Chapter Text
Chapter 20 [Epilogue]
Three months later
“You’re trembling,” Tony whispered in his ear, his voice ever so softly as his lips brushed his ear.
“Am I?” Steve asked with a trembling voice as his attention focused on the stage. “I hadn’t noticed.”
Tony chuckled softly, and squeezed Steve’s hand over the armrest. “You have nothing to worry about, Steve. He’s doing great.”
“How can you know that?” Steve whispered, leaning a bit in Tony’s direction but keeping his gaze fixed on Peter’s small figure up on the stage. Even with them being the first row of seats, Steve was having a hard time reading Peter’s expression.
Finally, the day of the final round had arrived. What Steve hadn’t known was that so many people would attend such an event, and that it would take place in a huge place like that. It was a theatre, for fuck's sake. He had been the first one to be surprised when Tony and Peter had told him where it would take place.
And now there they were, Tony and him sitting in the first row, holding hands, as they watched Peter and the other five kids build… Something. It was in moments like those when Steve felt especially grateful to have Tony in their life, because had it been him alone in that seat, he wouldn’t have nails left to eat.
“I just know, believe me,” Tony snickered. “He’s doing great and so are the rest of the kids. It’s pretty much a given thing if they’ve reached this round.”
Steve knew that. Still, hearing Tony say it in his low, calm voice was soothing. And he might be unable to stop trembling, but it sure helped.
“Do you wish you were up there?” Steve asked him sometime later, pointing at the jury’s table with his chin.
Tony shook his head. He was always a member of the jury, he had been since the challenge had started to take place. But when the time had arrived this year, he had informed the team he wouldn’t be on this year’s jury due to personal circumstances.
“It wouldn’t be fair to Peter or the other kids,” Tony said, shrugging. “Besides, it’s just a year. I’d very much rather have you two in my life than get to be the jury one more year.”
Steve leaned to give him a brief kiss, enjoying Tony’s smile against his lips.
“Besides,” Tony said with mischief shining on his eyes once they separated. “This way, I can play the part of the pissed-off parent that curses the jury and their inability to judge correctly if Petey doesn’t win.”
“Even if they end up being right?”
“Especially if they’re right,” Tony winked at him, making Steve laugh.
Tony could say everything he wanted, but at the end of the day, Steve knew that it wouldn’t matter much whether Peter won or not, because either way he’d ask Tony about it in the night, just before he read him his bedtime story, and he’d want to know everything he could do better. And it wouldn’t matter if Peter won or lost, because Tony’s lessons would never change, and would never cease to make Peter happy.
Still, he better win, Steve thought, bringing his attention back to Peter, who was tinkering with some cables in a way that Steve knew he would never understand, but still, he turned to look at Tony and, pointing at their kid, asked, “what is he doing know?”
He’d never grow tired of the way Tony’s eyes lightened up when Steve asked him about mechanics, and he knew he’d never forget the emotion that ran through Tony’s voice when he explained to him in hushed voices how their kid won the prize.
***
“Where’s the winner, let me see him!” Sam’s booming voice received them that night when the three of them arrived at The Little Italy. “Ah, there he is!”
Tony and Steve laughed as they watched Sam lift Peter in the air and started spinning with him in his arms as Peter screeched and laughed. Soon after, Sam guided them to the big table, where everyone was already waiting for them.
“Here’s the champion of the day!” Sam announced, with Peter still in his arms.
Steve and Tony shared a happy smile when everyone started cheering. The loudest one was Bucky, followed closely by Clint, who was sitting beside him, leaning on Buck. Then there was Nat, that clapped the hardest, and Wanda, that smiled at them while clapping too. Pepper and Rhodey, who Steve and Peter had finally met formally two months before, were also clapping and smiling at the kid.
“Did I hear champion?” asked Nona, who had just exited the kitchen, with Laila following her with a cake in her hands. “Do I get a hug from the champion?”
“Nona!” Peter screeched, swinging his legs until Sam put him down and running to hug the old woman. “I won!”
“And so I heard,” Nona said, hugging him. “And what does a winner deserve?”
“A cake, obviously,” Laila said, her smile growing wider once Peter’s gaze landed on the big cake.
“Is that for me?” Peter asked, voice full of wonder.
“After we’ve had dinner, it will be,” Steve interjected, before Nona or any of the other adults around decided to give cake to the kid before he could eat something else.
“But papa!” Peter said, turning to look at him and give him that bright look of his. “Can’t I–?”
“Later,” Steve said, doing his best to keep a smile at bay, the same one that always threatened to cover his lips every single time Peter referred to him as his father.
“Yes, yes, papa bear, we get it,” Bucky said, laughing hard and making everyone else laugh. Steve rolled his eyes as Tony joined the laughs. “Come on, let’s eat quickly so we can get a piece of cake. But first, Peter, come here, you have to tell us everything!”
Steve’s smile grew more and more as he watched Peter sit on Bucky’s knees and start telling everything from the start, his voice showing just how excited he was and how incredible he found it to be the center of so many people’s attention.
“It’s going to be impossible to get him to sleep tonight, is it?” Tony joked as they joined the table.
“That just means you’ll have to bring out the heavy artillery,” Steve mock-whispered. “Did you get to practice that bear voice?”
“That I did,” Tony barked a laugh, making Steve join promptly. Tony’s gaze fell on Peter’s excited body and it automatically filled with warmth. “We’re so fortunate, don’t you think?”
Gulping, Steve looked at Tony and Peter and nodded. He had never expected to find a place that felt his, like home, until he had come across Peter and Tony. Together, they had shown him there was a place like that, and it wasn’t physical at all: it was next to them.
“That we are,” Steve whispered, leaning on to Tony as he let Peter’s excited voice wash over him. “The most fortunate in this room.”
THE END