Over the next few days Lex started to feel at home at Tony and Pepper's place. She'd wake up every morning and have breakfast, sometimes Tony would join her and other times it was Steve, Bruce or someone else. Other days she ate her morning meal alone. After breakfast she would always shower and dress for the day. A process that was improved with the help of both Pepper and Natasha. After acquiring a new cell phone Pepper had synced Lex's calendar, contacts and pretty much any important information with JARVIS to help integrate the young girl into life in the tower. More helpfully Natasha, who Lex already affectionately began calling Aunt Tasha, had suggested that the teenage girl upload photos of her clothing into the AI.

"Trust me," Tasha had insisted. "Your whole day is a lot easier when you don't have to think about what to wear." Thus far the advice had proven quite valuable. It was incredibly convenient to be able to step out of the shower and talk with JARVIS about what to wear. In fact JARVIS himself was incredibly convenient. He could play music throughout the house, give outside weather and traffic conditions, and always helped answer any questions that Lex had.

The morning routine was only half her adjustment battle though. After dressing and gathering whatever textbooks she needed for the day, she would leave the Tower and make her way to the nearest subway station. She then rode the subway to the other side of city and attended her classes for the day. She would eat lunch on campus with Rachelle and Kyle and then if she was done with school for the day, ride the subway back uptown to help Pepper at the office. If she was feeling particularly ambitious that night she'd cook dinner before relaxing with her new adoptive family and calling it a day.

Tony had been working days and most nights with his lawyers on a lot of financial things. The exact details of which still hadn't been shared with Lex. She did know that he had been trying to set up a trust fund in her name and that he'd brought home paperwork for a legal name change one day. Paperwork that she had quickly and gladly filled out. She was still mad at her Oliver for practically throwing her at the first man who was willing to accept the financial burden but she was working to find the silver lining. Tony and the others were still going out of their way to make her feel welcome, so Lex was taking every day as it came, pushing through the struggles and reveling in joyful moments.

"JARRRRVVVIIIIISSSS..." Lex complained one Saturday morning when an annoying alarm noise woke her from a well deserved rest.

"Good morning, Miss Stark." The AI answered, stopping the alarm immediately.

"There's no way Tony lets you wake him with that ruckus." She grumbled, not getting out of bed just yet.

"You're right. Mr. Stark prefers to be woken by the song Iron Man by Black Sabbath."

"Of course he does." She rolled her eyes. "I bet Pepper just loves that."

"She does not." JARVIS disagreed. "Would you like me to set Iron Man by Black Sabbath as your alarm song?"

"No! Dear god, no."

"Would you like to select a different song?"

"Yes. How about Here Comes The Sun by the Beatles?"

"An excellent choice Miss. Stark. Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles will be set for a five am alarm." JARVIS confirmed.

"Five am?" Lex hissed. "Is that what time it is now? Why the hell is my alarm set to five am on a Saturday? JARVIS set me a new alarm for noon time and don't wake me until then."

"It was Mr. Stark who set the alarm for you. He wanted to make sure you received this video message." A giant blue screen appeared in the middle of the bedroom with a video thumbnail of Tony.

"Oh-kay," She yawned, getting out of bed and sitting in the rolling chair near the desk Pepper had bought her. "Play the video from Tony." She rested her hands behind her neck and leaned back. The image of Tony began to move and she could tell he was putting on his Iron Man suit as he recorded.

"Lex, I'm sorry I'm sending you this message so early, but it's the middle of the night and Barton, Banner and I have been called away for something Science-y. I'm not sure how long we'll be gone but take care of Pepper, no wild parties and oh don't do anything I would do. There that seems like good fatherly advice. See you soon, Princess." Lex couldn't help but smile as she watched Tony suit up. Even as he was running out the door to save the world he stopped to leave her a video message. She normally didn't like pet names like 'sweetheart' or 'princess' but there was something about the way Tony said the worlds that made them feel genuinely endearing.

"J, can you email me a copy of this?"

"Certainly Miss. Stark."

"Cool. And wake me up again in four hours. Good night JARVIS." She mumbled before crawling back into bed.

"Good morning, Miss Stark."

"Snarky computer." She comment before pulling the bedcovers up to her shoulders and drifting back to sleep.

Beautiful guitar music woke Lex four hours later. She laid in bed for several minutes listening to the song as it played. When the lyrics came to an end she decided it was probably time to get out of bed and start the day.

"Good Morning, J."

"Good Morning, again, Miss Stark. The times is now 9:03 am Eastern time on October 18th and the temperature outside is 45 degrees. You have one message from Ms. Potts. She wanted me to inform you that she had some work to do at Stark Industries today. She will be returning home later this afternoon."

"Alright. No Tony, no Pepper, breakfast alone it is." She shrugged throwing the covers off. "I feel like waffles today. Oh and JARVIS if you could play my morning playlist."

"Of course Miss Stark."

"It's hyphenated!" She yelled at the house, plugging in the waffle maker. She started mixing the ingredients needed to make waffles while the drummed beginning of Walking on Sunshine by Katrina and the Waves started playing.

"I used to think maybe you loves me, now baby I'm sure. And I just can't wait till the day when you knock on my door. Now Every time I go for the mailbox, gotta hold myself down. Cause I just can't wait till you write me you're coming around." Lex sang along with the worlds as she mixed her waffle batter. It was her mother's favorite song, which never failed to put a smile on her face. "I'm walking on sunshine, whoooahh..."

"I can see that." Taken by surprise, she dropped the bowl in her hands. It hit the ground and shattered, splattering waffle batter all over the lower kitchen cupboards. JARVIS stopped playing the music.

"What's the matter with you!" She turned to yell at whomever it was that snuck up on her, only to spot a tall, bald man with an eye patch glaring at her from the kitchen doorway. A small part of her wanted to know how it was possible for a one eyed man to glare at her but a larger part of her wanted to know who in the heck he was. "Um JARVIS, any chance you've got an ID on the imposing guy in my kitchen."

"The man standing before you is Nick Furry, director of SHIELD, Miss Stallion-Stark." The AI responded.

"Miss Stark?" Fury raised the eyebrow that didn't live above his eye patch. "So it's true you're Tony's daughter."

"Nick Fury director of SHIELD?" Lex imitated his expression and shrugged. "I thought you were a pirate on a search for buried treasure!"

"She's a Stark alright." Fury sighed.

"Did you think we made her up?" Natasha scoffed, pushing her way into the kitchen. "Bruce showed you his test, and Tony already claimed her. Look, you ruined breakfast." She frowned at the broken bowl.

"She was making breakfast? Is there any left?" Steve poked his head into the kitchen. He had come to love Alexandria's cooking even simple things like waffles. Anything home cooked properly tasted a thousand times better than modern 'fast' food.

"Not unless you want to lick it off the walls." Tasha said, picking up the shattered remains of the bowl.

"I can just make more if you guys are hungry." Lex sighed. "But Pepper probably isn't going to be too happy about the waffle bits being all over the kitchen."

"Why don't you, um, change out of your nightclothes? We can clean up this mess." Steve suggested averting his eyes from Alexandria's tank top. He was still getting used to how women of the era dressed. It seemed as time progressed females wore less and less clothing. Something he hadn't had a lot of exposure to being around Pepper, Jane and Natasha, but now there was a younger woman living in the tower wearing tighter pants and lower cut shirts.

"Yeah, okay." Lex, completely oblivious to Steve's old fashion modesty, was more interested in why the director of SHIELD was in the apartment. She figured it must have been important since he'd come all the way up there, but he had to know that neither Pepper nor Tony was home. Did he want to talk with her then? "Back in a flash!" She ran out of the room.

"Put on a sweater kiddo! Rogers looks like he's this close to a 'back in my day' lecture." Natasha hollered after her.

Lex returned to the kitchen, much to Steve's chagrin, wearing a brown tunic sweater and a pair of jeans. Seeing the forlorn look the super soldier was throwing at the box of waffle mix, she decided to start over on her breakfast prep.

"So," She said, putting the mixing bowl safely on a flat surface before looking Fury in the eye. "Let me guess you're here to tell me that despite Tony's best efforts to keep things under wraps, it's only a matter of time before it comes out to the public, the media, and the rest of world's bad guys that I'm his daughter. To which I'll reply; of course. Billionaire's like Tony Stark aren't going to be able to keep something like a secret daughter, secret for long. Next you'll tell me that for my sake and Tony's it would be best for me to leave the Tower and go back to my life. Well I'm sorry but that's not going to happen. It might look like I'm just using Tony and Pepper for their money or something but I'm not. I've been living here for a week or so and they've been taking care of me, sure, but I feel like I've been taking care of them too. I cook, I clean, I help Pepper at the office and I deserve to know my family. So no, I will not leave the tower and go back to my old life."

"That's not why we're here, Lexi." Tasha insisted.

"No one's kicking you out." Steve agreed. "Quite the opposite."

"We want to put you under protection." Fury explained. "Tony has a lot of enemies that a teenage girl is certainly no match for..."

"Now, hang on a minute. She could learn how to fight." Natasha cut in. She felt ridiculous for not suggesting this beforehand. "She's nineteen, that's plenty old enough to learn a few tricks. And I'm sure she's a quick study. She's Tony's kid after all."

"I don't think that's a good idea." Steve disagreed.

"No," Fury said. "It's a great idea."

"You can't be serious! She's a civilian!"

"We all were at some point." Natasha rolled her eyes.

"There's no one to teach her!" Steve argued.

"There's an entire training facility downstairs! And a training staff..."

"All of those people have assignments and enough work to do..."

"Then I'll train her myself!" Tasha snapped. "She's better off having some skills then being guarded by SHEILD's lower level agents."

"Can I just interrupt for a minute." Lex jumped in before the discussion got too heated. "I want to learn. I'm not saying I want to go on missions or have crazy high levels of security clearance or anything, but It's not like Pepper and Jane have SHIELD agents following them around everywhere they go. They're in just as much danger as I am. I want to be able to live my life as normally as possible."

"I'd like some time to think it over. This is an angle we hadn't considered." Fury decided getting down from his bar stool. "Until then," He looked over at Steve. "Everywhere she goes an Avenger goes with her. Don't need the girl dying on my watch because I left her with a lower level agent." He added a warning look in Natasha's direction before seeing himself out of the apartment.


A/N: It's been a few days since my last update, but, as I'm sure you noticed this chapter is twice as long as usual, so I hope that evens things out! as always I want to thank Saya the Jet Black Devil, Irianna Marie, and Kelsingra for your reviews of Chapter 8! Shout out to everyone who has taken time to read, review, favorite, and follow this story thus far! New chapters to come out soon!