Cheese Sticks

By Smitey-mcsmiterten/HeavensRebel/iatytily
Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Peter Parker (Superfamily)
Rated PG/PG-13 'cause you know how Tony is
Summary/Prompt: Tony and Steve bring a five-year-old Peter Parker home and he wants cheese sticks.

A/N: This is my first attempt at Superfamily, cut me some slack okay

Word Count: 1, 697

"I can't believe I let you talk me into this."

Tony and Steve are side by side on the couch, Steve with his head in his hands, and Tony leaning back against the cushions with an amused smirk and a relaxed posture. "If I remember correctly, you're the one who brought it up, I'm just the one that put it into action."

Steve groans into his hands.

"WHAT'S THIS?!"

Tony looks up, and immediately flies off the couch. "Hey, give me that!" A five-year-old Peter Parker – Steve and Tony's newly adopted son, a thought that's going to take Tony at least three years to get used to – is waving one of his glass awards around in the air high above his head, his sticky fingers getting prints all over it.

"HAHAHA!" Peter cackles, clutching the award to his chest and dashing into a nearby hallway. Tony scrambles after him, "Peter!"

Steve peers through his fingers at the two of them. "Try to be nice to him, Tony. The caseworker said he might act out for the first few days."

Tony seizes the back of Peter's – who's still giggling and holding the award – shirt and half-drags him out of the hallway. Peter tries to make a run for it, but his sock-covered feet scrabble uselessly against the carpet, unable to find much traction, despite all the static friction he's probably creating.

Tony swings Peter up into his arms and pulls the award from his hands.

"Hey! Not fair!" Peter pouts, folding his arms as Tony carefully cradles him in one of his. He uses the other to carefully push the award back onto the highest shelf possible on the nearest bookcase.

"It's definitely fair, kid," Tony says, tone a little bit bitter – but there's a small smile curving across one side of his face. "There's rules, you know."

"Rules?" Peter questions innocently, blinking his large, still baby-like eyes.

"Yes, like – " Tony begins, but Peter struggles in his arms and finds a way to climb from them. It's almost nimble and athletic, the way he does, even for a five-year-old, and soon he's perched on Tony's shoulders like their his throne.

"I'm hungry!" He exclaims loudly, tugging on Tony's hair.

Tony winces with pain. "Alright, calm down, what do you want?"

Steve smiles just a little bit as Peter puts a finger to his chin, staring off into space as if he were concentrating very hard on some deep, mathematical problem. "Cheese sticks," he says finally with a large grin, revealing the two of his bottom teeth are missing.

"Cheese sticks?" Tony asks incredulously. "Kid, you're living in the Stark mansion, we've got things way better than cheese sticks."

"I want cheese sticks! Now!" Peter tugs even harder on Tony's hair, and pushes his head forward as if to make him go towards the kitchen.

"You heard him, Tony," Steve stands up. "He wants cheese sticks."

"Now!" Peter emphasis.

Tony looks up at Peter, who's folded his arms on the top of Tony's head and rested his chin on them. "We don't have any -" he breaks off when Peter leans down to stare at him curiously. He gives a nervous smile, and when Peter's satisfied enough with it to return to his position, Tony directs his gaze on Steve and mouths the words cheese sticks.

"Well then, family outing it is," Steve announces, grabbing his jacket from the back of the couch.

~X~

As soon as they're out of the car and Peter's unstrapped, he crawls right back up on Tony's shoulders.

Tony sighs, and rolls his eyes, but he catches Steve's smile, and he can't help but laugh, if only a little.

Peter makes airplane noises while the odd trio walk into the store, spluttering at the automatic doors, and demanding Tony get on the scale to see how much he weighed while holding him.

Both Steve and Tony tried their very best to ignore the strange stares they were receiving – Tony knows for a fact people are thinking, what are Captain America and Iron Man doing in a Publix?

Tony's wondering the same thing.

Peter's a good enough reason.

"They're in the Dairy section. I think." Steve says, grabbing one of those little green baskets that Tony thinks are absolutely ridiculous. Of course, Steve with one swinging off his arm isn't an entirely unpleasant image.

Steve leads the way – of course – while Tony attempts to keep Peter in check from his place on top of his shoulders. They pass one of those racks of bouncing balls, and Peter grabs for one immediately. He accidentally pulls open the whole gate, however, and suddenly they all come tumbling out, bouncing down various aisles and into patrons.

Peter laughs hysterically with a blue one held victoriously over his head and Tony picks of the pace.

"What the –" Steve begins, but Tony grabs his arm and steers him forward.

"Don't look suspicious," he mutters under his breath, though he knows it's fruitless what with Peter yelling about his new ball to all the other customers, who's shaking their heads and rolling their eyes.

"I don't like this," Tony mumbles to Peter when one particular woman gives them a horrified look.

"I've learned to ignore it," Steve grins sideways at Tony. And he's right, of course, ignoring them is the best way to go. The whole charade was hard enough for Steve, what with being from an era where the word homosexual was about as bad as murder or child molester. Tony's extremely proud of him, and he's been taking the whole adopting Peter thing in stride ever since it was first brought up months ago.

"Cheese sticks!" Peter screams cheerfully, pulling Tony from his thoughts.

It's practically Heaven for the kid – there's a whole section dedicated to the weird objects of food that Tony thinks looks like glorified toothpaste that dries on the corner of his sink sometimes (something that really gets on Steve's nerves, which is fantastic at times) crammed into a cylinder.

Peter climbs off of Tony's shoulders like a spider, tossing his ball to the side in the process, landing stealthily on his feet and scooping up two armfuls worth of cheese stick packages. He grins up at Steve and Tony, the gap in his bottom row of teeth as endearing as ever.

Tony laughs and ruffles his hair. "You'll be fed for days."

"He can't eat just cheese sticks," Steve sighs as Peter shoves them all into the basket still hanging off of Steve's arm.

"Sure he can," Tony shrugs, "They're full of calcium, and all that other stuff he needs."

Peter runs off to retrieve his ball and returns just as quickly, shoving that into the basket as well before reaching his arms up towards Tony in a signal to pick him up again. Tony sighs but crouches down anyway, allowing Peter to crawl back onto his shoulders again with a squeal.

"I have a feeling that's going to be his favorite place," Steve nods to himself, laughing.

"Why don't you get on Steve's shoulders," Tony grumbles, but secretly, he's thrilled.

Tony's basking in the warm glow of his new family when problems arise.

"Disgrace," an older man in a suit in front of them in the checkout line snorts, drawing Tony's rapt attention immediately. Steve freezes halfway in putting Peter's numerous cheese stick packages onto the automatic convertor belt thing that Tony never bothered to learn the proper name of, but doesn't look up.

"I'm sorry, could you say that louder?" Tony says with bitterness, one hand holding onto Peter's ankle to remind himself that he can't get too mad with Peter around.

The man looks up at them, blue eyes cold and sharp. "I said, it's a disgrace."

"Could you elaborate on that?" Tony takes a threatening step forward, too quickly, and Peter sways on his shoulders.

"Tony, don't," Steve says, but Tony ignores him.

"It's bad enough your flaunting yourselves in public, but bringing a child along with you? Why didn't you let him go to a proper family? And don't even get me started on the whole Captain America thing -"

Tony brings one finger up threateningly into the man's face, who flinches back, but before he can say anything, a cheese stick suddenly lunges into Tony's field of vision and smacks the man in between the eyes.

He jumps back in surprise as Peter screams from on top of Tony's head, "LEAVE THEM ALONE! They're my new dads and they're awesome, so SUCK IT!" He sticks his tongue out and then in a moment that Tony will never forget, raises both of his chubby, five-year-old hands and proceeds to give the man the middle finger.

"Peter, oh my – " Steve stammers, folding Peter's hands into his larger ones and pulling him from off of Tony's shoulders. "Where did you learn that?!" he demands, blushing a bright red.

Peter points at Tony, who then proceeds to copy his adopted son's movements and flip off the asshole still gaping at them. His ears turn a startlingly shade of crimson, and he huffs and storms off, leaving his grocery back in the hands of a wide-eyed worker.

"Come on, guys," Tony says, grabbing Peter's cheese sticks in one hand, and Steve's hand in the other. "Let's go home."

~X~

Peter falls asleep in Steve's arms that night, surrounded by cheese stick wrappers on the living room floor.

Tony's tucking Peter in for the first time, and he has to shove down joy-induced tears pressing at the backs of his eyes because Tony Stark does not cry. Peter stirs a little bit just as Tony pats his head fondly and whispers, "Is it okay if I call you dad?"

So maybe Tony Stark does cry, but only Peter needs to know that.