#rambleswrites

“Are you having an affair?”

Steve’s eyes shoot up. “Why would you think that?” he asks Peter.

“Well, people usually talk like that when they’re having an affair,” he shrugs and adds, “at least in my experience.”

“What kind of experience do you have? You’re 14.” Steve retorts and realises that his tone was sterner than he would have liked. He sighs. I need to keep my emotions in check, he tells himself.

“I am sorry, that was harsh.”

“Yeah, whatever, I don’t really care,” Peter replies and walks out.

“Isn’t that the crux of the problem?”

“Is it?”

Steve turns to see Tony having the same distraught look as earlier.

“Is what’s been going on with you have something to do with Peter?” Tony asks.

The cat’s out of the bag.

Steve bites his lip. He didn’t want Tony to find out like this. Hell, he didn’t want Tony to find out at all. He walks up to Tony and gestures him to go to their bedroom. Tony does and shuts the door behind them.

“It’s nothing. Just me probably overthinking or you know…jumping to conclusions over nothing,” Steve tries to downplay the issue again, unsure why he’s not being honest. It’s not like Tony is buying any of it. He looks at him. He really isn’t.

Steve gives him a small smile.

“This may really be nothing you know. You are just going smack me for thinking like this anyway.”

Tony’s expression is still grim, but he goes and sits on the bed, arms crossed, and stares right into his eyes. “Do you regret adopting Peter?”

“What? No! Adoption was my idea, remember?”

“Then? You have become distant Steve. You spend less time with me. You don’t even spare a second for Peter-”

“I don’t spare a second for Peter? He’s been with us for what, seven months? And I already love him with every inch of my being!”

“Then what could it possibly be, Steve?”

“You know, ever since we moved into this place,” Steve starts as he leans his back on the bedroom door, “some of my most favourite moments have been watching your genius unfold in the lab and trying to capture every inch of it. It’s what I look forward to the most. Just seeing you, you in your element. When Peter began to finally open up to us, he began by accompanying you to the lab. Remember how he would stand in the corner and look at you wide-eyed as you showed him around?” Steve walks over to his side of the bed and pulls out one of his sketchbooks and gives it to Tony.

The page he has opened to is a sketch, running over a double page, of Peter’s first interaction with Dum-E. Tony smiles fondly at it. “It’s beautiful!”

Steve sits next to him. Their thighs brush against each other.

“Peter is…he’s amazing Tony. He’s so brilliant and kind-hearted and he has been through so much, but he is so full of love and compassion. I can’t believe he is our son. I thought my life was already unbelievable enough with you. But being with Peter is more than what I could ever hope for. Seeing the two of you together is the most beautiful thing in the world. Two brilliant minds breaking their knuckles to find something new to solve, or discover, or invent. He sees you as his father. He does. But me? I am just the other adult in the house. The caretaker. Nothing more. He just never sees me as anything more. Please let me finish. I just… I just want a part of him. I know I won’t be able to get what you two have. But just something small, a tiny bit of him,” Steve pushes back his tears and notices Tony is teary-eyed too.

“Where did I go wrong, Tony? I thought we were, at the very least, becoming friends. But he just doesn’t really care if I am around or not. He made a fuss when you couldn’t leave the investors meeting in September. That was just three hours. When I returned from Paris after a week, all I got was a ‘hey’. I know this is silly. He probably likes being with you more because you have so much in common. Maybe this is really nothing. But I can’t help shake the feeling that he doesn’t see me as his family. And I do not know what to do.”

Tony intertwines the fingers of his right hand with Steve’s left. “Should we try and talk to him?”

“No!” Steve nearly shouts. “I shall try being better with him.”

“Steve, you are amazing with him. I know I am no authority on ideal father-son dynamics but I know one thing: you deeply care about him. Off late, you kept being distant. Was it so that you could leave us alone?”

“I didn’t want to meddle.”

“Steve! Have you thought that maybe he was reading it the wrong way?”

“Wrong? How?”

“Maybe he had a moment, say when he wasn’t so open to you. He is a teenager. He has his own thing going on. Say, there were a few of those. And then he notices that you don’t spend so much time with him anymore. More importantly, when he sees it is also when I am with him. He probably thinks he is causing a rift between us. I am probably overstepping here. But, what if, because he has lost his family twice, he became closer to me, instinctively…because he didn’t see you around anymore? You weren’t absent. I am aware of that. When he started having nightmares again, you stood at the door. I could see that you wanted to help and I couldn’t understand why you wouldn’t come inside. You moron, he did not just want me then. He would have grabbed you too if you were close. He wasn’t shunning you, Steve.”

“I messed up! I’ve messed up, haven’t I?” Steve breaks into tears again.

“No, no you didn’t. You should have just said this a month ago, Steve,” Tony cups his face, “Promise me you won’t keep stuff from me like this ever again.”

Steve shakes his head. Tony smacks him. 

“I knew you would smack me!”

“Come here you goofball.”