James slammed the torque wrench down with entirely unnecessary force, but one of the benefits of a Stark workspace inside a mansion that had seen a plethora of superpowers was the fact the tables could take a beating from someone like the Hulk, so the son of two super-serumed individuals could get frustrated without breaking things unintentionally. And, oh, was James frustrated right now. It was easy to pass that off as creator's frustration with a project not doing what the creators wanted, because James wasn't the genius here. He was good, sure, thanks to a combination of remembered demigod skills and a near-peak human brain, but he wasn't gifted like Tony Stark. And even Tony got frustrated!
The thing was, it would have been easy to pass it off as creator's frustration if it hadn't been James' doing.
The semi-shattered bolt in hand, James raised his head up and to the side to meet the patient, knowing gaze of Tony. His dad. His dad in every single way it counted and then some. His dad who was right here beside him. Most people couldn't even claim that for themselves one time in Vallo.
"What! It broke!" Because he had brute-force snapped the thing and they both knew it.
“I can see that.” He gave James a half-smile. It was hard watching his kid in this state. James had been through so much in his short life. His various dimension travels were a reprieve in many ways, but there would always be these moments too. Painful, sharp, days filled with anger, fear and hurt. He couldn’t protect James from it, much as he wanted to, but he could be by his side through it. He’d sacrifice as many broken bolts and wrenches as needed to see them through this.
He casually tossed a replacement bolt, knowing that even James’ distracted state, he’d have no trouble catching it. “You’re going to have to snap a lot more before you ever come close to beating the number of things I’ve broken in here.”
"Yeah, 'cause you have decades of it on me," James grumbled, the usual ring of teasing, loving banter gone right now (though he loved Tony no less, obviously) as James struggled with the revolving door that was parental figures from myriad places - universes, timelines, worlds, call it what you would - and times. He liked to think of himself as jaded, and had even gone stretches feeling very jaded indeed, but time and time again, he'd been forced to confront that jaded wasn't all of him, it was just a wall with very thick or not so thick spots.
The understanding he was receiving from Tony was difficult at times, because this all felt like such a privileged thing to struggle with compared to bearing the weight of the loss of nearly everyone Tony had known - good guy, bad guy, and everyone in between. This was a struggle of too many of someone while it also being not enough when they had no memories of James' past with them and it always felt preposterous to handle it all so poorly. James knew he had the luxury of having never really lost 'his' people, even when their memories were lost, because he knew they had some place in time to go back to and live on (well, until his actual birth parents had appeared in the Blackpoint community, and then his father had been sent back to death and his mother had been separated from him when he had been yanked to new places where he couldn't confirm that she had remained, and then the 'movie' timeline future revealed who eventually had been lost), but Tony didn't have that. Yes, they both shared this too-much-not-enough struggle in the end, every time a version of someone wasn't from their original timeline, but in James' head, Tony had far more right to handle the conflict poorly.
"I don't know how you do it," James muttered, picking up the torque wrench again.
“Tightening a bolt? It’s easy. Pretty sure I taught you when you were about four. Unless our subtext has now turned to text.”
Tony had been perched on a small stool that had wheels attached, and he took that moment to roll himself over to James so they could sit shoulder to shoulder. He’d been here in Vallo going on two years now and it still took his breath away how grown James was. Despite their interactions day in and day out, sometimes it was still hard not to think of him as that little six year old running around the dome. Though he supposed perhaps all parents dealt with that. Even without the time traveling and alternate dimensions.
“I definitely do my share of snapping bolts, if that helps. So you’re in good company there.”
Though the shifting of his body was a minor movement, James' weight slightly increased on the shoulder touching his when Tony settled next to him. He silently twisted the bolt into place and then was quiet for a time, just spinning the wrench around in his hands.
"They aren't the people you know," he finally said, with a softness that sounded secretive, but was really just a weird worry that those people would hear. "Not because they forgot shared memories, but because they're from a different section of the multiverse where a bunch of things are different. Every time, it's someone you recognize, but they're also a stranger."
James' gaze slid sideways to Tony for a moment and then dropped downward again, watching hands that hadn't ceased moving.
"It hasn't been the people you know since Blackpoint, and that you was older, so you didn't even lose those memories - you hadn't had them yet." James didn't want to change things so Tony remembered that time, though. He only wished Tony had been able to experience having his Steve and Natalia and Bucky back.
“Ah, that.” Tony reached a free hand up to scratch at his goatee. “It’s not that I don’t wish I could see my friends again. Your parents. Clint and Bobbi- by the way, if either of them do show up here, you never tell them I said that.- but I’ve had to adjust my thinking. I know when you were kids, I told you all the fairytale version of events, but the truth is, our world is the way it is because of me. Because of choices that I made, and that’s a hard thing to carry around. Maybe I don’t feel like I deserve to have them here. Being here, with you and Tor, and Pepper, some days it already feels like I’ve asked for too much.”
He sighed and gave James an affectionate nudge. “I’m sure that’s completely relatable for you too, right?” He gave a soft chuckle. “It’s okay to be disappointed that it’s not them. That we’re endlessly in a cycle of introducing ourselves and being met with stares. That there’s no way to tell how they might react. But none of that is their fault. And keeping people at a distance gets lonely.”
Tony's declaration that sometimes it felt like he'd already asked for too much earned him a sharp, fierce look from James. The very idea that just the three of them were somehow already more than Tony should ask for or deserve was preposterous to James. Yes, obviously he understood what it felt like to feel undeserving of what he had been given, going as far back as waking up giant robot sentries that delivered the dome right to Ultron and stretching well past not being able to stop Tony's murder, but it was one thing to be the one feeling it. It was quite another to know someone you loved so much was feeling it.
But deserving things was an argument for another time. This was about dealing with the revolving door of Vallo and all the places like it.
"Sometimes lonely seems like the only way to get through it," he said, looking away from his hands and Tony, his gaze not focused on any particular thing. "It's how I handled Vallo for a while, back before there were many Outlanders."
There was the briefest flash of red in the space James could see through the open door from this angle, and if they moved much beyond the door, whoever it was would be clearly seen anyhow through clear walls. So he raised his voice to be heard, even though it was unnecessary with either source of red - one had cybernetic-honed hearing and the other had assassin-honed hearing.
"But sometimes people don't give you the chance to do stupid things like go be a hermit," he said, tapping the wrench against the tabletop. "Probably because hanging outside a hermit's door would look creepy."
It only took Tony a moment to catch on. Of course Team Redhead had been lurking and waiting for their moment. “So freaking inconsiderate. We’re men! We deal with our emotions in solitude or not at all!” He shouted theatrically toward the door.
“I thought you dealt with your emotions by blowing things up?” Natasha fully entered the workshop, Pepper at her side. “Not that I’m saying it can’t be therapeutic, but sometimes talking now and again can help.”
She shook her head at Tony, then gave James one of her small, genuine smiles. “Are we allowed to join the party? Or is it no girls allowed?”
That smile of Natasha's was met with a small, somewhat sheepish one of James' own. He wasn't embarrassed at being called out over such coping mechanisms as Explosions and Demolition. That was fine. That was expected in this house and SIV and elsewhere. He was just hoping they hadn't witnessed the snapping of bolts and slamming of tools.
"Pretty sure it's sexist to say the workshop is no girls allowed," he said, setting down the torque wrench before he turned it into a fidgeting baton again, "and being sexist is how we get our asses kicked."
Amused, Pepper gestured at James while slanting a look at her husband. "And from the grime the real genius rises."
She stepped forward to the table between them and looked over the project spread out. As she suspected, there wasn't an appreciable difference in it, which could have meant heavy destruction and speedy rebuild, but given they didn't look like they'd faceplanted in the thing, she suspected it had been more the case of slow progress because of them talking. At least, that's what she hoped.
Nat couldn’t help but laugh softly. “That’s the answer I was looking for.” As Pepper moved to survey the project, Natasha found a clear space on one of the other workbenches and pulled herself up to sit on it. “And you’re right. We would never let you become a hermit. Trust me when I say it wouldn’t work for you.”
Having grabbed a shop towel, Tony wiped the grease off his hands before he rolled his stool over to Pepper for a kiss. “To what do we owe this honor, ladies?”
James scoffed lightly but his gaze was amused as it stayed on his mother. "You don't know that. Plenty of people have been successful hermits for a lot longer than I've stayed in any one place."
"Bruce is not representative of any population, do better," Pepper retorted, then turned her attention to her husband and the kiss he was seeking, chuckling softly as he pursued the contact when she tried to straighten up. After a quick glance to check the status of his clothing, Pepper claimed his leg as a seat and rested an elbow on his shoulder. "We thought we'd come try and drag you both away for lunch, given it was three hours ago."
Tony couldn’t help the snort that escaped him at Pepper’s quick reply about Bruce. “She has a point.” He replied to James with a small shrug of his shoulders. As his sharply witted wife seated herself on his knee, Tony wasted no time in wrapping an arm around her. “About both Bruce and lunch. What do you think?”
"She has a point about lunch," James said, then chuckled at the look from Pepper. He playfully ducked around Natasha, since he couldn't really hide behind her (even if she had been standing, he still couldn't have hidden behind her).
"Mooom, she's plotting to throw a shoe at me," he said, grinning, and dropped his chin to Natasha's shoulder. "Save me."
Natasha loved these people so much it was ridiculous. James especially. She may not have been the one to bring him into the world, but he was her kid in every sense of the word. She’d do anything for him. As he ducked around her and let his chin drop to her shoulder, she couldn’t help the happiness that practically radiated off her. “Not until you promise me no hermit caves.”
"But it's not a hermit cave if it's something cool, like a treehouse," James said, grinning, even though she'd only see it in her peripheral vision, "instead of a cave, and you'd visit, so then I'm not a hermit."
Pepper propped her head on her fist, elbow still on Tony's shoulder, and rolled her eyes very widely. Now that it had been spoken into the world, even just as a joke, Pepper knew there was a treehouse of some sort coming in the future. Oh well, the roof had room, even if it didn't currently have trees.
She nudged her husband's ankle with the toe of the previously mentioned shoe. "You couldn't have nurtured this stubborn child's willfulness just a little less, could you?"
It was teasingly worded, but as always, there was no mistaking the pride directed Tony's way over the children he had raised. He truly couldn't have nurtured them any less because that wasn't who he was, even though he once hadn't believed himself capable. She'd always known, even though she hadn't been there to see it play out past the Torunn years.
Natasha carefully composed a thoughtful expression on her face. “A treehouse, huh? I mean, I guess as long as we’re allowed to come visit.” She leaned her head against James’. If he wanted to spend some time hiding out in a treehouse together, she knew she’d absolutely be there with him.
Tony, meanwhile, turned his gaze from Natasha and James back over to Pepper. “Where’s the fun in that?” As if he really had any say in James’ willful nature, even if he had wanted to. “Either way, definitely too late now. Sorry, honey. We’re getting a treehouse.”
"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Pepper said right before she bit the air in front of Tony's nose, the peevishness of the gesture fully ruined, as always, by good humor she didn't want to conceal. And then her attention was diverted briefly to have H.O.M.E.R. deal with the reheating of food and other dietary things within the A.I.'s capabilities so it would be ready by the time they were all up there again.
The tension of earlier had eased within James, a temporary peace from the emotional rollercoaster that was dealing (and not dealing until the damn broke) with comings and goings. He wrapped his arms around Natasha from the side without moving his head, compensating for their heights with ease.
"Thanks," he said, but didn't elaborate on the quietly-stated gratitude.
He didn’t need to elaborate. Again, even though Natasha knew she would never be his actual mother, there was still so much of him that just felt like a part of her. Sometimes a single word was all that was needed. She brought one of her hands up to squeeze the arms wrapped around her. “Always.”
From his spot a few feet away, Tony recognized that some of James’ anger had ebbed. He knew his kid well enough to know that it wasn’t gone, just sated enough that it could be pushed back out of sight once more. They’d end up here again at some point, and he hoped to everything out there that he would still here to be with James when it did.
“All right, all right. Lunch it is. Let’s move it.”