Chapter Text
Tony ended up blaming Hawkeye for the whole thing. This wasn’t necessarily because Clint actually caused the problem, but more because he was the only available target for Tony’s ire who would hesitate to hit him back. And besides, Clint had been there.
They were saving the world. Tony didn’t actually remember the name of this particular villain who kept trying to blow cities up. It was something vague and overdone, like Crackling Dynamite or something, he didn’t really know. But the man had a machine, and Clint was the last one to hit the machine, and the machine broke.
To be fair, the machine didn’t do anything right away. It was really only when Tony had spent all of this time and effort getting it back to the mansion, complaining every step of the way about Pepper and how she was with Happy Hogan instead of him, and how Steve thought this was a dumb idea, etcetera, that it actually exploded.
At the time, Tony was more upset at how the machine exploding destroyed most of his second-best garage.
“I just bought that pool table!” he exclaimed, throwing his hands up into the air.
Clint squinted at the crumbled metal remains. “Why did it do that?” he asked. He put his hands on his hips and kicked at one of the pieces with the tip of his foot.
“More to the point,” Steve said, “did anything else happen?” He looked bewildered, rumpled, sleepy, and not like he particularly wanted to be dealing with this right now.
“It even destroyed the balls and the cues!” Tony cried. “I mean, come on! What sort of aim was that?”
“Tony, you have two pool tables upstairs,” Steve said. He rubbed at his forehead.
“It was new!” Tony wailed, and waved his arms dramatically, since Steve didn’t seem to understand the point of this conversation.
And so it turned out that between the machine exploding and the pool table’s demise, the Avengers didn’t notice that Thor never joined them. In fact, none of them even noticed that the God of Thunder had somehow vanished completely until the next morning, when Tony was in the kitchen with his bowl of cereal and somebody started screaming bloody murder upstairs.
He was the last to arrive on the scene, clutching his spoon in one fist. Natasha stood as far away from the group as possible, obviously completely puzzled, her cell open. Clint had that shifty look in his eyes again, like he was going to try and make a run for it as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Steve looked bewildered and sleepy again and he still had his pillow.
Bruce was in Thor’s room, evidently the first responder, and he struggled to hold onto a screaming, flailing golden-haired boy. The boy smacked Bruce over the head with his fist and shrieked, “Let me go let me go let me go!”
“Jesus,” Tony said. “What happened?”
“That,” Natasha murmured, “is a very good question.” She finally put her phone up to her ear and turned away. “Coulson? There’s something you need to see.”
Clint edged away. Tony decided to take the bull by the horns and stepped up to grab the boy from Bruce’s arms before the man lost his temper and turned into an enormous green rage monster in Tony’s house. He shook the kid a little and pointed the spoon at him, just so he knew that he meant business.
“Who are you?” he barked, pulling out the Authoritative Voice. Usually it worked pretty well, even on people that didn’t like him. “What are you doing here?”
“Tony, he’s just a child,” Steve said, sounding exhausted.
The boy stared at Tony like he had grown two heads, shaking and shrinking back. He had big blue eyes and smooth blond hair, and he was obviously fixing to cry.
“Don’t you even dare, kid,” Tony warned. “What’s your name?”
He sniffled and pushed against Tony’s hands. “Let me go!” he said, clearly trying to pull himself together. “You can’t keep hold of Thor, the God of Thunder!”
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Tony said, and dropped the boy like a hot coal. “Don’t mess with me. Is that really your name?” He glared and pointed his spoon at him again, squinting down its handle.
“Stop it,” Steve ordered. He pushed Tony aside and knelt down on the boy’s level. “My name is Steve,” he said kindly. “You’re Thor?”
The kid nodded, tears welling in his blue eyes. “Where am I?” he asked. He twisted his small fingers together. “This isn’t my home. I—where is Mother? Where’s Father?”
“They’re not here right now,” Steve said, still very gentle. He set aside his pillow and touched the boy’s shoulder. “You’re not in Asgard right now, Thor, all right? Now, I just want you to take a few deep breaths. We’ll figure out a way to get you back.”
“A-all right,” the tiny Thor stuttered, and he sucked down air like he’d been drowning. He scrubbed at his cheeks almost self-consciously. “What about my brother?” he demanded suddenly, his eyes brightening and his spine straightening. “Is Loki here? He’s littler than me, he’ll be scared if I’m not there to be brave for him!”
“Um,” Steve said, stumbling for the first time, his free hand clenching by his thigh. Tony crossed his arms and glowered. “No, your brother isn’t here. Not in the mansion, anyway.”
“I have to get back to him!” Thor tried to dart past him, but Tony blocked his path and Steve grabbed him around the middle, pulling him back. “You don’t understand, Mother and Father said that I have to watch over Loki! If I’m not there when he wakes up, he’ll get scared!”
“Cool it, squirt,” Tony said. “Your brother’s probably still on Asgard. I hope he is. We’ve certainly heard more about that goddamn little brother of yours in the past.”
“Tony,” Steve said warningly. The tiny Thor stared at him.
“I do not understand,” he said, voice high and quavering.
“Forget it,” Tony said.
So that was how Tony Stark found himself sitting at the breakfast table with a tiny god, while Steve cooked something on the stove and Bruce hid somewhere in the shadows. Thor sat very rigidly in his chair, his small fists folded in his lap, his lips pressed together to stop them trembling. He wouldn’t look at Tony—though he wouldn’t look at any of them, so Tony didn’t take it personally. Kid Thor was much more prone to tears than he would have guessed.
“Tony, he’s scared,” Steve sighed when he voiced this opinion, after Bruce had volunteered to take the boy downstairs. “Just be quiet, please?”
“You’re really Thor?” Tony asked now, just to make sure. This tiny boy didn’t remind him much of their resident God at all.
The boy finally glanced at him and almost immediately away again. “Of course I am,” he said, regaining a little bit of equilibrium, if his volume was anything to go by. Ah. There was the Thor Tony knew. “Father says that the Midgardians worship us as gods.” His blue eyes met Tony’s, less watery than before. “This is Midgard, is it not?”
“Bingo,” said Tony.
Bruce emerged from near the cupboards, the Scientist Expression on his face and a box of cereal in his hand. “How could you know that?” he asked.
“It feels like Midgard,” Thor said mulishly, crossing his arms, obviously daring them to refute his conclusions. “None of you are of Asgard.”
“Well, that’s true enough,” interrupted Steve, in a way that absolutely shut down the conversation. He put some eggs and toast on a plate, somehow perfectly arranged, and then set it in front of Thor. “Eat,” he said firmly. “Tony, could I have a word outside?”
Not very reluctantly, Tony got to his feet and gave Thor a cheery wave. “Later, kiddo,” he said, and followed Steve out of the kitchen.
“Tony, I need you to watch him,” said Steve immediately.
Tony cried, “What? No way! See this?” He gestured to his whole body. “This is not kid-watching material, Captain. I’ll probably blow him up.”
“He’s Asgardian,” Steve said, too reasonably. “They bounce. Besides, he likes you.”
“He does not,” Tony said, highly affronted.
“I have to talk to Coulson, Bruce can’t watch him, and Clint and Natasha have to be on duty while we try to sort this out,” Steve admitted finally. “So until further notice….”
“I’m Uncle Tony,” he finished for him, resigned. He sighed in a very put-upon way, just to make sure that Steve knew how much he was asking. “Right. Okay. But you owe me one.”
And that was how Tony Stark, CEO of Stark Enterprises, genius, playboy, billionaire, philanthropist, etcetera, ended up as the babysitter to a tearful godchild.
“Jesus Christ,” he said to nobody in particular.