9-8-2002

Most celebrities have their children go to the most private school in the area or have them homeschooled. The key word is: most. Tony had decided that it probably wouldn't be such a bad idea for Manda to go to public school for first grade. Being worried about Manda having to walk quite a bit away for the bus stop and what could happen from point A to point B, Tony decided he would personally take her to and from school. He thought that it wouldn't be a bad thing for her to go out and meet and socialize with children her own age. The only people who Manda ever even socialized with was her dad (clearly), Pepper, Uncle Happy, Uncle Rhodey, and Uncle Obie, it exactly wasn't a life meant for a five year old, but it was her life.

Manda wasn't too keen on this idea, she didn't want to go to school for eight hours a day, five days a week, no, she wanted to spend all her time down in Tony's garage with him rebuilding cars. That was something special that they did together. Or, as Pepper put it, their "bonding time," Tony thought that calling it that was silly, but it was true even though the two Stark's didn't consider it to be like that. The first car they had fixed up was a 1932 Ford Flathead Roadster, Manda was pretty proud of the car. All she wanted to do was sit in the garage more and fix up another car that Tony had recently brought home for them to work on. She tried everything that she could possibly think of to get Tony to change his mind about making her to go school (even trying to bribe him with money that she didn't have), but nothing worked so she was going no matter what.

It was 7:00 in the morning, and the first day of first grade started at 8:00. It took a while for Manda to fall asleep that night due to the fact she had some anxiety and was extremely nervous about going to her first day of school ever. Honestly, she never interacted with any other child before and had no clue on how this was going to turn out. Normal children spent their time playing outside with their friends and experiencing all these great things, going on family trips, having sleep overs… Then there was Manda. All she did was rebuild cars with her dad, occasionally go on business trips, and spent a lot of time with her Uncle's and Miss Pepper (maybe a little more time with them than with Tony).

Manda heard Tony walking around in the room next to hers, in all honesty, she had been up since 6:30 due to her nerves, but didn't wake Tony incase he may mistake her nerves for excitement. She wrapped herself tighter in her Jurassic Park comforter, what she would give to be able to stay home all day. A million thoughts were running through her head right now, such as: when would I get home? Would dad be there to pick me up? Is he leaving me there forever? Will the other kids like dinosaurs as much as I do? Totally not prepared for today.

There was a soft knock on Manda's door, causing her to shut her eyes quickly to pretend that she was asleep. Maybe, just maybe, if Tony saw that she was asleep he would let her stay home. At this point, she was doubting that it would work, but it was best to try anything at this point. What about being sick? There was no way that Tony would let her go to school sick, right? Just had to fake a cough and sniffle a bit and Manda should be in the clear for the next two days.

The door slowly opened, Tony peeked in, seeing that Manda was clearly faking being asleep. Her eyes were closed too tight to be actually sleeping, but he couldn't help but smile on her for trying.

"Next time you wanna try being fake asleep, make sure your eyes are shut too tight, kinda ruins the realism," Tony said, leaning in the doorway of the room. Manda opened one eye, looking up at her dad who was dressed already. "I know you don't wanna go, but the law says you have to, yada yada yada." Tony shrugged.

"I'm too sick to go, daddy. Honest." Manda did a small fake cough to try to "prove her case." But it wasn't too convincing. At all. "I should totally stay home today and play video games."

"Mmhm… totally…" He answered sarcastically, "JARVIS, check for fever."

"97.5°F, sir," JARVIS' voice rang through the room.

"Tattletale…" Manda muttered under her breath.

"C'mon, chopchop." Tony walked over to her bed, ripping the comforter off of her, throwing it onto the messy floor. "I'm not gonna be happy if we're gonna be late on the first day."

Manda smirked while sitting up in bed. "But we can be late on any other day, right?"

Tony just stared at her, he had totally set himself up for that. "Funny," he finally said sarcastically, "Get up, c'mon."

She layed back on the back, and without looking, she started feeling around on her nightstand. When she located her kazoo, she blew into it, making it make a high pitched noise. "Nooope," she said after taking the kazoo out of her mouth, but then placed it back in while staring up at the ceiling.

"Manda-" She blew into the kazoo again, cutting him off. "I'm being seriou-"

Zoooo.
"You-"

Zoooo
"Can you st-"

Zooo.
Tony narrowed his eyes at her before taking the kazoo that was hanging out of her mouth.

"Hey!" Manda whined, trying to take the kazoo back from him but it was too far out of reach.

"You're never getting this back. It's annoying."

Sitting up in bed, Manda opened the drawer of the nightstand and pulled out another kazoo.

"I swear to Go-"

ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Snatching the other kazoo, Tony was seriously getting annoyed by his daughter's behavior. "Either you can get dressed now and get ready, or… or…" He thought about it for a minute, he wasn't good at punishments. He got it. "Or else you won't be able to ever help me rebuild a car again."

Manda's eyes went wide. There, that got her attention. She swung her legs over her bed, hopping down onto the floor. "Get out! I have to get ready!" She tried pushing him out of her room, but Tony was purposely making it hard. "Dad! Out! Out! Out!" Tony couldn't help but laugh at her. "Why are you making this difficult?!"

"Because you're a weirdo."

"I learned it from you. Now go!" Laughing again, Tony left the room, closing the door behind him.

Manda looked at the digital alarm clock on her other nightstand, in a green LED, it displayed the time being 7:13. What time was school supposed to start? Eight? Well, crap, if that was the time then she didn't have too much time left to goof around. As quickly as she possibly could, she put on a stegosaurus t-shirt, shorts, and her pair of light up shoes before running downstairs where she saw Tony sitting on the couch sipping coffee, looking at the newspaper.

"What?!" Manda exclaimed when she saw him, "So you can sit around and I can-" Tony interrupted her with the same kazoo she used to do the same thing a bit ago. She frowned, folding her arms over her chest. "That isn'-"

Zoooo

"Dad!"

He looked up at her, the kazoo hanging from his mouth. "Sucks, doesn't it?" He tossed the newspaper next to him on the couch. "Are you ready?"

"No. I want to stay here."

"Too bad." He stood up, stretching. "Guess what I'm gonna do when I get home?"

"What?" She took the backpack that Tony was holding out to her.

"I'm gonna nap."

Manda frowned again. "That isn't fair! I have to stay up being around people I dunno and hate while you're here napping!"

"That's life." Tony grabbed one of his many car keys. "Chopchop. Clock's tickin' down."

Before going outside to the car, Manda made sure to say goodbye to JARVIS. She was moving as slow as she possible could to get into her car seat at first, until Tony reminded her that if they were late she wouldn't be able to rebuild cars with him anymore.

The drive to the elementary school seemed to both take forever and also too quick. Both feelings were caused by nerves. She looked at the dinosaur printed backpack that was sitting in her lap, picking at the loose threads. Why couldn't she just stay home? Tony had taught Manda some things in the past to prepare for school, although, he went a little overboard on getting her ready. He taught her things that children normally wouldn't learn until they were in the 3rd grade, such as, multiplication, division, simple chemical reactions, and classifying matter. Pepper insisted that that was too much for the first grade and that was most likely stuff kids would learn in about fifth grade. Of course, Tony couldn't care less, if Manda was willing to learn then he would teach her.

"Daaaaad…." Manda whined from the backseat when they pulled into the parking lot of the busy elementary school. Apparently everyone wanted to drop off their child in person today. "Why can't you just keep teaching me at home!"

"You'll learn a lot more here."

"You're the smartest guy in the world, daddy. You know everything!"

Tony chuckled, pulling into a parking space. "That is true. Flattering me isn't gonna make you stay home from school."

"Worth a shot."