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Tony closes the door behind him and, finally, lets a long sigh of relief at the familiar smell of home. He can’t really say what his house smells like; only, that it makes his heart go soft and makes a small smile appears on his face. Maybe it smells like homemade food, because the kitchen is close to the main door and, in winter, he doesn’t like to open the window to let the smells go. Maybe, it smells like vanilla from the candles that Rhodey and Pepper gave him for his birthday last year. Or maybe it’s just a feeling that he gets when he puts a step on the small apartment – but not in any way humble or shitty – that he has built through the years for his small family.
He has something clear; the best thing of the apartment isn’t the familiar smell, whatever it is, but the sounds that always greets him when he arrives from work. Most of the times are socked hurried feet that make their way to the front door, behind trailing a blanket or a toy of choice. Other times, is the scream of his name from the bathroom, where the nannies are running a bath. And when he comes home late, are the soft snores from his son and his sleepy voice when he calls out for him just before going back to sleep.
Looking at his wrist, the silence in the house isn’t abnormal; if anything, it’s the latest he has ever came from work. The unexpected meeting he had been dragged into that morning by Pepper had been longer than expected, with thousands of ‘what if’s of investors that loved to run by every detail before doing anything. He hasn’t been able to tuck Peter to bed or assure him that there were no monster in the closet.
“Rachel? I’m home” he calls out for the nanny, as he leaves his shoes on the entrance.
He walks into his house expecting to see the young girl laying on the couch. When he had decided to give Peter a normal life, he had brought an apartment in the middle of the city, small enough to be cozy and big enough to have everything Peter needed or wanted. That meant, also, that it took him longer to go to work, which lead to the nannies. Rachel isn’t Tony’s favourite, because he has the impression she’s just the average teenager girl who doesn’t like kids.
But Peter loves everyone and everything, and she has a dolphin tattooed on her right wrist, so the five year old is very adamant for her to stay. To Tony, she’s still on her trial period, which consist in a month before he decides she’s good for Peter. This has been the first day she has real responsibility, meaning picking Peter up from pre-school and staying with him until Tony is back home.
“She could have picked up the clothes at least” Tony hums, as he picks him Peter’s clothes that he had thrown around that morning. “Rachel, you there? You can go back home now”
“Sir, may I inform you that Miss Baily isn’t here right now?” JARVIS’s robotic voice announces.
Tony frowns in the middle of picking up Peter’s last pyjama sock, as he likes to call the fluffy socks that he wears to bed. His brain is mildly on airplane mode since he left the meeting, but it starts working when he registers the new information.
“She already left?” Tony asks to himself. “I can’t believe – I knew she wasn’t good for Peter. I told her to wait until I came home! God, he better not have woken up –“
“Miss Baily hasn’t been inside the building since yesterday’s evening”
“What?” Tony stops his movement, only for a second later run to Peter’s bedroom.
“I’m afraid little sir hasn’t been in the apartment since he left this morning for his pre-school”
Tony confirms what he’s hearing in the two seconds he need to get to Peter’s room. The hallway isn’t littered with his toys, because Peter is too tired to pick them up and he promises to do it tomorrow. There isn’t any iron man’s bag laying between drawings and papers that Peter brings from school. And more important, there isn’t an sleeping child on Peter’s bed, just his teddy and his constellation sheets.
Peter’s curtains as still open, the moon light seeping through and lighting up his favourite Lego set. His pyjamas are laying on the bed, where he had left them this morning, with his favourite teddy. Tony feels as if he can’t get enough air or blood to his brain, and his knees give out. He stumbles to the ground, gripping the door’s frame until he’s sitting. The arc reactor glows even brighter than usual, which only happens when he’s about to go into a panic attack or faint. There are so many possibilities that he feels his head swimming.
Kidnapping.
Breaking in.
Revenge.
Traitors and betrayal.
Sold.
Scared, teary brown eyes.
Blood.
Bruises.
Mur –
“It appears that you have several missed calls from Peter’s pre-school, sir” JARVIS’ voice is louder than before, enough to make Tony wake up from his endless possibilities nightmare. “You’ve had your phone on silent since the meeting, but there is one voicemail from an unknown number”
“Can you track it?” Tony asks, stumbling as he tries to get up. “Track it. And call Rhodey. Tell him – tell him that Peter’s missing”
“Of course, sir” JARVIS answer. “It seems that the phone comes from Queens. There are no barriers when it comes to the location, so if I might guess, no one wants to hide Peter from you”
“Play the message”
Tony can barely see through his blurry eyes, that are filled with tears and fear. He can’t even think about Peter going through half of what he went in Afghanistan. His sweet, baby-ish Peter, who stops to be every dog when they’re out for a walk and cries in the morning out of sadness when one of his plushies falls from bed. It won’t be the first kidnapping attempt. In a few occasions, he had find a stranger trying to coax Peter to come with them by offering candies, when they go out shopping. Once, they even came as close as trying to grab him while he was playing in the park; thankfully, Happy and his team had been close.
Peter had spent the whole night crying into his dad’s arms, scared and trembling. From experience, Tony is sure he wouldn’t go with a stranger under any circumstance. And for a moment it strikes Tony that Rachel might have been the one tricking him. Or maybe they have taken her too, an innocent teenager.
The soothing voice a woman that he knows too well puts, once more, a stop to his train of thoughts.
“Hey, Mr Stark. This is, uh, May Parker’s personal number, Peter’s teacher. I’ve tried to reach you a few times, but as you might guess for the endless calls – hey, it’s fine buddy. I’m talking to your daddy now. We’re leaving him a – Daddy!”
Peter’s voice is like a wave of relief. It’s a call full of anguish, that has Tony’s stomach turning around, but it’s still his voice. And Tony knows the other voice too, the kind Miss Parker who Peter loves lots and lots. The woman has been understanding so far with Peter being a Stark, and Tony is so happy with her that last Christmas he had let Peter give her a small gift. Tony has a feeling about where it is going, and he feels sorry for Rachel Baily already. As soon as Peter is tucked in bed and safe, he’s gonna have a few words – screams – with her.
“Yeah, it’s your daddy. Um, as you can see – sorry, hear, Peter here is quite distressed. He says – who baby? Miss Rachel has forgotten ‘bout me, daddy. It’s fine, Pete. Mr Stark, since it’s getting late, the school has already closed and Peter is cold, we’re going to my apartment to wait for you. Uh, I hope everything is fine, I’ll take good care of him until you’re available. Or – yeah, I’ll send you my address through message. I already know his allergies, so I’ll try to feed him something if he doesn’t make himself sick again crying. You want to leave a message for daddy, Pete?”
Through the whole message, Tony hears Peter’s quite sniffles in the back. His boy doesn’t like to make a big show when he cries, but sometimes he can’t help it. And he feels with such a passion, that more than once Peter has thrown up on himself for it. There is shuffling and Tony realizes they must have been still in the school porch, as a car pass by. Suddenly, Peter’s breathing is just beside the phone, and Tony smiles when he hears Peter finally talking to him.
“D-daddy, I’m with Miss May. Can you… can you pick me up? Rachel forgot ‘bout me, and… I-I don’t like her dolphin so much now”
Tony doesn’t waste another second. He asks JARVIS to put the address in the car and grabs once more his coat, no track of the previous tiredness on his body. Rhodey, who is already putting on a suit and on the phone with the military forces, get warned about the situation from the AI too, and the man can’t be mad at Tony for worrying.
He’s gonna get his boy back, and then, he’s gonna tear the dolphin away from Rachel.
-
May Parker’s apartment is so small and the surroundings look so bad, that Tony decides that her next Christmas present is going to be a whole duplex. Or whatever she wants. If she wants to live in the SI quarters, he’ll kick everyone out. Maybe it’s a bit too much, but he can’t describe the relief he feels when he reaches the apartment and hears Peter’s voice calling for him as soon as he knocks on the door.
He takes the stairs two at the time, not even stopping to turn on the lights. That make him stumble a few times, because the sun is long gone and the building had almost no windows. The idea of finally having Peter between his arms is what push him through, and in less than a minute, he has climbed four floors and had found the right letter of the apartment. Tony doesn’t care about the hour – probably, he should be careful of other people sleeping or having kids, but he bangs against the door as if it’s the last thing he’s going to do. Right after that, Peter’s voice sounds.
“Daddy! Daddy!”
The door opens and a small body slams into his legs; and Tony discovers that the smell he loves the most is Peter’s shampoo. A woman with kind, brown eyes and a messy ponytail appears shortly behind, who Tony recognizes as May Parker. He’s used to seeing her with a pink and blue smock, not in some sweater and shorts. His past self would have stopped to see how beautiful she looked, but right now Tony only cares about the little crying bundle.
“Oh, bub” he picks Peter up, his knees protesting silently. He barely adjust him before Peter is wrapping himself around his body. “Hey, it’s alright. I’m here. I’m here”
“I get it was just the nanny’s mistake?” May asks with a small smile. Before answering, Tony presses two quick kisses to Peter’s hair.
“She’s not going to be the nanny anymore, I can promise you that. But yes, problems of trusting a teenager who spends too much time on her phone” Tony tries to joke, but it comes out a little stained. He can’t ignore the wet spot growing on his shoulder. “Was he too much of a problem? I hope no, he’s such a sweet child – but he gets, uh, overwhelmed easily, so…”
“Oh, I know” May cut him off by waving her hand. “He’s been a champ, even helped me with dinner. He was just a little worried, but he’s very brave. Right, Peter?”
The boy usually doesn’t let anyone around when he’s upset, just wanting his daddy. But he lifts his head up, letting his hand rest on Tony’s neck, and nods to May. He lets her pat his head and even leans against her hand, letting Tony know how much of a comfort she was for Peter.
“We made cour…cour…corget’ cream, and chips” Peter explains, hiding his face back into Tony’s shoulder. Tony doesn’t reprimand him for not looking up while talking, and takes as a victory that he isn’t crying anymore. “They were really yummy. And – and she let me have a strawberry yogurt, but it didn’t have milk so my tummy didn’t hurt. I really liked the yogurt, daddy”
“Courgette, honey” May corrects him, but the kid is too busy toying with one of Tony’s jacket buttons. “I didn’t give him any milk or anything new, just made him dinner since he was hungry. I hope you don’t mind”
“Oh, no. It’s – thank you, Miss Parker” Tony smiles at her. “I’m really relieved you were the one finding him and not some… you know. Just, thank you.”
“Peter was waiting in my office, actually. When the rest of the families left and he didn’t see Rachel, he went to look for me”
“Is that so, Peter?” Tony asks, heart-warming with how responsible his son is. He nods softly and a small yawn escapes.
“You told me to find an adult if I ever got lost, and I couldn’t find Miss Rachel, so I was lost. And I didn’t want the bad man take me away, so I looked for Miss May”
Tony won’t ever be able to express how much he loves Peter. He remembers having doubts at the begging, about raising a boy with no mother because she was too much of a coward to let her modelling career. He remembers the sleepless night by his side, not knowing what was wrong. The first steps, words and his first days of school, where Peter had dried Tony’s rebellious tear. There isn’t enough space in his heart for such a pure boy. He hugs him even tighter, Peter mumbling a small ‘love you’. He should have been asleep for more than hour now, so it’s only rational when he rubs his eye with his fist and gets ride of the last tear.
“Well, I’m glad to hear so” Tony chokes out, composing himself before looking at May. “I don’t know how to thank you. Really, I was so worried”
“I can imagine. You don’t have to thank me, though, that’s my job. And Peter is a sweetheart” May leans against the door frame. “Although you should have a serious talk with that Rachel. Peter was heartbroken over it”
“Oh, you can count with that” Tony scoffs. “She’s gonna be hearing me into the next century”
“Don’t be too hard. Teenagers seem to be quite stupefied lately, and she can’t mean any personal harm to Peter. She was probably too busy with a boy”
“That doesn’t excuse her” Tony says convinced. There is no way Rachel is going to be in the ten foot range of Peter ever again, if it’s up to Tony. He’ll talk with her parents, her boyfriend and whoever wants to contract her next. Realizing Peter is falling asleep and his feet hurt horribly, he coughs awkwardly. “Well, I better keep going. We both deserve a long night of sleep”
“I doubt he makes it to bed”
“Again, thank you” Tony repeats, not feeling grateful enough. He owns her his life. “If there is anything you need, don’t hesitate to call me. You already have my number – and I have you saved, so no more scares about being ransoms for my kidnapped son”
“Don’t worry, Mr Stark” she laughs. “Have a good night – and, oh, I think you shouldn’t bring him to school tomorrow. Let him rest and maybe give him a little love. It has been really, really hard for him”
“I will, don’t worry. I plan on keeping him home to myself for a few days, and spend the weekend together” Tony smiled. “I’m not going anywhere”
May and Tony say their goodbyes and the door is closed. Once more, Tony walks down the stairs without turning on the lights, but now for a different reason. Peter is sound asleep on his shoulder, his fist closed around Tony’s jacket with an iron grip, and his mouth slack against his neck. Little puffs of air hit his skin when a small snore fills the silence of the stairway, which make Tony’s cheeks hurt from smiling so hard. He goes slowly, minding every step and holding Peter’s head and butt. He’s a small boy – such a small boy, that sometimes he thinks that he’s still the baby he held on the hospital for the first time.
They make it to the street without any altercation, and Tony fastens Peter’s seatbelt on his highchair. The boy opens his eyes for a second, as if he doesn’t remember where he is. When he sees his dad, his face relaxes and he offers him a small, cute smile. A little dimple forms on his right cheek, and Tony almost owes.
“Daddy” he calls him. “Can we buy more of the strawberry yogurt? I really liked it”
“Sure, baby. We’ll go to the market tomorrow. And then I’ll buy you something cool, how does it sounds?” Tony asks as he fastens the belt. “Maybe a new Lego, or a puzzle. We can even look into the books section”
“But it isn’t my birthday” Peter frowns.
“It’s a reward for being so brave and responsible” Tony finishes, and caress Peter’s face with his left hand. He watches as his son cuddles the palm, making a satisfied hum, and he wishes that he had brought Happy so he could sit with him.
“I don’t want a reward, I jus’ wanna stay with you” Peter says, as if he doesn’t know what he’s doing with Tony’s heart with each word and smile. “And no more Rachel”
“No more Rachel, Pete, I promise”
Tony leaves a kiss on his son’s forehead, for a moment forgetting about the events of the day. He just wants to drive home and tuck him in bed, maybe letting Peter sleep with him and cuddle his kid finally. He wants to wake up tomorrow to a small hand covering his face, or a feet on his ribs, anything that reminds him that Peter is real, safe and with him. Later that day, he’ll deal with Rachel Baily and her parents, and he’ll ask Pepper for help to search for a gift for May Parker. He’ll draw something with Peter to thank her, and he’ll buy every lactose free yogurt flavour in the market.
Finally, he feels like home.