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Tony stood outside the courthouse, smoking his customary pre-trial cigarette. He really hated smoking (and his mom would kill him if she caught him) but it was a random tradition he’d picked up after he saw it in a movie when he was in law school and it’d stuck with him all these years.
“How does it feel to know that every person you defend is guilty?” someone snapped, storming up to Tony.
“Innocent people can’t afford me,” he drawled without looking at the man. It was the response he gave everyone who asked that question (typically his parents). “I’m the best at what I do.” He dropped the cigarette and ground it into the pavement with the toe of his shoe, then dug a packet of gum out of his pocket and popped a piece.
“Practice that line much?”
“Every night in front of the mirror before bed.”
The stranger scoffed. “You really are as big of an ass as they say you are.”
“Innocent until proven guilty.”
“Witty.”
“It’s what I do.” Tony was ready for this conversation to be over, but the guy had him backed into a corner—literally. “What’s your name, anyway?”
“Steve.”
“Rogers? You’re the DA?”
Steve shoved his hands in his pockets. “That I am.”
“Should’ve known. You’re too cute to be on the rogue side of the law.”
For the first time since he’d approached Tony, Steve seemed at a loss for words. “N-now’s not the time or place to discuss that,” Steve stammered.
“Then how about I take you to dinner tonight? And yes, I mean as a date.”
Steve licked his lips hesitantly while his eyes darted towards the court house. “Sure.” He popped off Tony’s cufflink and rolled up his sleeve. Tony quirked an eyebrow as he watched Steve fish a sharpie out of his inside pocket and scrawl an address on Tony’s wrist. “Pick me up at seven.”
“Daddy, where are you goin’?” Peter nagged, tugging at Tony’s pant leg as he tied his tie. After the trial, he’d come home and changed from his work suit into a slightly more casual date suit. It had been awhile since he’d gone on a date—not since Charlotte, his (now) ex-wife.
“I have to go out to meet someone, honey.”
Peter groaned and sat down, grabbing on to Tony’s leg. Tony attempted to walk through his room and continue to get ready for his date with Steve with a crabby four year old clinging to him.
“Can I come?” Peter whined.
“No.”
“Why noooooooooot?”
“Because sometimes daddy has to do things on his own, alright?”
Peter made grumbling sounds and clung tighter to Tony’s leg.
“Darcy’s coming over to babysit,” Tony tried. Peter loved Darcy.
“I’m not a baby!” Peter screeched.
“You’re acting like one,” Tony scolded. “Now please let go of my leg so I can finish getting ready and then we’ll play War until Darcy gets here.”
Peter immediately let go of Tony and stood up. “I’ll get the cards. Can we play in my room? Please please please?”
“Sure. Now scoot.”
Tantrum forgotten, Peter scurried out of the room to find the deck of cards. Tony knew his son would deal himself all of the Aces but at the moment, he couldn’t be bothered to care. After dabbing a bit of cologne behind each ear and brushing his teeth for the third (fourth?) time that night, he (re)straightened his tie and made his way to Peter’s room.
He got onto his son’s bed, sat cross legged facing the middle, and picked up his half of the deck of oversized cards. They were an old Scooby-Doo deck he’d found online, remembering his own love of Scooby-Doo as a child. He’d tried to encourage Peter to watch the Mystery Gang and their silly dog, but he had no interest in the show.
To Tony’s genuine surprise, he had an Ace in his deck.
“I didn’t wanna be a cheater ‘cause you were already mad at me,” Peter admitted.
Tony gave his son a sad smile. “I wasn’t mad at you, honey. I just need you to understand that sometimes I need to do things on my own.”
“Okay.”
At that moment, the doorbell rang. Peter bolted up and ran to the door. “Who is it?!” he shouted.
“Agent Gidget Liverfanny of the FBI. Is this the home of Doofus Pizzabutt, the dastardly villain who threatens Uptown Manhattan in the name of Glorb?”
“Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. State your business, Agent Liverfanny!”
Tony walked to the door and opened it up, admitting Darcy to the apartment. “Hello there, Agent Liverfanny. Thank you for coming on such short notice.”
“It’s no problem, Falafel Pizzabutt, father and mentor of young Doofus.”
Tony petted her shoulder. “Everything is usual. Not sure when I’ll be home—”
“Hot date?” Darcy asked, quirking an eyebrow.
“As if I would tell you, Agent Liverfanny. How can I expect and FBI Agent with such a personal matter?” He turned away from Peter before mouthing the word “Yes”. Darcy nodded in understanding—Tony didn’t want Peter to know, understandably.
“I’ll have him in bed by eight, sir.”
“Hello there, Steve Rogers, defender of the innocent,” Tony greeted when Steve slid into the passenger seat of his car.
“Hello there, Tony Stark, defender of the guilty,” Steve shot back good-naturedly. “Now, where are we going?”
“Well, I asked you out and I’m a very rich man, so we’re going to a burger joint because you don’t seem like the kind of guy who wants to go to a swanky restaurant.”
Steve smirked. “You’re wearing a suit to go to a burger joint?”
“As are you.”
“I was expecting swanky.”
“Well, what do we do now?”
Steve looked out the window for a moment. “We’re still in front of my apartment. We could go upstairs, order in, and ditch the suits entirely.”
“Holy fuck,” Tony whispered, turning off the car and unhooking his seatbelt in record speed. “Let’s go.”
The two lay in a post sex haze, feeding each other the cold pizza they’d left forgotten on the counter nearly as soon as Tony had shoved a fifty dollar bill at the delivery boy and told him to keep the change.
“I gotta go soon,” Tony murmured, placing a kiss on the center of Steve’s chest.
Steve didn’t even try to hide his disappointment. “Oh.”
Tony started to sit up. “Yeah. My baby sitter has school tomorrow so I have to relieve her of—oh Jesus.”
“What?” Steve asked.
“Well… the ‘I’m divorced and have a kid’ conversation is sort of a… third date thing?”
“So is sex, but we broke that rule.” Steve sat up, leaned over, and placed a kiss to Tony’s shoulder. “And I’m a widower with a two year old terror named James, so I think we’re tied.”
Tony let out a small huff of air that resembled a laugh. “At least your wife wasn’t a bitch with a capital C.” He turned around to see Steve had a sad smile on his face.
“Peggy was an angel. She… she died giving birth to James.” Steve put his palm to his forehead. “Fuck. Sorry. That’s really heavy and we just—” Tony kissed him silent.
“It’s okay. How about you bring your terror over to meet mine some time next week?”
Steve pecked Tony’s lips. “Sounds like a plan.” Then, after another quick kiss. “Do I get to see you before then?”
“I sure hope so.”
“ Are you and Steve coming to your brother’s celebration dinner tonight ?”
“Do we have a choice?” Tony asked, trying to pull a rowdy James off of a screaming Peter.
“No, you do not.”
“Than yes, we will be there.”
“Feel free to bring the kids.”
“Is that Gramma?!” Peter shouted, jumping for the phone. “HI GRAMMA!” he shouted.
“She says hi back,” Tony relayed. “Steve! Please come pull our children apart from each other!”
Steve stumbled out of the bathroom, half of his face covered in shaving cream, and rushed to separate the boys. “James! Get off your brother!” Steve shouted, pulling the four year old away.
“NO!” James screeched.
“What’s going on?”
Tony sighed. “I didn’t see everything, but from what I’ve gathered, James took the toy that Peter was playing with so Peter tried to take it back, then James tackled him, and now they’re rolling around on the floor, screaming.”
“Is that what happened, James?” Steve asked. “Did you take your brother’s toy?”
“He’s not my brover!” James screeched.
“Yes, he is,” Steve explained.
“I’m going to let you go. Dinner is at six.”
“With two children to dress and wrangle into the car, given the time it is now, we’ll be there around 6:20 at the earliest. Sorry.”
When Tony hung up, Steve was still on the floor trying to explain to James for the umpteenth time that he and Tony got married, so now Peter and James are brothers, and they are going to have to learn to get along.
“No!” James screamed.
Tony bent down to Peter’s level. “Alright, you little monster. Time to get you dressed. We’re going to Grandma and Grandpa’s house tonight. Uncle Clint graduated from the Police Academy and we’re going to have a big celebration for him.”
“Is Aunt Tasha gonna be there?” Peter asked, his whole face lighting up.
“Yup. Uncle Thor, too. So you wanna go get dressed and ready to go?”
“YEAH!” Peter screeched, taking off towards his room.
They finally got the four and six year old into their car seats. James was behind Tony, who was driving, and was continuously kicking the back of the seat.
“Please stop, James,” Steve scolded gently.
“No!”
“Is that the only word you know?” Peter spat.
“Peter!” Tony shouted.
“What? That’s all he ever says!”
“Let’s play the quiet game! Whichever of you can last the longest without talking gets to sit next to Aunt Tasha at the dinner,” Steve suggested.
The two boys immediately fell silent.
Steve thought back to the first time he had ever met Tony’s family. They all introduced themselves with different last names over dinner, and he’d simply blurted out “ARE YOU ALL ADOPTED?!” Bruce and Betty just chuckled and Betty explained that, “We adopted four well behaved young children but they left us somewhere along the way and now we’re stuck with this bunch.”
Clint had stuck out his tongue.
“I propose a toast!” Bruce exclaimed, raising his glass of wine. The rest of the table did as well, including the two children, who had plastic wine glasses filled with cranberry juice. “To Clint! Our youngest boy! The graduate.”
Clint stood and bowed like the ham he was. “Thank you, thank you,” he drawled. “And I would like to propose a toast to the finest police chief in the history of America, my father, Bruce Banner.”
“Why don’t you lay it on a bit thicker?” Tony asked with a laugh.
“At least I’m not the family embarrassment,” Clint shot back.
“Are we going to have this conversation again?” Tony groaned.
“It was your decision to make, but it looks bad on the entire family that every single one of us is in law enforcement and you’re a defense attorney,” Bruce explained.
“What I chose to do with my life is none of your business.”
“Then there was that woman—” Betty mentioned.
“Oh my God! I left her, remember? And I think I got the better half of that deal, don’t you? Every hellish moment with Charlotte was worth getting Peter.”
“Why don’t you just lay off him,” Natasha said.
“I’m just saying that his choices could have been better—” Bruce started.
“Better for you!” Tony snapped. “I am happy with my life and if you bothered to take your head out of your ass, you’d realize that.” Tony stood up. “I have a smokin’ hot husband who I love with all of my heart and two amazing children. This is why we never come here! You just use me as a verbal fucking punching bag because I didn’t turn out exactly how you wanted! Why don’t you fucking disown me and adopt Steve? He’s on the good side.” Tony threw his napkin down on the table. “Say your goodbyes, kids. We’re going home.”
Everyone was stunned silent at Tony’s outburst but he stormed out the door and they heard the car doors unlock. A few moments later Tony began leaning on the horn.
Steve’s mouth was a tight line as he shook both Bruce and Betty’s hands. “A pleasure, as always.”
They awoke to the phone ringing loudly.
“Who the hell calls the house phone?” Tony mumbled, rubbing his eyes and grabbing his glasses off the table to blindly stumble to the kitchen.
Hello, you’ve reached Tony, Steve, Peter and James. Please leave a message after th—
“Yeah?” Tony asked, bringing the phone to his ear.
“Tony?” There was a shake in Clint’s voice that woke Tony up instantly.
“Yeah, it’s me. Why are you calling at 3am?”
“Dad… he—”
“Is that Tony?” he heard Natasha call.
“Yeah.”
“Let me talk to him.”
“Someone tell me what the fuck is going on right now,” Tony demanded.
“Tony, I think you and Steve should come down to the hospital,” Natasha said
“And leave the ki—wait did you just say hospital?”
“Tony?” Steve mumbled, sleepily from the doorway. “What’s going on?”
“Dad… was shot. In the chest. He’s stable but he’s still unconscious.”
“Why was he shot?”
“Who was shot?” Steve asked. Tony waved a hand at him to indicate that he needed quiet.
“There was some sort of emergency—we don’t know what—but he went alone because you know how he gets late at night and doesn’t want to wake anyone up, and then we got a call from Greg that he’d been shot.”
“Fuck. Um, okay. I’ll be… down as soon as possible.” With that, Tony hung up the phone.
“What’s going on?” Steve asked.
“Dad was shot.”