Chapter Text
“Strawberry or blueberry?”
Tony’s squinted at the schematic in front of him. “I like both,” he said, only half paying attention. He reached up, adjusting the wireframe model with a flick of a finger. “Was I drunk when designed this?”
“I do not believe so, sir,” Jarvis said. “Though your blood alcohol levels have caught me by surprise often enough before.”
“Yeah, I am not proud of that,” Tony admitted, just before a small body flopped onto the workbench in front of him. Biting back a smile, Tony gave him a stern look. Even upside down, this particular problem was very familiar. “Excuse me, unless you’re in active need of repairs or you’re a highly profitable potential product I get to announce for the 3rd quarter stock holders meeting, you don’t belong on that bench.”
DJ grinned back, his nose wrinkling up with the force of it. “Maybe broken.”
“Pretty sure you’re broken, because you keep skipping your maintenance sessions,” Tony said. He shoved the schematic out of the way. That was a problem for another day. Probably tomorrow. At around three am. Tony braced his hands on the workbench, bending over his kid. “Hi.”
“Hi,” DJ said. He held up two bags of frozen fruit. “Blueberries or strawberries?”
“I like both,” Tony repeated. He glanced towards the clock on the wall. “But it’s not smoothie time.”
“Always smoothie time,” DJ said, his voice flat.
“I mean, it’s always smoothie time SOMEWHERE, but here in the workshop-” Tony tucked his hands under DJ’s arms and slid him the rest of the way off of the workbench. Something metal and probably expensive went along with the flailing legs with a clatter, and Tony dropped DJ onto a stool. “There. Be a person.”
DJ considered that, his eyes tipping up towards the ceiling. “Hard,” he admitted.
“Buddy, you don’t have to tell me that.” Tony reached for his coffee cup. “I just had lunch like-” He took a sip of his coffee, his free hand cutting through the air in an aborted gesture. “I don’t know, thirty minutes ago?”
“You did not have lunch today. You did, however, have breakfast six hours ago,” Jarvis corrected.
Tony paused. “Did I ask for a timer here, Jay, is that anything-”
“My apologies, sir, I should’ve been more precise,” Jarvis said.
“No, you shouldn’t-”
“You finished breakfast six hours, sixteen minutes and thirty-eight seconds ago,” Jarvis said, his voice entirely too cheerful.
Tony stared up at the ceiling. “Jay?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Stop helping,” Tony said, hiding his smile behind his coffee cup.
“Unfortunately, attempting to do so would be a violation of my programming.”
“Yeah, and you only do that when it’s convenient for you.” DJ giggled, and Tony gave him a look out of the corner of his eyes. “Yeah? Does that sound familiar?”
“Nope!” DJ wiggled off of the stool, his bare feet dropping to the floor with a solid thud. “Blueberry or-”
“Blueberry,” Tony said, shaking his head. “And I’m not hungry, we can-”
“Bacon or sausage?”
Tony stopped mid-sip, his face wrinkling up. He set his cup down. “This smoothie is getting experimental in ways I’m not sure I’m comfortable with, what are we-”
“Sunday,” DJ said. He darted around the far side of the workbench, collecting a tablet he’d left there. Cradling the bags of frozen fruit in the elbow of one arm, he balanced the tablet on the edge of the bench, his fingers flying across the surface.
“No, it’s-” Tony stopped.
“Sir, it’s-”
Tony held up a hand. “Do not. It’s Tuesday. I know it’s Tuesday. You do not have to tell me it’s Tuesday, because I know it’s Tuesday, Jay.” There was a beat of silence, and Tony slapped his hands onto the bench, leaning into his palms. “Isn’t it.”
“It is, in fact, Tuesday.”
Tony’s head fell forward, his breath leaving him in a rush. “Right. Right, I knew that. I definitely didn’t panic there for a second thinking that’d I’d lost track of time and the board meeting was actually tomorrow instead of in three days, because I need every fucking one of those days.”
DJ looked up from his tablet. “Help?” he asked, his eyes bright with hope.
“You have things to do,” Tony told him. “And doing your assignments-”
DJ set the tablet down. “Need help.” His eyebrows arched. “Right?”
Tony’s chin dipped in a slow nod. “I mean. Not wrong.” He smiled, and DJ smiled back at him. “If you want to help-”
“Want to help,” DJ said.
“Then help you will,” Tony said, pulling up the holographic files with a grand sweep of his arm. “But if it’s Tuesday, why are we talking about Sunday? What’s happening Sunday?”
“It’s Father’s Day.”
Tony glanced back over his shoulder just in time to see Steve walk through the door of the workshop. “What?” Tony asked.
“This Sunday. It’s Father’s Day. You remember that, right?” Steve asked.
“No, why would I remember that?” Tony stared at him. Steve gave him a look, and Tony turned to stare at DJ. “No. We’re not doing that. I told everyone in this building we’re not doing that. Who told you about Father’s Day?”
DJ grinned at him. “Internet. In my head.”
“Yeah, well, the internet lies, it lies a lot, this is one of those lying times, we’re not doing that,” Tony told him, trying his best to sound stern and not panicked.
DJ considered him. “Father’s Day,” he said, and it somehow sounded like a threat.
“No,” Tony said. “Steve-”
“You’re right, it is Father’s Day this Sunday, and because of that, we are doing breakfast in bed. Right, Deej?” Steve held his hands out, and DJ shot across the floor, throwing himself into Steve’s arms with all the force his little body could manage. Laughing, Steve scooped him up, giving him a quick toss in the air. “Blueberry pancakes or strawberry waffles?”
“Blueberry!” DJ said, throwing his hands up.
“Good choice,” Steve said to Tony.
Tony scraped a hand over his face, something acid and bitter biting the back of his throat. “Right,” he said, drawing the word out so he didn’t say something he would regret. And there were a lot of words he knew he’d regret. He straightened up, squaring his shoulders. “Maybe we can not do that?”
DJ leaned his head against Steve’s shoulder, his face scrunching up as he thought. Tony waited him out, one hand braced on the edge of the workbench. “Pancakes,” DJ said, his eyes narrowing with a bright smile. “Then, schedule.”
“While I do appreciate your schedules,” Tony said, each word carefully formed, “I’d like to know what else is on this particular schedule before I commit to anything.”
“I think you’re committed,” Steve said, as DJ started wiggling in his arms. He leaned over, letting the kid slide back to the ground. “Everyone else is.”
“Yeah, I’m getting that,” Tony said. “Deej-”
“Right back!” DJ said, running across the workshop towards the hallway to his room. Before Tony could say anything else, he was around the corner and out of sight.
Tony took a deep breath. “Steve?”
Steve picked up the bags of frozen fruit. “Tony?”
“You put him up to this.”
Steve gave him another look. Tony did his best to ignore it, but it was harder than it should’ve been. Steve’s looks were lethal when he wanted them to be. “I did not. He’s been watching a lot of age appropriate media, Tony, holidays come up regularly, and he can read a calendar. Better than his dad can, apparently.”
“Jarvis tells me about the important stuff!” Tony said. He trailed behind Steve as he returned the fruit to the workshop fridge. “And I programmed him to do that!”
“Yeah, you created an incredibly advanced, self-sustaining, independent artificial intelligence that far surpasses what anyone else has ever managed,” Steve said, closing the freezer door. “Entire companies, whole industries have been created and collapsed trying to replicate a fragment of the brilliance of what you accomplished with Jarvis.”
Tony stopped, mollified. “Yes. See, you understand the intent here-”
“And you use him to keep track of your calendar,” Steve said.
“Okay, but-”
“It does seem like overkill, sir,” Jarvis said.
“I’m seriously considering replacing you with a text alert system,” Tony said.
“It would likely be easier to maintain,” Jarvis mused.
“I’m going to need you to stop siding with Steve,” Tony told him. “I’m supposed to be your favorite. I wrote your code, I put that in there, I created you, you have to like me best.”
“I do not have favorites,” Jarvis said. “However, you are Steve’s favorite.”
“That’s true,” Steve said, grinning.
“And he always has your best interests at heart.”
“Okay, that’s a fucking lie,” Tony said, ignoring the way Steve was laughing.
“Which is why I am willing to assist him.”
“Willing to betray me, you mean.” Tony stabbed a finger at Steve. “And this is a betrayal. You know it is. You could’ve told me what he was planning.”
“DJ wanted to surprise you,” Steve said. “I’m the one who convinced him to ask you what you wanted for breakfast.” He leaned in. “Whether you recognize it or not, this is me being on your side.”
“It does not feel like it,” Tony said. But Steve’s mouth was right there, so close, so tempting, and he closed the distance, pressing a quick, hard kiss on Steve’s lips. A moment later, he pulled away, breathing just a little harder. “Betrayal, Rogers.”
“I know,” Steve said. His face was flushed, and Tony couldn’t help but feel a pang of satisfaction about that. “It’s important to DJ.”
“I don’t need a day,” Tony gritted out from between clenched teeth. Without anything else to do, he headed back towards the workbench. It was easier to have this conversation if he had something, anything, to distract him. And this failure of a project would have to do. “And since this is supposed to be a day for me, I think I get to politely decline.”
“You do.” Steve leaned back against the workbench, his arms crossed over his chest. He glanced in Tony’s direction. “Do you really want to?”
Tony avoided meeting his eyes, staring down at his calculations with a force of will. “I want to have a normal Sunday,” he said, picking up a stylus to scribble a few lines on a nearby tablet. “I want to eat a bagel and risk my life stealing hash browns from Romanov and figure out if DJ’s okay with cream cheese or lox this week or not and bitch about everyone stealing my good coffee and spend an hour arguing about the proper way to eat eggs with Coulson.”
Steve’s lips twitched. “So you have plans.”
“I don’t have plans, I have a routine,” Tony said. He wasn’t sure what point ‘habit’ became ‘ritual,’ but he was pretty sure he’d passed the point of no return on that one. “I have a comfortable, familiar routine, where I get to bicker with the people who live in my tower rent free. That’s part of the lease agreement. Once a week, I get an everything bagel, a poached egg, and the ability to tell Clint that capers are literally causing him brain damage.”
“We could move that to Saturday,” Steve suggested.
Tony pointed the stylus at him. “Or we could just ignore the Hallmark commercials and just-” He slashed it through the air like a weapon. “Have a Sunday? A normal Sunday where I don’t have to try to eat waffles soaked in syrup off of a tray in bed like an invalid?”
“I think we’re making pancakes,” Steve pointed out.
“I think I’m going to take my plate to the kitchen,” Tony told him.
Steve shifted his weight, his shoulder brushing against Tony’s. “You can. If that’s what you want-”
“That’s what I want,” Tony said, his voice flat.
“Okay,” Steve said, and Tony wasn’t sure he really trusted this level of agreeable. He leaned in, giving Steve a narrow look. Steve smiled at him. “DJ wants to do this.”
Tony let out a long groan, his head falling back. “Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.”
“Pretty much,” Steve agreed. He paused, his weight rocking forward on the balls of his feet. “You don’t have to-”
“I need you to stop talking now,” Tony said, and Steve fell obediently silent, his lips twitching. Tony tossed the stylus down, and immediately regretted it. He wanted something in his hands right now. “And you can wipe that smirk off of your face, Rogers, if I’m going down, I’m taking you down with me.”
Steve rubbed a hand over his mouth. It did nothing to hide the laughter in his eyes. “No idea what you’re talking about, I’m going to be helping DJ make pancakes and bacon for his dad this weekend.”
“Oh, no. No. Absolutely fucking not,” Tony said, stalking to the other side of the workbench to collect DJ’s sweatshirt and a lone shoe. “If I have to suffer through this farce, you are absolutely going to be suffering right alongside me. You don’t get to skip out, why, why would you be able to-”
“I’m not his dad.
Tony stilled. Took a deep breath. Turned to face Steve. “Semantics.”
“It’s not-”
Tony grabbed DJ’s sketchbook from the workbench, adding it to the pile. “It is semantics, Steve, it’s fucking weasel language, you’re pretty much the default parent, and I know that, and I’m pissed at myself about it, but here we are, right? You are his parent, so let’s not play these games.”
“I’m not his dad,” Steve said, his voice quiet. “You are. I love him, and he loves me, but I am not his dad.”
“Yeah, well, neither am I, strictly speaking,” Tony said. “I’m his inventor and his chief engineer and primary repairman, but-”
“As someone who’s known a few Starks?” Steve said, eyebrows arching. “DJ is a Stark. He’s your son, and you are his dad. Aren’t you?”
“Unfortunately for him, yes, probably.” Tony dumped the pile of kid debris on the couch. “Can we not do this?”
“It’s your choice.” Steve offered Tony the other shoe. “If you don’t want to do this, no one’s going to make you, Tony. We can’t.”
With a force of will, Tony met Steve’s eyes. “But you think I’m going to.”
Steve smiled at him. “I’m hoping you will. The kids loves you.”
Tony snorted under his breath. “Right, I know that, don’t know why or what’s wrong with him, but I know he loves me, trust me, I don’t need a day for it.”
Steve picked up Tony’s coffee cup, considering the dregs with a faint frown. “He knows that. He still wants to give you one.” He held the cup towards Tony. “How old is this, Tony?”
“Hey, I’m not done with that,” Tony said, making a grab for it. Steve held it over his head, well out of reach, and Tony considered kicking him in the shins. Instead, he snagged the front of Steve’s t-shirt, dragging him down. “Not done with you, either.”
Steve grinned. “I hope not.”
The sound of small feet on the floor had Tony leaning in, pressing a quick, hard kiss on Steve’s mouth before he stole his cup back. “Mine.” He wasn’t sure if he was talking about Steve or the cup, but it worked either way.
“You’re not getting out of this by giving yourself food poisoning,” Steve said under his breath, and despite himself, Tony started laughing.
DJ slid into view, a dry erase board pinned under one arm. He straightened up, hefting it up in front of him. “Schedule!”
Tony took a sip of his coffee and considered it. DJ’s writing fluctuated between perfect and illegible, faded in places and smudged in others, and he could tell at a glance which words were written by Dummy and which were DJ’s handiwork. He smiled. “That’s a lot, buddy.”
DJ peered over the top. “Schedule.” He tapped the dry erase marker against the bullet point listing, each line marked with a time. There were a lot of lines. “Start with breakfast.” His eyes narrowed. “In bed.”
Tony gave up. “Right, we’ll pencil in changing the sheets right after that.”
“So I’ll help you make breakfast, and then what?” Steve asked, smiling at DJ.
“Clint helping,” DJ said. “Pancakes for Dad and Steve.”
“For Dad,” Steve corrected. “And I’m helping you make them.”
DJ’s chin came up, a stubborn angle that Tony had learned to fear. “Clint,” he repeated, tapping the dry erase board with force. “Father’s day.”
“Right.” Steve crouched down in front of him, pushing his hair away from his forehead. “It’s Father’s Day, so we’re doing things for your dad.”
“Against his will,” Tony mumbled into his cup. Steve rolled his eyes in Tony’s direction, and Tony shrugged. “We sure are doing things.”
Steve exhaled, turning back to DJ. “I’m not your dad, I’m just Steve.”
DJ blinked, slow and careful. “When Steve Day?”
Steve laughed. “My birthday is in July, we are going to have a cookout on the roof, right, and then drones and fireworks and watching baseball on the outside screen?”
“Not birthday.” DJ put the dry erase board aside. “When Steve Day?”
The wave of glee caught Tony wholly off guard, and he almost dropped the coffee cup on the workbench. “When IS Steve Day?”
Steve gave him a look that promised a long, painful discussion later. “There is no Steve Day, you know that, my birthday-”
Tony held up a hand. “No, no, everyone has a birthday, I have a birthday, we just went though my birthday, that was great, loved it, good time, but now there’s Father’s Day, which, like you said-” He gave Steve his widest, brightest smile. The one he usually reserved for red carpets and congressional hearings. “Is just for me. So I get my birthday and Father’s Day.”
“Correct,” Steve said, straightening up. He was staring at Tony, his head shaking ever so slightly from side to side. “And I have my birthday.”
“And Steve Day,” Tony said, slightly drunk with the concept. “Deej, tell me more about Steve Day.”
Out of sight of DJ, Steve mouthed ‘Do not,’ and Tony ignored him. He held out a hand to DJ. “Let’s get you a new whiteboard, or a secret file that we can hide from Steve.”
Steve braced a fist on the workbench, leaning into it. “Tony, I know what you’re doing.”
“I’m helping the kid plan Steve Day,” Tony said. “Since Father’s Day plans are set, and we’ve all agreed that we’re going to do Father’s Day, so now we have plenty of time to plan Steve Day.”
Steve’s eyes shut, a muscle in his jaw jumping for a second. “DJ. You can’t just make up a holiday.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Tony told DJ, boosting him onto a stool. “All holidays are made up. Every single one. Mostly by stores and card companies that want to sell things, ours is a pure holiday, pure as our love for Steve.” DJ tipped his head back, grinning up at Tony. Tony smiled back, absolutely at peace with his choices. “And Steve loves surprises.”
“Steve does not love surprises,” Steve said, a tight smile on his face.
“Yeah, but you love the kid.” Tony flipped the program that he’d been working on around, situating the schematic in front of DJ. “Fix this.”
DJ’s little shoulders went back, his spine going straight in an instant as he reached up, his little fingers catching on the holographic framework, pulling it down and giving it a spin. The light reflected off of his face, and he reached for a component, ripping it free with a brutality that Tony had to admire. Sure, it was a stab straight to his engineering heart, but the kid knew what he was doing.
Tony loved that about him.
A hand clamped down on his shoulder, and Tony stilled. “March. Now,” Steve said, the words hissed out from between gritted teeth, and Tony grinned at nothing in particular.
“Work on that,” he said, his voice breezy. “It’s a piece of shit, so it’s not like you can make it worse, Steve and I are going to go have a quick discussion-”
Steve’s free hand scooped Tony’s coffee cup off of the workbench. “We’re getting something to drink,” he said, his voice so calm and controlled it was almost monotone. “We’ll be right back.”
“Right, we’ll be-” Steve started force marching Tony towards the door, and Tony went along, trying not to laugh. It would not end well for him. “We’ll be back. With coffee. For me. Not you.”
“Want coffee,” DJ said, still focused on the schematic.
“No,” Tony and Steve said as one, and then they were through the main door and on their way up the stairs.
“Just for the record?” Tony started.
“Do you work at being an ass?” Steve snapped.
Tony considered that. “I mean, it comes naturally, but I have had a lot of practice.” He stopped, turning on the stairs. His position, a few steps up from Steve, put them at almost eye level, and Tony smiled. “This is the definition of hoist by your own petard, Steven.”
“This,” Steve said, his voice quiet, “is the definition of you lashing out because you aren’t handling the situation well.”
Tony’s lips pursed. “Well, yes,” he said at last. Steve stared at him, and Tony stared back. “Obviously.”
Steve’s head tipped back, and for a second he stared blankly at the ceiling, his jaw working. He took a deep breath, and let it out. “We aren’t doing this.”
“I think we are,” Tony said, his voice calm. He tried not to sound amused, but judging by the dangerous glint in Steve’s eyes, it wasn’t quite successful. “C’mon, Cap. You just said it yourself. You’re going to do it, because the kid wants you to do it, and when ever possible, we do not like telling him no to things that we can actually do for him. Because he doesn’t ask for much. And I hate it, and you’re going to hate it, but when he shoves a handmade ash tray at you-”
“He’s never seen a cigarette, why would he-”
“A vase, then, it doesn’t matter, when he gives you a lopsided, poorly constructed coffee cup that absolutely will not hold liquid, what’re you going to do, toss it in the trash in front of him?” Tony let out a snort. “Of course you’re not going to, you’re going to handle it, because you love him, and I love him, and there’s a lot of things he can’t do, that we can’t let him do, but you’re not going to be a jackass and reject the things he can do, even if it’s dumb as hell!”
Steve’s eyes narrowed. “Right, tell me your father-”
“Nope!” Tony tossed his hands in the air. “I made that up, it didn’t happen, we’re not talking about it, because I made it up.”
“Did you?”
“As far as you know, yes, drop it,” Tony said.
At the bottom of the stairs, the door opened. “Fixed it,” DJ called up to them. They both turned around to look at him. He gave them a suspicious look, his fingers tugging at the bottom hem of his t-shirt. “Finished discussing?”
“Probably not,” Tony said, at the same time Steve said, “For now.”
DJ’s face relaxed into a smile. “Father’s day,” he said. “Steve Day.” He gave a firm nod. “Plans.”
With that, he darted back inside the workshop,a nd Steve exhaled, his shoulders flexing. “Goddamn you, Stark.”
“Yeah,” Tony agreed. “I probably deserved that one.” He kissed Steve. “Sorry, not sorry.”
He pulled away, and Steve’s hand shot out, wrapping around the back of Tony’s neck, pulling him for a kiss that was a lot deeper, a lot harder, and very, very hot. When he finally pulled away, he stayed close, his forehead resting on Tony’s. “You are going to make me insane.”
Tony grinned, his eyes falling shut. “Yeah, same, Rogers. Father’s Day?”
Steve sighed. “Steve Day.”