don't think about Tony babysitting his teammates kids
okay but the thing is, everyone sort of underestimates how good tony is with kids
it’s not their fault. whenever the news publish anything regarding tony and children, it’s always those politician-type pictures that kind of look posed
plus tony is like, internationally known for only barely knowing how to manage trivial life things, like sleeping or showering at appropriate times, so it’s always like “dude can’t even take care of himself, let alone a kid”
one day, the avengers have to babysit. and the kid (WE’LL CALL HER LEIA AND SHE’S THOR AND JANE’S CHILD FOR REASONS archibanfkimble and janefoster) wON’T STOP CRYING BECAUSE SHE MISSES HER MOM AND DAD
everyone has tried everything to distract her. toys and stories and diaper changing and TV and evERYTHING and it’s like. MY GOD I WISH THOR WERE HERE, HE’S LIKE THE ONLY ONE WHO KNOWS HOW TO DEAL WITH THIS TYPE OF CRISIS
(thor is amazing with kids)
and then tony goes, takes the kid to the balcony
(everyone’s like “tony be reasonable you can’t stick a four-year-old in a mini-suit and toss her out the window. she might laugh but that’s not safe”)
(everyone thinks tony would do this kind of risky devil-may-care stuff with kids when lol really there’s literally no one who’s more pathologically paranoid about keeping the kid safe)
anyway he takes the girl to the balcony and asks her to look at the moon and the stars
(he has already assessed this situation, this is thor and jane’s kid so mom and dad probably talk about the stars a lot)
he asks if she knows where stars go when it’s daytime. she answers that mommy already said that the stars don’t hide, but when the sun comes up the light is too bright so they fade out
tony says that if mommy told her, then it must be true.
and isn’t it interesting? how stars are always there even when you don’t see them? he has a special theory — and he’s very smart, he’s a scientist, so his theories tend to be true — that the people you love are just like stars. they’re there even when you can’t see them.
and he knows it hurts when mommy and daddy have to take one of those super long trips. but he also knows that if stars can exist that far away from us but still be visible, and if they can disappear during the day but still be there, it’s only logical to assume that everything mommy and daddy ever told her — “i love you,” “you’ll be safe”, “we’ll see you soon” — still hold true even when they’re not right here
maybe mommy is looking at the same stars, right now, right as we’re having this conversation
so here’s what we’ll do: we’ll go to my bedroom, i’ll help you use my telescope
(people are kind of in awe because tony is a dick about who gets to touch his personal telescope cough best guess is that his mother was watching him when he assembled it for the first time)
then we’ll choose your favorite star. and then we can write a message for mommy and daddy, and we’ll use that star to relay it to them”
and everyone’s kind of surprised tbh because tony’s capacity for cheesiness is always grossly underestimated
and in the end of the night people are like “heck i had no idea you knew how to do this stuff”
“i’m not that good at it” he says while fucking combing his fingers through the hair of the child sleeping with her head on his lap
(i’m never gonna let that marika panel go)
but deep down, even if he doesn’t think he’d be a good father, he knows he would 100% love being one
so when he says “nah i’m not that great” what he actually means is
please don’t press on these wounds because i will never have any of this
and it’s a dirty comparison, and he hates himself for making it, but he can’t help but to think that babysitting other people’s kids kind of feels like the times he has to go to important galas, and everyone around him is drinking and he has to smile and pretend he is perfectly okay with sparkling water or apple cider. he’s always pretending he’s fine and content and like he’s not pining for the life he knows he’ll never have