sightless ➡️ winteriron (Discontinued)

07

It had been just over a month since Tony had received Julien. Due to the dog being fairly active, it convinces him that he should try to do the same -not in the same way, of course.

Needless to say, he's finally stopped mulling over his sorry ass and getting shit done.

While he still has virtually some of his remaining sight, he's working on a program to help him still be able to tinker with his things. It's only a prototype and still needs a lot of gizmos and abilities to add to it, but it's certainly helping.

The billionaire's nearly blind eyes traveled around his underground workshop at the Avengers Compound for a moment before his eyes resided on the German Sheperd sniffing at Butterfingers and letting out small little yips after every beep. He could make out U a few yards away expressing her distress and Dum-E was currently making a smoothie that surprisingly resembled a smoothie.

"U, baby it's okay you're brother kind of deserves it after knocking over my shit." He gestured to a part of the prototype web shooter he was working on for Peter that now looked like a pile of scraps.

U gave out a shrill and long beep that sounded like a gasp -as much as a robot could sound like it was gasping- and headed towards the broken object to inspect it. Butterfingers let out a sad beep before Julien growled and wagged his tail. The dog stuck his haunches in the air and barked rather than yipped and the bot he was currently terrorizing started whirring and beeping loudly.

"Julien," Tony called and the dog quickly trotted towards his owner. The service dog sat next to the stool and placed his head on the billionaire's lap.

"That's enough reprimanding for the poor guy." He patted the dog's scratching behind his ear, before looking at the schematics he was working on and ran a hand through his hair.

"That's enough of that, too." He swiped at the holographic screens and cleared them from his view. FRIDAY spoke up right as he was about to ask her to direct him where the new arc reactor he was working on for clean energy resided.

"Boss, Pepper has asked that I turn on the news." He heard the recognizable voice of Rachel Maddow as he looked up at the screen in front of him. At the bar beneath her figure he could make out the words 'Rogue Avengers Return.'

"A pardon was just issued by the President. One that pardons the rogue Avengers and all of their offenses. We don't know much as of now until the White House Press Secretary talks on the pardons tomorrow. There was a small statement put out on the White House twitter page moments ago, but it doesn't give..."

Tony couldn't make out much after that. Blood was roaring through his ears, making his head pound. His heart did anything other than pound. It resembled a fish flopping out of water rather than a organ pumping blood in and out of his body.

He wasn't sure how long he was there. Like that. But he remembered through the haze that he could feel Julien placing his front paws into the billionare's lap and licking at the palm of his left hand to try and calm him down. They were slow and repetitive strokes, giving Tony a rhythm to set his heavy and uneven breathing to.

A hand set itself on his shoulder, causing Tony to flinch. He tried to quickly sit up, Julien hopping off of his owner to swiftly make room. Tony stumbled as he stood up, placing a hand on his workbench to try and steady himself.

"Shit, sorry Mr. Stark. FRIDAY said you were having a panic attack. I didn't know what to do." Peter reeled back and placed his head in his hands.

"Hey, kid. It's okay." Tony quickly recovered from his panic of the returning old Avengers and reverted to panicking about the guilty teenager in front of him. "I'm okay." He gave a reassuring smile, before it faltered as he tried to explain his panic attack.

"It's just..."

"Is it about the pardons?"

Peter hesitantly spoke up in a soft and reluctant tone. Once Tony caught his eyes. the teen look down at his shoes and shuffled, radiating his awkward manner.

The billionaire hesitated in answering his question, but they both knew that it was the cause no matter how much he tried to deny it. No matter that they both knew, Tony didn't want go right out and say it. He instead, resorted to turning it around on Peter.

"How did you know about that?" Tony titled his head in mock inquiry.

Peter visually grew awkward as he looked up to meet Tony's eyes.

"I asked Friday to keep tabs on anything important." He shrugged his shoulders in a futile attempt to seem nonchalant about it.

Tony let out a exaggerated gasp at his remark. "Baby girl, why would you do that to me? What about the parental code I set up?"

FRIDAY chose not to address Tony and stayed silent. The glorified engineer only chuckled lightly while he narrowed his eyes a little at Peter.

"What d'ya still doing here, kid? Isn't Ned and MJ still over?" He walked up to Peter and threw his arm around the teenager's shoulders, tugging Peter's head down enough for the billionaire to plant a kiss on the top of his head. Tony wasn't very fond of giving or receiving affection, but he deemed it acceptable for this occasion.

The two headed up towards the elevator side by side with Julien beside Tony on his right. They entered a smaller workshop where Peter's friends resided. It looked like a mess, as always, but the kids blamed it on the 'small' explosion that had happened earlier that day. Tony laughed it off and helped the three with a school project.

The scene had a nice domesticity to it. Ned, Peter, and Tony working on the project while MJ sketched in her notebook. Julien sitting at her feet obnoxiously chewing on a squeaker toy.

Tony loved it. He wished that he could stay in that moment for the rest of his life. Just add Rhodey, Vis, and Pepper to the scene and he would be set.

Sadly, the small loving family they had created would soon be interrupted.

~
Phew, 1,000 words. I just don't know when to stop, do I?

Anyways, I'm finally back at updating this book. You have GhostlyMink to thank for getting me off my lazy ass. I'm gonna try and edit previous chapters, but nothing too major -I hope- for anyone to really worry about.

(The chapters with check marks above them are completely edited and the ones with x's are not.)

Thanks for the support, whoever's still reading. <3