Battlefield ｡ Tony Stark

20 - ONE HUNDRED PANCAKES

"Mum, why was Tony Stark at our front door before?" I knew the question was coming but it still knocked the air from my lungs as I stared across at Samuel in the car as we hit yet again, another line of traffic. My hands dropped from the steering wheel for a moment and threaded through my hair, before pulling it into a ponytail. There were so many thoughts rushing through my head right now and honestly, I didn't know how to begin to answer that question. I had told my son that I hadn't really known Tony back in college, it had been a lie when we both believed he was dead but now, that lie was untangling and my son was smart enough to know better. He was more like Tony than I wanted him to be sometimes and with his calculating eyes on me, I let out a shaky breath.

The car rolled forward with the moving traffic, a song on the radio almost nothing but a whisper of sound. "Well, I lied a little the other day. We did know each other during college, it was rather brief but we were sort of friends." The words sounded strange on my tongue and I couldn't even begin to wonder at what Samuel was thinking. "He was just visiting today, that's all."

Now that Tony knew the truth, it would come out but I wasn't about to tell my son his father was actually Tony Stark in the car while we were struck in morning traffic. Actually, I didn't know how I would tell him that truth, that was something I would talk with Tony about. That was assuming he wanted something to do with Samuel, maybe he didn't. I didn't really know and that scared me. What if Tony actually did want to get to know his son? What sort of relationship would they have? What sort of relationship would I have with Tony if that happened?

"Why did you lie about it?" Samuel asked quietly and my gaze jumped across to stare at him as we stopped at a red light, cars racing through the intersection from other directions. For eleven years I had glanced upon him and seen so much of Tony and debated if I was making the right call with keeping him in the dark about his father. Samuel was a good kid and he never questioned why I was raising him alone. Sometimes I felt as if he knew the reason why and knew if he asked, it might hurt me, so he never did.

I suddenly wanted Lucy with me right now because she was much better at spilling the truth than I had ever been, maybe because she was blunt and stuck with cold hard facts. With my cloudy head, I was drowning a little bit and needed her as my life jacket. "Uh," I mumbled out. "It was a long time ago and people change. We drifted apart and life happened."

Samuel stayed very quiet with my response and I eased off the brakes as the traffic cleared and we moved through lanes with ease. His silence was haunting because I knew his mind was ticking away with questions and maybe putting odd pieces of information together. Samuel Hardings was a smart kid, I had been told too many times to question that he had gotten that from Tony. But sometimes I wondered if he was too smart for his own good. When we finally pulled up to school, he was pushing open the car door and I thought he was going to get out without saying a single word back to me. "Is Tony Stark going to be sticking around, mum?" He questioned finally.

"I don't know." I shrugged, maybe the most honest words I had spoken to him today. "Have a good day at school, yeah? Don't forget to learn new things." I added in hopelessly when he just gave me a brief nod of his head. He was piling out of the car, his bag swinging over a shoulder. I watched him through the window as he blended into the sea of students without a glance back at me. With tears in my eyes, I pulled away from the curb. That was the very first time my son hadn't wished me to have a good day too.

***

Tony picked me up right on ten o'clock in one of his many expensive sport cars. We drove in complete silence, the cool leather feeling strange against my palms. The roar of the car was smooth and it reminded me about old times when he had once showed me just how fast his sport cars could race. With a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach, I twisting the ring around my index finger, a gift from my mother when Samuel was born. As his car pulled into a vacant spot in the carpark, I glanced up at the restaurant with a frown. He was getting out of the car without a comment, something that was oddly strange. The warm air hit my face as I slid from the car and glanced over at him, his sunglasses in place. Without speaking, we headed into the cheap diner and snagged a booth up the back away from peeping eyes.

Sitting on the opposite side of the booth with him, I felt conflicted and I hated it. He pursed his lips as he read over the menu, not overly fond of the choices on offer. A pretty young waitress came around not long after, ready to take our order. Before I could even announce that I was not hungry, Tony was passing the waitress the menus with a grin up at her. "One hundred pancakes, thank you."

"Excuse me?" She questioned, looking across at me. I gave her blank stare, shrugging my shoulders and letting Tony go on. "Are you sure you want one hundred pancakes? That's just a little strange--"

Tony glanced back up at her, "We'll get two coffees too."

"Alrighty," Clearly the waitress had already tried her best in swaying his mind and by the dark bags under her eyes she was probably ending a ten hour shift and was not in the mood to be dealing with crappy customers. "Coming right up."

When she was finally gone, I stared back across at him and watched as he slipped the sunglasses from the bridge of his nose and dropped them to the table top. "A hundred pancakes, really?" I snipped out quietly.

"I thought that was your favourite?" He questioned slowly, his dark eyes watching me. When I didn't reply, having no idea what he was even talking about, he blew some air from his cheeks. "A room service bill was left at that hotel in Barcelona. The charge came up on one of my credit cards and Pepper thought it was odd. She couldn't figure out why I had ordered one hundred pancakes for breakfast. But that wasn't me that day, it was you."

The memory sparked in my mind and a smile wanted to creep onto my lips. It was the morning I had woken up alone in his hotel room. He had already gotten on a private plane by the time I had opened my eyes to find a letter on the bedside table. I had ordered one hundred pancakes because it was his money to spend and not mine. I thought it had been a pretty clever sign that meant I had gotten his five worded letter.

"You mean the morning I woke up alone in a hotel room like a one night stand?" I questioned, leaning forward against the table. "The morning I woke up and found a note by you as a goodbye? Right, yeah. I remember that too."

Tony sighed, leaning back in his chair. "I did a crappy thing, okay? I'm sorry, Tilly. That wasn't very fair on me and I know that." He paused, glancing over at me. It felt strange just the two of us sitting in a diner like this and arguing about the past. Maybe after all these years, we were finally adults, even if Tony had taken a little longer than myself to get there. "Can we not fight?"

"You're right," I nodded. "This isn't about us, this is about Samuel."

I watched as he glanced down at his hands placed upon the table. I couldn't help but wonder what had played out through his head when he had stepped off my front porch today. I had been dealing with this burden for years and today he had found out he was a father. That wasn't something easy to deal with. "You kept him from me and you had your reasons, I understand that. I never thought about being a father, it was something that never crossed my mind. If the world was perfect, I don't think I would ever have kids." He started softly, his words jolting through my heart. "But I want to know him, Tilly."

The waitress came back, placing down the coffees and a stack of pancakes, giving us both a little smile before turning away quickly. I yanked forward the plate, pouring maple syrup over the stack before stabbing the light brown goodness. Tony was smiling slightly as he watched me and I rolled my eyes, knowing he had softened my heart a little with the promise of pancakes. "He deserves a father, Tony." I muttered around a bite of food as I thought about how Samuel hadn't wished me to have a good day this morning at school. "A good father, not a lousy one. You have to promise to be good to him and if you dare break his heart, I will hurt you."

He gave a nod, sipping at his coffee. "He's your son, Tilda." I glanced up, watching him for a second longer, watching for a glimmer of the boy I used to know, the boy who had downed bottle after bottle of whiskey when his parents had died. I didn't find him though, maybe he was gone and he had changed. "We'll do it your way, I can promise you that."

"I've learnt not to take a Stark on their promise," I frowned across at him. "But I'm giving you one chance and you better not mess it up. Because that boy is the best thing in my life and I will not let you ruin him. Do we have a deal?"

He nodded. "You've got yourself a deal, Tilda Hardings."