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Once Peter gets started with the first word, he doesn’t seem to want to stop himself. His second word is kitty, from some random commercial he’s become obsessed with, then cheese, then ball and worm. He occasionally says no, but that’s only in times of great trial, or when he doesn’t want to be bothered with his food anymore. Everyone gets in on trying to get them to say their names or titles, sitting around him in a semi-circle and getting in his face like a bunch of freaks, but the winner winds up being Pepper, when Peter imitates Tony’s often-spoken cut of her nickname—Pep.
Maybe Tony blushes a little bit.
They had a long conversation that night, through one or two Peter tantrums and a couple games of peek-a-boo, and Tony still has a feeling that a few things went unsaid on both sides. He knows for a fact, on his own, but he once again builds a wall, closes a door, and reminds himself that he’s not good enough for someone like her. That’s that, that’s that, and he needs to value her in the way he’s got her and not dare to expect anything else.
So he doesn’t think. He doesn’t let himself, and adds something else to all the fears and wants and dreams he’s been burying in the graveyard of his mind.
While Peter toddles through the penthouse saying “Dada, Pep! Dada, Pep!” over and over and over again.
~
Tony sits in the back of the car with Peter as Happy drives them to the swimming class. The swimming class that he and May have been agonizing over for what feels like forever now, and after hours and hours of looking at places, Tony finally let her choose. It’s in the middle, expense-wise, but one of the best reviewed of everything they looked at. Tony was afraid of Peter being compared to the other babies so he got a private class, but he’s still strangely nervous.
“I think this is good,” Happy says, rolling to a stop at a red light.
“Yeah?” Tony asks.
“Yeah,” Happy says. “You gotta be careful with water. You gotta be careful with everything, with that little guy, but you never know when a kid’s gonna be around water and they learn better when they’re younger.”
“You don’t have kids, do you?” Tony asks, as Peter bangs his glow worm over and over and over on the car seat.
“Nah,” Happy says, driving again when the light turns green. “I’ve got a nephew. Five years old now. But none of my own.”
Tony nods to himself. “I just don’t want him to get freaked out in the pool,” he says. “Because if he gets freaked out, I’ll get freaked out and it’ll be a whole thing.”
“Just stay strong, boss,” Happy says. “Babies can sense fear.”
Tony snorts, glancing over at Peter. He’s not trying to knock the glow worm out anymore, and he’s staring out the window as they hit yet another red light. “Dada,” Peter says, still startling him with that even though he’s heard it so many times now.
“Yes?” Tony asks, leaning in close to him. Peter points out the window, and Tony follows his finger.
“Kitty! Kitty!” Peter says.
He’s pointing right at a billboard filled with kittens, advertising for a local adoption agency. Tony gasps, leaning in and pressing kisses to his cheek.
“Yes!” Tony says. “You’re so smart. So smart. You’re gonna be smarter than me.”
Peter laughs and says some more things that have yet to be translated to English, but he looks very proud of himself, finishing everything off with a very enunciated dada.
~
The facility is nice, specifically built for swimming lessons and hosting different types of classes, like weight loss and recovery from injuries, which was half of the reason why May liked it to begin with. It’s big and clean and almost overrun with people, and May is already here.
He wasn’t exactly sure if she was gonna show. He wasn’t expecting it, maybe he wanted it just a little, but he isn’t gonna say that out loud.
“You didn’t have to come,” Tony says, approaching her, nearly dropping the baby bag when he tries to switch Peter to his other side. “I told you, it’s not that serious. Neither one of us are gonna drown, that’s the whole point of this.”
“I had the time and I wanted to,” she says, throwing out her arms.
“You made the time, didn’t you?” Tony asks, raising his eyebrows.
Peter giggles, and squeezes his glow worm over and over.
I reach for the stars! I reach for the stars! I reach for the stars!
“Yes you do, baby,” May says, leaning in and kissing him. She looks up at Tony, a lot less amused. “I did. I wanted to watch! What’s wrong with that? I wanna see how it goes.”
He scoffs. “Fine. I gotta go get us set up here, and meet in the, uh—” He looks at his watch, where he logged the information. “The rainbow pool.”
“Perfect,” May says, holding her head high.
~
Tony wouldn’t exactly say he’s nervous about this. He doesn’t know if that’s the right word. He’s just watched videos and seen how some babies react to water when they’re first introduced, but Peter is usually fine at bath time and Tony is always really careful, so are May and Ben.
But pools are deep.
But they’ll be in the shallow end.
But anything can happen.
He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose once he gets them all ready in the locker room. Thankfully, Peter’s little swim outfit is cute as shit and a good distraction—matching blue top and bottom, covered in spaceships and stars. It came with a hat that he can wear if they ever go to the beach, and they can go to the beach if this goes well.
Peter walks back and forth from the bench to the wall. There are a couple other dads with babies in here, and each one of them does a double take when they see Tony. He smiles and nods, and nearly fucking pitches a fit when he sees Peter hone in on the other babies. Eyes wide, mouth open, like a dog noticing another dog. Like there shouldn’t be anyone remotely close to his age anywhere near him.
He stands by the wall, and looks over at Tony in question. “Dada?” he asks, as the locker room door swings closed.
“I know,” Tony laughs. “So presumptuous, honestly.” He glances at the clock—the lesson is in five minutes. He gets up, gathers his shit, and picks Peter up swiftly. “Let’s go, egghead. We’re gonna go swimming, huh? We’re gonna go swimming.”
~
He’s got a female instructor, which makes him feel better, and not for the reasons the tabloids would say. She seems like she knows what she’s doing, and generally, he tends to trust women more. They usually know better than he does about most things.
They start off sprinkling water on Peter’s face with a watering can to get him used to it, which goes well, though Tony feels himself holding him too tight when they move to the edge of the pool. He keeps looking over at May, sitting on the lounger over by the window, and when he looks at her, he sees the gathering group of women trying to act nonchalant over in the Chartreuse Pool area.
Great. An audience.
May just grits her teeth, shaking her head, and she bangs on the window a couple times to make them scatter.
Tony can tell when things are going downhill. He knows, deep in his heart, that it’s his own fault, but as soon as he gets knees-deep in the water, even in the shallow end, even by the stairs, the fear inside him starts to rise up.
“Alright, so we’re just gonna dip his chin in a little bit here,” Nancy, the instructor, says. She’s got a fake baby that’s supposed to be the example, and Peter already doesn’t like that.
Tony nods. He’s got Peter facing him, and his own heart is raging in his ears, and they both dip down a little bit, just Peter’s chin going into the water. He looks at Tony with wide eyes.
“I’m not just gonna like, dunk him, am I?” Tony asks, glancing over at Nancy.
“No, no, we’re doing this slowly,” she says. “It’s just to get him used to it, because when he’s learning the actual moves and you’re supporting him, every part of his face is gonna be in and out of the water.” Tony nods and she reaches over, patting him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Dad, we’ll get through it.”
“Okay,” he laughs.
When he goes a little further, to the mouth and nose, Tony panics. He knows what his face looks like when he panics, and he tries not to ever look like that in front of Peter, but when Peter comes back up he coughs and snorts and splutters and Tony immediately gasps, pulling him in close.
Peter takes one good look at him and then the crying starts, and worse yet he puts together a combination of words that are like straight knives to Tony’s heart.
“Dada no.”
“Okay,” Tony says, tucking him up as close to him as he can, plastered against his shoulder, and Peter is still coughing and crying and this is awful. “Okay, can we take a break?”
“This is completely normal, Mr. Stark—”
“Just one sec,” he says, rushing out of the pool and kicking water up everywhere.
He moves over to sit next to May, and the two of them make quick work of pounding on Peter’s back so he stops coughing, hugging and kissing him and wrapping him in towels like he’s been on a sinking ship. After about five minutes he’s fine, sitting there in Tony’s lap and squeezing his sailor duck over and over again.
May stares at Tony. He can feel her gaze drilling a hole in the side of his skull.
“What?” Tony asks.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“Taking a break,” Tony says. He’s still wet and a little cold and he knows people are watching them through the window, because that’s how it’ll be their whole fucking lives. He’s like a sideshow, and now Peter is the main attraction.
“You’re wasting time,” May says. “This isn’t about him, this is about you—he’s fine, he’s a baby and he’s taking your cues. You freaked out so he freaked out. But look. He’s not traumatized now. He’s fine.”
Tony grunts but doesn’t say anything. Peter squeezes the duck and looks up at him, grinning.
“You got your duck, huh?” May asks, reaching out and taking Peter’s hand. “You got your duck?”
Peter grins, making a happy noise, and he looks up at Tony again. “Dada, d—d—duck! Dada, duck!”
Tony nearly cries with every new word, and he exchanges a look with May, the two of them constantly bowled over by this kid. They clash a lot, but for Peter, they’re in tandem.
“Yeah, duck,” Tony says. “That’s bath time duck but we brought him here to come in the pool with you.”
“So we’re gonna go back in the pool,” May says, still in her baby voice, but she looks up at Tony when she says it. “Because we need to, because we’re committed, because we’re paying for it—”
Tony snorts, adjusting Peter in his lap. “I’m just constantly paranoid about...doing the right thing, by him. I don’t wanna leave him with—bad memories. Oh, my dad tried to drown me in the pool so I’m afraid of water.”
He doesn’t want to be his father. He doesn’t want to be his own father. More bad memories than good. Constant worries. A figurehead instead of a real relationship.
May scoffs. Peter keeps repeating duck over and over again. “I don’t know how to convince you that your son loves you and you’re doing everything correctly,” she says. “You’ve shocked the shi—you’ve shocked me, Tony, okay? You want me to say it? I tried to say it when I caught you playing airplane in the conference room but it’s...sometimes things are hard for me to say. You’re a million times more than I ever expected and that’s that. You’re a natural, you’re—you’re perfect at this, you’re so loving and careful and cautious and he’s—he’s so safe with you.”
“Dada! Duck! Dada, duck!”
Tony blows out a breath.
“Nothing’s gonna happen,” May says. “It’ll be fine. Just trust yourself, that’s what you need to do. See what I see. See what all these chatty Cathys on the other side of this window see.”
She turns around and he looks up, and the gaggle of women all turn around like they weren’t watching, oh no, not at all.
Peter tosses his duck into the water. He giggles to himself and reaches out for it.
“Dada, duck! Get duck!”
“Full sentences,” Tony says. “I’m gonna have a heart attack.”
“Go get duck, dada,” May says, snorting. “Go on. Nancy’s watching.”
~
You’re gonna miss this.
What?
Him needing you.
~
“There we go,” Nancy says. “That’s it.”
Tony has as tight a hold as he can manage on Peter without hurting him, his arm wrapped up and around Peter’s middle, feet solid on the pool floor. Peter’s head is up by his shoulders, but Peter’s lower half is...floating on the water. He keeps going oooh and making tiny, aborted versions of his alarm screams, but he isn’t freaking out and he isn’t panicking and the duck is floating just a little ways away.
“Okay, ready?” Nancy says.
Tony sighs, but grits his teeth and bares it. Because it helps Peter.
“And...count.”
Tony starts singing. “The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout, down came the rain and washed the spider out, out came the sun and dried up all the rain, and the itsy bitsy spider went up the spout again.”
“Yay!” Nancy says, happily beside them.
Peter giggles, and his eyes search out Tony’s.
“Yay!” Tony mimics, quickly righting him.
They do the floating thing about a hundred more times, it feels like, and he hears May taking pictures with the camera, not even attempting to hide it. Since he’s already, severely pushing it on time, and promising to pay double for one lesson, the last thing they do before ‘toy time’ is big big spiders, which is essentially Tony holding Peter’s little chunky arms and making the strokes for him while he sits on his knee.
“Lotta spiders in this class,” he says, looking up at Nancy as he keeps Peter going. “Big, big spiders, right buddy?”
“Yep!” Nancy says. “This is our little swimming spider, right Peter?”
Peter laughs, and looks a lot happier than he did when he first got into the pool.
May takes even more photos during toy time, when Nancy dumps all the toys she has into the water and lets Peter go hog wild. Tony swims around with him, and they situate him on one of those blow-up barbells that floats. He leans on it and starts to kick his feet to maneuver around, and Tony looks at May, shaking his head.
“He’s going for the duck!” she laughs, pointing. “He’s got all those toys laid out for him and he wants the duck.”
The women behind her are not just women anymore, but an entire crowd of men, women and children all watching his supposedly private class. Tony decides he doesn’t care, because Peter is panting and laughing and having the time of his life, and who doesn’t wanna see that? The cutest, smartest baby in the whole damn world. Despite who his father is.
“Let’s get the duck, little spider,” Tony says, paddling along beside him. “Let’s get the duck!”
~
“So how’d it go?” Happy asks, when Tony gets into the car. “He’s knocked out, must have been good.”
Peter is literally snoring in Tony’s arms, cradled like he’s a one-month old again, the duck gripped in his hand like a hard-won prize. Tony had to put the hat on him, the temptation was too strong, and he’s eagerly anticipating bringing him to the beach after a bunch more lessons.
“Uh, after May knocked some sense into me,” Tony laughs, “it went good. He’s a natural at just about everything, you know, because he’s the smartest baby in the world.”
“Of course,” Happy says. “We all knew that.”
Tony smiles down at him, rocking him back and forth a little bit before he needs to strap him into the car seat.
“And now I’ve got itsy bitsy spider stuck in my head,” Tony laughs.