AN: Yo yiggidy yo. Haven't been back here in a while cos i've been over at A03 (same name, look me up?) Anyway, this was written way before the Avengers movie came out so forgive any inconsistencies, it's AU, evidently and yeah, hope you enjoy ^_^

Reviews/Feedback is always appreciated and if you like it there's a sequel over at my Ao3. I will upload it here but I'm away for the next two weeks so I'm not sure when I'll get around to it so yeah, have fun :)

Alaya Marie Primrose Stark was born on a hot sunny day before Tony was Iron Man. Her mother's name is Mollie and Tony visits her when she's one day old. He holds her and she's cute but Tony's just wishing this never happen. To be honest, Tony's surprised it's taken this long for this to happen.

Thankfully Mollie agrees to raise their daughter if Tony just contributes financially and it's almost enough to make Tony propose to her right then out of gratitude. He knows it's wrong but Tony knows he'd make a worse dad then his own so it's probably better this way. He gets Pepper to organise a bank account for the kid and ignores her look of complete disgust and that's that.

Tony gets the call five years later.

He's older and wiser and he has a hunk of metal in his chest keeping him alive. It's been over two years since Loki tried to destroy the Earth the first time, almost a year and a half since Loki escaped their custody and over a year since super villains started popping up left right and center. Tony's alone at the mansion when he gets the call; Pepper's honeymooning with her new boyfriend, Thor's visiting Asgard, Clint and Natasha are double dating with Steve and whatever homely girl he's madly in love with this month and god knows where Bruce is.

"Hello, is that Mr Tony Stark?"

"Yep."

"Mr Stark this is Doctor Marie Olsen down at Saint Anne's hospital, I have your daughter here and we'd really like to talk to you."

Tony's first thought is what daughter? But then he remembers and something in his gut clenches and twists painfully. "Sorry," he says. "This is just-Uh; can I ask why she's there?"

The doctor sighs, "There's no easy way to say this, Mr Stark but she has several unusual bruises and injuries on her and-"

Well, fuck. Whatever else is said is lost to Tony because all he hears is white noise and the words 'unusual bruises' chase each other around his head. "I'll be right there," he says dryly.

When he gets there Doctor Olsen greets him and says, "Pleased to meet you Mr Stark." Mollie is hovering nervously beside her and she looks the same as the day Tony met her, holding her arm is a big guy, her boyfriend, he guesses. He glances at their hands, wedding rings, husband then.

The words "unusual bruises" are back and Tony's almost shaking with the effort not to take this guy apart. It's crazy, Tony thinks, that he's this protective over someone he hasn't seen in five years but he's a different man now, a better one.

The doctor is talking again and introduces a guy from social services but Tony can't concentrate because one of those disgusting human beings hurt his daughter. Tony wants to scream at them but he doesn't trust himself to open his mouth right now and he wonders if people would think badly of Iron Man if he beat this guy to death.

"Can I see her?" Tony asks abruptly. "Can I see Alaya?"

The guy from social services- Sean he thinks- looks thrown and he says, "Uh, sure. We just have a few things we need to clarify first, okay Mr Stark?"

Tony nods impatiently and Maybe-Sean continues, "Now, Mollie tells us that you've had no contact with your daughter since she was born, is that correct?"

Tony feels awful when he nods and Maybe-Sean gives him a disappointed look so he says, weakly. "I was younger then, I was different then."

Maybe-Sean doesn't look any less disgusted but he continues, "Under most circumstances we wouldn't have contacted you but foster care is a nightmare right now so I need to know right now if you're planning to step up and be a parent to that little girl."

"Yes," Tony says immediately. "Yes, of course."

This seems to satisfy Maybe-Sean and he opens his mouth to speak but Mollie interrupts. "What, that's it?" she asks. "That's it!? He walks in here with his flashy suit and you just give away my little girl? He doesn't even know her!" she cries shrilly.

Tony snaps. "I may not know her but I would never ever hit a kid. How could you!?"

Her blue eyes go wide and she stammers, "I-I...You don't know what she's like, she isn't normal..."

"Be quiet Mrs Grayson," Maybe-Sean growls and gives Tony what he thinks is supposed to be smile (he twists his lip funnily) and says, "Of course."

He leads Tony down the corridor and shows Tony her medical files as they walk. Bruises, scrapes, broken arm. There's nothing too serious and Tony's insanely glad.

Alaya is sitting on the bed in a private room, she's clutching a cuddly T-rex to her chest and when Tony enters the room she frowns. "You're Iron Man."

Tony's pretty sure she's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. Her eyes are huge and deep blue and her hair is brown and faintly curled. He's never been good with kids but he bends down and says in the kindest voice he can manage, "Yeah, I am. But I'm also your dad."

She scrunches up her nose and it's adorable. "I know," she says flippantly, avoiding his eye. "I used to tell mommy's boyfriend that. I said, my daddy's Iron Man he'll beat you up if you hurt me."

Tony's heart breaks a little.

She squeezes the T-rex, "This is Chiron. Have you come to take me home now?"

Maybe-Sean makes him sign some stuff and tells him he'll be visiting them regularly for a while to check how they're getting on and that he'll bring by Allie's stuff the next day. Tony thinks the foster care system must be pretty awful because they're letting him take her home without seeing her once, then again, he is Iron Man. Alaya doesn't seem to mind that Tony's taking her home and that worries him more than anything.

It's only when he gets back to the Avenger's mansion and gets her tucked up with her T-rex that he realises what's really happening. He wants to run back to the hospital and say "I can't do it! Take her back!" he wants to go back in time and ignore that phone call.

He calls Pepper.

"Tony, for god's sake! I told you not to bother me! It's only been two days," she cries when she picks up (but she does pick up).

"Pep, I need help," he says trying desperately to keep his voice steady.

"Oh my god, Tony, what's wrong?"

Obviously he didn't keep his voice steady enough.

"I...Remember Alaya?"

"Your daughter? Of course I do, Tony. Has something happened to her?" she asks sounding terrified.

"She's okay, well, she's okay now." he says before taking a deep breath and telling her everything.

Pepper flies back the next day and helps Tony get through the interviews and put Allie's room together. They tell the other Avengers to stay away for the day and they do nodding sympathetically. Allie seems to have a thing for dinosaurs so Tony downloads every film he can think of with them in and after they finish Allie's room they settle down to watch Jurassic Park which Allie hasn't seen. (Tony's pretty sure that alone counts as bad parenting).

"You know," Allie says absentmindedly stroking her toy triceratops. "Velociraptors had feathers and they weren't that big."

"Really?" Pepper says, smiling at her. "That's really interesting, Allie. You must be pretty clever to know that."

Allie pays about as much attention to Pepper as she does to Tony and Pepper shoots him a worried look. Later when she's been tucked in (she falls asleep instantly) Pepper puts a hand on his shoulder and says, "It'll be okay, she'll warm up to you soon. She's been through a lot."

Tony nods numbly and brushes Allie's hair back from her forehead. God he'd fucked this up.

They introduce Allie to the other Avengers the next day and Tony's hoping that one of them will be able to get through to her.

Steve's all smiles and natural kid skills and Allie just stares at him. Thor's the same except this time Allie frowns and asks, "Where are you from?"

"Asgard, little Stark," Thor booms smiling.

"Do they have dinosaurs on Asgard?"

Thor looks blank, "No but..."

Allie turns away and looks at Tony as if to say, bored, next! Natasha and Clint both look terrified of Allie and Tony's sort of glad. He's not sure world class assassins are the best role models for kids. Oddly Allie seems to get on well with Bruce, mostly because he's willing to tell her all he knows about dinosaurs, which turns out to be quite a lot.

"I was a dino-freak when I was a kid," Bruce says smiling weakly. Tony's a little wary about leaving Allie with Bruce but Pepper talks him in to it if only to let him get a little break.

After a week they've fallen in to an uneasy routine, Allie calls him daddy and talks a little more and they watch a film together every night and more often than not Steve and Thor join them. Pepper takes her to school because Iron Man or not Tony still has a company to run. Pepper also baby sits when Doom decides to attack the city two weeks later and when Tony returns in his Iron Man suit he thinks he sees Allie smile (just a bit). But apart from that she's the same as she was the first night he met her.

Pepper takes him aside one day, mouth a tight worried line. "Tony, I know you'll hate me for saying this but do you ever think Allie might have Asperger's or something?"
Tony Stark has many catalogued responses for many, many things but he has no idea what to say to that. Pepper pulls him into a hug. "Just think about it, okay?"

Tony watches as Allie plays dinosaurs with Bruce.

("No, Bruce, they can't hunt Diplodocus! They lived in completely different eras!")

Tony smiles, "Yeah, Bruce. God."

Allie almost but not quite smiles and Bruce chuckles, "Sorry, Allie."

And Tony decides that he doesn't care if Allie has Asperger's, she's fine as is. She seems content but content isn't enough. He wants her happy. He just wishes he could get her to smile, just once because he's pretty sure that's all he needs to do.

He has a breakthrough with Allie three months after she starts living with him. Well, he says he, in reality it was someone else who had the breakthrough. Tony sort of just watched.

They're huddled on the couch with Steve and Thor watching Journey to the Centre of the Earth. Tony's thinks it's awful, Allie spends most of it telling Tony about how unrealistic the whole thing is but Tony can tell she really likes it and Steve and Thor watch with open mouths (they're still not used to modern technology.
They're in the last few tense minutes of the film when the alert goes off.

Doom had teamed up with Nebula and Magneto and his Brotherhood and they were planning something big. Pepper was in England so Tony had to stay behind with Allie.
At almost midnight the other Avengers have still not returned and Tony is getting seriously worried. Fury had ordered radio silence, something to do with one of the Brotherhood being able to hack into their comms, so Tony has no idea what's going on.

At 10 past midnight Steve breaks radio silence and contacts Tony.

"Tony? Tony-shit! Tony, we really need you here!"

The radio goes dead and Tony's halfway to his suit before he stops. Allie.

Steve had sounded so desperate, so scared. He's never heard Steve sound anything like that. Steve wouldn't pull him away from Allie unless it was really necessary. The mansion is possibly the safest place in the US and Allie's asleep. She won't know, she won't know...
Against his better judgement Tony gets in to his suit and flies off to save his friends.

It takes them four hours to take down Doom and Magneto, Nebula and most of the Brotherhood get away. Clint is half dead, Bruce is exhausted and Steve's leg is probably broken but they're all alive.

As soon as Doom hits the ground Tony is gone because Allie.

She's been alone. For four hours. He'd told JARVIS to contact him if anything went badly wrong and the machine hadn't said anything but still...
When he gets back to the mansion he makes beeline for Allie's room but he pauses outside the door because he hears laughter. Allie's laughter. He closes his eyes, Pepper must have come back. It's the only explanation.

He bursts through the door.

"Loki?"

The trickster is lying on his stomach, making Allie's little plastic dinosaurs move. He turns when Tony comes in, "Really, Stark. I knew you weren't the most responsible human being but leaving a child alone?"

Allie nods, "Yeah, Daddy!" and she smiles.

She actually smiles.

She. Actually. Smiles.

Tony sways and smiles back. "I'm sorry baby, I had to go stop the bad guys and save the city."

Her eyes widen a fraction. "Loki was telling me. He said your other friends were losing and that's why you had to leave. Did you really save them all?" she actually looks excited.

It's so ridiculous Tony laughs, "Yeah, yeah I did, Allie."

"Awesome!"

This time Loki laughs, "Okay now, remember what we agreed? You could stay up till your daddy got home."

Tony's pretty sure this is the most surreal thing he's ever experienced and he's done some pretty weird things in his life. Allie pouts and looks at Tony, "Da-ad do I have to?"

"Uh.."

"Stark, it's 4am, she's five. Of course she's going to bed." Loki says and he sounds so fucking domestic it's hilarious.

"Sweetie, listen to your mother." Tony says without thinking it through.

Allie giggles and clambers in to bed and Loki looks like he's about ready to bite Tony's head off. "Daddy, can Loki come over again soon? He was fun." She says as Tony kisses her on the forehead.

Tony looks at Loki who's smirking.

"We'll talk about, Allie."

She looks at Loki who grins and then she smiles. "Okay, daddy. Love you."

If Loki hadn't been there Tony would have broken down in tears. He bites his lip. "Love you too, Allie."

"Night Loki!"

"Goodnight, Alaya."

Tony grabs Loki's arm and forcefully manoeuvres him out of Allie's room. The Norse god is still smiling as Tony rounds on him angrily, "WHAT THE HELL, LOKI?" there were more things he wanted to say but his brain is doing cartwheels right now so it'll have to do.

Loki shrugs, "Doom wanted me to break in here and steal some of your technology but your daughter interrupted me." he says, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"So what? You stayed to play with her? You son of a bitch if you had touched a hair on her head I would have-" Tony starts.

Loki cuts him off, green eyes flashing angrily. "You think I would ever harm a child?! You insolent fool! What would you have had me do? Continue with my robbery and leave your five year old daughter alone in this mansion?! You truly are an idiot, Stark."

Tony glares at him but godammit he got Allie to smile. And laugh. And act like a kid. He sighs. "Look I'm sorry for snapping at you."

Loki scoffs, "I'm sorry, Doom must have given you a concussion or something. Shall I come back when you're feeling yourself again?"

Tony ignores him, "Thanks for looking after her. Truth be told she actually looked a lot happier than I've ever seen her, which is saying something."

Loki actually looks sympathetic. "Did you ever try just talking to her, Stark? Or actually playing with her? She's-" Loki stops suddenly and cocks his head as though listening to something Tony can't hear. "My brother and your teammates have returned. I shall take my leave."

Tony wants to ask him to stay but this is Loki. So instead he says, "So Allie seemed to really like you, so, uh, you know, maybe you could, I don't know, you know? Come over some time?"

Loki smiles, full on smiles and Tony finds himself struck by how nice it looks on him. "Your eloquence, Stark never fails to surprise me. Of course I will, besides it's not like you could stop me."

Tony gapes and Loki chuckles, "Don't gape, Anthony. It's most unbecoming." And with that he vanishes.

Tony's still staring at the spot Loki had been when Bruce comes into the corridor behind him. "Were you talking to yourself, Tony?" the scientist asks softly, blinking tiredly.

Bruce looks like Tony feels. "No, I was, uh, talking to Loki. He came to rob us but he ended up watching Allie. Who knew Loki was good with kids? And I think I might have invited him over again."

Bruce chuckles and Tony feels like he's missing something. "What?"

"You've been living with a Norse God for over a year and you still haven't read up on their mythology?"

Tony crosses his arms. "It's on my to-do list."

"Well if you had you'd know about Loki's kids."

"He breeds? Oh dear God."

Bruce ignores him. "Do some research, Tony. It might enlighten you a little."

Bruce heads into his bedroom and Tony mutters, "I am plenty enlightened, Banner." But he makes a mental note to research Loki's kids the next day.