Home isn't just a place

Chapter One

Tony groans as FRIDAY reminds him to wake up. He snuggles in closer to his wife and tries to fall back asleep. He is just about asleep once more when Pepper nudges him gently. Tony whines. "Noooo." he says, his voice muffled from Pepper's shoulders. "Lemme sleep."

"You have a meeting with Fury today," Pepper reminds him gently. "If you miss it then he'll come here."

Tony lets out an irritated huff before sitting up, his eyes blinking against the sudden light in their room. "This sucks." he concludes, his eyes wandering over to the alarm clock on his bedside table, the time reading 7:04.

Pepper laughs. "I know," she says with mock sympathy. "Can you believe it? You have to wake up before nine AM! Oh the horror!"

"You're mean." he says with a pout. Pepper chuckles and presses a chaste kiss to his lips.

"I'm sorry baby," she says. "But you gotta get up. I don't want Fury storming into our house yelling because you ghosted him at four thirty in the morning. Again."

Tony groans once more before forcing himself out of bed and into the shower. He quickly got ready, brushing his teeth, putting on a suit, and finding the perfect tie that says 'I don't want to be here, it's too early in the morning for this shit and also fuck you'.

He decided to go with the beige one.

Tony pouted as he downed his second mug of coffee. Peter wasn't awake yet and Tony didn't want to wake him up. He was pretty sure Peter has been having trouble sleeping, but he hasn't said anything and Tony didn't want to push just yet.

The relationship between him and his son had improved remarkably over the past few months. It'd been almost three months since everything went down with Hydra and they had slowly been getting closer and closer.

They still had their fights and occasional setbacks, but for the most part it had been getting better. Peter still didn't regularly call Tony 'Dad', but every now and then he would and that always made Tony's day.

He had talked to May about it and she had told him that Peter was trying to get more open when it came to calling Tony 'Dad' but he still struggled. But no matter what Peter called him, Tony decided, he would still be happy.

"Meeting?"

Tony looked up to see Steve returning from his morning jog. Tony just grunted in response and poured himself another cup of coffee. Steve chuckled and walked past him, pulling out a water bottle and downing it in a second.

(Tony hated whenever he did that. It was unnatural. No one should be able to drink that much water so quickly.)

"When are you supposed to be there?" Steve asked, tossing the water bottle in the recycling can.

"First of all---pick that bottle up and reuse it. We're trying to save the environment here," Tony said, pointing at the crumpled plastic in the bin. Steve knew better than to start that argument again and just picked it up and refilled it with more water. "And second of all---too damn early. It's not even seven thirty and that pirate wants me to be there by eight."

"Tony it's seven forty-five." Steve said with a frown. Tony looked back at the clock and frowned.

"Oh shit." he said in monotone, continuing to slowly sip from his coffee mug. Steve stared at him for a few seconds, an exasperated expression resting on his face. Tony raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"Aren't you going to get going? You're going to be late." Steve said. Tony shrugged.

"Eh. I'm always late," he said. "I'm also fashionable. Hence the term fashionably late. I coined that one."