrong which seemed to be a constant threat for Peter. “I got it, I got it,” he assured, knotting the shoelaces before tying them in a small bow. “There,” he sighed, smiling and looking up at Peter in cue.
Luckily the kid picked up on it and smiled back shyly.
“Thank you, Sir.”
Tony concealed a wince. They’d have to work on that ‘Sir’ issue.
“Okay, time for sappiness is over, quick march up and down the aisle and tell me if those are actually comfy, yeah?” Peter stepped forward at Tony’s words, he looked unsteady, as if he had never experienced the feeling of shoes on his feet. He padded down the aisle, back down to the jackets, promptly got distracted by a fluffy shirt, and then scurried back to Tony’s side.
“I like them,” he said bashfully. Tony nodded and circled around to pluck socks from the nearest rack. Meanwhile, Peter was tapping his feet against the floor and spinning slowly on his tiptoes like a small ballerina. The concept of shoes really seemed to enthral him.
While Tony worked his way around the store and chose some things that he knew Peter would need eventually, like pants, shirts, underwear, thermals, hats and a few items for himself, Peter watched. The boy seemed partially intrigued and nervous, somehow the concept of Tony spending money on him had twisted into a seed of worry, and he hid behind the older man when he finally shopped his way back to the register with an armful of winter gear.
The woman de-tagged and folded all the clothing, putting them carefully into paper bags and typing away at the register. Peter chewed his thumb more and Tony angled himself, so the grubbier aspects of the kid were hidden from potentially prying eyes.
“Your total is three hundred and seven,” she tapped the card reader and slid it over to Tony, who swiped a small plastic card that Peter had never seen before. He wondered how one tiny card the size of Tony’s palm could have so much money on it.
“Thanks heaps,” Tony praised, taking the large paper bag and guiding Peter to the exit. They stepped outside and Peter shuddered uncontrollably. “Let’s get some food into you, huh?”
Peter looked over to where Tony was leading them, and it smelled amazing. The two of them could smell the freshly baked pastries and loafs of bread from the bakery, and warm, yellow light leaking from the store was like a beacon to Peter, who had never had anything fresh – unless you could call grey, sludgy and medicated water ‘fresh.’
“Woah…” he murmured, letting Tony hold the door open for him as he stepped into the store. There were glass display cases holding tarts, pies, shortbread, iced donuts and rows of different bread loafs. Peter could feel his mouth watering; he had never imagined food could be something to get so excited about.
“Hungry, squirt?” Tony laughed, watching the familiar brown eyes gaze up and down the rows of baked goods.
“I… well I just can’t really believe this is… this is food? You know? Like, it – it’s so pretty and it smells so nice and –”
“Slow your roll bud, I can get you everything you want from this store, but you gotta take a breath once in a while.” Tony smiled lopsidedly, fondness deep in his eyes but unnoticed by Peter.
“O – okay, sorry – um, I don’t really know what to get… what’s good? I’ve never really… eaten anything aside from the gooey, grey stuff.” Peter was busy trying to keep himself from pressing his face against the glass while Tony cocked his head to the side and frowned, half in sympathy for the boy and half in anger directed towards the men who kept a boy in a cage.
“Hi, how can I help?” A man with greyish hair and a beard almost as thick spoke. He looked kind enough, he wore a green shirt with diamond patterns running along either side. “I’m Delmar,” he continued as Peter shuffled a little closer to Tony’s side. “You two aren’t from around here, are you?” He chuckled, picking up a pair of cooking tongs and slipping them into the glass case, pulling a small but fresh cookie. “Here,” he placed it gently on a napkin and watched as Peter hesitantly took it from Tony’s hands.
“Thank you, Sir,” he said immediately.
“We’ll take two of the donuts, the banana bread, a brownie to share and something you recommend, thanks.” Tony flashed a smile and watched Delmar slipping each item into small brown bags with ease before adding a pastry for both of them. “Keep the change,” Tony insisted as he slid over a fifty dollar note.
Delmar nodded thankfully and bent down to pick up a tabby cat which Peter seemed to marvel over with wide eyes. He placed it atop the counter and waved goodbye as Peter and Tony walked back out onto the street with the warm bags of frankly amazing smelling food.
The streetlamps were off, the sun was well on its path to setting and Tony smiled as Peter revelled in the fresh air, blinking and taking in as much as he could as they walked.
“Where to now?” The boy asked happily.
“I was thinking we could find ourselves a hotel for the day, get settled, clean up a bit and then go back out to hopefully grab some basic camping supplies.” Tony answered easily, leading Peter back to the top of the street and turning the corner to find the others which hadn’t been explored yet. “Surely one of these will have a quaint little bed and breakfast for us.”
“Like a motel?” Peter asked unsurely. “I’ve read about those before, and also hotels.”
“Yeah, like a motel,” Tony paused briefly before adding on, “good job.” He wanted to enforce the reminder that Peter was doing well out in the real world. He didn’t want to unintentionally skirt around any issues with the conditioning and sheltered life he had lived.
Peter flushed like he had last time, it didn’t surprise Tony that such a small compliment could make the poor kid so happy – at least not with how horrid his life had been up until breaking out of HYDRA.
“Oh, I think I see one!” Peter yipped in excitement. He was pointing to a beige building with pink tinted accents, the front yard was adorned with well-kept hedges and rose bushes. There was a slightly rusted chain connecting a sign to a wooden fencepost reading, “Rose Crescent Bed & Breakfast.” Tony snorted to himself at the overly white picket fence sounding name, but he was quite happy to stay somewhere so inconspicuous.
He looked over at Peter, he was smiling softly as he brushed a finger over a rose petal. He tapped his socked toes against the pavement and looked up at Tony with an even broader smile – one of appreciation and absolute trust.
“Good spotting,” Tony murmured. Peter grinned and unlatched the gate with an innocent giggle. A bee flew past and his attention was diverted. Tony shook his head tenderly.
Maybe this kid can have a somewhat normal life, at least if I stick with him to help out with the nuances of being a functioning member of society.
“Tony! Look, there’s a puppy!” Peter gasped from ahead, glee clearly evident in his voice. “Aw, his name’s Sandwich!”
Yeah, Tony thought, Peter would do just fine as the carefree, runaway sidekick to a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist.