Chapter Text
“Tones, I keep telling you the kid needs to go to the family. We get away with a lot of things, but kidnapping? Come on.”
“I didn’t kidnap him.” Rhodes scrubbed his hand down his face and Tony wasn’t at all concerned about how annoyed his friend was. He didn’t have a toddler bed in his house now for nothing. Although he didn’t know why he needed it. The kid never slept in his room.
Never.
He could literally sing the kid to sleep and yet as soon as he left the room the boy would shriek bloody murder. Even in the dimly lit room, he could clearly see the boy reaching out for him with desperate grabby hands and fat tears.
Which led to him inevitably dealing with a ninja baby in his bed.
And he had the bruises to prove it.
“Are you even listening to me?” Tony rolled his eyes before glancing up lazily at his friend who doubled as his second in command.
“What? You’re like a broken record. I heard you.” Leaning back in his office chair Tony glanced around the room. He could see the slow integration of Peter into his life scattered throughout the room. Normally, his home office was a picture of control and consistency.
Now, it had a small fuzzy blanket from Peter’s naps. A pile of big lego blocks in the corner. And there were more sippy cups in the room than Tony knew they’d even bought.
There was no doubt about it.
The prince had arrived.
“Tones, man come on. You know this isn’t right. He’s got a family. If they go to the police and they come to your house with feds what are you going to do?” That got his attention. Looking up with fire shooting from his eyes Tony glared at his friend.
No one was taking Peter.
What happened to May would not happen to him.
He would make sure of it.
“That won’t happen.”
“How do you know? You said she’s got a sister, right? Some of our guys are hearing rumblings.” Something inside of Tony hardened at that statement.
“What have you heard?”
“Not a lot,” Tony slammed his hand on the desk.
“What have you heard,” he growled.
“There’s a rumor that the kid’s aunt and her husband are looking for him.”
“He’s May’s son, not hers. She’ll get over it.” Tony pursed his lips and took a deep breath.
“I get that Tones, but like this? Come on man. You know this will never work.” He rolled his eyes.
“Yeah, and? Why should I care.”
“The lady, you know her sister? Well her husband is connected.”
“Speak English.”
“The guy’s a cop, Tony.”
“Why are you just now telling me this,” he screamed. It was rare that he yelled at his best friend, but this was different.
“Because you’re too thick-headed to listen to me! I told you since day one this could cause trouble for us and you ignored me because you knew I was right.” Tony stood up in a huff. “Think about this man. Is that kid worth it to you?”
“He’s her son and that makes him important to me. So figure out how to fix this. I don’t want to hear about it again. Got it?”
“Tony, be reasonable.”
“I am! That boy is staying here. So make it happen!” He was about to unleash another tirade when he heard the door to his office open slightly.
“Mr. Stark,” the timid voice called.
“What? What part of if the door is closed you don’t open it?” The petite woman leaned into the room slightly. Tony felt his annoyance growing. He liked her mostly, but he figured that between him and Peter she would quit soon enough. Timid just wouldn’t work around here. Not with a temperamental three-year-old and a control driven Mob boss.
“I’m sorry, sir.” Tony sighed before rubbing his eyes.
“What is it, Selena?” The young woman winced before entering the room fully.
“Prince won’t take a bath.” He shrugged his shoulders and glanced at Rhodes who looked just as confused as he did.
“Why not?”
“He’s refusing. He says you must come or he will not.” Tony rolled his eyes. The kid went from well behaved to stubborn as a rock in a matter of days.
He smirked at the thought...a literal prince.
“Well make him.”
“I can’t, sir. Prince says he will not take a bath unless you give it to him.”
“Are you serious right now? He’s three.” Without a word, Tony headed out of his office and toward the heart of the house near where he knew that Peter would be bathing. As soon as he opened the door to the large area, he found Peter sitting on the toilet in a pair of shorts with his arms crossed over his chest. His long curls flopped in his eyes.
He smirked at the adorable sight before him. “What are you doing?” The boy’s shoulders stayed slumped but he was silent. “Selena says you won’t take a bath.”
Peter’s little lips moved into a full pout and he shook his head definitively. “I not.”
Tony looked at Peter whose face was smeared with something that was sticky enough to collect several snacks that he had throughout his day. There was no way the kid was getting in his bed without a bath.
Gross.
“Ok,” he drew out, “why not?” Peter turned his head and gave Tony the most serious yet heartbreaking face the man had ever seen.
“You say you gib me a baff.” The twinkling in Peter’s eyes became pronounced.
“Selena will,” he started before Peter jumped off the toilet, threw himself to the ground, started yelling, and flailing his limbs.
“Nooooooooo!” He screeched so loudly that Tony had to cover his ears. “No, no, no!” He watched the boy pitch a fit for a moment before his ears couldn’t take it anymore. Tony could deal with a lot of things, especially coming from this kid, but screaming at him wasn’t one of them.
Reaching out he gripped Peter by the arms and set him on his feet. “Peter, stop screaming.” The boy stopped and glared up at Tony with an angry little pout with a wobbling lip. “What? Why are you crying?”
“You mean an’ you lie!”
“What are you talking about?”
“You not dere when I waked up and you not dere for lunch. Now, you not dere for baff.” He sniffed. “Like Mama!” Peter threw his hand out to push at Tony. “You leabing too!” Tony didn’t care how soft he looked or how dirty the little boy was at that moment. Those words were his entire childhood. There was no way that he could do that to Peter. He pulled the toddler into his arms and hugged him tight.
“I’m not leaving Prince,” he said, kissing the boy’s hair.
Peter dropped his head onto Tony’s shoulder. “Mama say dat too.” Tony could hear the sadness in the boy's voice.
“I know, buddy.”
“I miss Mama.” Tony kept Peter in his arms while the little boy cried for a few minutes. He could feel the dampness on his shoulder, but he didn’t care. Peter was much more important than the cleanliness of his suit. Eventually, Peter stopped crying, but Tony continued to bounce him gently since he knew the boy like that. “Will you gib me a baff?” Tony sighed and looked at the snotty child in his arms. He wasn’t sure what to say at first, but when he looked into Peter’s eyes...May’s eyes he couldn’t say no. Huffing he set the boy down and rolled up his sleeves.
“Just tonight. Ok?” Peter nodded with a big smile. He started to tell him that he may not be back every night to give him a bath, but he didn’t get the chance.
“Oh boy!” Peter had barely gotten the words out before he took off running out of the room. “Ms. ‘Lena muh Daddy’s gonna gib me a baff!!” Tony chuckled and looked around at the toys that Peter had scattered all over the bathroom.
He was a daddy now.
~/~
Tony knew that he should have been doing something that looked even a bit like work, but he couldn’t. Not when he had a three-year-old giggling and imitating R2D2. “Beep, boop,” Peter said before giggling. The boy turned his little body in circles and walked into the chair. “Ow, wait eeh oop,” he said before giggling again.
The silence overtook the room briefly and Tony let himself get lost in the items that were on his tablet. He really needed to figure out what their next move was. The Acolytes wanted his territory and he wasn’t about to give that up. He needed to find a solution to his problem and he needed to figure it out now. He let himself get lost in the hundreds of documents before he realized that the beeping had stopped.
“Prince?” Tony frowned, the kid was a noisy little booger and now he was gone. “Prince,” he called louder. A faint giggle led him toward the restroom that sat inside of his office. As soon as he saw the boy he didn’t know what to do.
In the time that Tony had gone through his work, Peter had managed to pull out Tony’s shaving cream, climb up on the counter, and smear it all over the mirror. The little boy was also covered in it.
He'd gotten Peter to avoid having an accident only for the boy to do this an hour later.
Toddlers.
“What are you doing?” He could see Peter’s little shoulders hunch in surprise before he slowly turned to face Tony with the most mischievous yet adorable smile. It looked like all of Peter's willpower to not burst into giggles. And Tony fell for it. All annoyance went out the window and he laid eyes on that little face.
“I playing, Daddy.”
“Oh, you’re playing, huh,” he said with a playful smile. Peter bobbed his head up and down.
“I find snow! See?” He held up his shaving cream filled palms.
“Yeah, buddy, you sure did.” Peter grinned a wide-mouthed grin and clapped his hands.
“‘Dis smell like ‘ou.” Tony rolled his eyes.
“It does and now the whole bathroom will too.” Peter nodded.
“‘Dat good snow.” Tony snorted and the ball of cuteness in front of him. He wanted to pull the boy close to him and smother him with kisses, but he had already shaven for the day.
“Let’s get you cleaned up.” Peter made a face that Tony should have recognized, but he didn’t. In a moment’s time, Tony had a glob of shaving cream covering his cheek. When he opened his eyes, the three-year-old was giggling openly. He wasn't even trying to hide it the little stinker.
“We match now.” At that moment Tony made an executive decision. Peter would only be three for a little while.
His work could wait.
Reaching out he grabbed the giggle box and started blowing kisses on the boy’s cheek. Peter squealed and kicked his legs while trying to shield himself from Tony’s tickles.
~/~
A few hours later, found Tony back in his office with a sleeping toddler on his chest. Between the midday bath and the war over lunch, Peter had worn himself out fairly early. Which was fine with Tony. The kid could be exhausting.
He still loved him though.
Peter was a piece of May that Tony could have forever. A smile passed his face when he thought about the woman who’d knocked him off his feet. She had a smile that lit up the room and a laugh that stopped him in his tracks whenever he heard it. What he loved most about her though, was that she didn’t care who he was or who his family were. She wasn’t wrapped up in the Stark Family stigma. She loved Tony for Tony and he loved every bit of her for it.
They were young and in love. When he looked down at Peter, he couldn’t believe that he and May hadn’t had kids together. If Peter had this much of her with his DNA, he could only imagine how much of May could have been in another kid.
“Tones,” Rhodes said in a hushed whisper from his place at the mouth of the door. “You have a visitor.” Turning to look at his friend he tried to gauge the situation. If it was dangerous then his friend would have pulled his weapon. No this was more of a nuisance. Tony heard a loud commotion toward the front of the building. Peter whined in his sleep so Tony quickly covered his ears in hopes that the boy would stay asleep.
“What was that?”
“This is what I was talking about,” Rhodey said. “We have a problem that needs to be addressed.”
“So solve it.” The darker-skinned man nudged his head in the direction of the security screens and sat in front of Tony.
“I’m afraid it’s not that easy.” Rhodes zoomed in on one area where a short brown-haired woman was screeching at Happy, Tony’s driver.
“What does she want?” Rhodes pushed some buttons on the computer in front of them and the headset in Happy’s ear started to play through the room.
“Take me to Stark!”
“Ma’am, calm down. You’re making a scene.”
“I’m making a scene? Imagine what I’ll do in ten minutes.” The audio cut out briefly as her volume rose, but the word that Tony never wanted to hear pierced through the audio as clear as day.
Kidnapping.
He couldn’t let her make a scene. Thankfully, his friend knew him better than he did. In a matter of seconds, the situation had been neutralized. Rhodes had dispatched several armed men to quickly pulled the woman into a small room where she was met by Maria Hill, one of their best.
From the security camera, Tony watched the angry woman glare, but he could also see the fear resonating in her eyes.
Just what he wanted.
With a smirk, he waited for Hill to start.
“What is it that you want, miss uh, I’m sorry I didn’t catch your name,” Hill said cooly.
“It’s Fitzpatrick. Mary Fitzpatrick.” The woman leveled another fiery glare at Hill. “And I want my nephew. I know that psycho Tony stole him.”
Rhodes sent a knowing look toward Tony before looking back at the monitor. “And why do you think that?”
“I don’t have to think, lady, ok? I told my sister to stay away from him, but would she listen? No, of course not! She was with him for years! Finally, she breaks up with him and goes and meets some guy; a normal guy. Not some killer and they have a great time. You know what happened? Tony’s goons ruined it. They threatened him and beat him up good. So there’s my sister pregnant and alone, because of him.” Mary stopped to brush a tear from her eye. “I finally thought she was over him, but no, I see his goons still around so I know he is too. Now my sister’s dead and my nephew’s gone. I want him back and Stark better give him to me now!” Hill opened her mouth to speak, but Mary shook her head. “I want my nephew back and if I don’t get it then I’m gonna go to the police and the newspapers until I do.”
Tony knew he didn’t have to say a word. Hill was good and that’s why he chose her. He and Rhodes watched on waiting to see the situation unfold.
“So you think barging into a highly secured building to confront a psycho as you put it, correct?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, let’s talk about odds. You think the odds are that he has your nephew, correct?”
“Yeah.”
“And you’re confident that your nephew isn’t any other place? Not with CPS or with another relative?”
“That bastard has him! I know it!” No one can find him and no one has seen him. Not the police, not his teacher at school, not even the ladies in the building you used to watch him. So you tell whoever you need to, that if I don’t get my nephew back, I’m gonna come back with the Channel 12 news.” Tony gestured for the tv to be cut off. As soon as it was he leaned back in his chair and sighed. Peter started to move subtly in his sleep and Tony gently rubbed his back before coaxing the boy back into his nap. Rhodes was talking to him, but Tony didn’t care.
He knew exactly what he was about to do.
Peter was his son and he had a home. If anyone didn’t understand that, well then he’d just have to offer a metal incentive.
“Bring me the Widow Maker.”