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“That’s a lot of Legos.”
Tony looked down at the coffee table in the living room as him and Clint passed it to get to the penthouse kitchen, and paused. He could say a fair good amount of excuses for them there. He had been fairly little that morning, but Daddy was in another country for the next three days, so he’d opened a new haunted house lego building pack, and had taken up a good hour and a half to finish less than half of it. He’d left that pack, plus three other new ones sitting in the living room when he’d needed to go back down to the shop earlier.
Now, he had Clint with him, coming up to the penthouse for lunch because both of them were alone for the day and bored. He could tell him a few different things.
One; he could say that him and Rhodey used them as a couple’s bonding thing, like how some couples did with puzzles, but neither Tony or Rhodey liked puzzles, so they did this. Two; he could say he was babysitting a kid. Three; the truth.
He decided to go with that one. In over twenty-five years of being a little, Tony had learned one thing; hiding in plain sight is literally the best way to keep from being seen.
“Yeah. When I was a kid, the lego company had just started coming out with lego build packs. I mean, sure, you could build your own stuff with the regular bucket, right? But that’s no fun. I liked the build packs because it’s like a 3D puzzle, you know?” He walked past Clint again towards the kitchen, and the archer followed behind, looking honestly interested in this story. “So, my dad wasn’t really all that big on toys that didn’t really teach you anything, and legos, while amazing, they don’t really involve many realistic components to them. So I never got any before. But when I was off at college, Rhodey convinced me to get them, because he thought it would help me when frustrated. So I did, and it worked, and now I just really like them. I pretty much just get any of the packs that look interesting now.”
Clint nodded. “So, you were doing something with them earlier?”
Tony nodded, getting a slightly sad look on his face. “I miss Rhodey.”
Clint looked sympathetic. “Yeah, I miss Phil…” He trailed off, giving Tony a thoughtful look. “Wanna finish what you were making earlier?”
Tony smiled a little, nodding. “Yeah.”
***
It became a thing. Every time Rhodey or Phil had to be out of town, the two of them would get together and build stupid things. It was becoming a thing, and one of the penthouse spare rooms was turning into a lego hoarding room.
Unfortunately, no matter how much fun he was having, Tony needed to remember that he wasn’t supposed to let his guard down around people who didn’t know he was little.
Whoops.
It started out easy enough. They had on cartoons in the background of the room, because apparently, Clint and Tony both had awful enough ADD that they needed to focus on multiple things at once if they were actually working. It’s why Tony always had on stupidly loud music in his lab, because he needed something to drown out the deafening silence that would be filled with confusion if he gave it the chance to set in.
Spongebob apparently annoyed the hell out of Clint because of the laughter, and Tony couldn’t really argue that, because he only really liked the laugh at all when he was little and babyish.
Clint liked Batman though, which is awesome, because Tony does too.
“You look tired.”
Tony lazily dragged his eyes up from the tv screen and over to Clint, who seemed to be fiddling with his left hearing aid, like he couldn’t get it to work properly. He shoved it back into his pants pocket anyways and turned to look at Tony fully. Tony thought that probably meant he couldn’t get it working properly.
He thought about asking if Clint wanted him to fix it, but he was suddenly being climbed over on the couch. “Hey!”
Clint ended up laying behind him on the soft cushions, and could apparently still hear well enough out of the other ear that he replied with an amused voice. “Go to sleep. I’m tired too.”
Tony grumbled under his breathe, dangerously close to little space right now. He turned over well enough to see Clint pulling the afghan off the back of the couch, and tugging it over them. “I don’t need a nap.”
Clint snorted, eyes rolling, and wrapped an arm around Tony’s waist to tug him back against his chest. That’s the thing about Tony and Clint; they’d immediately gravitated towards each other because of almost a complete lack of personal space. Clint knew to be cautious or avoiding of Tony’s chest entirely, and Tony wasn’t stupid enough to try sneaking up on the archer. It was one of the many bases of their friendship.
Which is good, because Daddy always says that you naturally learn to trust the people you sleep in close proximity to, and Clint could use a little more trust for a person who regularly flew him to rooftops, and whom he trusted to get him back down if the thing stops wanting to be vertical, and Tony could use more trust in his actual life.
Tony could feel Clint making himself comfortable. “Too bad, I’m tired, you’re one of my favorite pillows.”
Clint reached over them to tug the other hearing aid out and into the pocket with the other, and Tony took that as a demand for Tony to be quiet and nap.
Rhodey often used this method to get him to sleep too. It felt good, and like he was maybe getting more and more little when he shouldn’t be, but also like he needed a cuddle and some shut eye, so he snuggled back against him and closed his eyes.
He liked hanging out with his favorite birdy.
***
When Tony woke up, he felt warm and still sleepy, but also, kind of happy, and ready to get up and go get one of his bunnies to play. He felt a bit more little than usual, and that means bunny stuffies and maybe going down to his lab and playing with his bots.
He pulled his thumb out of his mouth with a wince. Daddy said that he shouldn’t do that, because he could mess up his teeth. He always got him pacis, and made sure he was using one before bed because he didn’t like waking up in the middle of the night to a wet hand smacking him in the face.
He didn’t feel anyone behind him, but it was bright in the room from the early afternoon sun, and he could hear something…
He tiredly started rubbing at his eyes, and felt someone looking at him. He opened one eye to glare at them, but went zero to a hundred in less than a second instead. “Daddy!”
Rhodey let out a slight ‘oof’ when Tony lunged off the couch, colliding with his stomach. He looked up at the doorway while his little snuggled into him, and even as he saw both Clint and Phil’s heads poke out to give him a slightly funny look, he couldn’t keep the slightly happy look off his face.
Tony barely even noticed; too little, and too comfortable, and too happy with ‘Daddy’s home ’ feels.
Fuck.
***
Having Clint know was almost nice… for like, five minutes. Then Daddy started getting bright ideas, like new babysitters for his snuggly baby boy. No no, Dada, that’s not okay, you didn’t discuss this with your sweet little sugarbug, Tony doesn’t want new babysitters.
Tony glared at Clint -somewhere around a week and a half later, after no less than three calls to assemble, and one fractured rib, one twisted ankle, and three large cuts that had required a total of thirty-two stitches, later- from his place on him and Rhodey’s bed, in a nest of blankets and stuffed animals.
Clint was smiling brightly at him, also on the bed with him less than two feet away. “Daddy, don’t go. Meetings is boring, just stay here with your sick baby, please?”
Rhodey sighed, coming over and uncovering Tony enough to press a kiss to his cheek. And another, and another, and another, until the baby was giggling in his warm cocoon of too many blankets. “Daddy has to do work. You can always ask Phil to take you down to the lab.”
Tony shook his head. He’d been in the lab for the majority of the time this past week and a half, when he wasn’t on pain killers -and sometimes when he was, don’t tell Daddy- and felt a little burnt out and overworked. He’d gotten a full night’s sleep the night before, but he felt a little like standing might hurt right now, and this was his first little day in nearly two weeks now since Phil and Clint had found out. “Daddy, I want you stay home, and take care of your baby, and give me cuddles, and maybe some juice. Why can’t Uncle Bruce babysit?”
Rhodey shook his head, “I’m sorry, lil bug, Uncle Bruce is doing important work for SHIELD right now to find a cure for Doctor Davies, and Daddy has meetings. I can’t stay home, baby.”
Tony let out a sniffle, worming his way over on the bed with a wince. His chest hurt, and he was benched right now after the crack in his ribs. Daddy and Phil had agreed with that, because he already had so much pain issues involving his chest, what with it having a fucking hole cut out of it and all, that Tony was too burnt out to go out with the others right now.
Daddy wouldn’t even let him work in the lab for more than a few hours at a time, and also said that he needed adult supervision, because he’s been teetering on the edge of little space all week. Now he was fully a baby, and felt icky, and just wanted a cuddle with his daddy. He stopped worming across the bed when he was next to Clint though, nudging his head into Clint’s stomach and making pathetic noises till the archer reached down to rub at his neck for him.
No one appreciated him no more.
“Daddy’s abandoning me, birdy.”
Clint frowned, glaring at Rhodey in offence of his friend being upset. “You’re awful. He just wants a cuddle.”
Rhodey rolled his eyes and went to finish getting his briefcase together. “Then you’ll be sure to give him lots and lots for me, right?”
Tony whined, pulling back enough to talk, “Dada, I don’t want birdy to babysit.”
Rhodey nodded with a smile. “That’s good, because he’s not. Phil is in charge, and you listen to what he says, okay?”
Tony nodded, but Clint looked a little offended. Rhodey pressed one last kiss to his baby’s forehead and gave Clint a stern look. “You know, he’s more of an adult than you are. So, Phil is in charge of the baby.”
Clint sighed, but nodded, moving down so he could worm his way into the blanket pile. “Fine. Mister meanie needs to go away now, because he’s mean.”
Rhodey just rolled his eyes again and left out the door.
***
Uncle Phil was a meanie. He made Tony eat lunch even though he didn’t want to, and said that Tony needed to take his pills, and take a nap, and be polite, and, and, and, ugh. Uncle Phil is boring.
Clint is less boring. He played with Tony’s stuffies with him while Tony felt floaty and upset because of too many pills, and even cuddled him and took a nap with him, and made funny faces at him when Uncle Phil made him drink a bottle of Jarvis’ homemade icky muscle relaxing tea.
Tony pushed himself up on the bed a little. Clint was still behind him, snoring a little into a pillow, but Tony’s awake now, and that means that nap time is over. Daddy didn’t always agree with that, but Tony had decided that nap time is over.
“Ugh, now I know why Rhodey’s always sleep deprived when you actually go to bed at the same time as him.” Clint curled up a little around the newly forming bruise on his lower abdomen from Tony’s well placed knee, and was silently thankful that the little hadn’t bruised him just a little lower.
Tony was already scrambling out of the bed though, towards the bathroom. He was in there for a few minutes, before coming out again, and heading towards the door. “Where are you going?”
Tony looked over at Clint with big eyes. “Come on, I wanna play with Dummy. Uncle Phil’s gotta take us though. Come on.”
Clint rolled out of the bed after him, and followed the little out of the bedroom, at a much more sedated pace. Tony was already standing next to Phil’s arm chair -and Phil seemed to be having a good time, if the mounds of paperwork on the coffee table was saying anything- and telling him all about how he taught Dummy to play Uno last month, and that he wants to go down to the lab, and that he feels lots and lots better than he did that morning.
Clint stumbled into the room after him, raising an eyebrow at Phil, who looked amused. Phil smiled at him, before giving a pointed look at Tony’s ankle while the engineer wasn’t looking. Clint nodded. Tony might be feeling better, but he had still been limping when he’d left the bathroom. He didn’t really think it was that bad though, because Tony had this odd propensity to twist his ankles at pretty much any moment. Rhodey said he’d spent the majority of his teen years in some sort of leg cast because of tripping over everything.
Clint was sort of worried about the stitches though. “Tony, is your back okay?”
He was frowning at Tony’s lower back, which had the majority of the stitches on it, the rest being on his left arm. Phil gave a subtle look behind the little, but wasn’t seeing what Clint was. “I feel fine.”
Clint’s lips were pressed tightly together, and Phil could see his left hand twitching, like he was trying not to reach out, and that was more than enough concern for him to get up and look at what Clint was seeing.
He let out a short sigh, cringing a little. “Um, Tony, I think we might need to go down to the med labs first before-”
“Why?” Tony tried twisting himself around to see his lower back like they could, and winced. “Huh. I thought that was a little cold.”
Phil winced, “And you didn’t think to check?”
Tony shrugged, “That entire area is kind of numb right now. I thought it was just cold… oh god, that means the bed is probably covered in blood too, right?”
Clint looked past them into the bedroom. “Uh… yeah. How about you let Phil take you down to get restitched and I deal with this-”
Tony shook his head, looking tired, and adult. “No, just toss the sheets in the garbage shoot. The stuffed animals can go in the laundry shoot, but I’d rather burn the blankets if they have blood on them. Jarvis, are you ordering a new mattress?”
“Yes, Sir. I would just like to say, it’s not a very big cut, my sensors didn’t even register any pain.”
Tony nodded, “Well, that might have been the painkillers, but yeah, it doesn’t feel too bad.”
Phil started ushering the man towards the elevator. “Come on, let’s get this looked at before your shirt fuses to your body.”
Tony’s side was mostly coated with a thin layer of blood, and Phil visibly kept his hands away from it. He wasn’t afraid of blood, but he was now standing in an elevator with a man that owned the world’s leading medical sciences company. He wasn’t afraid for himself, but Tony was oddly stiff when it comes to actual medical safety regulations, and might legitimately give him a lecture if he did.
Tony was leaning away from him, and suddenly looked up towards the ceiling. “Jarvis, what’s my blood glucose level? I feel suddenly shaky.”
Jarvis was silent for a few seconds. “Your blood glucose levels are normal, if a bit on the lower end, but normal for your average. You have, though, lost a considerable amount of blood.”
The doors opened up to the med labs, and Tony walked in, forgoing the wheelchair someone had waiting for him. He would have sat down in it, but he was honestly a little cautious about the small amount of blood he could feel sluggishly leaking out of the cut, which was slowly starting to sting at the way that the shirt he’d worn to sleep was moving just a little. He didn’t mind blood. It was his own blood that freaked him out.
“Would you recommend a blood transfusion?”
He didn’t actually have any of his own blood on hand, something that he normally found time to get once every two months. With Stark technology now days, it was getting easier and easier to keep blood on hand for more than the usual 42 day limit, and Tony was paranoid.
Unfortunately, the one time it might come in handy…
“No, Sir, but I am having someone sent down with a tray that I do expect you to eat.”
Tony nodded, letting one of the doctors -now that he was up, things were getting a little blurrier, and he couldn’t for the life of him, put a name to the woman’s face- lead him to a sterile room that he used when he got hurt instead of going to SHIELD medical. He fucking hated SHIELD medical.
He was living in a building with people who regularly got into fights for christ’s sake, and was one of the leading company’s for medical advancement. It’d actually be stupid not to have a med bay in the tower.
That’s not where he’d gotten these stitches though. Fucking SHIELD medical, man.
Tony let the woman help him onto the bed and winced when she immediately got a pair of scissors for his shirt, carefully cutting around the massive blood stain that was partially glued to his back, and helping him worm the rest of the fabric off.
“Stark, you okay?”
Tony looked up a few minutes later, while the doctor was in the process of redoing the majority of the stitches, which were now burning because of being pulled at and disinfected. He was starting to feel a little sick now. Apparently, Fury had some major explaining to do, because the stitches had come out because of being badly cleaned, and was starting to show signs of infection. Now he’s pissed, because he was going to have a scar there, and probably be throwing up for the next few days at least.
Tony looked up to see Steve and Bucky in the doorway. Rhodey was on his way back from Texas -yes, he had been in a fucking meeting in Texas of all the fucking places, he wasn’t even supposed to be back for three more days- and Thor was off visiting Jane. Natasha could just barely be spotted behind them, talking with Clint.
Tony felt like shit. “‘S that for me?”
Blucky looked down at the tray in his arms, and nodded. Tony could tell it was from the cafeteria floor. The team regularly used the cafe level, since none of the people in the building kept regular hours, and Steve couldn’t figure out how to use to microwave half the time, it was convenient, and the workers kept the Avenger’s health information on hand to make sure they never gave them anything bad.
Bucky set the tray next to him on the hospital bed, frowning at the way that Tony looked so pale. Tony reached out a shaky hand towards the to-go cup, and lifted it up, smelling it. He knew a liquid would probably be best. “Hot chocolate?”
“It’s dark chocolate with an added iron and vitamin c boost, best for promoting healthy blood levels.”
Tony nodded, a few seconds too late, and Steve was starting to get that ‘kicked puppy’ look on his face now, that he usually got whenever his teammates get hurt, so Tony looked away from him, taking a cautious -shaky- drink of the liquid. He tried not to take too long eating, knowing that he’d feel at least a little better once he ate something.
He looked over at the tray, and saw a covered plate. He was about to reach over and uncover it to see what else was there, when a particularly painful shock ran up his spine, making him curl in on himself as well as he could while not getting in the way of her work. They were redoing all the stitches, and they were probably going to have to cut off a small part of the infection when the rest of the stitches weren’t in danger of opening again. He winced and brought the cup up, drinking down a third of it in one go.
Today sucks.
Clint came into the room and walked past Steve and Bucky to give him a look, obviously deciding that he needed to be here, probably kicking himself over sleeping through most of it.
“It’s not your fault.”
Clint’s jaw worked ever so slightly, but he somehow managed to look just a little more guilty. “I was right there-”
“And I’m apparently infected, which means the stitches would have split anyways, and it’s better that they got them now, since apparently, they’re going to have to cut something off anyways.”
Clint looked a little like he might cry, his left hand tightening and releasing rhymically. Tony vacantly wondered if Clint would use stress balls if Tony gave them to him. He probably would. “Where’s Agent?”
Clint let out a slight huff of air. “Yelling at Fury. Probably firing people.”
Tony nodded, looking a little better at that. He felt just a little bit vindictive at the fact that someone would get in trouble for how bad he felt right now. At least it put a curb on him possibly yelling at anyone in the room now, because he didn’t want to yell at anyone here, but Tony lashed out when things hurt.
It was amazing that he was as happy of a person as he normally was, because things tended to hurt now days.
He took a deep breathe, and started chugging the rest of the drink, already feeling just a little more stable now that he was getting more fluids in. “Can someone get me a bottle of water? I want something cold.”
Steve nodded and left the room. Tony knew there were fridges on this floor, because he kept fridges on all the floors with workers on them. He knew how normal people tended to actually eat things. He reached over and put the empty cup down, waiting till the doctor was pulled back to grab something else, and grabbed the plate. Steve came back into the room and put a bottle of water on the tray, and Tony gave a slight grunt in thanks, already shoving a few bites of beef stroganoff into his mouth. Jarvis seems to have asked the canteen to give him an iron boost. He just kind of wanted to go back to sleep.
Maybe he could sleep down here for a few hours after he was all fixed. They tended to try and keep him down there so they could make sure he didn’t die anyways.
Nah, if he didn’t at least argue, everyone would probably think he was dying.
He felt like he was a little bit.
He swallowed with a wince. “So, anything interesting happen while I started dying?”
Steve gave him another kicked dog look, but Tony ignored it. They all knew by now that he couldn’t keep back the snark, and it was harder when things sucked.
He kind of wanted to yell at them all… he… he wanted Daddy to come back faster.
Today sucks.
***
When Tony woke up later, he found Rhodey sitting next to the bed, still in the sterile room they’d taken him into to slice parts of him off. He looked around for a second, seeing that the rest of the Avengers still in the tower were in the bright lobby for the labs outside the door, all eating dinner now.
“Hey, baby boy.”
Tony blinked tiredly for a minute before looking over at Rhodey. “Hi, Daddy.”
Yeah, this made things a little better.