Work Text:
“C’mon, Tony, concentrate. ”
He tore his gaze away from the library ceiling.
(A concrete beam ran diagonally across the opening to the next floor above their heads and he had been distractedly trying to work through the logistics of using it as a balance beam-like short cut between the bookshelves on either side of the gap.)
Tony’s eyes went first to Bruce, mostly hidden behind a stack of fat textbooks and then to the PowerPoint for the presentation they were both supposed to be working on. He pulled a face.
“Come on, Brucie-bear,” he whined, intentionally jostling the book his friend was trying to read. “This isn’t due until next Thursday. We’re practically done and we still have the whole weekend! ”
“Don't— Stop calling me that, ” hissed Bruce. He nudged his glasses further up his blushing face and cleared his throat. “We're not 'practically done'. And if I let you stop, we both know you aren’t gonna to touch this presentation again until 3am Thursday morning.”
Tony pouted. “So?”
A chime from his phone interrupted before Bruce could think of an adequate counterargument. Tony slid it closer in order to check who the notification was from, ignoring the exasperated “Tony” that came from the other side of the table.
[May Parker]
Sent a video.
“Well, well, well, what do we have here?”
An unconscious smile beginning at the corners of his lips, Tony clicked on the message. He was expecting to see Harley and Peter pop up and so was understandably surprised—not to mention a bit confused—when the thumbnail just showed May in the driver’s seat of their car.
Bruce let out a sigh and pointedly went back to his work. Tony played the video.
“So, we just finished with our speech therapy for today,” May started. “And we were practicing pronouncing some of our longer words…”
Evidently, Harley and Peter were already buckled into their own respective car seats. Tony couldn’t see them, but he made an educated guess based on the shock of fluffy blond hair protruding from May’s right shoulder and by a little voice which suddenly sounded from off camera.
“Muh-May, you, you callin’ some’ne?”
Looking behind her, the woman chuckled. “No, baby, not calling right now, I’m just using my phone for a minute.”
“Oh.”
She twisted back around and combed a stray section of hair behind one ear.
“People always ask me if identical twins have very similar personalities. Well…”
May raised one eyebrow and then the camera flipped around to show Peter swinging his legs a little while sitting in his car seat. He had a black long sleeve shirt on, gray cargo pants, and a bright blue clownfish-covered eyepatch. Like a puppy, his head tilted quizzically to the side when the camera focused on him.
“Peter, can you say alligator? ”
His brow furrowed adorably.
(Not that Tony Stark called things adorable. He wasn’t that kind of person. Just, if he was , Peter’s concentrating face would probably be on that list. Y’know, hypothetically.)
“Ah-guh- dador, ” he sounded out, slowly and carefully.
“Aw, good work, baby,” praised May. The toddler lit up.
(So freakin’ adorable. Er, hypothetically freakin’ adorable, of course.)
The camera then panned over to Harley, also strapped into a car seat and—aside from Peter’s Under The Sea eyepatch—dressed identically to his brother. Even their tiny sneakers matched. Unlike Peter, though, Harley was occupying himself by driving a Hot Wheels truck up the car window and flying it through the air.
“Hey, Harley James,” said May.
The boy glanced over briefly and went back to his truck.
“Can you say alligator for me?”
“Aaaa-waaa-dadordadordadordadordador!”
Tony snorted. From two tables over, some girl spun around to glare daggers at him and he winked back. Bruce dragged himself away from his book again (He hadn’t actually been making much progress.) and raised both eyebrows incredulously at the outburst.
Really, Tony?
And taking that as an invitation, Tony dragged his chair around the corner of the table to Bruce’s side and hit the play button again.
El fin.