"Hailey, Honey. We are going to New York to do follow up's on the new Stark Tower. Behave when we go, OK?" Pepper crouched to Hailey's height and patted her head.
Hailey nodded. "Will I be alone?" She silently cheered in victory. She can eat sweets at night!
"Well, you have JARVIS." Pepper answered. She can already see the gears turning in Hailey's mind.
"No. You are not going to set the kitchen on fire again!" Tony scolded.
"Hey! That was one time!" she argued.
"You wanted to drink hot milk so you heated the milk on the stove. You, who had never cooked before, almost set the house on fire!" Tony accused.
"I have JARVIS! He'll instruct me what to do." She whined.
"We'll be going for two to three weeks. We won't leave you here alone with JARVIS. We found you a babysitter!" Pepper squealed.
"Ohmygod, I'm almost a teen!" She whined again. "In two years!" Tony countered. She pouted.
"So, who'll be the honors of child-sitting? Happy?" She asked.
"No, Happy's coming with us. And he'll run important errands so he wont have time guarding you." Pepper answered.
"So who is it?" Hailey sighed. Just then, a bell was heard and at the confirmation of JARVIS, she came in.
"Pepper! long time no see!" The woman hugged the strawberry-blonde.
"Natalie!" She hugged back. As they broke the hug, Tony rolled his eyes.
"Hailey, This is Natalie Rushman. She used to be my secretary until she 'moved'. She'll be in town in two weeks to she'll be your baby sitter." Tony explained.
Said Natalie raised an eyebrow. "Don't you two have a flight to catch?" She asked.
"Oh please. I own the private jet." Tony bragged. Pepper just shushed him.
"Okay, good bye Hales. Take care." With kisses to the forehead, Pepper went to Hailey.
As Pepper was saying good bye to Hailey, Tony motioned for Natalie to the side.
"One scratch on my kid and you'll lost my trust for good. Not like you had any, since last time." Tony whispered and patted Natalie's shoulders. She rolled her eyes. Tony and Pepper left after.
"Nice to meet you, Natalie. I will be in the basement If you need me." With that, Hailey left to the basement.
Natalie was reminded of her old friend, a woman with blue eyes and auburn hair. The child looked a lot like the said woman. She smiled sadly.
"Dang it! why does this boomerang keep going out of the circle!?" Hailey was doing target practice with her broocelets. Boomerang-Bracelets! A genius she is, A genius in names she wasn't.
An amused chuckle was heard by the door. "You are doing it all wrong, Little Stark." Natalie chuckled. Then she strode next to Hailey.
"What do you know about targets?" Hailey raised an eyebrow.
"I know everything." She answered. "Here, let me try." Natalie took the offered broocelets (she didn't even question the name when she got them.) and adjusted her position.
She leaned her body sideways. She held her arm, and with a flick of the wrist the boomerang flew and hit the center of the target.
Hailey was wide eyed. "You have got to teach me that!"
After hours of target practice Natalie excused herself to go to the kitchen and make dinner. Hailey's aim had gotten better and the boomerang started hitting the center. She had heard about the little kitchen mishap from Pepper, and decided that she will cook.
Hailey, the curious girl as she is, followed Natalie up like a little duckling. Hailey had asked, no, begged for Natalie to teach her cooking. When she asked why, she said that she wanted to surprise her dad with delicious cooking while scratching her cheek. Natalie noticed the motion, and shrugged it off.
She teached her anyways. Hailey was a fast learner.
oOoOoOo
The next night Natalie found Hailey sneaking in the kitchen. Not so subtle. She had been reading a magazine when she heard scruffing noises from the kitchen.
She slowly came to the kitchen with a gun in tow, just to see the fridge opened and lowered her gun and tucked in in the back of her pants.
She leaned on the other side of the opened fridge door and waited for Hailey to be done at what she have been doing. As slowly Hailey closed the door with a satisfied sigh, she was greeted with an amused face of the red haired woman.
"Hello. Is this your 'sugar rush'?" Natalie asked. Her arms were crossed.
"Dad." Hailey mumbled. She then explained everything and went back to the basement. JARVIS was going to tattle on her, but she shut down the AI for the night. Not a safe choice, but she didn't want to be ratted out. Natalie just shrugged.
oOoOoOoo
Four days had passed and Hailey had been sneaky enough to go to the basement every midnight. Natalie confronted the child on said day and complimented her for sneaking off, getting cookies and milk along the way.
After the 'Busted Sugar Rush Incident, Two' (The first one was with Tony), she got stealthier and barely made a noise in the kitchen. Natalie just went off if the sound was too loud for her liking.
As Natalie babysat Hailey, she thought about subtle ways of training the kid. Being the child of the billionare needs protection. And knowing Tony, he will probably make her a suit.
But suits aren't enough. She needs lessons in first aid and self defence. Who knows when will she be hurt? She will need first aid!
Natalie noticed her own thoughts. She sighed when she noticed that she got attached to the girl. Even for only four days! She looked like her old friend. But her old friend isn't British. She caught on the little accent. Maybe she'll do some background check later?
She got to the basement and strode into the mini-lab of Hailey Stark. She sneaked up behind her.
"A card gun? So that's why you asked me to go to the departement store." They went a day ago and Hailey had bought all of the available card decks, some sweets and other stuff.
"God! You scared me, Natalie." Hailey held a hand to her chest, calming her beating heart.
"I am usually not scared of being surprised, but you- you don't even make a sound!" Her gaze lingered on Natalie.
"Please teach me!"
And with that, the two and a halfeeks of babysitting for Natalie ended.
Haileh learned how to aim, how to cook, How to exercise correctly, The Importance of Eating Healthily, Self Defence, First Aid, and shooting.
Her card gun was finished at the ninth day of babysitting, and she had asked Natalie to teach her shooting, if she can.
And Natalie, being the perfect woman she is, helped Hailey.
She teached Hailey effective ways to disarm someone with a knife, gun, tools that would harm her. the first two days got her body aching. But Hailey soon got the tempo and adrenaline rush, and she was hyper on sugar the whole week.
Let's say that Hailey is starting to be like a mini-Natalie.
Natalie thaught her stealth too. So she wont be discovered when she sneaks into the kitchen at midnight.
She learnt how to hack. JARVIS had been the unlucky domain of their test run.
Hailey silently praised herself for surviving the 'Two Weeks of Torture feat. Natalie Rushman'. Her time always counts so she didn't have the time to search her.
On the contrary, Natalie founded basic information about Hailey in JARVIS's database. So she is that woman's daughter... And had a sad smile on her face when she found out.
Hailey's cooking was nice. At least it didn't burn, like her cookies when Natalie thaught her baking.
Hailey reasoned that in cooking, "You just need to add this, add that, and do it as your taste" while baking was "Measure this, Measure that, BOOM! Burnt Cookie.".
The eleventh day the Cookie Incident happened, The fire alarm rang and water was everywhere. They had to clean the house for the whole day.
The card gun turned out to be like a gun, but with Card ammunitions. Natalie had told her to learn the art of card-throwing to better understand it.
oOoOoOoOo
Finally, Tony and Pepper got home.
"How was babysitting?" Pepper whispered as she watched Tony hug Hailey.
"She's a nice student." Natalie praised. After that, they bid good byes and Natalie was never heard again.
Three days later, Tony was passing by the kitchen at lunch and almost choked on his juice seeing Hailey cooking.
Hailey convinced that she was a good cook, and told him to wait on the dining table whild she cooked a mini-lunch-snack.
Tony sweated nervously.
He waited for 15 minutes until Hailey came by while holding a plate of delicious smelling chicken wings.
Tony was amazed that she didn't burn the whole kitchen, and dug in. He was surprised at the taste. He did not expect that it will taste so deliciously!
"This is delicious!" He praised, Hailey beamed.
"Thank you. I learned from the best." She smiled.
"And who might that be?" He asked, having a rough idea of it being a certain red headed woman.
"It's a secret." She laughed.
"Having secrets now, are we?" Tony glared.
"Well, a secret makes a woman, woman." Hailey smirked.
"Where did you get that from? You're still a child anyways!"
"Oh, a detective film. It was nice learning another language while waiting for new subtitles. Like, Urusai, Baka, and many more." She smirked.
As they finished Hailey went back to her room to take a short nap.
"What does Ur-uhh...-Sai and Baka mean, JARVIS?" Tony asked the AI.
"It seems that Urusai means 'Shut Up', while Baka means 'Stupid', Mr. Stark." the AI responded.
"Where did she learn those from?" He scowled.
"She was watching some Japanese mystery film on the tenth day of Ms. Natalie's babysitting. I believe it was called 'Detective Conan' where the main character solves mysterious murders. I have been monitoring her watching it, and I can say she has a knack or intuition to find who the culprit is. I believe she was bored and found an entertainment that suits her taste," JARVIS explained.
"...That girl is too smart for her own good."