Chapter Text
Wiping his palms on his pants, Steve takes one last look up and down the hall, then raises a hand and rings the bell next to the door to unit 4701. It’s his first day of work, and he can’t help but wonder how his life has brought him to this moment: standing in one of the most expensive condo buildings in midtown Manhattan, forty-seven storeys off the ground, while on the other side of the door is a child waiting for his care.
It’s not like Steve has a particular passion for childcare. He actually has no passion for it at all. One day, he supposes, he’ll have his own kids, and he’ll love them plenty and care for them, of course—but he’s never felt all that strongly about other people’s children. Especially not rich ones who can afford a nanny.
Steve’s real passion is for art. And while he can scrape by on his sales, it’s by no means cushy, and with a few extra bucks in his pocket things would be a lot better. He’d only sort of idly been searching when Clint had suggested this to him; the dad—single—is a friend of Clint’s from work, and the daughter is just starting school full-time. So here he is, staring at the brushed-chrome number plate, wondering how long he’s going to last with the brat.
He’s seriously considering fleeing when the door opens, and his consideration becomes actual possibility. There’s no way he can do this. No. Stinking. Way.
Clint hadn’t said that Mr Barnes was such a goddamn DILF, tall and lean and dark-haired, skin a tiny bit tanned like he’d spent a day at Coney Island. Not even five years older than Steve. His face could be my throne, Steve thinks, madly, nearly choking himself on the thought.
Then the guy grins. Steve’s fucked. “You must be Steve,” he says.
“Yeah, uh—yeah,” Steve manages, shaking the man’s hand. “Mr Barnes.”
“Uh, it’s Doctor Barnes, actually,” he says, looking the tiniest bit sheepish.
Clint hadn’t mentioned that. “Oh, sh—uh, sorry, sorry, Clint never said.” Steve stuffs his hands in his pockets.
Dr Barnes shakes his head. “It’s no problem,” he says, his eyes a little curious on Steve. It only lasts a moment, though, and then he’s standing to the side and waving Steve into the—frankly stunning—condo. “Come on in. I’ll show you around. Adrienne’s just getting dressed.”
Leaving his dress shoes neatly on the mat next to a pair of mahogany loafers—which probably cost more than Steve’s monthly rent—and a tiny pair of glittery teal Mary Janes, Steve trails Dr Barnes into the condo. It seems that StarkSpace isn’t a particularly formal workplace; Dr Barnes is wearing skinny jeans and a wine-colored henley, sleeves rolled up to reveal bracelets on one wrist, an expensive watch on the other. The floor under Steve’s feet is some kind of light yellowish wood. To the right of the front door is a small library, lined floor-to-ceiling with books. Toys are scattered across the carpet in there.
Steve’s pretty sure that four of his apartment would fit in here. There are three bedrooms—the master, fitted out with a huge king-sized bed, two walk-in closets, and an en-suite bathroom; the guest room, whose bed is smaller but not by much; and Adrienne’s room, the door currently shut while the kid gets dressed. The kitchen is all shiny surfaces and brand new appliances, and it’ll be a miracle if Steve ever figures out how to make a coffee with the elaborate machine set up in the corner.
They step through the dining room then, into the living room, and for a second Steve forgets where he is, walking close to the floor-to-ceiling windows and putting a hand up to the glass. If nothing else, he’ll get plenty of art out of this job; forty-seven storeys, it turns out, provides one of the best views he’s ever seen of the city, looking out over the Queensboro Bridge, the wide glittering expanse of the East River looking so pretty, so clean and blue from up here. “Wow,” he hears himself muttering.
“Yeah,” says Dr Barnes from behind him. “Yeah, I’d still be living back in Brooklyn if it weren’t for this view.”
Steve nods, speechless. And he’d thought he’d be distracted by the view of Dr Barnes’ ass.
“Tateh!” a voice calls, and Steve turns, listening to the patter of tiny feet on hardwood coming nearer. His stomach turns over with nerves.
The little girl who wanders into the living room is, Steve has to admit, pretty much the cutest kid he’s ever seen. Her skin is dark, much darker than her father’s, the color of aged bronze, and her curly black hair is pulled up into a pair of pigtails that look like Mickey Mouse ears at the crown of her head. She’s clutching a slice of waffle in one tiny hand, a geometric-patterned blue and grey backpack in her other.
“Hey, baby,” Dr Barnes says, crouching as Adrienne walks closer. He reaches out to fix her school sweater, navy blue with a little red crest over her heart. “Ada, malkeleh, this is Steve. He’s going to take you to school, okay?”
Adrienne turns her big dark eyes to Steve. He smiles at her, walking over and sticking a hand out to shake hers. Still chewing on her waffle, she lets go of her bag and wraps her little fingers around his. “Hi,” he says.
“Hi,” she replies, then turns back to her father, letting go of Steve’s hand so she can twist at the plain silver ring on Dr Barnes’ left pinky finger. “You’re not coming too?”
“No, sugar, I can’t,” he says, rocking back so that he’s sitting on the floor, Adrienne standing between his long legs. Steve’s not quite sure how he can get such range of motion from such skinny jeans. “I have to go to work today, remember? So Steve’s going to take you to school and bring you home, and I’ll be home for dinner.”
Taking another bite of waffle, the girl moves her hand to fiddle with one of her father’s other rings. “Promise?” she asks.
If she looks forlorn, it’s nothing to the face Dr Barnes pulls as he hugs her, hooking his chin over her shoulder as he screws his face up into something that looks like pure agony. In a dozen years when she goes off to college, Steve thinks, Dr Barnes is going to be a royal mess. “I promise, malkeleh,” Dr Barnes murmurs. Steve tries not to stare at this poignant little vignette, and then tries not to laugh when he hears a crunch as Adrienne takes another bite of waffle, probably getting crumbs in her dad’s hair. Dr Barnes clears his throat, kisses the side of his daughter’s head, and nudges her back. “You all packed up, Ada? Here, let’s see your bag.”
Seeing those two dark heads bent over the tiny backpack, Steve suddenly understands why some women go so doe-eyed over men with kids. Oh, he is so fucked.
-
Steve actually feels a bit guilty over how disparaging he’d been before he’d met Ada. She’s delightful, and almost comically outgoing; by the time they’re walking to school, she’s swinging from Steve’s hand, tugging him this way and that as she jumps on the crispy orange leaves falling from trees, trying to teach him the songs from Frozen. He’s going to have to get the Frozen karaoke app she’s told him about, he can tell already.
Ada drags him all the way into the school with her, saying she wants him to meet her teacher. Wading through the crowd of hip-high humans in her wake, Steve lets her pull him into her classroom.
“Mr O!” Ada says, pulling Steve right up to the teacher’s desk. “Mr O, this is Steve. He’s going to be my new mommy!” Mr O smiles at her and stands, extending a hand to shake Steve’s. Steve, blushing, lets his hand be engulfed by Mr O’s enormous one. The man looks like a literal Norse god.
“Uh, hey,” Steve says. “I’m not—uh.”
Mr O laughs, a big, rounded sound, and Steve totally understands why Adrienne likes him. “Dr Barnes told me to expect you,” he says, putting Steve out of his misery. He’s got an accent, his vowels extending until they’re almost physical objects in his mouth, rolling out easy and slow. “You can call me Thor.” Tor, he says, the O drawn out.
“Good to meet you,” Steve settles on, and he’s about to try and say something else—he’s not going to spend his whole day being tongue-tied around obscenely attractive men, okay, he’s not—when Adrienne starts talking again.
“Mr O has the Frozen app,” she says. “We sing it every day, right, Mr O?”
“That’s right, Ada,” Mr O says. He’s got a man-bun. Steve’s so out of his depth. A kid runs into the back of his legs and he steadies himself against the desk. “I suppose we should start class, what do you think?”
“Okay,” Ada says, tugging on Steve’s hand again. He gives Mr O what he hopes is a nonchalant wave and lets her drag him to her desk. “Look, this is my desk, see?” There’s an index card taped to her desk; in big, traced letters it reads Adrienne.
“Very cool,” Steve agrees, watching as she lets go of his hand to unpack her backpack. He sets her lunchbox—Frozen-themed—on the desk and crouches beside her chair. “Okay, I’m going to go now. I’ll be back to pick you up this afternoon, how does that sound?”
“’Kay,” she says, pausing so that she can wave goodbye to him.
He stuffs his hands into his pockets as he leaves the school, wishing he’d brought his sketchbook to help him kill the time.
-
Flopping onto Clint’s couch with a sigh, Steve unbuttons the top two buttons of his shirt and takes the beer Natasha’s just cracked for him. “Thanks,” he says, taking a swig and propping his foot on the coffee table.
“How’d it go?” Sam asks, passing over a pair of chopsticks.
Steve stuffs a whole dumpling into his mouth before answering. “Give me a minute, would you?” he finally says. “I’m—starving, fuck.” Ignoring his friends, who won’t stop staring at him, he turns his attention to the rerun episode of Scandal. He hadn’t expected to be so tired after his first day.
He waits until he’s sated his hunger a bit, and can practically hear Sam’s mental chant of tell us tell us tell us. Finally, he puts down his takeout container and sits back, taking another sip of beer. “Well?!” Clint cries.
“Well,” Steve agrees, just to fuck with them. Sam flat-out glares. Suppressing a laugh, Steve sits up again. “Y’know, Clint, you could have—should have—told me that your friend was a doctor.”
“Oh—yeah, sorry,” Clint says, deflating a bit. “Yeah, he works at StarkSpace. Some kind of—I don’t know exactly—rocket scientist, or something. We don’t actually, like, work side-by-side.”
Steve shrugs a shoulder and takes another sip of his beer. “What else?” Natasha asks. “How’s the kid?”
“A-goddamn-dorable,” Steve says. “God, she’s so cute.”
“She is, isn’t she?” Clint agrees.
“I thought she was going to be a total brat! You know: spoiled daughter of a single dad? Living in that place? But she’s…really sweet. What’s the deal with her mom?”
Clint shakes her head. “I don’t know the whole story. I think she and Barnes were together in college, and she got pregnant. But, like, I think she’s off in France or Hong Kong or something, working in some big lab.”
“Not part of the picture, then?” Steve asks. Clint shakes his head.
“What’d you do while she was at school?” Sam asks.
Shrugging Steve props his foot against the coffee table. “I wandered around Midtown a bit. Tomorrow I think I’m going to bring my sketchbook.”
“What about the dad? What’s he like?”
“He’s—” Clint starts, but Nat elbows him and he shuts up.
“He’s…” Steve starts, but he’s not sure what to say, except: “he’s a total fucking DILF.”
Natasha snorts and elbows Clint. “Told you so,” she mutters, like Steve can’t hear her.
“Hey,” says Clint, nudging his girlfriend back. “I was just trying to help a friend out. Two friends. Can I help it if you’re attracted to him?”