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“Do you have your inhaler?”
“Yes.”
“What about the backup inhaler?”
“Ned has it.”
“Did you pack clean underwear?”
“Dad, come on. Of course I did.”
“How many pairs?”
“Dad.”
Tony holds up both hands, smiling at Peter, who scowls back. But Tony refuses to be sorry for worrying about his only son going on his first overnight field trip. It’s been just the two of them since before Peter was even born. And this would be the first time they’d been apart more than a few hours in fifteen years. So even if he wasn’t an omega, Tony feels like he’d be entitled to a little parental panic.
Peter’s phone beeps, and he glances at it before zipping up his backpack and slipping it onto his back. “Ned and his parents are here.”
The elevator opens without prompting, and the two Starks ride it down to the ground floor. Tony can see the Leeds’s car sitting at the curb, and Ned jumps out of the car as soon as they approach. The two boys perform some complicated handshake that even Tony’s genius brain can’t follow. He rolls his eyes, smiling fondly at the boys’ obvious bond, and goes around to the driver’s side to finalize details for picking up the boys at the school in a couple days with Ned’s father.
He’s standing on the curb with his hands in the pockets of his dress pants, watching the Leeds’s car drive away, when his assistant Darcy comes up beside him. The beta’s got a tablet in her hands, a sight that always means it’s time for him to actually do some work. And with Peter gone for the next several days, she won’t be letting Tony get away with using him as an excuse.
“Kiddo all packed off? Gonna be weird without him underfoot.”
Tony snorts. “You love having him underfoot. You spoil him almost as much as I do.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Of course, Miss Lewis. My mistake. What’s on my agenda for this morning?”
Darcy follows him back into the tower, pulling open his schedule on her tablet as they walk to the elevator. “You have three meetings before lunch. R & D requested you for a demo at 2:30. Tonight is your monthly visit to Maria Stark House, Colonel Rhodes is meeting you there at six to help serve dinner.”
The last item on the agenda makes warmth spread through his chest. He had established the Maria Stark House for Omegas during his pregnancy with Peter, and once a month he goes over to help cook and serve dinner to the residents and their children. Most of the men and women living there have been recently separated from their alphas, whether by death or by choice, and have no support system to catch them. Many are in various stages of pregnancy, and some come with small children clinging to them. The Maria Stark House provides support and housing either until the baby is born or until they’re back on their feet.
It’s his pride and joy, other than Peter of course.
As he and Darcy approach his office, Tony can see a tall figure in what appears to be military dress through the frosted glass of the windows. “Darcy, why is there someone in my office already?”
“That would be your 8:00. The new army liaison? He’s been waiting a little while, but I told him you had a personal matter that needed attending to and he seemed perfectly content to wait.”
Tony groans, dropping his head back to stare at the ceiling before scrubbing his hands over his face. “Rhodey just had to go and get that promotion. Couldn’t be happy spending the rest of his career as our liaison.”
“Do I need to remind you how much you cried at the ceremony? I’m sure I could get JARVIS to project the video on the nearest wall if you just—”
“Nope! No, I’m good, thank you Darcy. But you know how I feel about the military. Bunch of puffed up alpha assholes with an overinflated sense of importance.” Obviously his assistant didn’t know the full story behind Tony’s disdain for anyone in a uniform that wasn’t Rhodey, but she understood nonetheless.
“I’m well aware of your feelings, Tony. But if you want to continue providing tech and armor and medical supplies to the military, then we need a liaison. Just go in, get to know the guy a little, and then I’ll swoop in and save you and send him on his way. Okay?”
Tony sighs, deflating a little as he nods.
“Good. Now, before you go in there, hold still.” Tucking her tablet under one arm, Darcy steps into his space to straighten his tie and smooth out wrinkles in his jacket that only she can see. Then she slides her fingers into his hair to tousle the silvering strands. She steps back with her hands on her hips, admiring her handiwork before nodding in satisfaction.
“Want to tell me what that was about, Miss Lewis?”
“Captain Hottie in there is an entire buffet. And you’ve been starving for way too long, boss man.”
He rolls his eyes, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow at the younger beta. “Darcy, I cannot sleep with our liaison. Pepper would string me up by my toes, and Peter is too young to be without a father. Besides, no hotshot army alpha is going to want to waste his time on an aging omega with a teenager.”
“You’re not aging, Tony, jeez. You’re thirty-five.” Darcy’s blue eyes soften, and she reaches out to squeeze his arm. “Look, I know Peter is your entire world, yadda yadda yadda. We all love him. But you deserve some happiness too.”
Before he can respond, she turns him around and nudges him toward his office door, slapping his ass with a resounding crack. “Now, go get ‘em, tiger!”
He glares at her over his shoulder, watching her stalk off on her criminally high heels, probably on her way to torture some poor unsuspecting interns. When she disappears around the corner, he turns back to his office and takes a fortifying breath. Whoever this guy is, Tony isn’t going to let himself be intimidated. He’s Tony Stark. And Stark men are made of iron.
The door opens silently as he steps inside. “Sorry to keep you waiting, captain. I had something that needed to be sorted and it couldn’t wait, so I—”
The other occupant of the room turns around, and it feels like time stops. Between one breath and the next, Tony’s twenty years old again, a positive pregnancy test in his pocket and excitement to share the news with his alpha swelling in his chest. Excitement that dies a swift and fiery death just minutes later when the alpha breaks his heart and walks out the door.
The very same alpha standing across from him in full military dress, hands in his pockets, shifting nervously.
“Hey, Tony.”
Even after all this time, Tony still knows Steve Rogers’s face better than his own. How could he ever forget, when he’s spent the last fifteen years seeing those features reflected in his son’s face? A son that he’s spent nearly two decades raising alone.
Tony does the only logical thing.
He bolts.
Darcy finds him twenty minutes later in the hidden corner of his workshop that only a select few people have access to. He hears the click of her heels first, before she comes around the corner and inputs her code. The glass doors to the restricted area slide open, and she spots Tony easily where he’s sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, knees tucked up to his chest. She crouches until they’re eye to eye. He’ll never figure out how she manages to execute a perfect squat in those heels.
“Hey, boss. Did the meeting with Captain Hotpants go that bad? JARVIS said you turned tail and ran almost immediately. What gives?”
Tony drops his head against his knees, trying to hide the way tears have started to gather in his eyes at just the mention of Steve. But he knows Darcy’s not going to let it go, and no one else sees through his lies and misdirects the way she does. So he tries to form some kind of coherent response, but all that comes out is, “Peter’s father.”
“What does that worthless nothing have to do with this?”
He clears his throat, gathering his courage to actually look his assistant in the eyes. “It’s him. The-the guy. The liaison, it’s… he’s Peter’s father.”
Darcy rears back like he just punched her in the gut, and she stares at him in wide-eyed shock for a minute. Her features soften as she shifts onto her knees and reaches out with both hands to grip his shoulders. “Oh, Tony. Wow, what a shock. That is some kind of wild—”
A strange look crosses her face before she picks her tablet up off of the floor and starts scrolling through it. As she reads, Darcy’s face slowly changes from confused to startled before her pretty features twist into a mask of rage. It’s a look Tony very rarely sees on her face, and it makes him sit up straight.
“Darcy? What is it?”
He hears a low growl, and that’s how he knows she’s really pissed off. Betas don’t growl like omegas and alphas do, not unless they’re pushed over the edge. His instincts kick in, helpless against the clear distress of someone he cares about, and soft soothing noises emanate from his throat.
It takes the younger woman a few minutes to compose herself, but eventually her scent shifts from furious to simple anger. She takes a breath, and then hands Tony the tablet. It’s open to the file on Steve they’d received from the army rep that had arranged the appointment to SI military liaison. He browses it, but nothing that could explain her anger pops out. When he looks back up at her, confused, she taps on a note at the bottom.
“He requested this position. I didn’t think anything of it when I read the file the first time, just assumed he was a career guy who was sick of combat and wanted something more cushy. And the rep said he thought Rogers was a perfect candidate. Tony, if I thought for even a second that he had an ulterior motive I would have made sure he couldn’t get within even a thousand feet of the building, I swear.”
Tony doesn’t respond at first, too busy reading and rereading the rep’s note. Captain Rogers entered his own name into the running for this assignment before we could even gather a list of acceptable candidates, but it is my personal opinion that he would make an ideal candidate for army liaison. Why in the hell had Steve suddenly decided he wanted a position that would force him to work alongside the omega he had abandoned fifteen years ago?
He was damn sure going to find out.
“JARVIS, is St… Captain Rogers still in the building?”
“Yes, sir. Captain Rogers is still in your office.”
“Good, keep him there.”
He pushes off the wall and stands up, Darcy following with a whole lot more grace, and he hands her back the tablet. She watches him straighten his jacket and do his best to smooth out his hair that’s gone wild from the number of times he’d run his fingers through it.
“Tony, are you sure it’s a good idea to confront him right now? You’re upset, and I don’t need the entire building gossiping about another one of your shouting matches with an alpha.”
“I’m good, I’m fine. I’m going to walk in there, calmly, ask him what his game is and then tell him to get the fuck out. Piece of cake.”
Darcy’s entire face practically screams how much she doesn’t believe anything that he’s just said, but she doesn’t try to stop him. What she does is give JARVIS specific instructions once Tony’s out of earshot.
“JARVIS, blackout mode in the boss’s office as soon as he shuts the door.”
“Of course, Miss Lewis.”
Tony’s entire plan to be calm and mature goes out the window as soon as he walks back into his office and sees Steve standing there.
“Tony—”
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Fifteen years, Steve. You walk out of my life like I meant nothing to you and I don’t hear from you for fifteen fucking years, and now you think you can just waltz in here like everything’s cool and just expect me to work alongside you? What the fuck, Steve?”
“No, Tony, that’s not—”
“I thought this was just some weird cosmic coincidence, the universe playing a joke on me. But you requested this position. Why? What the hell is your game?”
“There’s no game Tony, I wouldn’t—”
“Is this about Peter? We didn’t have to go through all this song and dance. I would have let you see him.”
“Peter? Your son, Peter? What does he have to do with—”
“Oh, don’t play stupid, Steve. It’s not a good look on you.”
“Tony, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Why would I be interested in your son?”
“Just because you’ve been off playing soldier for his entire life doesn’t mean you get to pretend he isn’t yours.”
Steve freezes, then sits down in one of the plush chairs across from Tony’s desk like he’s a marionette who’s just had all of his strings cut. He’s paler than normal, making his bright blue eyes stand out. “He’s… mine?” Steve’s always been a pretty terrible liar, so Tony knows the shock on his face is real. He sits down behind his desk, feeling similarly off-kilter.
“Of course he’s yours. I haven’t, um… I haven’t been with anyone else since… well, you. Raising Pete on my own was a full time job, I didn’t really have time for dating. He’s not really a secret, so I just assumed you knew he was yours.”
Across from him, Steve slumps in his chair, his gaze going far away. But after a minute or two, he seems to shake himself and he shifts forward, blue eyes locking on to Tony’s. “If I had known, I never would have let you go through all of that on your own, you have to believe me. I… why didn’t you ever say anything?”
Tony sighs, breaking eye contact. “I was going to. The day you… the day you left, I had the test in my pocket. I just… never got the chance. When the media got wind that I’d had a child and the news was everywhere, there was no word from you. So I assumed you wanted nothing to do with us.”
Steve looks stricken, and he scoots to the edge of the chair. Both hands reach out, almost like he wants to reach for Tony, but his strong fingers close around the edge of the desk. “Jesus. Tony, god, no. If I had known that Peter was my son, our son, nothing could have kept me away.”
“But you said—”
“I know what I said. Trust me, I remember everything I said. I’m never going to stop hating myself for hurting you like that. Every time I close my eyes, I can see that devastated look on your face. Tony, I’ve missed you every minute of the last fifteen years.”
“Then why—”
“Because I wasn’t good enough for you!”
Tony flinches back like he’s been slapped, and he’s not sure which of them is more surprised by Steve’s outburst. But his surprise quickly twists into anger. “That’s bullshit and you know it.”
“No, Tony. It’s not. You were so far out of my league, in every way possible, and your father took every opportunity he could find to remind me of it. And I was able to brush it off for a while, but it kept building and building until I couldn’t take it anymore.”
“Steve, I never thought that. You were everything I wanted and—”
Steve is out of his seat and around to Tony’s side of the desk before he can even think about what he’s doing and whether it’s appropriate or not, his instincts leading him as he recognizes the scent of distressed omega. He sits on the edge and reaches out to tug the smaller man up and against his chest. Surprisingly, Tony goes without resistance.
“I know. I know and I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to keep him out of my head.”
“You should have talked to me.”
“I know.”
“My parents died a year after you left, Steve. Why didn’t you come back?”
Steve sighs, pulling the omega tighter against his chest until his scent starts to soften into something less harsh. “I couldn’t. The idea that I needed to be a better alpha for you was so deep into my brain that I couldn’t shake it. I had to keep pushing, keep working towards higher ranks until I felt worthy. And… part of me thought I would never reach it, not after the way I’d treated you.”
He feels a sharp jab to his chest, and Steve leans back a little to rub at the spot and pout down at Tony, who’s glaring at him.
“You were always worthy, you big stupid alpha. All you had to do was love me to be worthy. I was the one who was lucky that you took a chance on such a messy, broken omega.”
Steve lets out a fierce growl that echoes through the room. He shifts his hands to cradle Tony’s face. “There is nothing messy or broken about you. And I know I don’t deserve it, but if you’d let me, I will spend every minute of the rest of my life showing you.”
Tony shudders at the promise in the alpha’s voice, and he presses his face against Steve’s chest to hide the tears gathering in his eyes. “I shouldn’t. Pepper’s gonna kill me. Rhodey’s gonna kill you. And Peter will be an orphan before he turns sixteen. But…”
He looks up at Steve, and lets his hands come up to twist in the material of the alpha’s starched green jacket. “I don’t wanna do this without you, Steve. I’ve done it alone for fifteen years and I can’t anymore. Not if there’s an option to do it as a team. It’s gonna take work, and you have to give me time to trust you again. I want to, but you have to show me that you won’t hurt me again, Steve.”
Steve tugs him close again, leaning down to press a kiss into his dark curls. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. Brilliant, strong omega. Raising a kid and running a company, all on your own? You’re perfect. How did I ever give you up?”
He can feel Tony trembling against his chest, so Steve shifts them around until he’s sitting in Tony’s ridiculously large desk chair and can pull the omega into his lap. Tony lets out an audible sigh, and Steve chuckles when he feels nimble fingers start unbuttoning the large buttons on his dress coat. He doesn’t resist, letting the omega push it off his shoulders and tug it free of his arms. When the coat is off, Steve wraps his arms around Tony and hugs him tight to his chest.
“This better, Tony?”
The brunette nods, and it isn’t long before Steve’s ears pick up the sound of Tony purring softly. The grin that splits his face makes his cheeks hurt.
They stay like that for a few minutes, Steve basking in the warm, comfortable scent of happy and content omega. This was more than he ever could have hoped for. When he requested the assignment to SI as the army liaison, he had only dared to hope that Tony would talk to him. Never could he guess that he would have Tony curled up against him like this, especially not after his initial reaction to seeing Steve after so long. And now, he thinks there’s only one thing that could make this better.
“Hey, Tony?”
“Hmm?”
“Can I… Peter. Can I meet him? You don’t have to tell him who I am right away, I just… I want to get to know him if I can.”
Tony tries to sit up, but Steve tightens his hold, and he settles back down with an amused huff. “Of course you can meet him. He’s your son too, and he deserves to know both his dads. He’s in DC on a field trip for a few days, but I’ve already got a couple days blocked off in my schedule when he gets back. The three of us can spend that time together.”
“You’re sure? I don’t want to get in the way—”
“You won’t be. You’re going to love him, Steve. He’s so smart, and strong and brave and good. He’s the best parts of both of us. JARVIS, give us some pictures up on the wall, please?”
A slideshow of pictures projects onto the empty wall across from them, starting from Peter’s birth and slowly moving year by year. Steve can’t help the tears that form as he watches the little boy, his little boy, grow up.
“He’s beautiful, Tony. I can already tell what an amazing job you’ve done with him. I can’t wait to get to know him. And get to know you again.”
After the pictures, JARVIS starts up some of the home movies Tony’s taken of Peter over the years. Gradually, Steve can feel the omega growing more and more relaxed against him. He loses track of how much time passes before Tony speaks again.
“You’re fired, by the way.”
Steve barks out a laugh, looking down at Tony, whose eyes are still watching the video currently playing on the wall. “What do you mean, I’m fired?”
“It seems unprofessional for you to technically be an SI employee if you’re going to be sleeping with the head of the company.”
One large, calloused finger hooks under Tony’s chin and tips his head back so Steve can meet his eyes. “Tony, I want to make it clear that this isn’t just about sleeping together. When you’re ready, after I’ve groveled and worshipped you and done everything I can to earn back your trust and your love, I want to be your alpha. I want us to be a family. Permanently.”
Steve’s declaration is so serious, so clearly heartfelt and earnest, there’s nothing stopping Tony from melting completely. He surges forward, capturing Steve’s lips in a kiss that’s fifteen years overdue. The alpha startles and freezes in shock, but he returns the kiss before Tony has even a fraction of a chance to second guess it.
The kiss only lasts a handful of seconds, but it leaves both of them dazed and grinning like fools. Tony settles back down against Steve’s chest, and together they watch the memories that Tony had captured play out on the wall, the room overflowing with the scents of warm and happy alpha and omega.
Darcy comes searching for Tony an hour later when he doesn’t show up for his second meeting of the morning. JARVIS directs her to the office, where she finds the two men deeply asleep, wrapped up in each other’s arms.
“JARVIS, snap a picture of that, please.”
“My pleasure, Miss Lewis.”
Darcy still plans to threaten the good captain, viciously, with her sharpest pair of stilettos. But her love for Tony goes far beyond the care of an employee for her boss. Tony is the older brother she never had, and his happiness—and Peter’s— means more to her than the joy she derives from threatening alphas bigger than her and watching them cower.
With a swipe of her finger, she clears the rest of Tony’s schedule, and heads down the hallway to her own office to await the email from Pepper requesting an explanation that she knows will be on the way before too long.
When her computer dings, she sends off her response with just one sentence.
I promise you, it’s worth it.