Archive of Our Own

“We filed a motion to serve notice by publication three weeks ago, after Mister Vanko withdrew from the case,” Matt Murdock says as he steps away from Judge Rees’s bench. It’s hard to remember he’s blind, sometimes, because he moves around the courtroom like he owns it. Tony admires that. Not that he’ll ever admit it aloud—Murdock’s also a bit of a toolbox, sometimes—but he wishes a little that, if he ever lost his vision, he’d keep his moves like Jagger.

He considers mentioning that to Bruce, but Bruce is sitting all straight-backed and nervous next to him, no sign of levity anywhere on his face.

Okay then.

“Since that time,” Murdock continues, his hands resting lightly on the sides of the podium, “there has been no contact between the state and Mister Davis. And I would stipulate, your honor, that Miss Jones of Union County Child Services hasn’t been able to contact him, either.” He pauses for a moment, then shakes his head. “The state would move to terminate Mister Davis’s guardianship based on default and free Miles up for adoption.”

“Thank you,” Judge Rees says. Her eyes stay on the affidavit of publication, though, and Tony feels his heart rate jump up past normal. There’s no real reason to be nervous, no verifiable excuse for the fact that he feels a little like he might throw up all over his own expensive shoes, but reason’d leapt out the car window around the time they’d pulled into the parking lot in front of the Union County Courthouse. Suddenly, with the big limestone building looming over them and Bruce’s Prius humming like a washing machine instead of a car, Tony’d realized exactly how much rode on this one stupid motions hearing.

Well, not stupid. The hearing stood in the way of his kid actually becoming his kid, so, you know, not stupid.

Judge Rees keeps looking at the stupid affidavit. Tony shifts, uneasy, and his elbow knocks Bruce’s. Not on purpose, but because the seats are narrow and the armrests are even worse. Bruce glances over, the worry etched on his face like the relief on a statue, and Tony wets his lips.

He wants to say a thousand things right in that second. He wants to remind Bruce of all the phone calls and e-mails with Jessica Jones, all the long talks about the move and living together full time as a family, and about the absentee asshole uncle who’s not even spoken to his attorney in the last two months. But instead, all he can do is open his lips and breathe.

Bruce breathes too, and somehow, their hands find each other. Just for a second, a squeeze instead of a hold, and Tony convinces himself that his heart calms from the touch.

It’s a lie, sure, but a comforting one.

Finally, miraculously, the judge glances up from the paperwork. “Miss Drew?” she asks.

The guardian ad litem rises from her chair, unbuttoning her jacket as she moves. Only she could pull off the blood red skirt with the cropped jacket. Well, she and maybe Natasha. Tony decides he should ask Pepper whether her girlfriend owns that outfit.

“Your honor?” Drew asks after a couple seconds.

The judge removes her glasses. “Do you wish to present evidence or argument on the state’s motion to terminate this guardianship?”

“I don’t have any evidence other than what the state presented,” Drew answers with a shrug. “I mean, nobody knows where this guy is, and his nephew’s sitting in a foster home waiting for permanency. It’s not in his best interest to wait around anymore. But otherwise, no, I’ve got nothing.”

Judge Rees nods again, all the way through the sound of the squeaky vinyl chair at counsel table and Drew’s pen scratching on paper. Then, there’s nothing but steady breathing in the silence.

When the judge wets her lips, it’s slow and careful, about as deliberate a gesture as Tony’s ever seen. She glances at the affidavit again, then back across the courtroom. Tony wonders for a second what she’s looking at, but she dispels the mystery when she asks, “Miles?”

Miles, for his part, jerks in his chair. He’s spent the whole hearing, if you can call appearances and then the presentation of an affidavit a hearing, silent and still, his eyes focused on the pad of paper in front of him and his toes nudging at the floor. The last three or four days’ve really been a lesson in just how quiet a twelve-year-old can be when he’s scared out of his mind, because he’s lurked around both the houses like a ghost, slump-shouldered and silent.

Two or three times, Bruce’d tried to coax some kind of response out of him, but Miles’d never budged, expertly avoiding the no-man’s-land of an unwanted conversation. At least, he’d managed until two days ago, when Bruce’d headed to his usual Wednesday night class and left the two of them alone with a massive bowl of popcorn and the first season of Game of Thrones.

“I’m not even going to pretend it’s appropriate for a twelve-year-old,” he’d complained on his way out the door, “but I’m also not going to pretend I can stop you.”

“Smart and sexy, just what I always wanted,” Tony’d replied, and Bruce’d rolled his eyes before stalking out of the house.

They’d barely queued up the DVDs before Miles’d asked, “What happens if the judge decides to let my uncle keep being my guardian?”

Tony, suave millionaire attorney that he was, nearly knocked the popcorn off the coffee table. “Say what?”

“The hearing on Friday. It’s to make my uncle stop being my guardian so you guys can adopt me, right?” Tony’d waited a couple beats before nodding, and Miles’d promptly dropped his eyes down to the carpet. He’d looked vulnerable all of a sudden, not weak or small but shrinking, and Tony’d worked not to reach over and just drag him into a hug. “What if she doesn’t want to? What if she gives him another chance?”

“Then we keep doing what we’re doing,” Tony’d said. He’d leaned back on the couch and folded his hands together, forcing himself not to turn into a total Banner and suffocate the kid with cuddles. “You’d stay in state custody, so you’d keep living with Bruce, we’d keep working on the paperwork to move you in here, and you’d get fed, clothed, and watered.” Miles’d very nearly smiled. “The name on a piece of paper isn’t dispositive of whose kid you are.”

“Dispositive?”

“Conclusive.” When Miles’d shot him another funny look, he’d rolled his eyes at him. “Lawyer word, look it up later, it’ll come in handy someday. But my point’s just that you’re the kid who lives with Bruce and me, our kid, and that’s kind of the only part of the whole equation that matters.”

He’s still thinking about that conversation when Jessica Drew elbows the kid who lives with him and Bruce, and before Tony can really process it, Miles is on his feet at counsel table. His fingertips rest on the tabletop but the rest of him’s at attention, alert and steady.

Bruce pulls in a tiny breath next to him. Tony thinks it’s mostly in surprise, but the only emotion Tony really feels right then is pride.

“Do you have any comments regarding the termination of your uncle’s guardianship?” the judge asks. Her eyes rest constantly on the boy in front of her, steadily considerate. Tony’d thought she might be an ass when they first met, but now, he knows that she’s just a lady who thinks extra-hard about everything that’s presented in her courtroom. “Because if he’s no longer your guardian, you can be placed for adoption. With the Mister Stark and Doctor Banner, or, if something were to happen, with someone else.”

There’s maybe only a second between the time Judge Rees stops speaking and the time Miles nods, but it’s the longest second in human history. “I know,” Miles answers, “and that’s what I want.”

“Very well,” Judge Rees agrees, and even though there’s about three thousand orders of the court after that, Tony only notices two things for the rest of the hearing:

The way Miles sits up straighter, tall and proud as he’s ever been, and the way Bruce’s entire body relaxes when he finally, finally smiles.

==

“Yearly income,” Jessica says. Her pen’s poised, ready to fill in the box, and she’s staring him down. Like she thinks he’ll lie or something.

Well, in her defense, lying was a little bit of an issue. Once. Briefly.

Tony shrugs. “Same pay grade as Bruce’s,” he answers, and everyone—Jess, Bruce, and even their kid—just stare at him.

Tony can think of about three thousand things he’d like to spend his afternoon doing, and filling out home study paperwork with the lovely but kind of demanding Jessica Jones isn’t actually one of them. No offense to Jess and all, but it’s February and there’s fresh snow on the ground. They could be out sledding.

Or out seeing a movie.

Or out visiting that rock thing at the natural history museum that Bruce wants to see ‘cause he’s weirdly into rocks.

Or anything, really, that’s not walking through paperwork as a big happy family, because that’s a little weird.

Dani, Jessica’s super-cute toddler who’s almost two and babbles nonsense almost all the time, lets out this weird squeal from the floor that makes both dogs jump up and run for it. Dani pushes up onto her feet, probably to chase them, and Jessica reaches out to snag her by the back of her t-shirt.

All while staring Tony down.

She’s preternaturally good at this whole thing.

“Try again,” she says, and Tony holds up his hands.

“Why?” he demands, and he can see his ever-supportive and loving partner-for-life roll his eyes as he fills out the sheet with his social security number and last hundred years of addresses. “You want my pay stub? I’ll grab my pay stub. I mean, I get that he’s been with the office longer and should theoretically make more—”

“Because that’s the problem,” Bruce intones.

“—but my firm background combined with the unique demands of my job bumped me a pay grade, and—”

“Tony.” Jess’s tone is flinty. Like Natasha’s when Tony starts asking questions about her and Pepper’s extracurricular activities, or like that one appellate division judge who clearly hates his actual guts.

Dani stops struggling and plunks her butt down on the carpet next to Miles. She knocks over the block tower he’s been constructing and laughs. It’s an evil fucking laugh.

“Jess?” Tony asks.

“There is no way in hell that the entirety of your yearly income is the same as Bruce’s.” She pauses for a half-second. “No offense, Bruce.”

“I wouldn’t’ve married him if I was offended by his tax bracket,” Bruce says with a little shake of his head. He’s still scribbling personal information into neatly-organized boxes. Tony suspects they’re the same boxes that Jessica keeps filling in on his behalf, the ones she should really trust him with because he actually knows his own yearly salary, thank you very much.

Jessica raises an eyebrow in his direction, pen still poised. He maturely rolls his eyes. “Glenshaw Glass,” he replies.

She frowns, and Bruce glances up from his own packet to shoot Tony a look. Not a nice look, either, but one of those frustrated, sharp-eyed looks. Tony decides to call this one don’t you dare recite federal tax law as a way to dodge Jessica’s innocent question.

He smiles. Bruce’s eyes narrow.

“Money’s not income unless it’s an accession to wealth, clearly realized, over which someone—in this case, myself—has complete dominion.” Tony waves a hand while Bruce clenches his jaw. He ignores the annoyance. After all, he’s annoyed too: annoyed that Jessica won’t trust him with his own paperwork, annoyed that he’s forced to explain every intimate detail about his financial status to the state, annoyed that an apparent prerequisite to becoming somebody’s parent is forking over bank statements and budgets. “I’ve got stocks, I’ve got bonds, I’ve got the vacation house in Malibu—”

“You have a vacation house in California?” Miles asks, jumping back into the conversation with wide, curious eyes.

Tony grins at him. “I’ve got a vacation palace in Malibu. We should go sometime, the three of us, maybe learn to surf or—” He sits forward and snaps his fingers. “We should invite Dot and the dads. It’s like an hour to Disney, we could stay at the house and then—”

“Tony,” Bruce says in his best husbandly tone.

“I’ve never been to Disneyland,” Miles admits hopefully. Hopefully, and with that wide-open preteen look of delight that melts Bruce’s heart. No, really, melts it right into a puddle. Tony watches it happen from his place in his chair, watches Bruce’s shoulders soften and his face turn all sweet and kissable.

What? He’s kissable all the time, but especially so when he’s thinking about how much he loves the kid, and right now, Tony’s sure that’s the thought circulating through his big, sexy brain.

On the other end of the couch, though, Jessica sighs and massages a temple. “What does glass have to do with your income?” she finally asks.

“None of my assets other than my income from the office actually counts as income unless I cash it out,” he explains. She’s still frowning at him, so he scoots forward in his chair. “It’s like— Okay, your wedding ring, it’s not cubic zirconia, right?”

She scowls, and next to her, Bruce rolls his eyes. But at least she casts her eyes down at the ring for a beat before she says, “It’s a diamond.”

“Right. Okay. Let’s say it’s worth five thousand dollars.” Jessica snorts a laugh, but he holds up a hand. “Let’s just say,” he presses, and she nods for a second. “Are you gonna declare your five-k ring on your federal income tax return?”

“Do you have an actual point?” she demands.

“My point,” Tony informs her, because otherwise he knows it’ll be a three-hour conversation trying to explain how the United States Code defines income and why her information sheet is stupid, “is that until I cash in my stock options, or my bonds, or sell the Malibu palace—which I’m not doing—” He adds when Miles looks momentarily concerned. “—my income for purposes of the home study is exactly the same as Bruce’s, dollar-for-dollar.”

There’s a long second when Jessica stares at him. It’s not normal staring, it’s peeling-the-onion staring, the one where she’s clearly trying to pull apart his layers and find his gooey center. “You’re telling me that all this comes from a county attorney salary?” she asks. She even waves her hand around. “With the TV and the couches and that kitchen—”

“I cashed in some stock to put in the marble counters,” Tony admits.

“—and the bidet?”

Miles frowns. “What’s a bidet?” he asks while he removes a block from Dani’s mouth.

Bruce, to his credit, also frowns. It’s a deep, abiding frown, but it probably should be. “Isn’t the bidet in the master bathroom?” he asks, but the way he says master clearly includes the subtext of the very private bathroom I share with my husband and don’t let nosy social workers poke through.

There is a very, very long pause between the three of them, during which Bruce stares at Jessica, Tony tries not to grin, and Jessica stares at the form.

Finally, she clears her throat. “Support paid for other dependents?” she asks, and this time, she asks it.

Bruce’s ears go red, but Tony just smirks.

This home study business, he decides finally, is gonna be fun.

==

When it comes to presentations and speeches, Tony’s sort of a professional. He’s lectured to huge businesses, to college classes, to other attorneys, and to members of the Stark Industries board of directors, and that’s not even including all the charity work, interviews, appellate arguments, and one very awkward groundbreaking ceremony he’s covered. In short, if there’s a crowd of people and he’s expected to talk to them, he’s golden.

But nothing compares to the sort of baffled cheers of three hundred and fifteen middle school students at a Wednesday afternoon assembly.

It’s Tony’s eighth assembly of twenty-three, part of a whirlwind trip to schools all across the state to drum up support for all the new Urban Ascent summer programs they’re launching. Obie’d grumbled and grumped his way through Tony’s entire proposal—“I think we have people better qualified to solicit applications than you,” he’d said at one point, and Tony’d resisted the urge to throw a shoe or something at him—but in the end, the whole “I’m the face of Urban Ascent, remember?” argument won the day. By the time March rolls around, there’ll be TV spots, application deadlines, and teachers in every middle and high school in the state pushing their best and brightest to enroll.

Right now, though, there’s just a whole bunch of excited kids and—

“Good afternoon, Castle Rock Middle School!” Tony announces, and the clapping reaches a little bit of a fever pitch. Tony blames the t-shirt cannon that Bruce’d tried to convince him not to bring.

The gym’s pretty massive, packed to the gills as it is, but Tony’s not really discouraged as he starts his spiel. There’s a PowerPoint for later, an inspirational video, and two former Urban Ascent kids who are now actual science teachers who’ll speak for a couple minutes each, but he likes to start with the story of his dad and the kid he mentored, all warm and fuzzy. He knows every word by heart, too, which makes it a lot easier to scan the audience.

He recognizes the English teacher with the punctuality hard-on first, then Judge and his stupid hair, and finally—

It is really, hugely, monumentally difficult not to break into a grin when he catches sight of Miles trying to hide in the crowd, his head down and his shoulders slumped. He’s in the bleachers, near the end of an aisle, and he looks a little like he wants to die.

Tony hopes nobody wonders why he’s smirking as he talks about his father’s death.

“So, okay,” he says once he’s through his preliminary storytelling and heart-warming, “what I wanna do next is— Actually, no.” He pauses on the edge of the stage, considering for a second, and then hops off. The assistant principal who’s supposed to be running the whole thing looks momentarily horrified, even if he easily lands on his feet. He’s wearing sneakers, for god’s sake. He’s not going to break his neck. “What I want is a volunteer from the audience. Anybody, c’mon, don’t be shy.”

He’s not entirely sure from where he’s standing, but he thinks every hand in the gym shoots into the air.

Except, you know, for Miles.

“You!” Tony announces, and points right toward that section of the bleachers. Ganke, who has not one but two hands in the air, lights up in a grin. “Close, close,” Tony reassures him, and then sort of tips his head to the left in hopes the kid’ll figure out what he’s up to, “but I’m thinking the kid in the Angry Birds shirt. You know, right next to you, on the end.”

Miles’s head snaps up immediately, and the horror blooms on his expression less than a second later. Tony knows he should feel guilty about the wide-eyed shock and the sharp little head-shake, but hey, what are parents for? “Yup, you there. Somebody, grab him a mic, I wanna pick on him and maybe a few more of you real quick.”

The assistant principal in charge mutters something under his breath as he passes Tony with an extra mic, but Miles just keeps shaking his head. When Tony smiles, the kid even mouths no. It’s the clearest demonstration of a monosyllabic word Tony’s ever witnessed. Impressive, really.

But not impressive enough to keep him from asking, “So, kid, what’s your name?”

Ganke starts laughing hard enough that he almost falls off his bench and into the girls in front of them. The microphone picks up his snickers, as well as the hiss of their teacher shushing him while Miles is the center of attention. Miles’s jaw tightens. “Miles Morales,” he answers, and Tony swears he puts added emphasis on the Morales part.

Tony grins at him. “What’re you doing this summer, Miles Morales?” he asks. He can imagine all the curse words filtering through the kid’s head, offset only by Ganke’s continued sniggering and Judge’s absolute distain for the entire situation. He’ll pick on Judge next. “Exciting adventures? Trips to foreign countries with your awesome parents? Anything good?”

A couple kids in that block of classes giggle and exchange knowing looks, none of which are even remotely kind. Tony remembers a second too late that most of Miles’s classmates probably know his story—dead parents, missing uncle, foster care with undisclosed benefactors who just happen to be awesome. He knows he can’t mock or belittle a gaggle of middle schoolers for acting their age, but he considers it.

Miles, however, shifts around in his seat. “I don’t know,” he replies, complete with a tiny shrug. “I don’t think they have anything planned.”

Tony tries not to take too much stock in the fact that there’s no dodging the “awesome parents,” question. Whether it works is an entirely different story, and he’ll let you figure that one out on your own. “You think you’d be into attending, I don’t know, an awesome science camp in one of six exciting fields?”

“I guess,” Miles responds. It’s the same answer he’s offered every time Tony’s needled him about the Urban Ascent summer programs, prompting Bruce to run pamphlet-and-flyer related interference whenever the three of them are all together. Tony’s talked to Jess about it, and he’s read every stupid article on kids facing adoption not wanting to plan too certainly on the future, but he’s still not sure he likes it.

Luckily, Ganke shoves his elbow into Miles’s side right then, prompting a little grunt and then a hissed conversation that the mic refuses to pick up. Twice, Ganke jerks his head in Tony’s direction and mutters something indecipherable; twice, Miles rolls his eyes and grits his teeth.

In the end, though, he amends his answer to, “Yeah, sure, okay.”

And Tony, who knows better than to look a gift horse in the mouth, beams. “What about your friend? Pass the microphone around, I wanna hear from all your buddies!”

“Sweet!” Ganke cheers, and then he steals the microphone right out of Miles’s hands because, hey, that’s Ganke for you.

After school, Miles throws himself bodily onto the couch and buries his face in one of the throw pillows. “You are so embarrassing,” he complains.

“Hey, an almost-your-dad’s gotta do what an almost-your-dad’s gotta do,” Tony retorts, and Miles groans as he covers his whole head with a blanket.

==

“Will Miles call you daddy?”

Tony loves his goddaughter. He loves her big blue eyes, he loves her messy blonde hair, he loves her child-like innocence and her tendency to believe everything he tells her regardless of whether it’s true or not.

But sometimes, she asks questions.

Very detailed questions.

It’s Tuesday at roughly six p.m., and Miles and Bruce’ll be home soon. With the adoption looming close enough to taste—thirty days, according to Jess Jones, and less if Jess Drew can hurry up the paperwork on her end a little—they’ve been allowed all sorts of new responsibilities, including transporting Miles to and from his therapy appointments. They’re actually starting family therapy as a big group next week, not because there’s anything wrong with their family dynamic (as far as Tony’s concerned, they pass with flying colors), but because of permanency and transitioning and—

Okay, Tony’ll just admit it. He zoned out when Jess was explaining all the reasons. But in his defense, Bruce’d worn khaki cargo pants that day. Please use your imagination to fill in the rest.

Anyway, it’s an early evening on a Tuesday in March, Bucky and Steve are attending a parents-only kindergarten enrollment night (whatever that is), and Dot’s sitting at the breakfast nook in the kitchen, coloring.

Tony, by the way, is trying to figure out some baked pasta dish using a recipe and his general engineering know-how.

Guess who’s having the better time.

“What?” he asks, glancing up from the indecipherable directions to look at Dot. Her arms are crossed over her coloring book, and her chin’s resting on her arms. “All I heard is ‘Miles’ and ‘daddy,’ and I really shouldn’t be left to my own devices to fill in the blanks.”

Dot huffs a breath until the wisps of hair trailing in her face bounce. “Daddy said you and Uncle Bruce are going to be Miles’s daddies.”

“Right.”

“So will Miles call you daddy?”

Tony thinks about it for a second. “I don’t actually know,” he admits, shrugging a little. He’s not entirely sure how he’s supposed to measure out exactly six ounces of cheese he’s shredded himself, so he just kind of dumps it all into the mess and starts stirring. “He can if he wants, I guess, but that’s mostly up to him.”

Don’t ask him how, but he can feel Dot frowning. “Will he call Uncle Bruce daddy?”

“Same answer.”

“Then what will he call you?”

The saucy stuff—with the onion and the tomato and the peppers and everything—spits a little, and kind of smokes instead of steaming, so Tony turns the heat way down and tosses a lid on top of it. When he twists over to look at Dot, she’s watching him with the kind of perma-scowl only a four-year-old can really muster. He thinks for a minute she might vaporize him with sheer force of will, so he drags a hand over his face.

What, do you want to explain adoptive family dynamics to a little kid? Yeah, that’s what he thought.

“He’ll call us what he wants to call us,” he answers finally, and he tracks through the kitchen to drop onto the bench across from her. He picks up a green crayon to start filling in a cloud on the page, but Dot swaps it out for a gray one before he’s allowed to proceed. He shrugs a little as he colors. “You gotta remember, kiddo, that we’re not Miles’s first family. He’s already had a dad, and he loved that dad a ton. Calling one of us ‘dad’ is a little like saying, ‘Hey, dad I used to have, you don’t matter ‘cause I’ve got a new one,’ and I’m like ninety-nine percent sure that that’s not how Miles feels about the situation.”

Dot’s watching him when he glances up from the coloring book. He points to a tree, she hands him the green, and he starts in on the leaf cover. “I have two dads,” Dot points out.

“I’ve never noticed.”

“Why can’t Miles have three? You and Uncle Bruce and his old dad, you could all be his dads.”

She peers up at him, all big-eyed and earnest, and Tony manages a little smile before he puts the crayon down. He leans in on his arms and folds his hands together. It’s still really strange to explain the big concepts in life to a little kid. It’s stranger that, in no more than thirty days, there’ll be a kid that’s his. Well, half-his, half-Bruce’s, and the fact that he gets to share that with Bruce is still a whole different kind of strange.

He catches himself playing with his wedding band. God, he needs to break that habit, people’ve noticed.

“I think if his real dad was still around,” he answers finally, catching and holding Dot’s full attention, “we’d maybe go that route. But because he’s not, I think we’re just gonna need to wait and see what Miles decides to call me and Bruce.” He reaches forward and bops Dot’s nose, and she hides her face in the crease of the coloring book. He grins. “Doesn’t make us less his dads, though.”

She giggles for a second, and Tony thinks he’s maybe off the hook ‘till her grin disappears. “But he has to call you something,” she accuses.

“He’ll probably just stick with ‘Tony’ and ‘Bruce,’ unless we’re ticking him off and he wants to call us other names that I’m not allowed to say around you.” Her grin’s pretty evil for a preschooler. Tony reaches over to muss up her hair before he slides off the bench and trudges back to the stove. The sauce, it turns out, fails to improve over time. “Those are our names, after all.”

It’s only after a horrific and unspeakable dinner of the worst pasta known to humankind that Tony’s cell phone chimes on the countertop.

Agent for Love & Justice Sailor Rogers: Please explain to me why my four-year-old is calling me Steve.

Tony snickers through his indigestion. cause that’s your name, he retorts, and ignores the ten messages of protest that come through after.

==

“Look,” Tony says as he stands there, holding the ridiculous plastic zipper-bag with the quilt and the sheets that, by the way, he special-ordered online, “I told you last week when I found the books that I was forgiving the father-son collusion. So I did.”

“By doing this,” Bruce replies. He sounds a little skeptical. Tony tells himself that it’s not skeptical as much as speechless, that he’s endlessly impressed and blown-away by his amazing husband’s amazing home-improvement powers, but— No, mostly, he sounds skeptical.

“By doing this,” Tony confirms, confident as he knows how, and tosses the plastic bag on the bed.

The guest room that’s now, officially, Miles’s room—the boxes piled up in the center of the rug are labeled with his name, so it must be his now—used to just be a boring, old, plain white room. White paint, some nice toffee accents, the kind of thing an interior designer might put together to create a homey, inviting, comfortable, insert-your-other-adjective-here guest room. And it worked, mostly, for the occasional houseguest.

But not for a twelve-year-old.

The walls are mostly a silvery gray now, thanks primarily to three hours squinting at paint samples while he claimed he was working last week, and the one that’s the exception to the rule is blue. Dark blue, a blue that’s almost-black in its infinite darkness, a blue so perfect that Tony never considered another. It stretches up onto the ceiling, almost like the sea bleeding up into the sky on a dark, moonless night.

All those years bouncing back and forth between home and Malibu apparently paid off in terms of landscape inspiration.

But the best bit, the icing on the cake of the movie-Ravenclaw color scheme Bucky’d mocked (hey, he’d kept the whole project a secret from Bruce, and Steve almost qualifies as colorblind, okay?), those’re the stars. Well, technically, the varied-in-size spots and smears of truly silver paint that represent stars. The ones that Tony hops up onto the bed to point out, because Bruce keeps staring, skeptical as ever.

“I know we talked about letting him own the whole process, or whatever,” he explains, and he’s at least a little relieved when Bruce stops eying the walls and the half-finished furniture—look, you try assembling a desk and two bookshelves in secret; it’s not exactly quiet work—to peer up at him. He bounces a little on the balls of his feet, the new mattress groaning. “I know you think that us making the call’s gonna make it harder for him. I get that. But then, we went through the whole ‘not letting me pack up the astronomy books’ thing, and the secret Bruce-and-Miles stargazing, and I thought maybe we could try one tiny thing this way.”

Bruce pulls up his whole body like he might sigh in frustration, but then stops halfway through. His brow tightens in a frown. “Is that why you’ve been e-mailing me prices for different telescopes?”

“Partially,” Tony admits. He suddenly feels stupid standing on the bed, like he’s put himself on display. But here’s the thing, the deep-down one he’s not admitted to in family therapy or during his now-weekly “status reports” with Pepper’s worried-face: he wants this all to come together. He, Bruce, and the kid, three planetary bodies revolving around and around each other in an organized pattern. Like the universe intended.

He steps off the bed and comes around it. His hands find Bruce’s hips, his fingers opening until he’s properly holding on, and Bruce slips closer to him. He softens around the edges slowly, melting down under Tony’s touch and Tony’s gaze, and Tony wets his lips.

“I borrowed a projector from the company—you know, with permission and whatever—and pulled up an actual winter star chart for this area. And I skipped the glow-and-the-dark paint because I figured, hey, he’ll bring a girl over eventually, how lame’d that be?” Bruce snorts softly, a laugh that tips his lips into a smile. “If he hates it, or wants ownership of it, we can redo it,” he continues, and when he slides one hand around to Bruce’s back, Bruce leans all the way into his grip. “Paint it hot-rod red or whatever kids these days are into.”

Bruce finally loses the battle with his smile. “I think hot-rod red is your preference,” he points out. “Didn’t Pepper say your home office used to be—”

“Pepper,” Tony interrupts, holding up a hand, “needs to stop defaming me to all who’ll listen.”

“It’s not defamation if it’s true, Tony.”

He pauses in the middle of a finger-wag. “Point,” he admits, and Bruce is still chuckling when he kisses him, soft, slow, and entirely welcome.

Ganke’s mom, a lovely woman who’s surprisingly unfazed by the fact Miles is all of a week away from living in an actual mansion—Tony’s never actually watched someone frown disapprovingly at his full dining room before, but Mrs. Lee is a special lady—drops Miles off about an hour before dinner. He bursts into the living room full speed, the dogs trailing him and wagging their tails like they’d forgotten how he smelled in the last four hours, and then pauses just as he reaches the couch. He slows to the weird teenage saunter that’s developed in the last couple days and sort of half-falls into a chair.

Bruce’s amused-parent smirk is entirely too sexy. “Wasn’t sure that was you,” he comments, and Tony presses his lips together to keep from grinning. The utility’s pretty limited, if he’s honest.

“We just got back,” Miles replies nonchalantly. He flicks his eyes around the room a few times, a sure sign he received the There’s a surprise at home text from Bruce an hour earlier.

Tony drapes his arms along the back of the couch. Miles watches him, shifting his weight around in the chair. “How was the movie?” he asks, drawing out each second of misery like a taffy-pull.

“Cool.”

Bruce peers over the edge of his glasses. If asked, he’ll claim he’s spent the last half-hour reading some novel rather than enthusiastically making out with Tony on the couch. Tony lets him live the lie. “An eleven-dollar 3D ticket for a movie that only qualifies as ‘cool’?” he asks, and Tony almost snickers.

Miles rolls his eyes. “Okay, it was really cool,” he admits, complete with a little finger-drum against the arm of the chair. Tony’s about ninety-two percent sure that, were it not for looming and unidentified surprises, he’d be recounting the movie in detail. As it stands, he peers at the two of them—Bruce still pretending to read, Tony’s fingers idly toying with the piping on the couch—before commenting, “I got your text.”

“Text?” Tony asks. He tosses a glance in Bruce’s direction. “I’m not sure I know where my phone even is, right now. So I’m not responsible for any texts, I don’t think, unless I sleep-walked during my Saturday afternoon nap and—”

“From Bruce,” Miles clarifies. A thin thread of frustration slips into his tone. Tony watches the corner of Bruce’s mouth twitch into an almost-smile. “About a surprise or something?”

Oh, to be twelve and absolutely devoted to your “too cool for excitement” demeanor.

Bruce flips a page in his novel. “It’s in your room,” he comments—and he can say at least that, because Miles selected the spare bedroom that would become his as well as the one that’ll turn into Bruce’s office. Tony is under strict orders not to mess with that room.

“Cool,” Miles says, and Bruce raises his head. For about five seconds, they engage in this weird game of chicken where Bruce’s expression stays absolutely stony and Miles only moves to breathe. They stare one another down, Miles’s tongue darting out to wet his lips just the one time, and Tony—

God, Tony’s jaw hurts from resisting his grin. Really.

Finally, though, Bruce loses to a smile so genuine, someone could probably harness it to power the city. “Go,” he says, and Miles almost falls out of the chair in his rush to charge upstairs, the dogs right behind him.

They shove off the couch and follow slowly behind the kid, his footfalls thundering like a herd of elephants and the dogs really not helping. By the time they make it up to the bedroom—now complete with the celestial-themed quilt that’s all in colors of blue and silvery-gray—Miles is already standing in the middle of the floor, staring at the room like he’s just stepped into Narnia. In his defense, he’s spent the last week helping Bruce pack and conking out on his old bed, so really, the shock-and-awe sort of computes.

Fails to chase away the nervous little twist at the bottom of Tony’s stomach, but computes.

He lingers in the doorway while Bruce steps into the room proper, his entire body poised for an explanation. They’d discussed the whole “ownership” thing with Miles’s therapist—Miles picked his own room on her suggestion, he’s helped with the packing on her suggestion, all things to create a real family atmosphere—and Bruce certainly took a lot of notes about it. Tony can almost hear the psycho-babble rumbling around in the other guy’s brain.

So it’s lucky—extraordinarily lucky—that Miles is beaming when he turns around. Seriously beaming, the kind of grin that brings its own heat signature. The nerves dissipate immediately, chased away by the ridiculous smile of a teenager who’s forgotten to be cool.

The first thing after the dazzling grin is Miles’s declaration of, “This is amazing!”

And the second is Miles grabbing Bruce in a bone-creaking hug.

Tony shoves his hands in his pockets while Miles clings to Bruce like a limpet, practically vibrating with the sort of uncontrolled excitement Tony’d hoped for. Hoped for, spent three afternoons discussing with Bucky and then, eventually, with Pepper, and instructed the professional painting crew on. He smiles and watches the two of them for a second before he hears Bruce say, “Don’t look at me, it was all Tony.”

And Tony’s allowed about three seconds to process Miles’s grin before Miles grips him in a hug instead, as tight and as warm as he can manage.

Tony only realizes he’s dragged his hands out of his pockets when they’re wrapped around Miles and squeezing him back.

“Glad you like it, kid,” he says, and he’s surprised at how sticky the words feel in the back of his throat.

“It’s awesome,” Miles gushes, pulling him a little tighter. When Tony chuckles a little at him, reaching to rub a hand over his hair, he happens to glance over at Bruce. He stands next to the bed with his arms crossed and this wonderful, surprising little smile on his face.

Three weeks, Tony mouths as Miles pulls out of his grip to actually go inspect the stars Tony spent, you know, eight hours applying.

Bruce tips his face down toward the rug for a second, and Tony suspects that the silence is him swallowing. Eighteen days, he mouths back, but he never abandons his smile.

==

“You know, I’m not breaking six different city ordinances so you can hang out on the deck with your parents like a lameass,” Tony says, and Miles half-glares at him from under the hood of his sweatshirt.

It’s late on Friday, March 22, an average end-of-spring-break night except for the part where it’s also Miles’s thirteenth birthday. The backyard’s completely decked out for the momentous occasion, no expense except those that Bruce expressly prohibited spared, and the place looks like the kind of party-related wet dream a teenager’d die for. There’s party lights strung along the fence, yard torches lit in all the flowerbeds, music streaming in through the outside stereo system, and free-standing heaters peppered here and there to keep the kids warm. The fancy backyard fire pit he’d bought years ago and never really used is set up in the middle of the yard, flame blazing, and the kids are roasting marshmallows. Well, some of the kids; a couple others are sitting on the edge of the pool, their legs dangling into the heated water, and others are still picking at the leftovers on the snack table. Miles’d invited his whole clique from school, plus a couple kids Tony suspects he wants to be part of his clique, and they’re all pretty good kids. Friendly, smart as hell (especially Ganke), and extremely polite.

Even if every last one of them’d pretty much wet themselves when they put together that the weird guy from the assembly was also Miles’s foster dad. Tony’d liked that part.

Tony actually likes the whole arrangement, not that he’s in a rush to admit that to anyone. He likes a yard full of good kids and the bubbling warmth of Miles’s laughter, he likes the chance to enjoy a cup of coffee in the spring chill while sharing a lawn chair footrest with Bruce, and he likes watching the shadows thrown by the porch light play over Bruce’s face while he reads. There’s a book propped open on Tony’s lap, too, but he’ll be honest: at the point when Miles’d wandered up, he’d been resting a hand on the back of Bruce’s neck and smoothing the soft hairs there, enjoying a comfortable night and a lot of extra touch.

Either way, Miles’s immediate response to the question is to roll his eyes. “I’m not staying up here,” he chides. He tries to sound dismissive about it, even sassy, but Tony can tell by the way he rocks up onto the balls of his feet that he’s there for a purpose.

Bruce sets down his book. “Are you sure you’re not staying up here? I’m sure Tony wouldn’t mind if I read you some Thoreau aloud.”

“Are you actually reading Thoreau?” Tony demands. There’s almost always three books on the nightstand at this point, one of which is perpetually something philosophic and terrifying. He’s not sure how Bruce manages to keep Walden and The Perks of Being a Wallflower straight in his head, but it never seems to be a problem.

Bruce shrugs. “I’m trying to decide whether I’ll move it.”

“By moving it here preemptively? Are you just going to fill my house with books?”

“Our house, but—”

“Guys,” Miles interrupts, and Tony watches the corner of Bruce’s mouth tip up in his little child-tormenting victory grin. And Miles thinks he’s the reasonable parent. “I just— Uh, I wanted to say—”

“Miles!” a voice calls from a cross the yard, and a very pretty girl with a pink streak in her hair waves furiously over toward the deck. Miles raises a hand in a quick return wave, and in that second, Tony observes all the hallmarks of a massive fucking middle school crush: dipped head, lack of eye contact, bobbing Adam’s apple, glance toward the parents to make sure they missed the whole exchange.

Bruce smiles entirely too sweetly, but Tony raises his eyebrows.

“Shut up,” Miles mutters. He keeps his eyes focused on the wooden deck slats, and for a second, Tony thinks he won’t say anything at all. He pulls in a breath, holds it, and releases it slowly, like he’s steeling himself against a pack of wolves instead of against the guys he lives with.

Tony knows that feeling far too well.

“I just wanted to say thanks,” Miles finally says, his voice hardly above a whisper. “I know this whole thing, my party and everything that’s happened, it’s—” He shakes his head, a classic attempt to clear away the cobwebs, and finally raises his eyes. “Thank you.”

It’s probably for the best that it’s Bruce, not Tony, who offers him a gentle smile and a murmured, “You’re welcome.” Because for all the thousands of words Tony can pull out of a hat at oral argument, for all the wordplay and sarcasm he’s mastered over the years, he can’t actually summon any of them together. He comes up miraculously blank.

Well, except for the one thing.

“Love you, kid,” he says, almost too soft to hear. Except Miles immediately ducks his face away, hiding the smile that Tony very nearly misses, and he bumps his knee purposely into Tony’s feet before he hops off the deck and rejoins his friends.

Tony tracks him across the yard and then watches him for way too long, laughing with his friends while crappy pop music echoes into the cool, otherwise-calm night.

When he finally wrenches his attention away, fully intending to return to George R. R. Martin’s latest bloodbath of a novel, he catches Bruce looking at him. Not even subtly, either, but unabashedly staring at him like he’s never really noticed Tony before, which is a weird look to flash your damn husband.

“What?” Tony asks.

Bruce shakes his head. “Nothing,” he answers, but he hooks an ankle over Tony’s on the footrest and leaves it there until they head inside.

==

“You too, Miles,” Judge Rees says, and crooks her finger in Miles’s direction.

Tony’s heard all the stories about Courtroom Four in the Union County Courthouse, the room a tiny little Bruce Banner’d sat in while the state swept him out of his crazy dad’s hands and plunked him down into state custody. And he’s watched the nervy way Bruce surveys the place every time they wander into it, all foot-shuffling and nervous like he’s gonna turn back into a six-year-old just by virtue of the fact he’s walked through the double doors.

Standing in front of Judge Rees’s bench, Tony considers offering some crack about the whole thing, how they’ll never need to wander back into this ugly white-painted nightmare again, but he knows he can’t actually guarantee all that. What he can guarantee, at least, is that it’s the last time they’ll walk into that courtroom as anything less than Miles’s parents.

But instead of saying that, he just presses his hand into the small of Bruce’s back, and feels Bruce unwind.

Miles drags his feet the whole way up to the bench, slow like somebody’s pouring out molasses. He’s in khakis and a polo shirt, the best court clothes he’d agreed to, plus a pair of dress shoes. He’d scoffed when, last week, Tony steered him into the dress shoe aisle at the department store and forced him to pick out a pair.

“You said jeans,” he’d challenged.

“Lie of omission,” Tony’d retorted, and let the kid huff his way through six different pairs of essentially the same shoes.

He scuffs the dress shoes together now, and Bruce nudges him a little. Gently, because he’s father-of-the-year already and it’s only been, what, six months? Miles tries on a tiny, bashful smile. They’ve spent four weeks of family therapy walking through the process, but Tony knows he’s nervous.

Deep down, truth be told, Tony’s pretty nervous, too.

But Judge Rees smiles in this new, easy way that Tony’s not used to, and it snaps him back into reality enough that he can let loose a little smile of his own. “Raise your right hands,” she instructs, and Miles almost mimics the motion ‘till he catches Jessica Drew shaking her head out of the corner of his eye. He shoves his hands into his pockets, instead, and stands there, side-by-side with Bruce. “Do you swear the testimony you’re about to give is true and accurate?”

“Yes,” Bruce says with that hard-wired earnestness usually reserved for people like Steve Rogers.

Tony feels like he’s swallowed a pound and a half of ball bearings, but he still manages to nod and say, “Yes, I do.”

He then wonders if he should maybe conduct a study linking how often he’s said those words—the “I do” ones, that is—to the big things that’ve happened in his life over the last couple months.

“You and— Well, let’s see,” Judge Rees corrects herself, and she spends a good twenty or thirty seconds staring at the documents in front of her. “Essentially, Miles’s been in your shared custody since October 20 of last year, correct? Barring certain—struggles, of course.”

She says “struggles” with a tiny twitch of her lips, and for the first time since the whole fiasco, Tony’s not embarrassed about the huge explosion that’d almost taken out his life as he knew it. Well, figurative explosion, really. “Yes,” Bruce tells the judge while Tony’s still thinking about all that, and there’s a tiny smile playing across his lips, too.

“And since that time, you’ve done everything to support and provide for Miles?”

“We have,” Tony says, but Bruce answers the same at the same time. They kind of look at each other for a half second, ‘til Miles rolls his eyes with enough teenage disgust that Judge Rees actually laughs.

Tony’s never heard her laugh before, but it’s easy and comfortable. He likes the sound of it.

“Oh, you’re thirteen, all right,” she comments to Miles. He immediately looks embarrassed, chastened even, and drops his eyes to the floor. It’s funny, and Tony wants to laugh— But then, he catches Bruce’s smile.

It’s not a smile playing across Bruce’s lips, but it’s one dancing in his eyes. It’s warm and bright, not something he’s trying to hide, and Tony feels the tension in his stomach start to uncoil.

He’s never once considered this whole thing a bad idea, but he’s trained as an engineer, you know? Running scenarios, honing down the possible malfunctions and trying to guard against them, it’s practically embedded in Stark family DNA.

He’s spent nights awake, thinking about Davis showing back up and stealing their kid away. Worse, he’s spent nights awake, thinking about Bruce deciding the whole marriage-and-adoption plan was fucking crazy, a whole different level of kid-stealing.

Worst-case scenarios suck.

And Bruce’s smile chases them all away.

“And you’re prepared,” Judge Rees continues, interrupting all the muddled thoughts in Tony’s head, “to support and provide for Miles until he reaches the age of majority?”

“We are, definitely,” Tony answers quickly. Too quickly, because Bruce glances over at him. For a second, he looks confused, but then his whole expression softens. Tony wants to gather him up and kiss him breathless, because the softness and his nearness and his faith—

He can count on one hand the number of people who believe in him the way Bruce does.

It’s like a gift that keeps on giving.

“We are,” Bruce echoes, and presses his shoulder against Tony’s.

The questions all run together after that, each one the same general shape as the first couple, talking about rights and responsibilities, privileges and obligations, inheritance, and the very funny statement, “Miles will be your son as if born to you during the course of your marriage.” Miles’d pulled a face at that, Bruce’d snorted a laugh and murmured something about biology, and Tony’d grinned like an idiot.

“You’d glow,” he’d joked, and Bruce’s ears had flared red for a half-second before he’d given into his own laughter.

The judge rambles through a couple jurisdictional issues after that, plus legal names, birthdates, and all the other stuff that confirms that no, really, the guys standing in front of the bench are Anthony Edward Stark and Robert Bruce Banner.

“Your real name’s Robert?” Miles demands after Judge Rees’s finished reading off Bruce’s birthdate.

“Disturbing, right?” Tony agrees, and Bruce, who at least appreciates their banter, rolls his eyes.

Jessica Jones, agent for child services and all that other good mumbo-jumbo, presents a letter of consent from the state that officially approves of Miles’s adoption, and the judge skims it before removing her glasses. She folds her hands on the bench and looks down at Miles. He’s still standing there, hands in his pockets, but he squares his shoulders once he realizes he’s the center of the judge’s attention.

“You’re over twelve, Miles,” the judge explains, her tone light even though her face is fairly serious. The remaining spike of nerves sitting in Tony’s stomach, the one that’d started to dissipate the more forms that Judge Rees signed, it amps back up. He wonders if this is how runners feel before they hit that final hurdle at the Olympics. “You’re old enough that I need to ask whether you consent to this, and want Tony and Bruce to become your legal parents.”

Miles looks between the two of them for a couple seconds. Tony thinks that he’s maybe anxious about the biggest answer of his life, but then he realizes, no, it’s not that kind of look.

It’s a careful, considering look, one like when you try to play back all the good memories you’ve built with somebody, or when you’re trying to figure out how the hell you ended up so lucky.

Tony knows what it feels like to be on the other end of that look.

He’s on the other end of that look every day.

“I think my parents’d be really happy that I ended up with Bruce and Tony,” he says finally, and Tony swears for a second that his heart’s actually stuck on pause. “I wouldn’t want to be adopted by anybody else.”

Tony’s pretty positive that Judge Rees recites some official findings after that, best interests of the child shit and other family law formalities, but he’s not interested. No, what he’s interested in is leaning in front of Bruce to catch Miles by his polo shirt and drag him between them, to make sure he’s the middle of the big Stark-and-Banner family sandwich because, after all, that’s where he belongs.

They take about a hundred pictures afterward, since Steve and his ridiculous camera’d come along for the ride, and Tony grins like an idiot through all of them. The prints feature ones with the judge and ones with both the Jessicas, ones with just Miles and his guardian ad litem and ones with Miles and each of his newly-minted parents, and then, ones with Dot (who’d forced her way into the whole event after the “flower girl incident”). There’s candid shots from before, during, and after, from when they’d chatted on the steps while waiting for Miles’s case to be called and from dinner at IHOP with literally all of their friends. It’s a full chronicle of the day where Union County case 12-039JW closed out because the kid went home with a brand new family.

But the picture Tony keeps closest to him, the one that lands on his desk among all the reminders, notes, scribbles, and half-finished projects, is the one where he’d caught Miles by the sleeve. Because there, Bruce is smiling and Miles is laughing, and the three of them are kind of as they should be:

Together, happy, and still in motion, always moving onto the next big configuration.

He’s not sure how he ended up in a life like this one.

He just knows it’s the best in the world.