Tony never realised how much kids liked him. 

Sure, he kept in touch with Harley throughout all those years, sending him birthday gifts and christmas presents, occasionally turning up randomly to say hi. 

And sure, Peter called him 'dad' and was obsessed with hugging him ever since he discovered that was okay, while Shuri called him her broken white boy number 2, having long science conversations with him whenever possible. 

And yes, Nebula played paper soccer with him and brought him unripe fruits constantly, spending time with Morgan whom absolutely adored him (or did she? She was pretty upset when he took away the sword Nebula gifted her). 

But until he awoke on his birthday to all of them hugging him and giving him cards that made him cry, Tony hadn't realised how much they liked him. 

He also hadn't realised how much he liked kids. 

"Tony?" Pepper asked as the pair sat in a cafe, having a coffee date on the way to a meeting with another company. Tony didn't reply, so she followed his gaze upon a small child colouring in with a crayon, their tongue sticking out. 

Her eyes narrowed. "Tony, no." 

Tony pouted. "Whyyyyyyyyyy??????" 

"We already have five, we don't need any more." 

"Are you sure? We can afford it, and look at their faces!" 

"Tony we are not having any more kids, end of story." 

He scowled into his coffee, still eyeing the child. 

Later on, Tony was sitting in Morgan's kindie class, having come to meet them as a special treat that afternoon. They were all currently sitting in front of them, staring endlessly at him, mouths hanging open. 

"-and that is how I became the most beautiful Ironman in the galaxy. Any questions?"

A couple of hands went up, so Tony answered questions such as if fairies were real, if he was secretly Tony Stark, and if it was true that there was a thing such as a bone fairy that stole your bones during the night ("the fairy bone mother") which was something one of the older kids had told them, apparently. 

Eventually, there was one last question. 

"Ironmaaaaaaaaaaaaaan??" The smallest of the children asked, a little girl who was missing her two front teeth and had a bandaid over her nose, her red hair pulled back into piggy tails. 

"Yep?" 

"Can you be my dad? Mine went to somewhere else and never came back." 

Tony's smile widened. "Ye-"

He was cut off by Pepper spraying him with a spray bottle of water. 

"Tony no! Bad Tony! Bad Tony!" 

Tony hissed at her like a cat and the children laughed. 

"Did she just say that I abandoned her again?" Said a voice by the door, and there stood a tall man with matching red hair to the little girl. "Abby I went to work and left you here, we've talked about this." 

Abby's eyes lit up as she scrambled off the floor and over to her father. "Daddy! You came back for me!" Her face went stonily serious. "Now take me home, please. Please please please please please please-" 

"I take it you're taking her home early today?" The teacher interrupted, walking over with the sign out book. 

"Yeah, doctors appointment." 

Abby let go of her father's hand and ran over to Tony, wrapping her arms around his legs. 

"Adopt me please!" 

*********

Soon, Pepper found herself having to struggle from keeping Tony away from all the children. He managed to adopt Harley's little sister, Evelyn, when she turned her back for two seconds, and now she was worried he was going to adopt even more children. 

She sat in a meeting, nervously tapping her pen against the table as she hoped Tony hadn't done anything in the half an hour she had left him alone. 

"Miss Potts," Friday interrupted suddenly. Pepper's head jerked up. She stood up abruptly. 

"Yes Friday?" 

"It appears Mr Stark has done what you feared." 

Pepper's blood ran cold. She was going to kill him!

Without a word, she hurried into the elevator and onto the spare floor of the tower, currently unused as they hadn't thought of a purpose for it yet. 

She was met by thirty six children, including her very own, running amuck and giggling, Tony looking gleeful as he sat in the middle. The Avengers seemed pretty happy too, especially Thor, Natasha, Steve and Clint, who were playing with some of the youngsters. 

"TONY EDWARD STARK!!!"  Pepper roared, stalking over to him, careful not to bowl over any of the children. 

Tony's face drained of colour, picking up a two year old and holding it in front of his chest. 

"Pepper, Pepper don't be mad-" he moved the child in every direction Pepper moved as she tried to look at him properly, as though using it as a shield. 

"DON'T BE MAD?!?!"

"It wasn't an impulse decision I promise! I thought we could open up an orphanage for the kids!" 

Pepper made a growling noise and took the child from his hands, gently patting their back and moving side to side to lull them to sleep, sending death glares at Tony. 

"You are SO dead!" She hissed quietly. 

"It was for the children! They need love Pepper and-" 

"It didn't occur to you that the tower is the most dangerous place for them to be?? You have a lot of enemies Tony and they won't care if they hurt these children!" 

"So we move it somewhere else! We could build one in the countryside- where they have plenty of room to run around without getting hurt! Maybe we could have a little farm-" 

"What about school?!" 

"There's probably plenty of schools round there, and if not we can homeschool them!" 

Pepper sighed loudly. "You're lucky I love you Tony." 

With that, she left into one of the rooms on the floor, gently putting the baby to bed and singing quietly until they were fast asleep, taking the baby monitor radio thing with her and handing it to Tony. 

"You better have good staff, or else you'll be looking after all these kids by yourself." 

"Of-Of course." Tony glanced at the Avengers. 

The moment Pepper had left, he hurried over to them. "Guys I'll pay you a hundred bucks an hour to look after these kids." 

"Done." Natasha replied, smiling as she braided a little boy's long mop of hair. 

"It's so bright!" The kid yelled, eyes wide as he stared around, his hair no longer in his eyes. "Has it always been like this?!" 

Thor nodded seriously at him. "I was shocked when I started pulling mine back too. Lived most of my years in darkness, actually." 

The kid stared at him in awe. "Really?!" 

Tony managed to pull his gaze away from the adorable kid. "Is anyone else in? Please?" 

"S'long as I can leave to see my family every week, you know I'm only here for two days per week." Clint said, a child on each arm, each tugging on his hair. 

"Sure." Tony replied. "Thor? Steve? Bruce?" 

The others agreed, as did Vision and Wanda, and Peter- despite not being asked. He wanted something good to put on his resume. 

Within a week and a half, a fully stocked and well built orphanage was built underground, beneath the tower, the walls painted colourfully with artwork upon it by Mj, the beds chosen out by Pepper and each kid getting to choose their own superhero themed bedding. 

Tony also hired several other child care workers, just in case, and bought lots and lots of desired items for the kids. 

For most of the weeks they lived there they went to their respective schools unless they were not old enough. They dropped them off, then picked them up again, getting back to the tower for afternoon tea usually made by Bucky and Steve. Then they helped with any homework, had some play time, got ready for school the next day, ate dinner (made by either a chef or one of the Avengers who knew how to cook) and got ready for bed. 

Bed time was the most chaotic of times. 

"Daisy! Please!" Thor pleaded, chasing after the small toddler wearing nothing except a nappy and carrying his hammer, running away and giggling happily. 

Meanwhile, Bucky looked severely stressed as he tried to hush five babies, singing several different lullabies in six different languages. His ears were beginning to ache from all the crying.

Steve sat on a chair, lecturing a group of primary school kids, all of them beginning to doze off as he talked endlessly about how he was so proud of them and how they worked so hard in school and he had seen their reports and he was glad they were such good kids and they need to keep it up and make sure you be nice to each other and eat well and exercise regularly and several other things that went in one ear and out the other. 

Clint was in charge of the teens. 

"I told you to put your phone away- remember the no screens an hour before bed Rule? Did you just- did you just flip the bird at me?!" 

The girl in question rolled over, still texting whoever it was. 

"You know what? I give up. I'm swapping with Bucky, screaming babies is better than this." 

"You do that." She drawled. 

Clint sighed and closed the door, checking on the other teens. 

Weekends were also pretty chaotic- for the avengers, that was. 

"Hey has anyone seen Bucky?" Pepper asked as she shouldered the door open, holding a tablet in her hands. 

Thor sat on the floor, in the middle of the room. Several children were surrounding him, braiding his hair and beard and clipping hair clips and bows in it, happily chatting away like it was some sort of hairdresser. 

Beside him, there was a huge pile of children, tackling something she couldn't see with hairbrushes and hair clips. 

"No! Stop- wait!" A voice called from beneath the pile, and Pepper jumped slightly as a metal arm poked through the pile, clawing at the floor. Seconds later, a head appeared- Bucky's head- his hair braided back messily, with so many hair clips you could hardly see the hair. 

He was quickly dragged back under again though, and Pepper feared he would never see him again. 

"Mummy!" A voice called. Morgan ran over, a hairbrush in her hand. "Are you gunna play?" She asked hopefully. 

Fear struck Pepper like never before. 

"Uh, I'm actually really busy sweetheart. Maybe some other time, okay?" 

Morgan's eyes filled with tears. "You're always busy." 

Pepper knelt beside her. "I know honey, but I don't really want to play this particular game, okay? I'll play princess with you later. You know who would like to play though?" She grinned cheekily, and Morgan's expression mirrored hers. 

"Who?" Morgan whispered, as though this was a big secret. 

"Loki." 

Later on, Pepper had never seen the god of mischief so angry. 

He sat completely still, many sticky hands tugging on his hair, expression flat as he read through a barbie catalog. 

Pepper grinned at him as she bounced a baby on her knee. 

"Shut up," Loki told her. 

"I didn't say anything," Pepper replied nonchalantly. 

Loki glared at her over the magazine. "I can feel it. I know what you're thinking. I am not a softie- I would stab any of these children without hesitation." 

Pepper continued grinning at him. "I'm sure you would." 

Still glaring, Loki went back to his magazine. They sat in silence. 

"You can't tell anybody about this. I have a reputation." Loki said eventually. 

"Oh I'm sure. It's not like Thor walked in on you asleep with Peter and Morgan." 

Loki's eyes flashed. "That was one time."

Pepper nodded. It went silent again. 

"I would stab any of these children without hesitation." Loki persisted randomly, shifting the magazine so that one of the smaller children could clamber onto his lap, sucking on their thumb and leaning against his chest, closing their eyes. He shifted his arm to support the child, sending Pepper a snide look as she smiled smugly. 

After a while, it suddenly occurred to the Avengers that some of the children were going to be adopted, at some point. It was all triggered, when one of them was actually adopted. 

There was a lot of sobbing that day- it took Jay an entire hour to leave. 

"I- just- just love you so much!" Peter sobbed, hugging the child close to him. Behind him, Tony cried into Pepper's chest, while Harley hugged his big sister Nebula, as well as Shuri, all crying silently. 

Natasha, Loki, Thor and Bucky were surrounding the new parents, hissing threats to them quietly that made them squirm and go rather pale. Wanda, Vision, Steve, Sam and Bruce were comforting the children, all crying together in a mass heap. Nobody had ever seen Steve cry as much as this, not unless it was because Bucky almost died or something. Poor Clint couldn't even say goodbye, because he was with his actual family, at home, 

Eventually, after everyone in the room had given Jay a hug (except for Morgan- she was angry that he was leaving, and plus he stole her red crayon once and he was not going to be invited to her birthday party, she decided) Jay left with his new family. 

So, to stop the pain, Tony adopted everyone in the room. He was the ultimate dad TM, and everyone lived happily ever after. 

The end. 

A/N this took me a whole week to write cuz I am a major procrastinator. And it still makes like no sense and doesn't flow very well. And the ending kinda sucks. Sorry. Also in case ur wondering, this isn't about father's day cuz it's not father's day here but I'm pretty sure it was recently somewhere else or something. 

Also I entered this book into the wattys and it won't win but I'm just glad to be apart of it honestly. 

Have a nice day, happy reading. 

:P

P.s. I passed all my exams! Which is why I've been doing like no homework even tho I have 3 tests in the last week of school (2 weeks from now). Also why I haven't been writing as much, sorry. I have a heap of ideas tho that are pretty fun so they should be out soonnnnnnnnn. 

:PPPP