Tony was exhausted. He'd had seven meetings that day and none of them had gone well at all. At this point, all he wanted to do was go fly around New York for an hour or so and just relax. Unfortunately, Pepper had other ideas. There was a list of things Tony needed to take care of before JARVIS would grant him access to his suit, so he was stuck in Stark Industries for another several hours.

As soon as Tony completed the last task, he was out of his chair and telling JARVIS to get the suit prepped. Three minutes later, he was shooting out of his lab and out across New York.

He didn't usually keep an eye out for crime, but he did let JARVIS scan the streets below for anything that looked like it needed more than just the local police. Every now and then, something would catch his eye when he was out flying and he'd make a quick stop to take care of it, but usually Tony let the police handle neighbourhood crime. However, when JARVIS pointed out a small kid getting beat up by an older man, Tony was on the ground in seconds.

"I'm sorry," he said, dropping down behind the kid. The man looked up from where he'd been about to hit the kid again. "Am I interrupting something?"

"Get out of here, Stark," the man sneered. The kid, seeing his opportunity, tried to run off but the man grabbed his arm. "This kid stole from my shop for the third time this week. He needs to learn respect."

The man turned back to the kid and kicked him roughly. The kid fell to the ground with a cry of pain and Tony frowned.

"Alright, that's enough," he said, reaching out and grabbing the man.

The man stumbled and tripped over a crack and Tony shoved him back. When Tony raised a repulser at him, he scrambled to his feet and fled. Once he was certain the man was gone for the moment, Tony turned to the kid who was still crying on the sidewalk.

Kneeling down in front of him, Tony raised his faceplate and said, "Hey, kiddo. Where are your parents?"

The kid sniffled and looked up from where he had buried his face in his knees.

"I don't have any."

Tony frowned. Surely the kid had some kind of parent somewhere, right?

"Where'd they go?"

"My mommy was hurt by a bad man when we were trying to sleep behind his restaurant," the kid said. When Tony asked about his dad, the kid's bottom lip quivered. "Mommy said he wasn't a good person and so we had to stay away from him."

Okay, so the kid really didn't have parents.

A plan quickly formed in his head and although he could already hear Pepper scolding him for it, Tony knew he was taking this kid to the Tower. He was alone on the streets of New York City. The least he could do was get the kid checked out by a doctor and notify social services.

"What's your name, kid?" he asked.

"Peter." He held up one hand and showed Tony four fingers. "I'm four."

God, the kid was tiny. How long had he been without a mom? It was a miracle he was still alive at this point.

"Hi, Peter," Tony said. Peter waved and Tony waved back. "I'm Tony. How about you come stay with me while I find a safe place for you to live?"

Peter's eyes widened and he shook his head. "Mommy said not to go with strangers."

That was an issue. If Peter didn't want to go with Tony, that was likely to cause problems when he tried to take him off the streets.

Trying a different angle, Tony asked, "You've heard of Iron Man before, right?" Peter nodded and pointed at Tony. Tony smiled and nodded as well. "Yeah, I'm Iron Man. Iron Man is a superhero, right?"

"Yeah! And he saves everyone and stops the bad guys," Peter exclaimed. Okay, good. The kid was a fan of Iron Man. This was good. He could work with that.

"Yeah, well if I'm a superhero and you know me, then I'm not a stranger, right?" Tony asked. Peter scrunched up his face and stuck out his lower lip, clearly doing his best to think about it. "Besides, mommy knew me, right?"

Now he was just assuming Peter's mom had been the one to tell him about Iron Man. There was no way Peter could read on his own yet.

Peter nodded happily. "Yeah!"

Fantastic. Tony stretched out his hand again and Peter excitedly grabbed it.

"Are we gonna fly?" Peter asked, looking up at the Iron Man suit.

"Would you like to?" Tony asked. Peter nodded his head enthusiastically and Tony smiled.

He carefully picked up Peter then shot into the sky, making sure Peter was safely tucked in his arms and not going to fall. For the duration of the short flight, Peter looked down at New York with wide eyes and pointed out every little thing he saw. Even when he landed on top of the Tower, Peter didn't stop talking about what he could see.

When the bots arrived to take the suit apart though, he stopped and stared in amazement. Free of the suit, Tony took Peter's hand and led him inside, going straight into the lift so they could get Peter examined by a doctor. As Tony told JARVIS to take them down to the medical wing, Peter frowned in confusion.

"Mr. Tony?" Peter asked. Tony looked down at him. "What's a medical wing?"

"It's a place where doctors work," Tony said. Peter asked what a doctor was. "A doctor is someone that can fix booboos. If you get hurt, they make it not hurt."

Peter let out a long 'Oh' then nodded. "That's cool," he said.

Tony smiled. A few seconds later, the lift doors opened and Tony led Peter into the medical wing. They were met by a nurse as soon as they stepped out of the lift.

"I just want to make sure he doesn't have any internal injuries," Tony told her, glancing down at Peter who was staring at everything with wide eyes.

The nurse nodded, smiling down at Peter briefly, then led them back to an empty room.

Somehow, one of the nurses managed to find Lego blocks and Peter was immediately distracted. While Peter played with the Legos, Tony explained to the nurse that he had found Peter on the streets and someone had been abusing him. He mentioned seeing Peter kicked in the stomach and she nodded.

"Alright. We'll take some scans," she told him before turning to Peter and smiling. "Hey, kiddo. Do you like space ships?"

Peter said he did. In fact, he liked to stand outside the air and space museum with his mom and stare at the statues of space ships.

"Awesome!" the nurse said, reaching out her hand. "I'm going to go take you to see some. Does that sound good?"

"Yeah!" Peter cheered. He dropped his Lego blocks and grabbed the nurse's hand eagerly.

Tony followed behind as the nurse led Peter down the hall towards all the machines and helped him suit up for his time in the space ship. The entire time, Peter talked about the first 'space ship' he had been put in. Once the scans were complete, the nurse led him to another machine and he got to ride in a second space ship.

"How was that?" the nurse asked, leading Tony and Peter back to their room.

Peter was bouncing with each step, so Tony had a good idea about how Peter felt before he said anything.

"It was awesome!" Peter exclaimed. The nurse smiled. "Do I get to do it again?"

"No, not for a while," she said. Peter frowned but was soon distracted by the Lego blocks, so the nurse turned to Tony. "I'll be back in a few minutes with the results."

At Tony's nod, she left the room.

With Peter playing with the Legos, Tony pulled out his phone and sent Pepper a quick text: Grabbed a kid off the streets. What kind of legal trouble am I in?

In order to avoid the inevitable onslaught of messages, Tony turned off his phone after the text was delivered and turned his attention back to Peter.

"Mr. Tony?" Peter asked, turning from his blocks to face Tony. "Are you rich?"

"Kind of," Tony answered, "Why?"

Peter held up to Lego blocks and grinned. "I've never gotten to play with Lego blocks before and mommy says that rich people have lots of stuff."

Tony smiled back. The kid thought he was rich because he had Legos, not because of the supposed spaceships or the Tower.

"I like these," Peter said, holding a few Legos. "Can I keep them?" He clasped a hand over his mouth then quickly apologised. "I'm sorry, Mr. Tony! That was mean. You can keep them."

Tony just laughed and smiled as Peter offered him the Legos.

"No, Peter," he said, "You can keep the Lego blocks. I don't use them anyway."

Peter thanked him a dozen times before jumping up to hug him. Tony awkwardly wrapped an arm around him as he bounced and patted his back. Just as Peter pulled away, the nurse came back in with a smile.

"Hello, Peter," she said. Peter smiled at her and Tony wondered if his face hurt yet. "There's nothing that needs surgery, but he does have some bruised ribs so he needs to play carefully." She gave Peter a look and his smile turned into a shy one. "Other than that, he's good to go. You're a lucky kid, Peter."

"I know!" Peter said, bouncing on his toes. "Thank you for letting me ride in your space ships!"

"No problem," the nurse replied, smiling as Peter let go of the Legos and grabbed Tony's hand.

Peter waved wildly at her until the lift doors closed and he could no longer see her. Suddenly, his smile dropped.

"I forgot my Legos!"

"Don't worry," Tony assured him, "I'll have someone bring them up for you. Until then, how does grilled cheese for supper sound?"