Imagine If You Assembled The Avengers: Volume 2

Father's Day (Stark x reader)

Sequel to Mother's Day (in this book)

You had locked yourself away in the bathroom of your suite at the compound, with Tony standing on the other side of the door in a panic attack that he was barely hiding from you. The incessant tapping of his foot on the hardwood floor, even in feet only covered by socks, was grating on the nerves that were ravaging your mind and body as each second of the clock ticked by. It was a clock that was ticking louder than the sound of Tony's foot, but it couldn't drown the sound of your own frantic heartbeat.

"How much longer?" he asked through the door. He wanted to be in there with you, but you wouldn't let him. When Tony was anxious it was like a contagion that you couldn't fight, and it only made you feel worse; he didn't want to do that to you, but he also couldn't stand to feel this way and be so far away, if even only the thickness of a door stood between you.

"Another minute."

"M'kay," he sighed, thrusting his hands into his pockets just to silence their motion.

"Tony?"

"Yeah?"

"What if it's positive?"

"Then...then that's great," he answered with a smile, hoping it would carry in his voice. "That's what we want...right?"

"Right. But what if it's negative?"

"I don't know about you, but I sure don't mind trying again." Tony did his best to allow a little bit of laughter into his tone, but he didn't feel it and knew that it had come across poorly. The last thing that you needed right now was his bad sense of humor, but from this side of the barrier between you, it was all that he had that felt like himself. "Sweetheart, listen, we've only been trying for a little while, so let's not hinge everything on this. Just because Vision thought that he sensed something-"

"Tony," you interrupted, pulling the door open frantically, "it's time."

"Oh, shit. So what does it say?"

"I can't look, you do it." Your hand thrust through the door, covering the small stick in your hand so that it covered the result. "Tony, take it."

"I can't do it either!" he gasped, taking a step back, his hands up in refusal.

"One of us has to!"

He reached out very slowly, his fingers just millimeters away from taking it from you, but he stopped short, retracting again with a desperate shake of his head. "I'm gonna go get Nat." He hurried away and towards the main door, but the sound of your voice stopped him. He had given himself a sense of relief when his hand had made contact with the door and he saw the lights of the hallway only a few feet away, as if he were making a life-saving escape; in a way he was, because this was almost too much pressure even for a superhero. He certainly didn't feel like one right now.

"You're getting Nat? Tony, come on, you can't be serious."

"Nothing phases her! She's the obvious choice here, tell me I'm wrong."

"You're wrong."

"Hell, that came out fast," he scoffed. "It's like you say that too often."

"It's because you never do, honey," you reassured. As much as you had wanted the clock to stop not more than a few minutes ago, you wanted it to start up again, feeling like time was crawling and that you would never get the answer that you both desperately needed. In one of the most important moments of your lives, the two of you were frozen in place, terrified and looking nothing like the infallible world-saving people that everyone expected you to be. "Okay," you finally broke, "I'll just do it. I'm gonna do it. Here I go...aaaaany second now."

Watching you left Tony feeling ashamed at his own ineptitude, and embarrassed for his inability to support you. He had a welcome moment of clarity and hurried back into the room, almost ripping the stick from your hand before he could stop himself. "No, hang on, (Y/N). We'll do this together, right? That's how this is supposed to go, isn't it? I mean, this might be the first of a bunch of stuff that we're gonna be terrified of, but at least we can be terrified together."

His hand twitched and he turned the stick over within it, but stopped when you grabbed for it. "Maybe we should get Nat," you offered, "or Steve. He's physically conditioned for stress like this."

Tony completely ignored your pleas and pulled his hand away, revealing the sign that the two of you had been agonizing over for an entire three minutes. "Well, this must be a relief for you," he smiled, looking up at you with glistening eyes, "today is Father's Day and you know how hard I am to shop for."