Light of my Life (STONY)

Peter Stark-Rogers

Tony's POV

Steve and I were sat in the waiting room and I was holding his hand nervously. I was terrified.

The agency had verified our request a few days before the New Year. It was January 17th when we were finally able to come in.

We'd had a recommendation from Nat and Rhodey, saying we'd be good parents and giving them an extremely persuasive argument as to how we'd be good parents. We weren't planning on telling everyone until we knew, and we found out a few days after Christmas, so that's when we announced it to everyone.

Steve and I were - no, are - gonna be dads.

"Anthony E Stark and Steven G Rogers? We're ready for you now." I stood up and looked at the woman who'd announced our names. I smiled at her but she didn't smile back, so I dropped my gaze to the floor. Steve squeezed my hand gently, reassuring me.

We sat down in front of the desk. Behind it was a smiley woman. The block on her desk said her name was Layla Anderson.

"Mr Stark, Mr Rogers, nice to meet you." She shook both of our hands as she said this and I attempted a smile. "I understand you want to adopt Peter Benjamin Parker? All you need to do today is sign the paperwork, you've had the house walkthrough? I must say, given what they found, I am surprised you're allowed to adopt."

"It's the AI, he can alert everyone of anyone's location in the house. Also, he can lock specific doors for specific people. If Peter were to somehow leave his room, he wouldn't be able to get anywhere anyway," I said.

"I'm sorry, what's an AI?"

"Artificial Intelligence. His name's JARVIS, he runs the house." She nodded and handed over the papers.

"Are you changing his name? If you are then I need to know, and what will surname be?"

"It'd be Peter Benjamin Stark-Rogers," replied Steve. She nodded and wrote something down on another sheet of paper and passed that to us, too.

"Fill out the forms and then you can take him. He seemed to really like you when he met you."

Peter's about 5 months old now, we met him a couple weeks ago. Steve and I filled out the paperwork and passed it back. She then read and re-read it, had someone proofread it, and pushed a red stamp into the box at the bottom.

"Congratulations," she said smiling. "You're now parents."

"Wow," I breathed. "Thank you so much for all of your help." She led us through to where all of the children were and took us to Peter's crib. He was asleep, clutching a stuffed animal in his hand, wearing a pale blue onesie.

"You can pick him up, you don't just have to watch him," she laughed. Steve gestured for me to take him, so I leant down and gently picked him up. He was tiny and weighed basically nothing.

"Oh my god," I whispered. Steve placed his arm around my shoulders as Peter shifted in his sleep to make himself comfortable. After being told everything was good, we were able to leave.

"Holy-"

"Language-"

"-living Jesus this is insane."

"Oh. Thought you were gonna say something else."

"There's a child present, Steven. I'm not stupid." Steve grinned and I shrugged. Peter hiccuped in his sleep and held his stuffed animal even tighter. It was a tiger and was almost the same size as him. I somehow managed to strap him into his booster seat in the car and I drove us all home.

"Oh my god!" Squealed Nat when we walked in. Steve was holding Peter, and the kids eyes fluttered open as he heard noise.

"Dammit, Nat. He was asleep," Steve muttered. Nat quietly said sorry and Steve handed her Peter.

"Oh my god he's adorable," she whispered. Peter rubbed his eyes and began to cry.

"He wants the tiger, hang on," I said quickly. I handed it over and he stopped almost immediately.

"Well done," laughed Nat. "I was beginning to think he just didn't like me." Wanda and Vision then walked in, followed minutes later by Bruce, Pietro and Rhodey. Everyone had a turn at holding him (is this just a thing people do with babies? I'm confused.) and he finally got tired so we put him down for a nap.

The next few months were insane. Peter slept in our room for a while, mainly because if we weren't there he wouldn't sleep. After about a month he would stay in his room but would wake up during the night. I was usually awake and able to get him back to sleep soon after. He took a liking to Nat and Pietro and had the most adorable laugh. At 6 months he tried his first orange - hated it but ate it. At roughly 8 months he started to crawl, and held Steve's fingers to walk. 10 months, his gibberish started to form words. He didn't really know what they meant, but he could say some stuff. Steve and I bought a house to move into for some of the time. It just meant Peter was a little safer while he was learning to walk, so he wouldn't run into something sharp or find something that wasn't put away. We still spent a lot of time at the tower, but eventually moved to the compound because it was bigger and more comfortable. The tower was sold when Peter was about 10 months old.

And then now. Peter's first birthday was yesterday. He said 'Dada' and ate some of his cake, which he spat straight out. (What baby would want LEMON CAKE. We told Nat to make something vanilla and of course her and Wanda ignored us.) But, again, HE SAID HIS FIRST WORD. AND WE GOT IT ON VIDEO. It was crazy, something I'll never forget.

Yes, we got weird looks in the park and yes, we made it up as we went along. But we're parents, we're raising a child.

And that's all that matters.

So this is the final chapter of this book and I honestly thought I woulda abandoned it before now but NO, I'm gonna finish this aha.

I really hope that whoever has read this has enjoyed it, because I've certainly liked writing it and it's been nice, having a distraction as simple as this. I wanna do a book that takes place a few years in the future but I don't know if anyone would wanna read that... if you do comment, let me know, it'd be much appreciated.

I'm sorry for the patchy updates on this book, I wrote about 10 chapters before I started posting because I didn't know if I wanted to post it but turns out I did, so that's really fun. I hope you've enjoyed reading Tony and Steve's journey, and I hope you wanna see their new beginning with Peter.

Lola x