The Best Friend

Flashback - 15 years ago

Tony woke up that morning, the remnants of a party from last night around him, the house trashed. Conveniently, everyone from the party had abandoned the house, leaving him with the damages. Oh well. Right now, he was too busy trying to block out the sound of the ringing door bell downstairs, hoping whoever it was would take the hint and go away, leaving him with his hangover. After a few minutes though, he realized they weren't going anywhere. Rolling out of bed, he changed and dragged his feet the whole way to the front door.

"I'm coming," he snapped, opening the door. There was no one in front of him though and he was surprised; then, he looked down.

"Hi!" the little girl grinned at him, her red hair in pig tails, wearing a pale blue dress with yellow daisies on it. Behind her was a pink suitcase sitting on it's wheels.

"Um, hi," Tony said, looking around outside for any sign of parents; nothing. "You a girl scout?"

"Huh?"

"I'll get two boxes of thin mints," he told her.

"I don't have any," she shook her head, handing him a folded piece of pink construction paper. "I have a card, from my mommy." Tony opened in and in black marker it read Congratulations Dad. Oh no, Tony thought to himself.

"Who's your mommy?" Tony asked.

"Claire." Oh no, he thought again as he remembered his college girlfriend. In his defense, she was the one that disappeared on him, breaking up with him out of no where. How was he supposed to know she had been pregnant?

"Where did she go?" Tony asked now, a pit forming in his stomach, the situation not looking good. Here this little girl was on his front step, with no place to go. He certainly couldn't turn her away, but he had no idea how to take care of her. He wasn't good with kids, he knew that from the few experiences he had with children.

"She said she would be right back," she shrugged.

"Mhmm," Tony nodded, knowing better. "Well, come on in kid," he opened the door wider and she rolled her pink suitcase by him.

"Your house is dirty," she told him.

"Uh huh," Tony said, kicking some mess to the side and she laughed. "Come here," he picked her up and she giggled as he set her on the counter. "Did you have anything to eat yet?"

"Nope," she shook her head.

"What do little girls eat for breakfast?" he asked, searching the cabinets.

"Ice cream."

"Nice try," he commented and she giggled again; that made him smile. "What's your name?"

"Jade," she answered.

"That's pretty," Tony told her, stopping at the counter now with a carton of ice cream and two spoons. Jade gave him a confused look. "Maybe just this one time," he told her, taking the lid off he carton before both of them dug in.

"Are you my dad?" Jade asked, her mouth full of strawberry ice cream.

"You can read?" Tony asked, remembering the card.

"I'm six, not stupid," Jade told him and he laughed.

"Fair enough," he agreed, eating some of the ice cream now. "Looks like you're going to stay with me for now kid." He didn't have the heart to tell her yet that it was most likely permanent, that Claire wasn't coming back for her.

"Ok dad," Jade nodded and Tony involuntarily made a face. "What?"

"Dad makes me sound old," Tony told her.

"You are old," she giggled and he half smiled.

"What if you just call me Tony?" he offered and her mouth dropped open, her six year old mind blown that she got to call a grown up by their first name.

"Really?" she gasped and he nodded.

"Mhmm," he promised. "Whatcha think?"

"Cool!"

Tony couldn't stop thinking about Jade, unable to help it even if he was already out of New York. Once he became a dad, he was always worried about her and her safety. There was nothing he could do now though as he was already out of New York. He had gone to Germany, tracking down the threat SHIELD was worried about, some Norse god named Loki that had taken the Tesseract. After a confrontation with Loki's brother, Thor, they had settled on taking him in to SHIELD together with the other Avengers on the helicarrier, flying somewhere over the Atlantic ocean.

Tony involuntarily checked his phone again, in the lab now with Bruce Banner, working through the night. He hadn't expected a message from Jade since it was so late. It was a dad thing though, he couldn't help but worry and wonder what she was up to, especially when he didn't know how this situation with Loki was going to pan out. This time as he looked at his phone, Banner caught a glimpse of the background picture. It was one Jade made him take with her a few weeks ago on his birthday.

"Your daughter?" Banner asked and Tony nodded.

"You got any kids?" Tony asked, unlocking his phone now as he prepared to call her, regardless of the time.

"No," Banner shook his head.

"Lucky, you never had a teenage girl," Tony joked, motioning to his head. "Aggravation and all." Banner snorted a laugh as Tony had been making Hulk jokes all night. He looked at him in confusion though as Tony held the phone up to his ear.

"You know what time it is in New York?" Banner asked him, raising an eye brow; Tony just waved him off.

"Hello?" Jade grumbled sleepily on the other end of the line.

"Jade, hi," Tony said when she answered. "What are you doing?" Jade rolled onto the other side of her bed to look at the alarm clock.

"It's three in the morning, I was sleeping," Jade muttered, rubbing her eyes.

"Oh," Tony nodded, not phased by this. "Where, your apartment?"

"Yeah, that place where I live," Jade said, full of sarcasm as she was still laying in bed. "Are you drinking?"

"No," Tony said in offense. "I just thought that you might have gone up to the lake house and had a party." He shrugged now. "Wanted to make sure the house was still standing."

"Well, sorry to bore you," Jade told him. "But instead of partying, I was studying."

"Lame."

"You're an awful influence," Jade yawned.

"I just think you need to have more fun," Tony told her, trying to hide that he was lying by sounding encouraging.

"I think I need more sleep," Jade laughed back. "Good night Tony."

"Good night," Tony gave up, hanging up the phone now.

Jade woke up the next morning, not exactly sure what was going on with her dad. Whatever was going on, it seemed to really be getting to him, though she wrote it off as what she always referred to as an Iron Man thing. The more he saw of the world, the more people he came up against, the more he worried about her. She understood why, and she was glad that there was someone out there that worried about her. She thought the three am phone call was a little excessive though.

Once she was up, it sounded like her next door neighbors were back to fighting again. She wondered what the point of the couple even was as they always seemed to be angry with each other. Regardless, it made it nearly impossible to study. And while her dad's comment the other night about her apartment having thin walls felt like a cheap shot, it was one hundred percent true.

One thing she didn't agree with her dad though was that she should go up to the lake house. She didn't really like the lake house to begin with, they hardly ever used it. If she went up there for the weekend, she would probably spend most of her weekend cleaning it instead of doing the school stuff she had to get done. Instead, she packed a duffel bag for a weekend before calling a cab to go to her father's home at Stark Tower. She knew it would be quiet there, no noisy neighbors, plus her dad and Pepper were both gone. With her dad still having a room there for her, it would be the perfect place for her to study.

When she got there, she went back to her room and dropped her bag on her bed, heading back out into the main room, the bar off to the side, the couches and coffee table in the middle. The view was the best part of her dad's place, one of her favorite things about it as it looked out onto the entire city. Walking out onto the large terrace, the sun warming the skin exposed by her tank top, having paired it with jeans.

Looking down at the busy streets below, she thought about how differently she had grown up. Before it was just her and her mom, those days blurry in her memory. There were a lot of odd jobs for her mom and short term housing options, moving around a lot. She often wondered if this was why her mom left her with Tony, but it still bothered her that her mother had just left her, never hearing from her again. How was that a better option?

It wasn't that Tony wasn't great though. He wasn't just her dad, he was her friend too. Tony never acted like he knew what was best for her, taking control and trying to over compensate for two parents. Often times, he had just admitted to having no idea what he was doing, learning on the job, both of them making it up as they went. It was unconventional, but it worked for them. Dialing her father now, she was forced to leave a voice mail.

"Hey Tony, it's me," Jade told him, going back inside now. "I'm not at the lake house, I'm at your place for the weekend. So..." She shrugged to herself. "I'll see you whenever you're back from whatever it is you're doing," she smiled. "Love you."

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