Chapter Text
Jarvis had been the one to call the office. ‘Mrs. Stark has gone into labour.’
Once, he would have considered his employer’s insistence for a home-birth ridiculous. Over the years, however, he’d come to understand what the Holmes servants did: none of his family did anything without a reason. The unsettling realisation that HYDRA was not as “gone” as had once been believed was also a fair reason for the insistence.
Mr. Stark was home less than an hour later.
Jarvis stood just outside the room, watching as Mr. Stark sat on the bed next to his wife, allowing her to squeeze the living daylights out of his left hand as she squeezed a brand new person out of her body. His other hand was occupied with stroking her blonde hair, matted with sweat, back from her face.
Dr. Shields sat at the foot of the bed, waiting for the child to begin his or her entrance into the world. Both parents were absolutely certain that they were about to have a son. The entire ordeal was nerve-wracking and Jarvis was just standing on the periphery of the room. It seemed to stretch on forever.
Then there was a snapping sound and a baby’s wail pierced the air.
‘It’s a boy,’ Dr. Shields said.
Mr. Stark kissed his wife and then he got up. In a few moments, Dr. Shields handed him a small bundle wrapped in a soft blanket. The child quickly quietened and a tiny little hand fisted in the material of the blanket. That little hand constantly moved. Mr. Stark looked down at the child like he couldn’t believe that he was real; like he was terrified of something. And there was something else in his eyes too.
Dr. Shields chuckled at this expression for some reason. ‘So, what’s his name?’
That seemed to snap Mr. Stark out of it. He smiled. ‘Anthony Edward Stark.’
Dr. Shields nodded and grabbed a chart to write that down.
‘Howard,’ Mrs. Stark called.
Mr. Stark carried the child over to his wife and laid the newborn infant into her arms.
***
Anthony opened his eyes when he was five days old.
He’d been feeding when he’d just cracked open his eyelids to reveal the muddy brown colour that was common in Holmes infants. Later on, Maria had been told, that muddy colour would turn to a chocolaty one – like Howard’s eyes. Still, he fixed those eyes on his mother and just stared.
After that, every time he was awake, he would stare at things. If they came within his reach, he would then examine them. Noisy toys only got his interest until he understood how they worked. For example, he’d had a teddy with plastic baubles inside so it made noise when he was moved. Tony would lie on his back, shaking it. He’d turn it this way and that, and shake it again. Then he found the zipper in the teddy’s back.
Once he worked out how to open the zipper, he pulled out the plastic sphere with the baubles inside. He shook the teddy. Upon hearing no noise, he shook the sphere. His eyes had lit up, like Howard’s did when he had an “aha” moment. He then set about learning how the baubles made the noise. He experimented with it by knocking things together to see if they made noise.
Howard thought it was adorable.
Maria was mildly unnerved at the advanced way her son seemed to be thinking.
‘Yeah,’ Palmer’s wife, Sophie, had said when they talked about it, casting a glance at her daughter, Sable, ‘tell me about it.’
At the time, Sable had been sitting with Tony with a rubrik’s cube in her hand.
***
Ana had grieved the loss of her fertility deeply.
While she knew that wanting it back wouldn’t get it back, Mrs. Lacey had given her hope back in ’48 when she’d explained that the “open bed” policy of Stark men was a temporary affair. At first, she hadn’t realised that Maria Collins Carbonell was anything special to her employer. Over the years though, it’d become more and more clear.
The Stark marriage was not as surprising to her as it had been to her husband.
And then, along came this little boy. This child was nothing short of a miracle. Once he worked out how to sit up, crawling came quickly. Ana was of the personal opinion that he’d learned to crawl by watching his father. A few times, he’d been carried down to the workshop where Mr. Stark was working.
On several of those occasions, Mr. Stark had crawled under something to get a hold on something else. Each time he was with his father, Anthony would watch him very carefully. Scarcely a month after he learned to sit up, Anthony rolled over and began to crawl. Then he was getting into everything.
Almost immediately, Edwin and Mr. Stark put up child barriers in front of every stairway.
In no time at all, Anthony would be uttering his first word.
***
James Barnes had first been introduced to little Anthony Stark when he’d been granted leave to come in and sign the deed that listed him as Tony’s Godfather should anything happen to Howard, Maria, and the Holmeses. Not very likely but someone had tried it before. The plan was if something happened to Howard and Maria, Tony would be sent to England to live with his cousins. Failing that, he would become James’s responsibility.
He was a tiny little thing, with a head of dark brown hair and wide brown eyes that seemed to take in everything, both characteristic to his father’s family. In his hand, he held a plastic red and yellow screwdriver that he would bang against things (but not people so they must have already discouraged that) and wave about in the air. Except when he saw Howard using tools of any sort, James quickly learned. Then Tony would imitate what his father was doing. Scarcely eight months old and he was already gearing up to be an engineer.
Tony loved his mother, and he would often fall asleep to her music – whether her singing or her playing the grand piano in the living room – but every time he saw Howard he’d make a happy little noise and crawl over to him. Howard, a far better father than anyone could have guessed, would crouch down and hold his hands out for his son.
Bucky remembered when the child had been deposited into his arms for the first time. He’d never been more aware of his enhanced strength than in that moment. Because of the wide, innocent eyes of the child looking up at him from their place in a round and chubby face. Then a tiny and curious little hand reached out for James’s face. He was small, he’d barely begun developing in the grand scheme of things, and he didn’t yet have the strength in his legs to get them under him and walk.
It was quite startling to realise such a fragile creature was being held in hands that could rip the gun off of a tank.
Over time, though, James got used to it. Babies were tougher than they looked and he got over his nerves. He was one of the first people notified when Anthony finally uttered his first word. He could just about see the events described even as he read the letter from their undercover base. He could just about see Howard giving out an exuberant hoot and rushing over to scoop his son up into the air, to the little boy’s delight.
And he could just about hear Anthony say the word.
“Scewdiver.”