To All Those Brave and Lovely

Tony

He's had the adoption papers for a week now, shoved down in the back of the desk drawer.  Tony knows that this should be easy, as simple as signing his name on a few dotted lines and hiring someone to sort through the legal jargon.  He wants to have it completed more than anything, to have something officially tie him and Nora together as parent and guardian, but something keeps holding him back.  Something like Pepper, and her unwavering insistence that he think this through.

"This is a big deal, Tony.  This isn't... this isn't just.."  She was searching for words, exasperated, and he didn't like that, could feel the panic bubble up in his chest when she turns away from him, because he is still so terrified that after everything, she might walk away from him again.  He doesn't think he could take it if one more person walked away.  For the first time he started to consider that she might not have wanted this, or had thought that this was going to be one of his flights of fancy that would have gone away, and now comes the moment when she might make him choose.  Pepper or Nora.  Nora or Pepper.  He already knows, will have the answer set in stone as soon as he writes his name down on the dotted line and sends it back to the adoption lawyer.  "This isn't just clearing out a room and buying a bunch of stuff.  This is about being a parent.  Do you know how to do that, Tony?"

He didn't say anything, and she let the file in her hand fall to the table with a smack, the noise somehow showing her frustration more than her words.  This had been one of the problems she wanted them to work through, he remembered, the communication.   Tony walks toward her and then stops right before reaching out to her, because then she might see how his hands are shaking, and he does not want that, does not want to give her one more reason to leave.  She sees it anyway, and closes the distance between them, pulls him closer.  "Just talk to Nora, okay?  You can't make this decision on your own."  Pepper can't see his face, can't see the flinch or the worry lines or the pure exhaustion that crashes over him when he least expects it, but it still seems like she stood up straighter, bearing more of their weight.  "This is her life you're changing, you know."

He had thought Pepper was being unfair, when she said that he didn't know what it meant to be a parent.  He had done the lecturing and the grounding and the helping with homework, the playing doctor and chaperoning friends and giving home cooked meals, had set up college funds and made her think about the future.  He sits down with her, listens to her, tries to fill up the gaps that his father's mistakes had left in him, vows not to make the same mistake with her.  But then he gets the call from Bucky, the one that comes through an emergency line in the middle of the night, and he realizes that he didn't understand what being a parent meant, not really.

Being a parent means loving someone with every fiber of your being, and then feeling your entire world crumble when you hear they might have been hurt, have every part of you flooded with fear and anger and worry and the thought that you just need to get to them, right then, never mind the conseuqences, and god help anyone who might get in your way.

"She's alright.  I don't think she's hurt.  She sounded- she sounded pretty shaken up."  Bucky's voice came in on the other end of the phone, cutting through the rising crescendo of static that must have only existed in Tony's head.  The men around him (high up government officials, important people, in this room that technically didn't exist and he can't leave without permission) are muttering, equal parts angry and concerned.  "I can handle this.  I can handle whatever this is."

"I'll be there as soon as I can."  Tony knows that this is a lie even as he says, and the faces looking back at him tell him that they know it, too.  He will not be allowed to leave, will not want to leave, cannot leave until a solution has been found, no matter what it happening with Nora, no matter how much pain she is in or how angry she will be in.  Sometimes, its just not an option, not when there is so much at stake and you are the only one who can save it.  "Tell her we can fix whatever it is, okay?  Tell her that's its going to be fine, and I'll take care of it."