Caregiver

“That’s why I don’t like wearing pull-ups!” Clint complained as he tried to take it off as fast as he could without losing his balance, unsuccessfully. Phil hurried to stand in front of him, placing his hands on Clint’s upper arms to stop him from falling down.

“We’re not having that conversation again,” Phil warned. Clint’s face puckered in annoyance, but he knew better than to argue about it, so he just let Phil help him out of the pull-up and the rest of his clothes before rushing out of the living room, stark naked.

Tony squirmed in his arms, in a way Steve perceived a willingness to follow Clint’s steps. Steve’s grip around his waist tightened, making Tony protest and Phil turned to look at him questioningly.

“I…,” Steve trailed off, not sure of what to say or do.

Never in the time they’d been the Avengers had the alarm to assemble gone off when Tony had been that deep in his Little headspace. It had happened right after he’d snapped back to his adult mindset, after he’d had a temper tantrum, and when he’d been furious at Steve, but never when he’d been Little. It wasn’t that surprising, really, given the fact that the times Tony allowed his baby counterpart to come up were very rare; and it wasn’t like they were required to assemble that often either.

Therefore, the fact that something so improbable was happening right now left Steve unable to make a quick decision. Part of his – their – training consisted on coming up with hypothetical situations and planning how to better approach them, and just now he realized he’d never consider this a possibility.

Tony continued squirming in his arms, a combination of a pout and a glare on his face. Steve’s stomach churched with apprehension as he pulled the baby into a hug, his dreading eyes darting anxiously over Phil’s face.

What was he supposed to do? Should he join the others in battle or should he stay with Tony? Iron Man wouldn’t be joining the battle for obvious reasons, SHIELD had no problem with letting Littles in the battlefield as long as they were in the right mindset, something in which Tony clearly wasn’t. But that only meant the team was already a member short, one of the most powerful and resourceful ones, and if Captain America was absent too, well, that just didn’t look good for the Avengers.

A little voice inside his head – which sounded identical to his Captain America persona – told him the correct thing to do was to stand up and go with Phil and Clint, though every fiber of his being disagreed. Steve could justify his desire to stay by arguing a Little should be never left alone, but he knew JARVIS wouldn’t hesitate to step up and look after baby Tony if it was necessary (due to its creator’s stubbornness, it wouldn’t be the first time the A.I. had to take control of a suit in order to be able to babysit him). However, as much as Steve trusted JARVIS, concentrating in battle would be almost impossible for him knowing he’d abandoned the baby – not to mention it would be a huge step back in his already fragile relationship with Tony to choose a battle over him when he was at his most vulnerable.

Yes, Steve was caught between a rock and a hard place right now, and whatever option he decided to take would bring him consequences he wasn’t sure he wanted to face.

“You can stay,” Phil said after Steve failed to utter even one word.

“W-what?”

“You can stay,” Phil repeated, voice serious but not reproving. “I’ll go ahead and find out what’s going on. If it’s a code blue threat, I’ll let you know,” he promised, offering a nod of encouragement before running towards the elevator and disappearing behind its doors.

For a few minutes, Steve enjoyed the peace brought by having been taken a great burden off his back.

“NO!” Tony roared when Steve tried to get closer, curling up tighter. Steve held out his hands in what was apparently supposed to be some sort of calming gesture, but it had no such effect on Tony.

“Tony, baby, I’m not gon–,”

“NOT BABY!” Tony interrupted him, and Steve kicked himself for having made such a rocky mistake. Endearments and caught-between-two-headspaces Tony simply didn’t mix well together.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” Steve apologized, refraining himself from taking another step forward, afraid of making things worse.

Fifteen minutes. It had only taken fifteen minutes for everything to go to hell.

In spite of his efforts to avoid the situation to yank Tony out of his Little headspace, Steve hadn’t been able to accomplish it. He’d taken the baby back to the nursery, hoping its soothing surroundings helped to maintain him calm; he’d encouraged him to continue playing, trying to keep his mind occupied; and he’d even attempted to make him take a nap, though Tony had refused to be faked out by any of those things. Steve feared all that had only worsened things, and Tony forced his adult mindset to the surface rougher and faster than he should have.

“Tony, please,” Steve begged, a prickling sensation crawling over his skin, his whole body craving to touch him, to embrace him.

“NO! GO!”

“Tony, I’m not going anywhere,” Steve promised in a stern tone of voice.

Tony’s face screwed up even more and turned redder. “GO!”

“No Tony, I’m not going anywhere, I’m not leaving you alone.”

“ME!” Tony fumed, his eyes darting between Steve and the door.

Oh. So Tony wanted to…

Great.

“No Tony, you can’t go either,” Steve stated, and it was clear Tony liked that piece of information even less than the previous one.

“Clint...” Tony trailed off.

Steve heaved a heavy sigh, perfectly understanding what Tony meant. “Clint wasn’t little.”

“NOT LITTLE!” Tony argued, though his tear-stained cheeks as well as his inability to create complete sentences said otherwise.

Going out of his Little headspace wasn’t any easier for Tony than it was slipping into it, especially if he was forced to snap out rather than ease out of it. The internal struggle and repudiation he always experienced whenever he began feeling Little seemed to be worse when he got back to his adult mindset and realized he’d succumbed yet once more. And if the impossibility of going fighting was added, well, no wonder why Tony was having such a meltdown.

Clint, on the other hand, experienced nothing of the sort. He was able to swap from one mindset to the other in the blink of an eye as if were nothing. Whether it was because he’d trained to do so since it was required in his line of work or because the amount of time he spent in both headspaces was pretty well balanced, Steve didn’t know, but he was tempted to believe it was the latter.

“I’m sorry, Tony, but no,” Steve reaffirmed, and he should’ve known that negative answer wouldn’t be well received.

Enraged, Tony lurched to his feet and pounced on him, punching him repeatedly in the chest with his fists as he tried not very successfully not to cry. Steve took several steps back, dodging Tony’s blows as much as possible and refraining himself from capturing Tony’s wrists in his hands – that would only upset Tony more and chances were Steve hurt him by accident in his attempt to stop him.

“GOOO!” Tony demanded when Steve had taken enough steps for his back to run into a wall.

“Tony–,”

“NOO!” Tony yelled once more, eyes flooding with tears and hands grabbing to handfuls of the front of his onesie, pulling it, as he clumsily walked away from him.

“Tony, please, let’s calm down, let’s talk about this,” Steve pleaded, but Tony shook his head vehemently, face still contorted in anger and frustration. “Tony, I can’t let you go, honey, you can get hurt, please understand it,” he tried to reason, though deep down he knew there was no way Tony could be rational about the whole situation, not when he was caught between his two headspaces so badly.

“Captain, I think it would be better if you left,” JARVIS informed.

Steve opened his mouth to argue, but his disagreeing protest died in his throat before he could let out a single word when the door next to him flew open and an Iron Man armor entered the nursery, straight to Tony.

Summoning all his will-power, Steve made himself turn around, walk towards the door and leave the room, never planning to go further than the hallway just in case JARVIS needed his assistance.

The A.I. wouldn’t. And even if Steve was grateful to the A.I. for always looking after Tony, he also hated he didn’t get to be the one who comforted him.