"Nick, hey, I gotta go," Tony said, checking his watch.

"Stark, don't you hang-" But Tony had already hit the terminate call option. He shrugged. Fury would call back, he knew, but he had other things to be thinking about.

"FRIDAY, call the kid."

"Sure thing, boss," chirped the assistant in his ear. "Placing call."

The dial tone lasted barely a second before Peter picked up. "Hey, Mr. Stark! What's up?"

Tony couldn't help but smile. "Hey, kid. How are you?"

"I'm good. Whatcha up to? Got any missions?" He could almost hear Peter bouncing. He considered whether the kid was already on patrol. School had only let out fifteen minutes ago, but that was plenty of time to get into costume. Was Peter swinging around the city as he spoke?

"Just got off the phone with SHIELD," he said before thinking better of it.

"Whoa, that is so cool! Why'd they call you? Or did you call them? What did you say? What did they say? Do they need you to come in? Do they have a job for you? Do you want my help? Did they find Captain America? What about Dr. Banner? Or, uh, that Vision guy? Is-"

"Hey, hey," Tony said, holding up his hand although he knew the kid couldn't see him. Unless he was in the suit… but this was just a voice call, so nothing but audio on either end. "It's nothing, they just… Are you chewing something?"

"Oh, yeah, I got a hot dog from one of the vendors out by the boardwalk. Didn't have any change on me, but…" Whatever he said next was incomprehensible, drowned out by the mouthful of food he was chewing on.

"Kid, you gotta swallow before talking if you want me to understand you. And you'd better not be swinging around with food in your mouth." Tony wondered why kids these days had no common sense, and then he wondered when he had started using phrases like "kids these days." God, he was getting old.

He could hear Peter swallow. "No, don't worry, Mr. Stark. I'm sitting down."

But something about the way he said it seemed like he wasn't saying everything. "You mean like, on a bench, right? Central Park?" Please don't tell me you're sitting on top of a building.

"Uh, no, I'm… I'm a little higher than that… But it's fine, I'm not doing anything stupid, I'm just-"

"You're just having a little snack hundreds of feet off the ground?" Tony rolled his eyes. "Kid, get down from there. Finish your food on solid ground before your patrol. And don't drop your phone from up there!"

"Mr. Stark, I- I can't get down while holding two things. I need a hand free for the webs, you know? I'll get down after I'm done with the hot dog."

Peter had taken another bite, but Tony wasn't going to push it. "Alright, whatever, fine. Hey, how was school today? Anything exciting?"

Tony could tell Peter was shrugging even without a visual feed. "Not really."

But Tony was sure there had been something. He racked his brain and resisted the urge to ask FRIDAY. He snapped his fingers. "No, didn't you have that, uh, that presentation? For… English, right? How did that go?"

"It went fine. Nothing special. I think we did okay."

"We? That'd be you and…" What was his name? "Ned, yeah?"

"Yeah. Okay, I'm coming down now. You want to stay on the line to say hi to Aunt May? I'll be home in a couple minutes."

"Nah, just say hi from me, alright, kid? Good job with the English thing." As usual, he let Peter be the one to hang up.

"Hey, was that Peter?" The worry lines around Tony's eyes relaxed as he took in Pepper's voice. "I hope you said hi to him for me."

"Hmm. Slipped my mind, I guess. Maybe next time." He smiled up at her as she walked over to the couch and sat next to him.

"Next time," she said, shaking her head. "Honestly, Tony, do you have to call him every day?"

"It's not every day," he said, and wondered why he was so defensive. "And I thought you liked that I was showing him support?"

Pepper raised her hands slightly. "I do, absolutely. I love that you've taken an interest in his life. But, I mean… you know you're not… he has May."

"What are you trying to say?" He frowned. "You don't think I should be calling him?"

"I'm just saying…" began Pepper, but she trailed off. "Forget it. I don't know what I'm saying."

But she had a point. He had a feeling she'd been about to say You're not his father. Which stung, because how could she think that's what he was trying to be? And yet how could she not?

"No, you're right, I shouldn't be calling him, not with SHIELD breathing down my neck about the whole..." Tony waved an airy hand as though none of this made much of a difference to him either way, but his stomach was tensing at the idea of giving up these calls.

It was Pepper's turn to frown. "Don't tell me they called you again today?"

"Okay, I won't tell you." She turned her frown on him and he pouted, wrapping an arm around her shoulders to pull her in closer. "Do we have to talk about this right now? You're finally off work. Shouldn't we celebrate that?"

She laughed, but she did drop the subject. That particular conversation could wait until the morning. Or longer. It could definitely wait longer.

"I'm sorry, the person you are trying to contact is not currently available. You have reached the inbox of: Tony Stark. Please leave your message at the sound of the beep."

"Stark, for God's sake, this is the third time you've done this, just pick up the phone. This is not a conversation you can continue ignoring. The…"

Tony rolled over in his bed and looked at the time. A little past 11 AM. He thought absently, How many messages has Fury left by now? Then he pulled the pillow over his face. If he stayed in bed, he didn't have to check.

"Sir, I really must recommend that you get up," said FRIDAY. He groaned. "There are 3 new messages from Director Fury waiting for you to listen to them."

"Where's Pepper?" Tony asked, rather than acknowledge the urgency of the calls he was ignoring. Come on, Pep, give me an excuse, something else to do.

"Ms. Potts has left the premises already. I believe she has started work, as she generally cooperates with the usual scheduling of a weekday."

There was an emphasis on the word "she" that was hard to miss. Sometimes he really regretted making his AIs with the ability to give him attitude. How could a faceless voice deliver a side-eye so well? Well, they had to get it from somewhere. "Yeah, yeah. Alright. Play the first message."

All of the messages said the same thing: Pick up, call back, talk to them.

"What else is on today's agenda, FRI?" Surely Pepper had scheduled an appearance at some meeting or other, any event that could get him out of this.

"Let me see. You're very busy doing... nothing. Totally free. How wonderful."

Tony raised his eyes to the ceiling. "Perfect."

By 11:30 AM Tony was ready to call Fury back. Instead he suited up, and headed out. Maybe it was stupid, but he found he would rather have this conversation face to face. It wasn't until he was already flying over the city that he realized he didn't know where to go. He sighed and set the suit to hover.

"Hey, you want to talk, where should we meet? Is the Triskelion still out of the picture? Send the coordinates to FRIDAY and I'll see you there." For once he was the one leaving the message. Fury responded with a text consisting of a series of numbers that Tony plugged into his GPS system.

He landed outside a coffee shop. He double-checked the coordinates, but he was definitely in the right place. Tony shrugged and moved to go inside before remembering the suit. He stepped out of it, closing it behind him, and sent it back to the tower without him. Maybe it'd give some tourists a thrill on the way.

Nick Fury was waiting for him at a table against the back wall, as Tony could have predicted; it gave him the best view of the place, which was sure to be something constantly on the mind of someone who had survived so many attempts on his life. He slid into the booth to sit across from him.

Fury greeted him with an irritated, "Well, it's about time." Actually, he said something a little stronger, but Tony ignored it.

"Yeah, well, I'm here." Tony drummed his fingers on the table. "Do they take your order in this place? Or should I go up to the counter?"

"Stay. Talk." Fury leaned in, resting his arms on the table between them. "I know you have the information we want. Why don't you make this easy on both of us and just tell me?"

"Tell you what?" He was stalling, and he knew that Fury knew it.

"Tony. You understand that it's a matter of legality. SHIELD has to register him. After-"

"He's a minor," Tony said. "What about his right to privacy? Journalists don't name minors in their articles."

"Journalists aren't acting on the Accords," Fury said grimly. "You have the information we're looking for. If you'd just tell us, life would be a lot easier for everyone. If you won't cooperate, we'll have to go around you."

Tony raised an eyebrow. "Is that a threat?"

"It's a fact. Good day, Stark."

Fury stood to leave, but the sound of Tony's snicker stopped him. "What?"

"Nothing. Just…" He leaned forward with a smile that was only half a smirk. "You know you sound like a two-bit villain from an old movie? Yeah?"

Incredibly, that got Fury to crack a smile of his own. "Pretty sure I'm not the one resisting government business, but I'll grant that."

He left, and Tony was alone with nothing to do and nowhere to go. He looked around. "Where is that waiter?"

A/N: Thanks to Black' Victor Cachat for pointing out the upload error!