If They Knew All About You

Just Take a Breath

The room was mostly quiet. Thankfully. There were only two settings Tony liked to work with. Music blasting or dead silence. He was bent over one of his workbench drawers and rummaged around the content. He was looking for a particular set of tiny screwdrivers to dismantle Dum-E's control unit since the idiot had managed to spill water all over himself when he tried to refill the tank of the coffee maker. Something had shorted and Tony had narrowed the faulty wire down to a particular control unit that he probably hadn't touched since college.

"I know they're here somewhere..." He closed his eyes and tried to picture where he had seen those damn screwdrivers last. Had definitely used them when he had added those cooling pads to-

"Sir-"

"Shoosh, not now!" His face was resting in his hands and he felt like he was almost there, almost had the image called up in his mind of where he'd seen them last. If not that drawer, they must be-

"Sir, the little master is restless."

Tony stood straight at once, his eyes darted to the monitor he had installed at the end of his workbench. And on the fridge. And also next to the workshop door. A quick blue pulsing light meant his son was restless in his bed. A quick glance at his watch told him it was 2:17 am. As he looked back up towards the monitor it turned orange. Distress.

"Thanks, JARVIS." He grabbed a towel from the workbench in front of him to roughly wipe off the worst of the dirt from his hands and hurried towards the door. He patted Dum-E in passing and mumbled a low "Sorry, buddy. I'll be back in a bit." and as he reached the stairs he took two at a time to get up from the basement to the second floor. In front of the door, he paused, took a couple of deep breaths to calm down his pulse and put an ear to the door, listened to what was happening inside.

There was some rustling and a soft whimper. This was no good. He'd need to work on a better monitoring system.

Slowly and quietly he pushed down the handle of the door. His son's room was dark, the curtains drawn close. Only a little moonlight was shining in through a gap between the window edge and the curtain, but it was enough for Tony to guide himself to the bed. As he kneeled down at the head of the bed, the boy's eyes were still closed but he was tossing about, murmuring and breathing heavily, hands shot up to cover his face.

Tony lightly placed a hand on his son's chest, his voice low and warm.

"It's alright, baby. You're alright."

He was still restless and as Tony's hand on his chest kept him from throwing himself from one side to the other, he was now tossing his head from side to side. Quickly Tony's other hand came up to first cup his face, then ran through his soft brown hair.

"Wake up, Addy. I'm right here. Come on, darling."

His thumb was caressing the boy's temple and Tony kept speaking to him, his voice still low, when Aiden's eyes flew open. He tried to focus on the ceiling above him then frantically moved his eyes around the room.

"It's alright, Addy. I'm here. I'm right here."

At that, the boy looked right at him, still not really seeing him. His short high-pitched scream made Tony freeze just for a moment. The boy jerked away from him and started crying in earnest and while Tony's heart jumped at the desperate sound he wouldn't let it phase him. This wasn't the first time he was by his son's bedside in the middle of the night. Not the first time he had woken from a nightmare. According to the pediatrician, this was a normal way for toddlers to process all the new impressions the world made on them every day. They were quite frequent in 2 to 5 year-olds and Aiden being just a couple months shy of two years old might have been a bit ahead of the curve, but then so had Tony been. First circuit board at 4, first engine at 6. A Stark being ahead of the curve was the norm after all.