IT WAS COMMON KNOWLEDGE THAT REMY WALSH GOT HIS STUBBORN STREAK FROM HIS MOTHER. His mother who had, in just eight years, quit being a nurse—for reasons she never disclosed to anyone but close friends and family—and, with her ex-husband's help, got herself through law school in record time, already gaining three years of practice by the present date. She is as stubborn as she is driven, ignoring all who told her she couldn't do it, never giving up when people told her no.

It surprised no one to see her son do the same.

"Remy is grounded," Birdie declared when Jayne stepped into her office with takeout lunch. She took the box gratefully, opening it as the woman sat in the chair opposite her. "I didn't take away any privileges except being allowed outside, so he should have plenty to do."

"Your son doesn't do much," Jayne pointed out. While the boy was good at planning, fiddling with gadgets or reading were not common practices of his like they were for boys like him who also didn't find any interest in sports.

"He still has that adult coloring book he insisted I buy for him, maybe he'll actually get started on it," Birdie hummed, spearing one of her pieces of chicken with a fork, "I think this will give him the opportunity to think over what he has done and grow as a person."

"Or he might get onto HBO and binge watch Game of Thrones, that's all available for him On Demand," Jayne countered, taking a bite of her food, "It's going to ruin his little child mind and, suddenly, you're left with a soon-to-be felon."

Birdie rolled her eyes. "He's too smart for that, Jay, he's a good boy."

"Yeah," Jayne agreed, "The good boy who set out water and Advil for you when you came home smelling like cheap beer in the middle of the night." While being the more outgoing of the pair, Jayne still spoke with a good deal of disapproval that Birdie couldn't help but agree with.

"You know I don't usually drink," she said, looking up at her from where she was paying close attention to her food, "It was just one time."

"Birdie, I don't care if you drink, you were always the one who didn't want to, I never stopped you," Jayne sighed, "But you scared him, you scared me. You didn't answer your phone, we were up the whole night. Now, I know what happened scared you and I don't blame you for what you did, but..."

"I'm sorry," Birdie mumbled, glancing towards the work on her desktop. It was the work that prevented her from thinking much about that night.

"Don't apologize, just remember next time, okay?" Jayne asked, reaching out to squeeze her hand, "Your son needs you, Birdie. You're here, not his dad."

The woman groaned at the mention of the unknown man, running her hands through her hair and shaking her head. "Do you know who he is? Did Remy tell you?" She searched the woman's features for any indication, but came up empty.

"I'm sorry. He didn't tell me anything," Jayne whispered, so genuine in her regret that Birdie had no choice but to believe her.

"Okay," Birdie sighed, and that was the end of it. The women just ate their food in a comfortable silence, edging into other topics as they tried to ignore the hum of guilt in the back of their hearts.

º º º

"Okay, BUDDY, look up 'how to remove window and screen from room.'"

Remy had spent most of the morning sneaking around his babysitter, scrounging enough money for a subway. He'd have to move fast and there wasn't enough time for him to wait until the man made his walk into Midtown—if he even chose to do that again, it was a Saturday. Which meant he'd have to go to Brooklyn.

Lucky for him, he had BUDDY, which meant he didn't have to worry about his mother finding suspicious searches in her laptop while he searched. BUDDY was Tony Stark's own invention, an AI that was part of the newer Stark-phone models, one that did searches and answered questions, a fun person to talk to when no one else wanted to or had the time.

"I found various websites pertaining to your request. Would you like me to read them out or should we select randomly?" the programmed voice asked in the silly male Australian accent Remy had chosen for it.

"Show me the second one, the first is always a fluke," Remy directed. He had learned quickly to just speak immediately after the AI was finished, as there wasn't a ping for it to alert him; it didn't seem as personal, he guessed.

"While I find fault in your reasoning, here you go. Would you like me to read what this website has to say?" the AI asked, sounding very human, as they slowly did over time.

"Yes, please," Remy replied, because his mother taught him well, he wasn't going to forget his manners with anyone, especially not a robot; when they inevitably take over, he'd like to have some leverage.

As the AI read out the instructions, Remy got to work dismantling his window, making sure his door remained unlocked and all the pieces placed so he could reassemble everything once he got home; he would be making it so no one could get in, placing the frame back in, but it wouldn't be as permanent; he had looked that up as well.

"Thanks, BUDDY!" he called out just before he put the last piece in place, disappearing down the street with his backpack over his shoulders.

"You're welcome, Remy," the AI replied to the empty room.

º º º

"Nicky, a child has been following me, do you have security cameras around this building?" Tony asked, just as their session was ending. He hadn't planned on mentioning it, but it had been eating away at him the past few days and though he loved talking about his troubled past, this was the present.

Nicky perked up. "Um, yeah, but why are we worried about some kid looking up to you, you're Tony Stark. Iron Man. Some kid following you should be common."

"Uh, a kid asking for my autograph is standard. A kid asking how many people I've had sex with in 2006 isn't." He crossed his arms and tapped his fingers, raising an eyebrow as Nicky did the same, as surprised as he had felt those days before.

"How many people?" Nicky finally asked.

"How many—Nick, that isn't the point," Tony cried, "Use your PhD's, figure out why the kid's following me."

"I'm not a profiler, and I only have three PhDs, I'm only twenty-six!" Nicky replied, "You figure it out, you're the superhero. And can you really not remember?"

Tony scoffed, rolling his eyes. "Nick, imagine you're me. You're rich, famous, devilishly handsome and surrounded by beautiful women most of the time. Of course I don't." He smiled and stood up, making his way towards the door. "This was fun. If I don't come back, you know who got me."

"No, I don't," Nicky replied, following him out, "You didn't describe him at all, how am I supposed to know?"

"He's short, brunette, tan skin, talks fast, quick on his feet and thinks way too far ahead for my tastes," Tony described, never once stopping his stride, forcing the other man to keep up, not that he seemed to mind.

Nicky laughed as they stepped out onto the streets. "Sounds like you."

His laugh died on his throat as he caught sight of a boy who fit that profile perfectly running down the street to meet them, ending up right in front of Tony, backpack slung over his shoulders and a smile on his face, looking much too guilty to be reassuring.

"I'm grounded," he declared.

"Have fun..." Nicky sang, patting Tony on the back and making his way down the sidewalk, presumably heading home.

"Go home, kid," Tony pressed, beginning to walk down the street, not quite pulling out his phone to call Happy; he did enjoy his walks, at least before this kid starting showing up.

"I'm grounded," Remy repeated, running to keep up with him, "My mom made it so I couldn't go out, but here I am. I took a train by myself to get from Manhattan to here, give me some credit."

"Okay," Tony said, not giving the boy the satisfaction to know that he was actually fairly impressed, "Well what do you want, kid?"

"To talk," he replied, though he didn't sound too sure. He clearly didn't prepare himself to be asked questions, assuming that he'd be in control the whole time; bad luck on his part.

"What do you wanna talk about?" Tony sighed, resigning himself to dealing with the child for as long as he had to, "And what'll it take for me to get you back home?"

Remy grinned. "Walk me."

Tony groaned; he was gonna need a lot of Advil after this. He waved his hand, motioning for the boy to begin speaking. He would tune him out, but he had come all this way and it didn't sit well with him to just ignore him.

"I really like the BUDDY AI you made, it's really one of the only things I can talk to most of the time."

That just wasn't fair. He looked down at the boy who was happily walking beside him, hands swinging at his sides. He looked up at the man and smiled, not realizing how sad his statement had sounded.

"D-do you not talk to your friends?" Tony asked, frowning down at the boy as they stopped at the red light.

"I don't really have friends," Remy explained, expression never changing, speaking as if he was explaining how his day went, "I have my cousin, but he's two years older than me. He's going to high school soon, but he still lets me sit with him at lunch."

"What about your parents?" he ventured, beginning to walk once the light turned, the boy scrambling to keep up.

"My mom's a lawyer, like I said, so she's busy a lot. And my Aunt Jayne shows up sometimes, but she doesn't really count 'cause I don't see her always. And I don't have a dad, I have an asshole," he finished, leaping to land next to him, now reaching for his hand, Tony too shocked to pull away.

"Sorry, what?" he asked, blinking behind his sunglasses.

"Long story, don't really wanna get into it now..." he said, glancing at the street signs before nodding finally to himself, "Yeah, not now."

Tony decided not to ask, letting the boy continue talking. He was pleasantly surprised to find that, instead of the prying questions he had been expecting since their last conversations, the boy just talked. Sure, he talked extremely fast and seemed to go on extremely long tangents before pulling back to his original topic, but they weren't intrusive comments, so there wasn't much problem.

"—Roomba isn't all that smart, but when the robots take over, I don't wanna be the first on the hit list, a knife on a Roomba is dangerous."

Tony snorted, trying to hide his amusement with a solemn nod. "Robots have feelings, you know."

"That's what I said!" he exclaimed, "I'd prove it, but I'm not all that smart. I can build stuff if you give me all the tools and instructions and the internet, but I can't come up and make something on my own."

"That doesn't mean you're not smart," Tony said, letting the boy tug him along, too tired to keep up a fast pace.

"Doesn't matter, I'm still not that smart, you can just check my grades. I should probably get accommodations, but I don't want to, I can focus on my own, I just hate taking my pills..." he trailed off, clearly unhappy with revealing that information. With no filter, the boy could say anything and everything on his mind.

Tony pretended not to hear, if only to help the boy, which seemed to be greatly appreciated. With a tense silence, he decided to ask. "Why were you grounded?"

Remy sighed, shoulders slumping and hand slipping out of the man's grip. "For talking to you. Well, not really you, but..."

"So your mom doesn't know you were talking to me," Tony said, more of a statement than a question, "You didn't tell her?"

"Doesn't matter, she's just mad that I'm trying at all," he mumbled, looking around. They were already in Manhattan, nearing his home.

"Trying to what?" Tony asked. In the time it had taken for them to reach the apartment, he had grown rather sympathetic towards the boy, finding that he had reached back for his hand the minute it had slipped out of his grip, heart jolting at the fear of something bad happening if the boy wasn't within reach.

Before Remy could respond, his name was called, the voice familiar to both of them. Remy jumped, latching onto the man's arm as he caught sight of his mother storming towards them with fire in her eyes.

"What were you doing out?" she demanded, her focus trained solely on her son, completely ignoring the man next to him, "And buying a ticket to Brooklyn, what were you thinking? You know how dangerous it is, and you scared Stacey half to death."

"Stacey was too busy with her boyfriend to care!" he shouted, still holding onto to Tony, "And you don't care either!"

"Of course I do!" Birdie cried, running her hand through her already destroyed hair, "If I didn't care, I'd let you go off wherever you wanted to go trying to find a man who didn't care about us in the first place!"

"You don't know that!" Remy shot back, "You don't know!"

"Then why isn't he with us now?" Birdie demanded.

Tony took that chance to clear his throat, looking around the sidewalk at the prying eyes of passersby. "I think it's best if you take this inside, people are pretty nosy."

"Who are you?" Birdie demanded, rising to face him, her heels making her just about eye level to the man, her fury and emotions clouding her vision.

"Tony Stark," he replied, calm and casual.

He watched with slight confusion as recognition passed over her features. His hands shot out instinctively as she fell back, taking in both him and her son, a hand coming to cover her mouth, her whole body shaking.

As he was just about to ask if she was alright, she took a deep breath, carefully composing herself. "It's, ah, it's-it's," she took another deep breath, steadying herself, "Would you like to come inside, Mr. Stark?"

Tony couldn't exactly say no.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Okay so I don't know how canon it is, but I made it so Tony basically has his own line of phones and whatever so like Stark phones. BUDDY was something I made up, but I liked it, so I'm keeping it. I like Remy talking to robots like Tony does, Jack Dylan Grazer looks like he could play young RDJ so I find it cute.

I don't have much to say, everything is rather self explanatory so...thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed!