A Night With Your Idols

On the main television in Stark Tower, a news reporter covered a story about the first day of New York Comic Con. Tony smirked as he watched the throngs of fans pile into a convention center donned in Avengers uniforms and other character attire. Tony had always anticipated NYCC for the many people who were dressed as him as well as the other Avengers. He was always curious to see how they would alter Steve's iconic star spangled suit or the different variations of Bruce Banner. Even the other Avengers would watch this and feel a radiant sense of pride and admiration that these strangers would dress up as them for their own reasons.

The reporter's dull voice interviewed a little boy dress as Iron Man who raved about Tony Stark, making the man's smirk melted into a heartfelt smile.

Children and teenagers were always the ones who warmed Stark's heart the most. They were just starting out in life and were very influential. They could easily become the world's next scientist or rocket engineer based on what they saw in comics and the media. And like many other stories they would hear, they would probably be told the Battle of New York. Of how Hawkeye took down aliens with a single arrow or how Black Widow singlehandedly took out a horde of aliens and obtained an extraterrestrial craft. Their eyes would widen or they would smile and from within they would gain a new idea of strength and courage and thus, the Avengers would become their role models. They would fall back on their idols in times of doubt and confusion, of when they lost hope or power, and from it, they would rise like a superhero.

Sure being a superhero was all well and good, but to see their effect on the younger crowd made something in Tony's heart melt. Whenever kids asked him for an autograph they would always said that they wanted to be like Iron Man or Tony Stark and he would do nothing more than encourage them. He even donated to a few children's charities in the past and started to work on the creation of prosthetics with the help of Bruce.

Bruce also had a soft spot for children. Knowing he could never have any and knowing that the many times he tried before had slipped away, he had accepted his sad fate of never being a father. Of course there was the idea of adoption, but he always found himself in the lab with Tony. His life became his work to help those who did not have to bear his curse or his power. He always gave it his all to save those who so desperately needed his help, especially when it came to children. Bruce and Tony shared the same view when it came to children: they were the holders to the future that they would hopefully live to see. They were the keepers of a new world just within their reach and they had so much potential to grab it.

Often times, these children would make Tony think about his own past. Of how he was practically born to be his father's successor and how, with it, came fame, fortune, and the power to dominate the world in multiple aspects. But it was a life he sometimes disliked, sometimes reminding him of his father treated him. How he devote all his time to technology, to create that better world for Tony just to continue, and live in. That was the problem though: he devoted too much time to technology and considered Tony a nuisance which blossomed into traumatic abuse that still rested on Tony's shoulders. Tony would often pray that none of the children or teenagers he had seen would ever have such a tragic backstory. Of physical and emotional abuse, losing parents at a tender age when the world was still confusing, and having to be strong at such a young time in his life. With it came all the successes he ever dreamed of, but at what cost? Maybe though, some dressed as him and the other Avengers or whatever character they chose, to escape any possible abuse that had happened to them in their lives.

"I wanna be just like Iron Man," the little boy on the television proclaimed and Tony's thoughts were broken.

Sharply looking up at the boy, he could feel something gathering in his eye as he brushed it away and smiled softly. Bruce smirked as he watched a father dressed as him hold up the little boy clad in a handmade Iron Man suit.