Ghost of Unprotected Sex Past Chapter 16 - Cookie Dough
Pairing: Tony Stark x F!Reader // IronDad
Series summary: When your daughter gets sick, you finally have to tell Tony Stark he has a kid. How will he react? How will he get involved in your life?
Chapter summary: Tony and your daughter make cookie dough and have a very interesting conversation that you may or may not overhear part of
Word count: 785 words✨ Warnings: Migraine mention, medication mention, uncomfortable convo, sort of mutual pining
A/N: This is just a lil drabble chap I threw together. Enjoy!
I’ll reblog with links to my masterlist and the series masterlist, my taglist, and citing the header photo.
A horrible migraine had kept you in bed all day. Tony graciously agreed to watch and entertain Amelie for the duration. They spent the morning out of the house while you tried to nap the headache away, and when they came home, Tony tried to keep your daughter and their joint activity as quiet as possible so you could continue to rest.
Unbeknownst to them both, you overheard a bit of their conversation from around the corner when you came downstairs, feeling mostly better and just a little light-headed from the medication.
They were unpacking the groceries they’d bought together, keeping out the things they’d need for making cookies.
“Iron Dad?” Amy asked carefully, while she flattened a reusable shopping bag and hung it on the hook under the sink.
“Yeah, sweetie?” Tony asked, unpacking a carton of eggs that he made sure to put in the middle of the counter where neither he nor the eight-year-old could knock them over.
“Why aren’t you and mommy like other mommies and daddies?” You nearly snorted from your post around the corner. You could tell she was utilizing the presupposed innocence of being a child, but that she knew exactly what she was asking.
She was observing Tony’s physical response closely, as were you. He had frozen in his tracks of unloading the milk, not even feeling the cold air of the fridge blow on his face; he was stuck like a deer in headlights.
“Wh-what do you mean?” he asked with a forced chuckle, knowing precisely what she meant.
Amelie shrugged, continuing to feign both ignorance and innocence, a veil you, as her mother, could see right through. “Other mommies and daddies hold hands, kiss goodbye, love each other…”
“Ok stop right there,” Tony said, his voice firm but gentle. “Your mommy and I do love each other, but it’s complicated, all right? You’re a smart kid; you know what complicated means. We do love each other, but more importantly we both love you.”
“You don’t love each other the way other mommies and daddies love each other,” Amy insisted, little hands on her little hips now. “You’re not in love with each other. Is that what you mean by ‘complicated’?”
“We’re not—She’s not— She doesn’t—” Tony cleared his throat. “We are not together. We are not a couple. We are not married. But we love you and we’re going to be the best parents we can be to you from now on, we can promise you that. Now enough questions, all right?”
Tony cringed as he pulled the metal mixing bowls from the cabinet a little too roughly and they banged loudly, hoping that didn’t wake you, not knowing that you had been awake for a while now.
“What are you guys making?” you asked, walking through the doorway to the kitchen.
“Hey, feeling better?” Tony asked, while Amelie chirped, “Cookies!”
“Yeah a little,” you replied to Tony’s query, squeezing his hand in a grateful and affectionate gesture.
Maybe you could incorporate a few more of those into your life. Maybe that would make Amelie feel more comfortable, make her feel like she had parents that were more like the other mommies and daddies.
Maybe that wouldn’t make you go completely crazy.
You shook yourself out of your daze. “Did you guys get pasteurized eggs, so we can eat the cookie dough without getting salmonella?”
Tony nodded and pointed to them in the middle of the counter. “Ames was very insistent.”
You smiled. “Well, the cookie dough is the best part.”
You ended up making a single tray of cookies, and eating the dough equivalent of probably three trays. You’d totally ruined your appetites for dinner, and some voice in the back of your mind reminded you that you and/or Tony should probably have been the sensible adult who prevented this, but it was all too fun and too familial and you wouldn’t have changed it for the world.
Part of you wished this was the new normal, permanently. Part of you wished you didn’t have to go back to a tiny kitchen in an apartment, because even a nicer kitchen in a nicer apartment would still be smaller and less fancy than this mansion one. Part of you wished you didn’t have to go back to being a single parent most of the time, that you could always share evenings and afternoons and mornings, and not have to strictly regiment custody time.
And part of you wished that Tony’s answer when Amy asked if you guys were in love… was yes.
But maybe that was just the migraine medication talking. It always did make you a little loopy.
Ghost of Unprotected Sex Past Chapter 15 - Water and Oil, Salt and Pepper
Pairing: Tony Stark x F!Reader // IronDad
Series summary: When your daughter gets sick, you finally have to tell Tony Stark he has a kid. How will he react? How will he get involved in your life?
Chapter summary: You have a very personal meeting with Pepper Potts
Word count: 1,286 words ✨Warnings: An uncomfortable conversation about an ex, including about wanting/not wanting children
A/N: I’m a day behind my posting schedule, but all is well. Here is the most recent chapter. Enjoy!
As usual, I’ll reblog with links to my masterlist and series masterlist and my taglist (which is open for this series!).
Tony seemed distant post-press conference, and you began to be concerned you had done something wrong. Or perhaps he was just worried about causing you more upset, or of leading the press on to think your relationship was more than it was. Or of leading you on to think your relationship was more than it was.
Well, if that was the case, it worked. You were firmly convinced that no matter what he said in the press conference, no matter what sweet moments had passed between you before, you were nothing more to him than his assistant, who happened to be the mother of his child temporarily living in his home.
Focusing your energy on your job was a good distraction from overthinking this kind of thing. So you dove into your work, taking on more responsibilities from Tony on the Stark Industries side of things so he could focus on Avengers business. In particular, he had to see to a new issue that had arose: negotiating certain terms in the Sokovia Accords that had come into contention even among the original countries that signed on.
Which is why, for the first time since you started the job several weeks ago, you were going to be meeting the great Pepper Potts today, bringing her several of Tony’s new designs for products you had actually brainstormed with Tony. The idea was to produce power tools powered by the miniaturized arc reactor technology. They would be rather expensive to start, but the more they were purchased and developed and updated, the cheaper the technology would get. The original market would be construction companies who cater to the very, very wealthy, but eventually they would get more accessible. At least, that was the hope.
You were nervous, so you had your whole pitch planned out, and you had rehearsed it in your mirror that morning.
As it turned out, your nerves were totally unnecessary, because Pepper Potts was the sweetest woman you had ever met. You were worried there would be awkwardness, considering you had taken her job and had feelings for her ex, but she was so considerate and made you feel so at ease that there was no problem whatsoever.
After going over your ideas (which she was thrilled about) and presenting her with Tony’s blueprints, she leaned back in her chair and looked you up and down. You began to heat up under her intense gaze. There were several moments of silence which felt awkward for you but not for her, if the cool and confident look on her face was anything to go by.
“I think you’re rather good for him, you know,” she finally said.
“Excuse me?” you asked, taken aback.
She smiled at you warmly, and whatever haunches you had put up instinctively at her comment eased down due to her friendly demeanor. “I’ve met with him a few times since you came into his life and he’s… better.”
“Better… how?” you asked cautiously.
Pepper’s eyes drifted to the corner of her ceiling. “He’s calmer, more assured. He has tells for when he’s anxious, and he’s been anxious for years. I wouldn’t say he’s cured or anything, but he’s better.” Then she added, “He’s completely over me and our relationship finally, which is good.”
You nervously began fiddling with the zipper of the laptop case in your lap. Her comments about their relationship made you feel a certain way you weren’t sure you wanted to examine.
“I don’t know if you remember this, but I remember you from before too,” she said, looking at you over her reading glasses. “I hired temps from your agency a few years back.”
You were startled. Of course you remembered the most high profile celebrity client you had to deal with at your last major job. She was also the reason you had the most profitable single day in the agency’s history, a fact you tried to remind your boss you were responsible for when asking for that raise you never got.
“I’m surprised you remember that,” you replied.
She shrugged, her smile sly but not accusatory. “When I heard there was a new woman in Tony’s life, I did my research, as I’m sure you did on me. And it came back to me when I saw your last place of employment.” You felt your cheeks heat up.
Another moment passed that you had a suspicion was more awkward for you than for your conversation partner. You didn’t know what to say. Should you confirm that you had, indeed, gone down an internet rabbit hole looking her up when you first walked back into Tony’s life? That felt too weird, so you refrained from saying any such thing.
“I think he’s been good for you too, from my little past experience of you,” Pepper finally mused.
Your eyebrows flew to the top of your head. “W-What makes you say that?”
Pepper shrugged again. “You seem more confident, more animated.” She gestured to the plans, the ideas for which had come out of your very brain. “The chance to be creative has vitalized you, I think. The freedom of economic security can do wonders, too. Besides, having the burden of a secret never helps one’s complexion, nor the burden of being a single parent. Whatever the reason, you seem happier.”
“Thank you,” you said shyly, shifting your laptop case in your lap.
Pepper was totally undeterred by how uncomfortable you seemed or how taciturn you were being. She continued on in almost a reverie.
“Tony and I were too much alike in some ways, and too different in others. We’re both fiercely selfish as a form of self-care or protection even though it doesn’t come naturally, to him because it goes against his selfless nature and to me because it goes against my upbringing.”
You nodded and tucked a piece of hair behind your ear, listening intently.
“You know, some people were surprised to hear in the press conference that he didn’t subject you to paternity tests. But I wasn’t.”
“Oh?” you asked so low you may as well have been whispering.
“He wanted a family. I didn’t. On top of not wanting to put my body through that personally, I thought it wasn’t fair to bring a child into his life. I couldn’t ask him to stop being Iron Man; I did once, and I regretted it. Not because he couldn’t stop and ended up back into it, but because I felt guilty when disaster struck and he wasn’t there. Now he actually wants to slow down, and I couldn’t bring myself to actually want that from him, or to give him a child. We wanted different things in life, and different things of each other.” Despite the personal and upsetting nature of the truths she was revealing, she smiled at you then. “Then a few weeks after we broke up, you brought everything he had been asking me for right to his doorstep. A reason to slow down and not feel guilty about it. A child. A family.”
“And an assistant,” you reminded her jokingly, pulling the pencil out from behind your ear.
She laughed. “Yes, and an assistant too.” She cleared her throat then and shuffled the blueprints you had handed her to even out the bottoms. “Well, thank you, Ms. Y/L/N. I’ll look these over and figure out the best way SI can get them into production.”
“Thank you, Ms. Potts,” you said, and rose to leave.
What an odd meeting. You walked away with a million things she had said fluttering around in your brain and absolutely no clue about what to make of any of it.
Ghost of Unprotected Sex Past Chapter 14 - Confessions Under the Influence
Pairing: Tony Stark x F!Reader // IronDad
Series summary: When your daughter gets sick, you finally have to tell Tony Stark he has a kid. How will he react? How will he get involved in your life?
Chapter summary: Rhodey gives Tony a little liquid courage to confess his feelings about you, at least to him.
Word count: 1,362 ✨Warnings:: Alcohol, intoxication, pining, curse words
A/N: This chapter was initially to fill (and named for) the square in my Tony Stark Bingo card “Confessions Under the Influence” But even though that bingo is over, I’m still continuing with the series as planned. Please heed the content warnings. Thanks and enjoy!
As usual, I’ll reblog with links to my masterlist and series masterlist (pages and posts), my tag lists, and citing the header image. (Tag lists are open! Just shoot me an ask.)
A few days after the press conference, Tony was in his lab late into the evening when Rhodey walked in.
“Hey, man,” he said.
Tony didn’t look up from what he was doing, but he did smile. “Hey, honeybear.”
“You’re working late,” Rhodey commented.
Tony just gave a hum of acknowledgement.
Rhodey sat in the desk chair and leaned back on his hands crossed behind his head. “Don’t you have a ‘family’ to get back to?” He put lots of emphasis on the word ‘family,’ drawing out all the syllables in his mouth and unfolding his hands to hold them up in air quotes.
This made Tony stop fiddling with the suit and look up at his best friend curiously. “Why do you say it like that?”
Rhodey shrugged. “You said it more than a few times in your press conference, then several more times in your written release,” he replied. “It stood out.”
Tony put down his wrench and crossed his arms. “What’s your point?”
Rhodey fought back a smile. “No point.”
“No, no, no,” Tony said, walking towards Rhodey, now brandishing his wrench and pointing it at his friend’s face. “What is it? And don’t say nothing.”
“You just…” Rhodey exhaled a puff of air as he considered the best way to phrase what he wanted to say.
“A family can be your daughter and her mother,” Tony said defensively, not letting Rhodey even finish. “Even if you’re not with the mother.” He added the last part slightly more quietly.
Rhodey chuckled. “See that’s the thing…”
“What’s the thing? What?” Tony crossed his arms again, his shoulders rising nearly to his ears with how tense and on guard he was getting.
Rhodey knew this wasn’t the way to have this conversation if he wanted Tony to be open and honest. And he wished Tony would be truthful with himself more than he cared about being told the truth. He was fairly certain he knew the truth anyway. What he wanted was for Tony to admit it to himself.
He had seen how Tony looked at you when you weren’t looking. He had heard him rave about your work as his assistant, your delicious cooking, your phenomenal parenting skills, your incredible intelligence. You were all Tony seemed to talk about these days, you and your daughter. He had known his best friend for decades, and he could read him like a book. And not even a difficult book; more like a board book meant for babies, the kind with a word or two per page and lots of very obvious, colorful pictures.
He could tell when Iron Man was infatuated with someone, and he was infatuated with you.
And while Rhodey didn’t usually like feeding into Tony’s vices, he also knew the only way he was going to get him to be honest with himself on this particular, sensitive matter was to put some alcohol into his system.
“Come on buddy,” he said. “Let’s grab a drink.”
Tony could sense the game that Rhodey was playing, but he was so sure of himself that he figured he could handle whatever tricks his best friend had up his sleeve. So he wiped his greasy hands on his jeans and replied, “Fine. I was just about done here anyway.”
They decided to go back to Rhodey’s apartment. Rhodey knew Tony would be more free there, since he wouldn’t be worried about his daughter coming down the stairs to see him plastered, or for you to accidentally overhear him rave about you while getting a late-night cup of tea.
But Rhodey’s place meant the freedom afforded by the cushy and expansive space paid for by a colonel’s salary, away from the potentially prying ears of Tony’s newfound family. So just a few drinks in, Tony was feeling pretty loose and his words were flowing, just as Rhodey predicted they would.
“She’s just so wonderful!” Tony babbled happily, slurring his words slightly as he took another swig of beer. He was in that mode where he couldn’t sit still, the alcohol temporarily infusing him with a rambling energy, building and building until the fatigue set in that would inevitably come crashing down sometime in the early morning if he kept on in this vein. Rhodey was all too familiar with this mode, watching with a sly smile as his best friend paced frantically about the room. “So sweet and fun. Professional without being a buzzkill. A fantastic mother without being matronly. No, definitely not matronly; hot as fuck.”
Rhodey could tell that the bottle was ready to pop. Barely any coaxing, and Tony would be spilling the contents of his heart. Rhodey just had to make sure it was before he spilled the contents of his stomach.
“Would you be interested in sleeping with her again?” he asked innocently, taking a small sip of his own beer. He was several behind Tony, but he had no interest in trying to catch up.
“Hell yeah!” Tony shouted enthusiastically, and unnecessarily loudly considering the close proximity he was in to Rhodey. “I have fantasized so much about fucking her again! Every wet dream I’ve had in the last few months has featured her.”
“So do you have any interest in sleeping with anyone else every again?” Rhodey asked, inching towards the point.
The alchol in his system had loosened Tony up enough so that he didn’t even hesitate to answer, “No, not really. I’ve had enough dalliance in my life. I could easily be a one-woman guy.” He stopped pacing and said, more quietly, “I thought it was going to be Pepper.”
Rhodey needed to pull Tony back from the precipice he was dangerously close to, of tipping over into ‘sad drunk’ territory. “But it could be Y/n?” he asked hastily.
Just as quickly as his energy had waned, Tony was suddenly infused with it once more. A huge grin spread wide across his face. “I don’t know for sure. But I’d like that.”
Rhodey breathed a sigh of relief. “How about the not-sex stuff?” he probed. “The romantic stuff. Do you want that stuff with her too?”
Tony plopped down next to Rhodey on the couch and placed his hands behind his head after running one through his hair. He took a deep breath through his nose, exhaling slowly. Rhodey started to panic again, knowing that this was the first sign that Tony was beginning to sober up.
But then Tony turned to him with a dopey grin on his face, and totally blew Rhodey’s expectations away. Even in his more cogent state, he readily admitted, “Yeah, Rhodes. I do. I want it all.” He leaned back and closed his eyes, allowing himself to imagine all that he described. “It’s like we’ve skipped a few steps, you know? We already have the domestic stuff. The kid, the house, the family dinners, the game nights. But I want to take that step back. To woo her. Take her on romantic dates, the whole nine yards. But with the commitment behind it, if that makes sense, and none of the… the…” He pursed his lips, searching for the word.
“The confusion?” Rhodey tried.
Tony pulled a face. “I guess. The uncertainty, maybe? I think that’s closer. And I don't mean I want the certainty that she’ll leave in the morning and I’ll get back to my life, like with so many other women through my life, but I want the certainty that she definitely won’t.”
Rhodey smiled, genuinely happy for his best friend, and thrilled that his endeavors had succeeded better than he could have hoped. “I think you know what I wanted you to say when I fed you this poison,” he whispered, taking the beer bottle from beside Tony and placing it with his own empty bottle behind them.
Tony gave a lopsided grin and nodded. “And you’re right,” he said. His words were much less slurred now. He had a remarkably high tolerance for alcohol, and could sober up fairly quickly when he wanted to.
So he was completely in his right mind when he admitted, “I’m in love with her.”
Ghost of Unprotected Sex Past Chapter 11 - Can’t Sleep?
Pairing: Tony Stark x F!Reader // IronDad
Series summary: When your daughter gets sick, you finally have to tell Tony Stark he has a kid. How will he react? How will he get involved in your life?
Chapter summary: You and Tony have a late-night chat about your fears and anxieties.
Word count: 1,855 words ✨Content warnings: Cursing, mention of nightmares, insomnia, mention of spiders and spider bites
A/N: Getting behind again on pushing these chapters out, so I’ll try and pick up the pace! Anyway, enjoy! This is another one for Tony Stark Bingo.
I saw advice not to put links in original fic posts for searchability reasons, so I’ll reblog tagging Tony Stark Bingo and my taglist, and linking my masterlist, the series masterlist and the series masterpost.
It was three weeks since you and Amelie moved into Tony’s New York mansion. Three weeks since the hook-up Tony banged once eight years ago in 2008, and the miraculous product of that hook-up whom Tony had just recently learned existed, moved (temporarily) into the space where Tony lived. To live with Tony. Temporarily.
On the whole, having you and Amelie living in his house was wonderful. You got on famously with his personal chef and helped her out, even cooking homemade meals on Juana’s two nights off. He was considering talking to you about cutting Juana’s hours even more, if you were willing. In all honesty, he enjoyed your food more than the professional’s. You had helped him add some homey touches to the place, like you agreed—some throw pillows and family photos and softer, more inviting art prints.
Amelie’s toys were now scattered everywhere. You told the woman who came to clean the house every third day to leave the toys alone, because Amelie needed to learn her lesson; she wouldn’t always have a maid to clean up after her, and she needed to do it herself, to learn responsibility. Tony found himself smiling every time he tripped over a stuffed animal or a lego, because it was a sign of life, a sign of happiness and youth and play, where once his house had felt so barren.
But everything was not all butterflies and daisies all the time. Having his daughter and her mother around made his days brighter and cheerier, but his nights were just as dark and haunted as ever. His nightmares did not dissipate an inch upon your arrival, and, afraid to wake you both with his screams or his pathetic whimpers, he barely slept at all, confining himself to his lab and working himself into the ground.
Little did he know, you were a fairly light sleeper, and tended to notice when he would finally give up on the notion and creep down to his lab. So one night, you chose to follow him.
You tiptoed down the stairs to his lab, careful not to alert him to your presence. He was paranoid about waking his girls by having music on even all the way down here, so he had headphones atop his head. From your place on the stairs, you could tell he was blasting some sort of metal music with a heavy bass line. You took a few moments to just watch him, sitting on the stairs and observing Tony Stark in his natural habitat.
He fluttered about the room, humming and working. He had on only the boots of an Iron Man suit, and would occasionally use them to give him a boost across the large space, or to hover a few inches above the ground while he worked on something taller than his head. You noticed his little idiosyncracies—the way he bopped his head to the music, and chewed on his lip in concentration, and spoke to the robots and suits like they were people. You found them endearing, but began to feel like you were invading on something personal, something intimate.
He was clearly not going to notice you on your perch on the stairs, so by and by you descended. When he spotted you he happened to be hovering, so instead of jumping out of surprise, he jolted backward and knocked into a simple-looking robot with a claw and a dunce cap. The robot rolled backwards with an alarmed screeching sound and careened into a workbench.
You giggled at the commotion you unintentionally caused. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” you said.
You padded farther into the room. Tony accidentally let the thought slip through his mind that you looked adorable in your banana print pajama shorts and t-shirt from Amelie’s school and puppy slippers. You had passed through the kitchen to make some tea on your way down and held two mugs in your hand. He couldn’t help but notice that instead of choosing the boring, plain white mugs Pepper had bought at Pier One when Tony first bought the house, you chose a Stark Industries mug and a limited-edition Iron Man mug.
It occurred to Tony that this was part of a larger pattern of behavior— you never went the boring route. And it wasn’t just fan-service for your eight-year-old; you truly enjoyed color and pattern and excitement, and you refused to be ashamed of that. He admired that greatly.
You held out the mug in a wordless offer, and he gave an equally silent nod of assent. As soon as his hands felt the warmth seeping through the mug and the herbal scent reached his nose, his shoulders dropped about two inches with how much he relaxed.
“Can’t sleep?” you asked, hopping up onto his work bench while you settled into an office chair.
Tony shrugged and took a gulp of his tea, not even bothering to blow on it. He was too sleep-deprived to notice if it burned his tongue or not. You were so used to such antics by now that you weren't even surprised, and simply blew on your tea like a normal person before taking a small sip.
“Wanna talk about it?” you asked after several silent moments.
Tony shook his head. Then he shrugged. Then he sighed and wrapped his fingers more securely around his mug, staring into the dark liquid like it might hold some sort of answer.
After another long-ish pause, you asked, “Would it help if I shared first?”
He raised his eyebrows at you and you launched in: “I’m terrified of spiders. Like, phobia-level, cannot be in the same room as one, fuckin’ crazy scared of spiders.”
Tony chuckled. “Oh yeah? And why’s that?”
You extended your left leg and pointed to a little divot in the skin of your thigh. From a distance, anyone might mistake it for a shadow or a fat pocket. “When I was twelve or so, I was bit by a spider, and it was either poisonous or the bite got infected ‘cause my leg blew up like a balloon.”
“Yikes.” Tony grimaced.
“Yeah. And I was at camp in the middle of nowhere, so it took like a week to get any antibiotics. So now I’m scarred, both physically and emotionally, and won’t go anywhere near spiders.” You shrugged and blew on your tea again, even though it had mostly cooled down. “There was one in my room earlier; that’s why I couldn’t sleep.”
“I’ll get an exterminator out right away!” Tony exclaimed dramatically. “Have the entire house fumigated! That spider will never haunt you again, I swear, my lady!”
You giggled at his antics and spun in your desk chair. “Thank the lord!” you cried.
Tony’s chuckles combined with your giggles and they both grew until they were hearty laughters, echoing through the expansive lab.
“Your turn,” you said. “What are you scared of, big boy?”
Tony bit his lip and swirled the liquid around in his mug. Instead of answering directly, he began to tell a story.
“Three years ago, I finally got a wonderful, beautiful woman to agree to move in with me.”
You bit the inside of your cheek, not quite sure where he was going with this.
“I completely fucked it up and very nearly got both us and another sort of-innocent woman killed.”
He started to ramble nervously. “(Actually she wasn’t really that innocent, but she made the right choice in her final moments, anyway that’s beside the point).”
Tony took a deep breath and got back on track.
“I was a complete idiot, and I told a terrorist my home address. I mean, it wasn’t exactly a secret, but I basically issued him an invitation to bomb the place, which he did. I almost lost everything that day.”
Tony looked up and met your eye, and you could see there were tears forming, right above the prominent dark bags from his dearth of sleep these last few weeks. “Pepper was the most important thing in my life. I thought she was the best thing to ever happen to me, and that nothing and no one better would ever come along. But now…” Your heart was hammering in your chest. “Now I have a daughter.” Your heart rate slowed. Of course he was talking about Amelie. Obviously. You felt like a delusional idiot—and like you needed sleep more than ever so you could wake up with your head screwed on straight—for entertaining any alternative thought for even a moment.
Tony was scratching at a callus on his left hand, staring intently at the hardened skin. “She’s in my house, under my roof, under my care. And I’m going to screw it up and get her hurt. I just know I am.” He looked up and into your eyes again, and you could see that the tears had broken their dams. “That’s my biggest fear.”
You had to swallow tears of your own back. Then you said, quietly, “Well, now my spider thing just feels silly.”
A small, single, tear-ridden chuckle erupted out of Tony’s chest, and your lips turned up slightly in your victory. You stood up, setting your mug down on the workbench, and made your way over to him. You set a tender hand on his knee. “Three years may not seem like a long time, but you’ve grown up a lot. You’re a different man now, and I know you’d never put Amelie in danger like that. I don’t doubt that you loved Pepper, and yet you still made a mistake. But I have had the privilege of working for you and living with you these past weeks, and I am telling you. I couldn’t wish for a better father to my child. You’re doing an amazing job, and you will continue to, I’m sure of it. But you need to take care of yourself as well.”
He sighed and took your hand in his, playing with your fingers as he spoke softly. “I have nightmares. Amelie, and you…” He broke off, but you understood the gist. Bad things happened to the two of you in these terrible night-time visions.
“They’re just nightmares, Tony, that’s all it is.” You placed your other hand over his to still his nervous motions. “If you need reassurance in the night, just poke your head in. Amy sleeps deep.”
“And you?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper now, despite the fact that you were alone in the expansive space and Amelie was sound asleep two floors up.
You blushed slightly, and said, “I may not sleep as deeply as Ames, but I don’t mind. Really.”
Tony hissed out a long breath, and you saw his entire body almost collapse with all his exhaustion hitting at once now that a significant amount of his tension was released. You wrapped an arm around his shoulder and helped him down off the workbench.
Ghost of Unprotected Sex Past Chapter 12 - The Date
Pairing: Tony Stark x F!Reader // IronDad
Series summary: When your daughter gets sick, you finally have to tell Tony Stark he has a kid. How will he react? How will he get involved in your life?
Chapter summary: Tony goes on a date with some random woman. You’re not sure how to feel about it.
Word count: 1,897 words ✨ Content warnings: Mutual pining, jealousy
A/N: I have three fewer days than I realized to get my TSB posts done, so the rest of the chapters of this series and a whole shit ton of one-shots are hopefully going to come at you rapid-fire if I can get my shit together and write so be prepared! This chapter actually isn’t for Tony Stark Bingo though. Enjoy!
I’ll reblog with a link to my masterlist, the series masterlist and series masterpost, and my taglists.
Every time Tony would poke his head in to make sure you were ok, after waking up from some horrific nightmare where he watched you die or get seriously injured by Obadiah Stane or Loki or King Kong, you would wake up. You couldn’t help it; you were a very light sleeper. But you didn’t mind, honestly you didn’t. He would creep into the room just far enough so he could see your chest moving up and down with the breath of life. When he crept back out again, you couldn’t help but smile. Obviously you weren’t glad he was having nightmares, but this little ritual was a sign that he cared, even if it was only a little.
On top of living in Tony’s mansion, you were still working for him too. Being his personal assistant was rigorous, but you had to admit that Tony made for the best boss you’d ever worked under. You managed his phone calls, his emails, his paperwork, and his calendar
Which is what you were currently staring at, as your mind short-circuited in a very unpleasant way. The event had been put there by Tony himself.
‘Date with Rebecca Anderson.’
You weren’t sure why it was bothering you so much. He was a free man, you were a free woman. You weren’t together romantically or sexually. He was allowed to see whoever he wanted.
You entertained the thought that you resented the fact that he had time for dating, when you were bogged down with a full-time job and a child. You almost called yourself a single-mother in your head, but you weren’t anymore, were you? You may not have a romantic partner, but you had a co-parent, in Tony. And your job was time-consuming, but it’s not like you were an Avenger or anything. Tony spent tons of time with your kid, and you knew he would happily take care of her for an evening if you were to choose to go out with friends or on a date. No, you couldn’t really resent him, per se.
So then why couldn’t you get this stupid date out of your head?! Even after you force quit the calendar app and tried to busy yourself with other work, your mind kept drifting back to it. You wondered what she looked like, how old she was. If he had seen her before, if he would see her again.
What if he would want to bring her back to the house? To sleep with, and sleep over? Oh god, could you stand to wake up and see another woman in the kitchen, just in Tony’s shirt, smelling of sex? What if you could hear her grunts and groans from down the hall?
That was ridiculous. If you couldn’t hear Tony’s nightmare screams, you wouldn’t hear any sex. But was that worse? If you knew you wouldn’t hear them, there would always be the possibility she came over and snuck out before you woke up. And that thought would haunt you.
What the fuck was wrong with you? Why on earth should that haunt you? You needed to get your shit together, and fast.
A few hours later, you thought you had gotten past your weird episode from the morning. But then you saw Tony, and your mind was flooded again. He wasn’t even doing anything, but that was just the problem. He didn’t look nervous or excited for his date. He was just sitting in the Tower lab, drawing up specs and chatting with FRIDAY like nothing in the world was special about today.
You may have slammed the pile of contracts in your hands down on the workbench with a little more force than you intended. “Sign these,” you said, your tone maybe a little more short than usual.
Tony looked up at you, eyes wide. He dropped what he was doing immediately and picked up a pen, beginning to sign wherever you had put a sticky note without any question.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing,” you said curtly.
“Really?” He seemed genuinely concerned, and you felt slightly ashamed of yourself for your pettiness.
“Didn’t sleep great,” you mumbled in way of a half-assed explanation.
“Hm,” Tony hummed. He didn’t seem totally convinced, but he didn’t push either. He finished signing the contracts in silence.
“Don’t forget about your date tonight.” The bite, though unintentional, is back full-force in your tone.
Tony furrowed his brow. “What?”
You hastily swept the contracts up and clutched them tight to your chest. “Your date. With a Rebecca Anderson. It’s on your calendar for tonight at eight.” You really, really just wanted to be out of this lab and this conversation.
“Oh crap,” Tony mused, rubbing his chin. “I totally forgot about that. I made that ages ago.” He crinkled his nose. “I guess it’s too late to cancel, huh?”
You took a deep breath and commanded yourself not to sound accusatory.“Why would you want to?” you asked.
“Because…” Tony looked at you with big, brown eyes and for a moment you thought… Because it seemed like he thought…. But then he shook his head and said, “You’re right. I wouldn’t. No reason. I’ll… leave the lab early to get ready.”
“Sounds good,” you said, proud of yourself for the neutrality of tone you finally achieved, just in time for the conversation to be over. “And Tony…” You were almost at the door, and he glanced at you over his shoulder. “If I don’t see you before then. Have fun.”
He sent you a tiny little half smile, the kind where your lips tuck in— almost a grimace, really— then turned back to his work. You inhaled a centering breath. As you made the trip back to your office, your inward monologue comprised of you complimenting yourself on the maturity of your well-wishes and criticizing the huge pit sitting stubbornly in the bottom of your stomach.
Tony found himself sitting at his date unable to concentrate on the woman in front of him. His mind kept drifting to the conversation he had with you earlier. He kept hearing you say, ‘Don’t forget about your date tonight,’ on repeat, over and over in his head. Something about it was bothering him, something about the way you barked it at him.
Could it be you were… jealous? You certainly had nothing to be jealous of. You were ten times more attractive, a hundred times smarter, and a thousand times more interesting than this woman. Who even was this woman, anyway? Just some blogger who had tapped him for an interview months ago. He had been down in the dumps at the time, fresh off his break-up with Pepper, but he put up his protective humor shield and flirted his way through the interview like usual. She was mesmerized by his charm and practically begged him for a date. He had feigned a hugely busy schedule until an evening way in the future when he guessed and hoped he would be over Pepper.
Well, he was over Pepper, but he still wasn’t into her.
She wasn’t anyone; she was just some blogger he had flirted with once.
Then again, who had you been? Six months ago, you had been just some woman at a pool party he hooked up with once. But now you were so much more. You were the mother of his child. You were the best assistant he had ever had, the best home chef he’d ever known, the most wonderful co-parent he could have ever asked for. You had grown to be so much more to him these past couple months.
And if he was being honest with himself, he sort of saw it coming. He saw the spark of something special in you back when you first hooked up, but he convinced himself he was crazy, that you weren’t good for him, that he wasn’t ready for commitment of any kind.
And he wasn’t. Things probably turned out exactly as they should have, timing-wise.
Tony suddenly realized that Rebecca Anderson had been talking to him for the last ten minutes, and he had absorbed absolutely none of it. He was very aware of how completely unfair to this perfectly nice lady it was that he was spending the entire evening thinking about you, and he knew he had to cut this short. He fiddled with his phone for a moment under the table, covertly, until it started to buzz loudly.
“Oooh, so sorry!” he feigned, pretending to fish it out of his pocket. “I have it switched to silent except for emergencies.”
He pretended to pick up a call, pretended to listen for a moment, then made his eyes go wide. “Of course, sir. I’ll be right there, sir.”
Rebecca was eating it up, enraptured by the concept that her very own date could be called away on important Avengers business.
“So sorry, my dear,” Tony said, putting the phone back in his pocket and going to stand.
“I understand, of course, Tones,” Rebecca gushed, and Tony winced at the intimate nickname she had helped herself to without permission or the requisite closeness.
Tony didn’t say he had a lovely time, and he didn’t promise to call. He didn’t want to back himself into a corner or make himself any more of a liar than this dubious exit strategy already made him. He just rushed out of there with purpose. Once alone in his carl he let out a huge breath before allowing himself to smile at the thought that he would get to return home to you. And Amelie of course.
When Tony got home, he walked in on a scene of domestic bliss he thought he’d never get the privilege of having. True, you weren’t actually his partner, and true, your living here was a temporary arrangement. But it still filled his heart with joy to step through his door and see you and Amelie setting up a lego Avengers Tower on his living room floor.
Was Tony just being paranoid earlier, thinking you were bothered by his having a date? Or maybe it was just wishful thinking. You seemed totally fine now, completely content and smiling at your daughter warmly as she stacked the blocks according to the instructions you read aloud.
“How are my two favorite girls this evening?” Tony greeted, causing you both to look up at him.
You gave a small, welcoming smile, and Amelie beamed wide and bright. She grabbed one of the lego pieces and ran up to him, proudly exclaiming, “Look, Iron Dad! It’s you!” She extended the piece, and indeed, it was him as a lego, in his red and gold suit. It had come with the kit when he purchased it when it was first released four years ago. It came as well as lego figurines of the other five original Avengers, of which he was the last remaining active, not-criminal Avenger.
“That was a short date,” you mused as he settled on the floor next to you.
Tony shrugged. “I’d rather be home, with you guys.”
You rewarded him with a warm smile and a small blush. And he spent the rest of the evening playing legos with his best girls—a much better time than some stupid date.
Ghost of Unprotected Sex Past Chapter 8 - Just Down the Hall
Photo by Jp Valery on Unsplash ✨ Pairing: Tony Stark x Reader // IronDad
Series summary: When your daughter gets sick, you finally have to tell Tony Stark he has a kid. How will he react? How will he get involved in your life?
Chapter summary: You’re temporarily living with Tony, and from down the hall, you both muse about the other.
WC: 1.2K ✨Contents: Mentions of sex (no smut); mutual pining (sort of)
A/N: Similar in concept to a chapter in my ALSEPH series, but I guess I’m just a sucker for two people lying In bed thinking about the other! Enjoy!
Also, I’ve been advised to remove all links from the original post to keep fanfics searchable, so I’ll be reblogging with tags and links to my masterlist and also I’ll make a series masterlist post.
Tony peppered kisses down your body, stopping to blow a raspberry into your belly button. The laugh you let out was the most ethereal, uplifting, gorgeous, attractive sound he had ever heard in his life. He was immediately as hard as he’d ever been.
How unfortunate it was that he was alone in his bed and now totally awake.
You were just down the hall. He could very easily pop the thirty feet over to your door and knock. You were both single at the moment, relatively young, and he had long since acknowledged to himself that he was still wildly attracted to you.
But that would be stepping over a line. You were only his guest temporarily, until Amelie was recovered. You were only here because your daughter was healing from surgery. You were only in his life again at all because your daughter had been in danger. You clearly didn’t want him in that way, and it would mess a lot of shit up for him to act on his lust. He couldn’t endanger his new-found presence in his child’s life. The delicate platonic/professional/co-parenting relationship he was trying to navigate with you was complicated enough without the added dimension of physical intimacy. He’d only had sex with you the one time, years ago, and in his loneliness, his memory was probably blowing out of proportion how incredible an experience it was.
But no matter how much he reminded himself of all of this, it did nothing to alter the fact that whenever he closed his eyes since you re-entered his life, all he could picture was your beautiful face smiling under him, your effervescent laughter, the feel of you around his cock. Only in his mind’s eye, it wasn’t the version of you he had actually fucked all those years ago, the young woman at the pool whose sexy body had never borne a child. It was the you from now, whose somehow even sexier body (though he hadn’t seen this one naked) had gone through the miracle of childbirth and delivered forth a miracle that was half him, and that would be reason enough for him to exalt it and you. But that didn’t need to be the case for him to be attracted to you exactly as you were; being completely honest with himself, if he had seen you for the first time yesterday, he still would have felt immense desire for you.
As he lay in his bed, he suddenly had the jarring realization that since you had re-entered his life, he hadn’t missed Pepper for a single moment. He had dreamt only of you, masturbated only to thoughts of you, wanted only you. All thoughts of Pepper had been professional, platonic, and entirely appropriate. While he had been mourning his relationship and wracking his brain on how to fix things with the person he had figured was the love of his life until the moment you showed up at his house, since that day he hadn’t even spared a second to think about the most serious romantic partnership of his life.
This would be incredible news—he was over her, completely and totally over her—if his closure with Pepper didn’t come at the cost of a major, whopping, hugely problematic crush on you.
✨
You’d had relationships since your hookup with Tony. You’d dated sporadically in the last few years—another single parent from Amelie’s elementary school, her piano teacher, someone you met on a dating app—but nothing long-term. Your most recent partnership you could sort of call serious (the last relationship that had lasted more than a few weeks, at least) had been with the person you were dating when you found out you were pregnant with Amelie, whom you started seeing only a few days after the Zac Posen party. She’d bolted the moment she found out you were having a child, but you knew pretty much immediately you wanted to keep the baby and were willing to make the trade. You weren’t against abortions categorically, but when you heard the news, you were filled with so much elation that you felt like you had no choice but to follow through. You had just been overwhelmed by more hope and pride and wonder than you realized was possible to fit inside your heart at the news, and it only increased when you first got to hold your child in your arms. Amelie was the best thing in your life, and you wouldn’t trade her for the world. She may have been an accident, but she was the most fortunate thing that had ever occurred to you.
What was rather unfortunate was your unflagging attraction to her father. Being so close to him physically was proving to be a bigger problem than you anticipated. Working with him all day, then having dinner with him at night, then retreating to a bed just down the hall from his—it was exhausting. And not because you were tiring of him or frustrated by him like you might have thought. It was exhausting, because you had to hold yourself back in unexpected ways. You found yourself with weird urges to hug or kiss him. When you walked in on him reading A Wrinkle in Time to Amy, your heart surged in your chest and it took a lot of willpower to keep yourself from flinging your arms around his neck and burying your nose in his hair as he recited Madeleine L’Engle’s words. When he picked up your dinner dishes to bring to the sink to wash, it felt like the perfect moment to lean over and peck his cheek, and you had to remind yourself that you were not in a relationship, he was not your husband or boyfriend or whatever, and that would not be remotely appropriate. But you had fallen into this effortless co-parenting routine, and it would be so easy to give in to your urges and it would be like you were in a committed relationship, already domestic and comfortable.
Additionally, it didn’t help at all that your body desperately wanted him to rail you into the next dimension.
But you couldn’t let such thoughts cloud your judgment. His life was inherently risky.
Though no superhero business had arisen that he’d been assigned to since this all began, and the Accords seemed to leave his day-to-day life moderately risk-free.
Still, you didn’t actually know him that well, and by all reports he was flighty and narcissistic and impulsive and all sorts of un-dad-like qualities.
Not that any of that was evidenced in his behavior towards you or Amelie.
It was all very confusing, and it was better not to dwell on any of it.
So though his endearing smile and cheerful laughter haunted your dreams, you would continue to resist your urges, and as soon as Amelie was recovered, you would leave the tower and spend significantly fewer hours with him and hopefully think of him far less and everything would be much easier.
Ghost of Unprotected Sex Past Chapter 13 - Paparazzi
Pairing: Tony Stark x F!Reader // IronDad
Series summary: When your daughter gets sick, you finally have to tell Tony Stark he has a kid. How will he react? How will he get involved in your life?
Chapter summary: The secret is out.
Word count: 1,682 words ✨ Content warnings: Blackmail, stalking, obnoxious journalists
A/N: This one fills my first (and probably only at this point) bingo for Tony Stark Bingo! Please enjoy!
I will reblog with links and tags
Inevitably, it came. The day you had been fearing since you first learned you were pregnant with Tony Stark’s child. The day your secret was unveiled, against your will.
You stared at the email in Tony’s inbox, your chest pounding with horror. You were totally frozen. You had no idea how long you stayed like that, terror spreading through your limbs, stock still, before Tony finally found you. One look at your wan face and mortified expression and he was rushing to your side, kneeling down beside your desk chair.
“What’s wrong??” he asked. “Y/n, please tell me what happened?”
Though your arm felt like lead, you managed to make a vague gesture towards the computer. With an apologetic look, Tony wheeled your desk chair back a few inches so he could wedge his way in, then grabbed the mouse and wiggled it to wake the screen up.
The traumatizing image had been so seared in your brain, you hadn’t even noticed the screen go blank.
As he scrolled through the email, Tony’s expression grew more and more concerned and sour. When he finished, he turned back to you. He stroked a hand through his beard pensively, sighed, and leaned back against your desk.
“So, someone knows,” he stated simply.
The email was a blackmail note. Photos of Tony playing with Amelie at a near-by park, buying her ice cream out of an ice cream truck at the end of the driveway and then escorting her back into the mansion up the long drive, and the most intimate set of photographs—all three of you, in your pajamas, watching the stars on Tony’s expansive lawn and then heading back inside together.
The body of the email threatened to release the photos, and therefore the information that Tony Stark had a ‘secret family,’ unless one million dollars were wired to a bank routing number provided.
You were starting to shake uncontrollably, and Tony knelt by your side, stroking his hand up your arm in a comforting gesture. Tears were beginning to flow down your cheeks.
“This dude’s got balls messing with me,” Tony said. “But they aren’t made of iron.”
“Are you…” You sniffled. “Are you suggesting your testicles are made of iron, Tony?”
“I wasn’t—Not my testicles no, but my—My suit…” Tony stammered, and through your tears you managed several chuckles. It warmed his heart to see you cheered up, even just a little.
It was simple enough catching the guy. The bank routing number was meant to be untraceable, but Tony was more than just a suit—he was a hacking genius. He managed to find the perpetrator, and had Rhodey arrest him immediately.
But this whole incident opened your eyes to the impossibility of keeping your daughter secret forever, especially if you were living and working with Tony. It was time to tell the world. You had a heart-to-heart with Amelie about it, and she accepted the idea. In fact, she showed an enormous amount of grace and maturity about it for an eight-year-old.
“Is today the day I get to be on TV???!!!!”
She showed less grace and maturity when the day finally came. But what could you expect. She was a kid, excitable and adorable.
One of the most difficult things you had had to do as part of your job so far, was arrange for Tony to have the press conference where he revealed your daughter’s existence to the world. When he stepped out onto the podium to make his speech, you weren’t sure you’d be able to hear him over the beating of your own heart.
“Thank you, everyone, for coming to hear my announcement today,” he began. “This is not Avengers business, but is, in fact, personal.”
“So this is not about the return of Captain Rogers and the rest of the Avengers?” one of the journalists called out. You recognized him as being from one of the lower, scummier tabloids. “Awww!!”
You whispered to the security guard beside you.
“This matter is very close to my heart, and while I am usually a laid-back sort of person, I would like this matter taken seriously, more for the benefit of my family than myself.”
Tony spared a small glance at you out of the corner of his eyes. Hearing him refer to you as his family made you feel some kind of way, but you were not sure quite what that way was.
“There have been some rumors floating around about me recently, and I would like to lay them to rest by putting the entire truth out there,” Tony continued. He took a deep breath to center himself. “About nine years ago, I—”
“Became Iron Man, yeah, yeah, we know! Get to the good stuff!” the reporter from before was shouting desperately, trying to hear the announcement before he was forced out of the hall, as the security guard had been urging him quietly and discretely along. With a nod from you, the burly security guard hauled the man over his shoulder and removed him from the hall entirely.
Tony took another deep breath and tried again. “About nine years ago, I engaged in relations with a woman with whom I was barely acquainted. Those who are familiar with my behavior patterns at that time will hardly be surprised. It was one of my last liaisons before I was kidnapped, became Iron Man, and cleaned up my act in that regard.
“Many people predicted, during the years I engaged in my most heinous behavior and had quite a significant number of relations, that it was statistically likely that there might be a result to one of those unions. Over the years, several women have claimed their children to be mine, but none of those claims have been true. Until now.”
Whispers and clammer began to fill the room, but Tony silenced them simply by raising his hand. You marveled at how the man known for being so crazy and fancy-free, managed to look so regal in this moment.
“A couple months ago, a woman I had previously been acquainted with very little, but had had relations with nine years ago, approached me to inform me that her eight-year-old daughter was, in fact, mine. While I have not had any DNA testing done, I have had no reasons to doubt these claims, and have full confidence in the mother’s integrity and the truth that her child, Amelie Y/L/N, is, in fact, my daughter.”
The chatter began again, but Tony just spoke over it this time.
“Due to recent health concerns, my daughter and her mother have been living with me. The mother, Y/N Y/L/N, also now serves as my executive assistant. I can assure you she is more than qualified for the position, and this was not merely a case of nepotism. I have been in need of an executive assistant since I promoted my last one to CEO of Stark Industries, and in even more desperate need since more Avengers-related concerns fell directly onto my shoulders.” His voice cracked slightly right at the end; he didn’t say it, but everyone knew he was referring to the loss of Steve, Wanda, Clint and Sam on the Avengers team.
“The main reason Ms. Y/L/N kept Amelie from my awareness and the awareness of the general public is due to the fact that they are private people. Any attempts to defame Ms. Y/L/N or my daughter will be met with legal action, and any attempt to invade their privacy will be met with the fullest force of the law. As a family, we have come to the communal decision to request the utmost privacy from the press and the public, and we humbly ask that you respect this request.”
That was the second time he referred to you and your daughter and him, your little unit, as a family, and your chest was beginning to warm with the idea.
“While Ms. Y/L/N and I are not in a relationship, I refer to us as a family, because a family does not necessarily need to fit the traditional definition. My relationship with Ms. Y/L/N is professional and platonic in nature.” Unbidden, your heart sank at his words, despite the fact that nothing he said was untrue. “But that does not change the fact that she bore and has raised my child for the last eight years. Moving forward, we will be raising our daughter together, even though we are not ‘together.’” He held up his hands in air-quotes.
You could feel yourself dissociating the longer he talked, and you could tell his insistence on the platonic nature of your relationship would echo in your head for a long time to come, in a very unwelcome manner.
“I will not take questions, but my family and I will pose for photographs to accompany your stories,” Tony said. “This is to encourage you all not to seek further photography when my family and I are not posing for your benefit.” His tone as he completed his speech had a bite of warning to it.
Before, when he had referred to you all as a family, it had felt warm, it had felt right. Now, it just felt like mockery. You chastised yourself for feeling this way, but your heart was a traitor against your brain.
Amelie loved the attention of the photoshoot. She had adored the attention she got when she was dressed and made up and had her hair done, and now she was eating up the glamor of being in front of the cameras. She was a natural, and you couldn’t help but smile fondly at how well she was taking all of this.
All Tony could think as the three of you posed for photos in front of the step-and-repeat, was how he hoped that you liked his speech, and that he hadn’t ruined his chance with you.
