Don't Sell Pots

“Daddies?” Peter asks timidly, his voice seeming smaller than he is himself, and in a moment, he’s appearing out of nowhere and crawling over Tony to sit himself down in Steve’s lap. JARVIS helpfully pauses the movie they were watching, and Steve frowns at why their four-year-old son is out of bed this late. His hand retreats from around Tony’s shoulders to rest closer to Peter’s back, keeping him from taking a tumble, and Tony is filled with warmth all over again at how much he loves how much Steve loves their kid.

“Peter? What are you doing up so late?” Steve asks softly, and strokes his hair briefly. Tony thinks he looks wide awake, like he hasn’t slept at all since they tucked him in a little over two hours ago, and that’s not something that Tony likes to think about. He thinks he’s starting to understand the feeling Steve gets when Tony forgets to sleep for days on end.

“Did you have a nightmare?” Tony tries, because Peter seems hesitant. Peter looks to Tony with those big eyes, lit up by the blue from the frozen television, and he doesn’t look scared. That eases Tony’s heart a little.

He shakes his head and says “No,” confidently. Then, shifting himself so he’s more-or-less facing the both of them, he gets a determined look on his face. “I has a question.”

Tony can see Steve’s eyebrows shoot up out of the corner of his eye, but they both keep their surprise in check and Steve prompts Peter with “What is it?”

Peter taps his fingers against each other in a random pattern and looks down, hesitating again, and Tony is suddenly extremely worried that something is wrong, or that he’s going to ask them something that they’re never going to recover from, and he has no idea what that could be, but he’s suddenly terrified that his son has an honest-to-god worry about something. Tony is of the opinion that Peter is much, much too young to worry about anything.

They wait him out, though, and eventually Peter looks up and draws breath, and then, just as Tony’s gearing up to answer whatever it is he’s got for them right away, dispelling all his worries, he stumps them.

“Why isn’t you getting a divorce?” He says the word kind of funny, like he’s still learning it, and Tony has absolutely no idea where he even learned that word, let alone how to answer that question. Because…wait, what?

Steve, luckily, seems to recover a bit more quickly that Tony, though he seems just as worried as Tony feels. “What made you think we’d be getting a divorce, Peter?”

Immediately, Peter sucks in a big breath, gearing up for one of those four-year-old rants that he’s so good at, and says “‘Cause at school Mary said her parents is getting dee-vorced and Timmy’s parents already gots one and Paula says her Daddy went away and her Mommy don’t want a new Daddy and Bobby lives with his Gamma ‘cause his parents got dee-vorced and now his Mommy sells pots but I think they’s bad at cookin’ stuff ‘cause the gov’ment says he can’t see her no more.” He ponders this for a moment, and then nods as if deciding it’s a good argument before settling himself back down on Steve’s lap and looking up at them expectantly.

Tony’s glad he’s not the only one with his mouth gaping open at that. He doesn’t quite recover, but he is the first to speak, although it’s to Steve and not to answer Peter’s question, which, honestly, he doesn’t even know where to start. “I told you we should’ve home-schooled him.”

Steve ignores this, which is a testament to exactly how shocking Peter’s little rant had been, because bringing up Tony’s insistence that he should’ve taught their son here is always a hot switch. “Peter, what do you think a divorce is?”

Tony blinks because, hey, that’s a good question, and he never would’ve thought of that. He presses himself closer to Steve, as if seeking reassurance that Peter’s misunderstood suggestion is way off-target.

“I’s when a mommy an’ daddy or daddies or mommies don’t wan’ be a fam’ly anymore so they get a dee-vorce and then they don’t sees each other no more,” Peter answers intelligently, and then he just goes back to waiting for them to play catch-up. Long ago were the days when Tony could claim he was never slow on the up-take. His son has far outstripped him in that regard many times.

“Are a lot of kids’ parents divorced?” Steve asks, ever unshakeable, and Peter nods.

At this, Steve seems to run out of brilliant ideas, and it’s about damn time Tony joined in this little charade, so he clears his throat delicately and tries not to flinch when he asks “Do you want us to get a divorce?”

In seconds, Peter’s eyes fill to the brim with tears and his lower lip gets wobbly, and Steve is glaring at Tony and Tony’s mouthing ‘How was I supposed to know?’ and Peter wails “No!” and launches himself forward to try to hug both of them at the same time.

Tony’s heart pretty much shatters at that point, and he reaches around to stroke his son’s back and try to shush his crying, Steve doing the same. Peter starts talking rapidly against Tony’s shirt, tickling a bit while he tries to explain. “I dun want you an’—” he hiccups, “an’ Papa to go ‘way, or—or daddies to go be in diff’nt houses an’ I dun have a mommy but I dun want a new mommy or daddy an’—an’ you can’t sell our pots ‘cause then I can’t have chick-noodle sooooooouuuuuuuuup,” he draws the last word out, crying into Tony’s shirt.

“Oh, Peter,” Steve says softly, as much of an emotional wreck as Tony is right now. They share a brief, desperate look over their distraught son, and then something steels in the both of them. Steve gently pries Peter away from them so he can see their faces, and Tony wipes the tears and snot from his face with his thumbs, and he sits there, sniffling, watching them with watery eyes like he expects them to break apart at any moment.

“Peter,” Tony tries gently, but doesn’t get much of a response. “Peter, look at me,” he says, still being delicate, and Peter looks at him. His bottom lip is still sticking out in a pout, ready to start wobbling at the first sign of trouble, so Tony doesn’t waste any time.

“Your Papa and I aren’t getting a divorce.”

It takes a moment, but he seems slightly mollified by this, even if he’s still precariously close to going off again. “Never ever?” He asks quietly, unsure, and starts fiddling with his Hulk pajama shirt.

Tony opens his mouth and starts to say “Well—” but before he can get anywhere, Steve commandeers Peter’s attention, leaning forward and saying “Never ever.” He flicks softly at Peter’s nose and that finally, finally draws a bright smile out of their son. Tony’s heart unclenches, partly because their son has stopped crying, and partly because Steve managed to completely assuage all of Tony’s latent fears in two words.

Just when he thinks they’re out of the woods, Peter seems to screw up his face in deep thought and then he asks “Why?”

Tony blinks at his son’s unparalleled ability to ask every hard-hitting question that Tony has no idea how to answer, but Steve saves him from answering this one, too, by saying simply “Because we love each other.”

Tony swallows back his own breakdown and blinks rapidly, trying to clear his head as Peter starts voicing his confusion at this entire concept. He manages to find his way back to his voice soon enough to explain instead of Steve, mainly because in Steve’s day, divorce was far less common, and Tony thinks he’d better try to tackle this one before something gets lost in translation.

“Look, sometimes—” he pauses and tries to figure out a way to word this that won’t have their son asking them about the birds and bees a few years before they’d hoped to put that off. “Sometimes, two people get married, but then later, they don’t want to be married anymore.”

“Why?” Peter asks, frowning in confusion.

“Um,” Tony hesitates, and then decides on “Usually because they don’t love each other anymore.”

Peter’s eyes widen at this, like he can’t believe it’s true, but also like he’s ready to start crying again, so Tony hurries through the rest of the explanation that he’s sure he’s already screwed up beyond belief. His kid is going to need so much therapy.

“Yes, um. And so—so the two people get a divorce, so that they can—can go fool around with the maid, I don’t know, and—”

“Tony!” Steve interrupts angrily, and Tony just shoots him a helpless look like ‘You try explaining it, then!’ and Steve backs off because he’s way out of his depth here, too, and they both know it.

“Look,” Tony takes a breath and tries again, and Peter isn’t crying so that’s good. “Sometimes, even when parents love their children very, verymuch, and that never changes,” Tony very carefully doesn’t bring up the fact that this isn’t always the case. He doesn’t have the energy to attempt explaining Howard to a four-year-old. “Sometimes, they just don’t love each other anymore, and so they get a divorce. But there are lots of parents that will always love each other, and never get a divorce.” Though apparently there are none in your pre-school, Tony thinks darkly, and makes a mental note to have JARVIS run background checks on every one of Peter’s classmates’ parents.

Either way, he’s going to have to talk with certain people about just who is selling ‘pots’ and being obvious enough about it that their pre-schooler knows about it.

“Like you an’ Papa?” Peter questions quietly, but with a kind of hope in his eyes, and Tony has to think for a moment to figure out what that’s in response to.

Steve just smiles and ruffles Peter’s hair, saying “Like me and Daddy. So no worries, okay?” Peter nods vigorously at that, and Tony lets out a sigh of relief. Steve declares bedtime, and Tony whole-heartedly agrees, and watches as Steve chases a sleepy Peter back to his room to tuck him back in and, hopefully, let him get to sleep this time, worry-free.

Tony lets himself sag back against the couch, trying to get used to breathing again, and he closes his eyes and tilts his head back over the back of the couch. Jesus, his kid doesn’t pull punches. Every time Tony thinks they’re finally going through an “easy” phase, he throws something like this at them. Tony had thought life was going to get easier after Peter stopped having tantrums every time they ran out of peanut butter. He still hasn’t forgiven Clint for the Great Peanut Butter Tantrum of 2013.

Tony’s eyes snap open when he feels someone watching him, and he’s immediately greeted by a pair of bright blue eyes, staring down at him with a hint of amusement dancing in them. Tony just raises one eyebrow as Steve straddles him on the couch, and figures they’re not going to finish their movie tonight.

“No using the Iron Man suit to intimidate people,” Steve says seriously, even if there’s a hint of a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth.

“I would never do such a thing,” Tony says flatly, and Steve’s eyebrows just twitch up before he kisses Tony chastely.

“I’m serious,” he mumbles against Tony’s lips, and Tony waits until he pulls away before responding.

“Selling pots, Steve? I’m not going to have that kind of thing happening around my son. Next they’ll be selling pans, and then you’ll wish I pulled out the suit.”

Steve smiles at that and presses his grin back against Tony’s mouth, and this time, they kiss until Tony licks inside Steve’s mouth, bringing his hands up to frame Steve’s face and pull him closer.

Steve just rolls his eyes good-naturedly and offers Tony a hand. “Come on, tin man. Remind me why I’m never going to divorce you.”

Tony grins predatorily as he takes Steve’s hand, and lets himself be pulled up and dragged to their bedroom.

“Challenge accepted.”