Chapter 10

Disclamer: I own nothing Marvel related!

**Author's note at the end!

Enjoyy :)

Takes place right before Avengers

Maria is 16

Tony and Pepper have been together for a little over half a year

Maria has one more year of MIT left, and shes home on vacation.

Maria was laying on her stomach in bed, when she heard her bedroom door open, but ignored it. It was her birthday. Why werent they letting her sleep in?

"Happy birthday to you" sang Tony, leaning on the doorframe to her room. Maria groaned, and put a pillow over her head.

"Happy birthday to you" he continued, now starting to walk into her room. "Happy birthday dear Maria" he sang, lifting his arms in the air dramatically.

"Dad" Maria groaned.

"Happy birthday to you" he sang, finishing the song, just as the pillow that had been covering Maria's head hit him in the face. He caught the pillow as it dropped from his face, and smirked.

"That was beautiful" Maria said sarcastically, keeping her eyes closed. "Now go away." She rolled over to face away from Tony, and he dropped the pillow. He walked up to her bed, and pulled her blankets off her.

"Get up, Ive got the whole day planned" he said. She could hear the excitement in his voice. She didnt know whether that should also make her excited, or if it should make her worried. She started to sit up, and was just about to ask him, before she realized he had already left the room. She grabbed her phone off her nighstand and checked the time. 9am. Could be worse. She got out of bed, and ran her a fingers through her hair as she walked out of her bedroom and towards the kitchen. She stopped dead in her tracks at the end of the hallway, when she realized there was someone sitting on their living room couch.

"Rhodey?!" Maria exclaimed, now running into the room. Rhodey turned his head, smiled, and stood up to catch her hug.

"Hey! Ria! Happy birthday" he said, and they broke apart.

"What are you doing here?" Maria asked, a smile on her face. "I thought you werent due back for like 4 more days!"

"Who told you that?" Rhodey asked, and then they both turned to look at Tony, who was entering the living room from the kitchen after hearing Maria yell.

"What?" he questioned. "Okay. So I told you the wrong date. I did that purposly. Surprise!" Maria rolled her eyes, knowing her father didnt have this planned as a surprise. He genuinly got the date wrong.

"How long have you been here?" Maria asked, now facing Rhodey again. Before Rhodey could respond, Tony butted in.

"Theres a breakfast buffet in the kitchen. All your favorites."

"Go eat" said Rhodey, and Maria turned to go to the kitchen. As she was passing Tony, he grabbed her from behind and hugged her.

"Hey" he said, kissing the back of her head, as he was no longer able to reach the top of her head. She was almost as tall as him now. "Youre sixteen."

"Thank you, Captain Obvious" Maria said, trying to escape from his hold, but he only tightened his grip and smiled. After a moment of struggling, Tony suddenly let go.

"Is that a gray hair?" he said, grabbing a strand of her hair.

"Shut up" she said, slapping his hand away. She couldnt hold in her smile anymore as she walked towards the kitchen, Tony close behind.

"Wow" said Maria, as she took in the large amount of delicious looking food along the counter. She pointed to the setup.

"You didnt... Did you do all this?"

"Yeah! Well, no. I didnt cook. But I ordered!"

"Well thank you for ordering" she said, looking at all the food and smiling when she noticed the box of Cookie Crisp sitting next to a pile of pancakes. It had been her favorite for as long as she could remember. Tony had introduced it to her when she was little, after a hectic trip to the grocery store.

"It was my pleasure" said Tony, sitting down at the kitchen table. Two plates of food were already full and waiting at his seat. Maria looked at him and raised an eyebrow.

"I couldnt wait. I got my food, but then thought 'hey, I should really wait for Maria'. So, I woke you up." Maria laughed, shaking her head. She filled a plate with as much as she could, then made her way to the table. By then, Rhodey was sitting at the table as well.

"Youre not eating?" Maria asked, noticing the lack of food in front o him.

"I ate before I got here" Rhodey explained. "I wasnt expecting Tony to-"

"Feed my own child?" Tony interupted.

"Provide edible food" corrected Rhodey. Tony pretended to pout, and Maria laughed, taking a bite of her waffle. Just then, Rhodey's phone rang. He looked down at the screen and sighed.

"Ill be right back."

"Do you want some powdered sugar?" Tony asked Maria, who was starting to eat a chocolate chip pancake as Rhodey left the kitchen.

"Sure" said Maria, and Tony got up and walked around the island to the cupboards. He returned with a tub of powdered sugar.

"Tell me when to stop" he said, as he began to sprinkle powdered sugar on her pancake.

"'Kay" she said after a moment. As he brought the spoon away from her plate and back to the tub in his hands, he accidentally sprinkled some powdered sugar in her hair.

"Woops."

"What?" Maria asked, looking back at him.

"You got a little something..." he said pointing at her hair. She reached up and touched the top of her head, then brought her hand down to look at it. Sure enough, it was covered in powdered sugar.

"Hey!" she said, before reaching into the tub in Tony's hands and flicking some at him.

"Really? We're gonna go there?" he said, and an evil smile appeared on his face. "Its on." He threw a handful of the powdered sugar at Maria, and backed away quickly. Maria looked back at the kitchen table, looking for a weapon. There was a bottle of syrup in the center of the table, and she grabbed it. She flipped back the cap, and Tony's eyes widened.

"Oh no" he said, but it was too late. She squirted out the syrup, hitting her target. Tony threw some more powdered sugar at Maria, then set the tub down on the island.

"Gimme a hug" he said, as he opened his arms and started walking towards her.

"No!" exclaimed Maria, as she tried to run away from him. She didnt get away fast enough, and he grabbed her in a big, syrup-y, sticky hug. She pushed away from him and ran around the island, stealing the tub of powdered sugar. She threw as much as she could at Tony, as he made his way to the fridge. The powdered sugar was sticking to the syrup on his shirt. He grabbed a carton of eggs out of the fridge, and Maria braced herself. Four eggs in a row were thrown at her, only two actually hitting her as she tried to dodge them. The other two shattered and splattered on the floor.

"What are you doing?" said Rhodey, who was just re-entering the kitchen. Another egg was thrown, and he ducked to avoid being hit. He stood, and looked at Tony, who just smirked. Just then, they heard a gasp come from the front door, and they stopped their war.

"Oh my god!" exclaimed Pepper, as she set her keys on the small table by the door."Look at this mess!" she said, approaching the kitchen.

"I tried to stop them" Rhodey claimed.

"No you didnt" said Maria. Tony rolled his eyes, and smiled as he walked up to Pepper, who didnt actually enter the kitchen in fear of getting her clean business outfit dirty.

"Hey" he said, trying to hug her. She took a step back, trying to hold in a laugh and be stern.

"No, dont get that all over me."

"Oh come on" he said, giving up on the hug, and grabbing her hands instead. He kissed her, and Maria and Rhodey looked at each other akwardly. Rhodey cleared his throat a few moments later, making the couple break apart. Pepper looked down, her cheeks turning a bit red. Tony just had his famous smirk plastered on his face.

"Im gonna take a shower" Maria announced.

"You should probably do the same" Pepper said to Tony.

"Care to join me?" Tony said suggestively.

"Ew" said Maria, who was almost to the hallway containing the bedrooms, but could still hear what was going on in the kitchen.

"Go" said Pepper pushing on Tony's chest. He kissed her again quickly, before following Maria. They each had their own bathroom attatched to their bedrooms. Pepper turned to Rhodey, who had already started to clean the kitchen. She leaned against a wall for support as she took off her heals, then entered the kitchen to help Rhodey clean.

"Mr. Stark has requested your presence in the garage" said Jarvis, as Maria was getting dressed. Her shower had taken much longer than usual. Getting syrup and eggs out of your hair is a harder task then it seems.

"Ill be down in a sec" Maria replied, throwing on an ACDC tshirt and a pair of jean shorts. She made her way to her bedroom door, and when she opened it and stepped out she ran right into Tony.

"Whats taking so long?" he asked. Maria laughed.

"Youre so impatient."

"Come on" said Tony, grabbing Maria's wrist and pulling her to the top of the stairs that led down to the workshop. He stopped.

"Okay. Close your eyes" he instructed, and Maria did as she was told.

"Are they closed?" asked Tony, but before Maria could answer he covered her eyes with his hands.

"Please dont run me into a wall" said Maria. Having her father lead her down a staircase while she was blind made her a bit nervous.

"Trust me" said Tony. He helped her get to the bottom of the stairs without a problem, and then they entered the workshop. He had left the door propped open with a random car part, specifically so he didnt have to take his hand away from her eyes to type in the code. After a bit of walking, they finally stopped.

"'Kay Ria Rae" he said, taking his hands away from her eyes. "Happy sixteenth birthday." They were facing Tony's wall of armours. Maria's eyes widened and Tony smiled, when her eyes landed on the last suit in line.

"Is that...?" she started, pointing to the blue and silver Iron Man suit.

"Its all yours" said Tony, confirming Maria's thoughts.

"Oh my god!" she exclaimed, turning around and hugging Tony.

"You like it?"

"Its awesome!"

"Good" said Tony, as they pulled apart. Maria walked up to the suit, looking at it as closely as possible through the display case.

"I didnt know if you would like the coloring" said Tony. "Pepper said it would be cool with us together, me being red and gold and you being blue and silver. Like fire and ice."

"Smart choice listening to Pepper. I love it" said Maria, before turning to look at Tony.

"Can I try it?"

"Jarvis, prep mark VIII" said Tony. "For now it'll be eight. Until we figure out a cool name for you."

"Works with me" said Maria, walking over to Tony's 'launch pad', ready to be suited up. When nothing happened, she looked back at Tony. He pointed to another one over to the right.

"Youve got your own one." Maria never stopped smiling as she walked over to her new launch pad, which was marked with her initials: MRS. The fact that Maria's initials were MRS was a joke between the two. It had become one of her nicknames. 'Me and the missus are going there' or 'Ive gotta check with the missus'. The nickname was only used around people who knew the joke. Nobody wanted it to get out in the press that Tony must have secretly gone out and gotten married. As soon as Maria stepped on the pad, the mechanical arms started to appear, encasing her in the metal suit. Maria looked over, and realized Tony was suiting up as well. Once they were both fully suited up, Tony started informing her on what her suit could do.

"Youve got weapons, doesnt mean you get to use them. Emergency only. Okay?"

"So I cant go on missions or anything with you?" Maria asked.

"No" Tony replied immediatly. He didnt want to put her in danger. But after seeing the dissapointment on Maria's face, he corrected himself. "We'll see."

"Okay" said Maria. That was good enough for her.

"Youve got Jarvis in there, so if you need anything, he can help. Or you can just talk to me, our suits are connected through him."

"So our suits are pretty much the same" Maria said.

"Yeah" said Tony. He flipped down his face plate. "Only, Im Iron Man" he said, before flying out the tunnel that lead from the garage out to the drive way. Maria rolled her eyes and flipped her faceplate down as well. She looked at all the different things the HUD displayed. She had put on Tony's helmet before, so she already knew what it looked like. Her's was exactly the same, only instead of saying Tony Stark in small letters in the corner, it said Maria Stark. She lifted off the ground, and hovered unsteadily.

"Dont let me crash, J" she said to Jarvis, before leaning forward and flying out the garage. Flying the suit was harder than Tony made it look. She finally made it out to the driveway, where she touched back down on the ground and almost fell over. Tony hovered in the air, watching her, trying not to laugh.

"You'll get used to it" he said. "Its easy once you get the hang of it. Come on." He took off flying up an away from the house, and Maria followed. After a few hours of flying around, Maria had it down and was having the time of her life.

"Jarvis, time" said Tony.

"4:23pm, Sir" replied the AI.

"Okay. Ria, we gotta head back."

"We dont -have- to" said Maria. She didnt ever want to stop flying.

"Ive got the whole day planned, remember?"

"Okay" Maria said reluctantly. It took them an hour to get home, following Jarvis' directions. They hadnt payed attention to where they were going at all. Once home, they let the robitic arms take off their suits.

"That was crazy!" exclaimed Maria. One of the many perks of being a Stark: you not only get a car when youre 16, you apparently get an Iron Man suit as well.

"You realize youre the best dad ever, right?"

"Of course" said Tony with a smile. He walked over to his desk. "Go put on something nice."

"I thought you liked ACDC" Maria joked, reffering to her tshirt.

"Plans" he said simply.

"I dont think you can top giving me the suit."

"Probably not" Tony agreed. "But I can get pretty close."

"Maybe" said Maria, and then she headed out of the room and up the stairs. She entered the living room, where Pepper was sitting on the couch with her laptop and a pile of papers doing work, and Rhodey was in a chair watching tv. Rhodey looked away from the tv when he heard Maria.

"Howd it go?"

"It was freaking awesome! I see why you kept the Mark II."

"War Machine" Rhodey corrected, and Maria laughed.

"Oh yeah. My bad."

"I left you something on your bed, Maria" said Pepper, looking up from her work.

"Oh, okay. Do either of you know what my dads planning?" asked Maria, and Rhodey and Pepper looked at each other as if trying to decide what to say. At the same time, Rhodey said yes, and Pepper said no.

"Okay then" said Maria. "Well Im gonna go change." She walked to her room, and sure enough, there was a box on her bed with a sticky note which read 'Happy Birthday Maria! -Pepper'. She opened the box, and inside sat a a beautiful black and blue dress. Maria pulled it out if the box and unfolded it to get a better look. She held it up to herself and looked in her full-lengthed mirror. The top half was black, and had straps like a tank top. Right under the bust line was a strip of black silk, which went all the way around. The bottom half of the dress was a dark royal blue, which flowed down to be a little bit above her knee. Pepper must hve known Tony's plan long enough to give her time to buy a dress. Maria wasnt one for dresses, but wore them occasionally for fancy events she had to go to with Tony. That was one of the problems with being a Stark. You had to look gorgeous every event you went to, and could never wear the same thing twice. The dress Maria just unboxed was perfect for her. It was edgy. Too bad that after tonight, she could pretty much never use it again. Maria stripped her shorts and shirt and put on the dress, then started looking through one of the drawers of her dresser. She pulled out a pair of spandex and put them on underneath the dress. She didnt like the feeling of not wearing pants, and the spandex made it bearable. She walked into her bathroom, cleaned herself up a bit, then sat on her bed to put on a pair of black Vans. She took one last look in her mirror, then made her way out of her room. It was pitch black.

"Jarvis" she said, putting a hand on the wall and feeling her way towards the living room. "Whats up with the lights? Turn 'em on." The lights turned on the same time Maria reached the living room.

"Surprise!" yelled so many voices, that Maria couldnt tell how many people were there. She blinked, eyes adjusting to the light, which was dimmed a bit, and realized the house was decorated with streamers and multicolored lights and baloons. Not only did she notice the decorations, but the people in the room. There were too many to count, but she could see the crowd included Tony, Rhodey, Pepper, Happy, some people from SI, abunch of other people Maria didnt know, and Maria's 'friends'. Most were a couple years older than her, and she didnt consider them real, true friends. She just knew them from MIT and Tony invited them. She had one close friend, though, who was 3 years older than her but was in alot of her classes, just because she was so advanced. His name was Peter Renner, and no, him and Maria were not dating. He was tall, and had dark brown hair and green eyes. Maria was closer to him than she had ever been with anyone, except of course Tony, Pepper, Rhodey, and Happy.

"Oh my god" Maria breathed, still standing at the edge of the living room. Tony walked up to her, and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. He spoke into a michrophone he was holding in his other hand.

"Sixteen!" he exclaimed, and everyone cheered. He pulled the michrophone away from his face.

"Come on" he said, and he pulled her into the crowd. The rest of the night was spent socializing, eating, drinking, and just having fun. Around midnight, the crowd started to die down, until finally, it was just Maria, Tony, and Pepper.

"Well" said Maria, as she stood in the center of the now trashed room. "Im going to bed." Tony and Pepper were walking back, hand in hand, into the room from the door, where they had just said goodbye to the last guest.

"Night kid" said Tony.

"Thanks" said Maria, gesturing around the room. "For all this. And the suit. And, just... Thanks."

"Hey, you deserve it" Tony replied with a smile. Tony and Pepper said goodnight to Maria, and she made her way to her room, changed quickly into her pajamas, and crashed in bed. It had been an amazing day.

"Youre a great dad, you know that?" said Pepper. Her and Tony were in bed, and Pepper layed with her head on Tony's chest, tracing the arc reactor with her finger.

"Tell me more" said Tony, smirking into the darkness.

"I think your ego is big enough" Pepper replied.

"Its weird though" said Tony. "I feel like I dont fit the description of dad. Im more of a... Bad-ass gaurdian." Pepper laughed.

"Well whatever you call it, youre not half bad."

"I know. Im the best" said Tony, and Pepper flicked his chest next to the reactor.

"Ouch" he whined. "But you know, none of this would have been possible if it werent for you." Pepper smiled, and propped herself up on her elbow to look at Tony's face. He leaned up and kissed her slowly. After a moment, he pulled away, and layed his head back down on the pillow.

"I love you, Tony" Pepper whispered, laying her head back on his chest.

"Pepper" Tony sighed, squeezing her tight. "I love you too."

Authors note:

So I feel like I never really described Maria once she became older. So Ill do that now! She's about 5'7 now, with long, wavy, dark brown hair, and of course, her big brown eyes that resemble Tony's. I dont know, you may have pictured her like that on your own, but I just wanted to throw it out there haha :P

Special shoutout to everyone thats reviewed, favorited, and followed! Thank you so much! :D