Chapter Text
Sometimes days blend together too much. One night becomes another day, which fades into night. And the process repeats itself. Tony finds days passing by in a way that time both stands still and moves too quickly. He wakes up, eats, goes to a few meetings, eats again, spends time in his lab, then eats with Pepper before either movie time or more lab time and finally, falling asleep.
The Stark Industries meetings during the week are replaced with Avengers meetings on weekends. It’s much the same- listening to people he doesn’t know talking about things he couldn’t care less about. And of course there’s always that one killjoy nixing anything fun. At SI it’s the head of legal- something about “opening us to multiple lawsuits”- but for the Avengers it’s Steve “Language!” Rogers. One would think a superhero group would be more interesting.
Day after day, week after week pass. Wake up, eat, meeting, eat, lab, eat, lab or Pepper, sleep. Sometimes it’s like he’s on a TV show and someone pressed fast forward. But there are three days in the year where there is no blending. He’s aware of every second of those days. The date never leaves the front of his mind.
December 17th. The day his parents died. They were coming home, and his dad was probably drunk, according to the police. The car swerved off the road. They both died. Tony was just nineteen, and he had a fortune and a legacy to uphold. On this day he mourns his mom. He mourns the loss of his freedom. But he still finds it hard to mourn for his dad- the man who killed the one parent that loved him.
August 10th. The day his sons were born. Pepper’s water had broken the night before. There was a grueling 13 hours of labor, where Tony swears she broke some bone in his hand. But the second the first baby was born, everything was worth it. He would let her break his hand a million times over. When the nurse placed Luke James Stark into his arms, everything changed. He didn’t complain at all when Pepper took his hand again. Twenty minutes later, Peter Edwin Stark was born.
May 25th. The day Luke and Peter were taken. The boys were only nine. Tony had no meetings, so he picked them up from school and took them to the park to burn off the extra energy. It was all peaceful. Perfect. Luke whined about sunscreen, scrunching his nose up and making it almost impossible for Tony to rub it in. Peter cried about stepping on a bug and accidentally killing it. But that was what made them his boys. Once tears were dried and sunscreen was properly applied, the boys began a game of Star Wars. Tony watched them, occasionally yelling for Luke to not try to do a flip on concrete are you trying to give me gray hairs ? His phone rang after about forty minutes at the park. He checked the caller, answered Obadiah, and was only looking away for a minute at most. But when Tony turned back, the boys were gone. Despite Tony’s seemingly endless fortune, they were never found.
On the anniversary of his parents’ death, the day doesn’t change too much. Before the boys, Tony would have spent the entire day drinking until the pain stopped. But he needs to be sober when Luke and Peter come back. So now the day is filled as much as Tony can. Meeting after meeting. No time to stop and think about his mom or his drunk father. Just working until he’s exhausted enough to fall asleep immediately.
On Luke and Peter’s birthday, Tony and Pepper have a standing sick day. They don’t do any meetings for Stark Industries or the Avengers. Tony doesn’t work in his lab. Even emergencies are ignored. They stay in bed all day, watching and rewatching old home videos. They start with the boys’ birth and continue in chronological order. First steps, birthdays, silly games, Christmases, school plays. They watch the boys grow up. But only until age nine and a half. That’s when they stop growing. They’re nine and a half forever.
May 25th is National Missing Children’s day, an irony that isn’t lost on Tony. Like with his parents’ death anniversary, Tony is busy from the moment he wakes up to the time he goes to bed. Stark Industries holds a charity gala on that day every year. He wakes up, eats, then takes his tux with him down to the venue. The event planners give him tasks to do- sign papers, call some of the more stubborn guests, and do a final check on everything. When there’s nothing left to do, he gets changed, taking care with every aspect of his appearance. Then Pepper gets there, always looking so stunning Tony has to force down half his thoughts. As guests arrive, they slip into their public personas. They schmooze, they dance, and they convince the guests to open their wallets. Stark Industries matches every donation, and at the end of the night the PALS (Peter and Luke Stark) Foundation has over a hundred million more to put towards stopping child trafficking.
The years seem to be going by faster and faster. The boys were born in 2001. They disappeared in 2011, shortly after Tony revealed himself as Iron Man. In 2012 the Chitauri invaded New York, creating the Avengers. But it feels like the boys only just disappeared. Somehow they’ve been gone for barely any time at all but he’s still lived a lifetime without them. Tony needs to remind himself that they aren’t little boys anymore. They’re teenagers now. And he missed them growing up. If they ever did grow up, that is.