I'll let you win (a falsettos x marvel au)

Chapter 20: As quoting Jason, "the day my dad's iron man is the day I get shot"

well look at that, I'm not dead

When Jason was five, he went out into the real world for the first time. His Mum had made an excuse of being recognised as a means to not take him out, so a nanny was hired.

He found out years later that she had just tried to take her own life for the first time around then, he didn't even realise.

Jason had always had an incredible memory, one of the positive aspects of his Fathers personality that he had inherited from him, so often times he would think back to that day.

He had been outside before of course, his mum taking him out onto the roof, pointing out different buildings on the skyline, and he would ask why he couldn't go out there.

She would always say the same thing, putting Jason down firmly, crouching to his height and holding his hands in her own.

"Because, Jason, there are bad people out there who don't like your father. I don't want them to take you away from me."

And then Jason would have nightmares, of the big, bad men coming to take him away.

But when he was five, Trina realised that she couldn't let him stay sheltered forever, so she hired the nanny. Looking back at it, Trina would laugh at her mistake, hiring a male nanny so her husband wouldn't cheat on her. Her friends had told her stories of their husbands sleeping with the woman they had hired, leaving them for their mistresses, so she tried to prevent it. Instead, she accidentally drove him into the arms of a charming young man.

Marvin had slept with him several times, she asked much later on when they had a drunken night together full of laughs, once they were friends.

Jason did not like the man. There wasn't a specific reason, he just didn't like him. So, after being taken to central park, playing hide and seek in amongst the orange piles of leaves, he ran.

Freedom never felt so good.

The chilly air hurt Jason's lungs, but he was given a sudden burst of energy he had never felt before, motivation to keep running, the man he didn't like, a blur in the distance as he doddled along. Then suddenly he felt his knees buckle and he tripped, falling face first on the hard-concrete path.

And just like that, he felt human again, and like any five-year-old boy, he felt the crocodile tears build in the corner of his eyes as he wailed for his mother.

"are you okay?" The voice was small, and Jason suddenly felt frightened, he had never met someone new on his own before.

He looked up, and saw a boy, the same height as him, sitting down on the curb next to him. "you have big hair." Jason said, trying to get up, still scared.

"do you need help; my daddies are here somewhere."

"you have more than one daddy?"

"I have two- "the boy exclaimed proudly, adopting a superhero like position "-how many daddies do you have?"

"just one, I wish I had two daddies."

There was a silence, Jason wincing as he pulled up his trouser leg, exposing a small graze.

"That looks sore."

"it hurts a little bit, but I'm brave." Jason lied. "my name's Jason"

"I'm Philip."

"flip?"

"no, Philip."

"Ph-il-ip." He sounded it out pneumatically before trying again, "Flip?"