A fact: June 4th is my birthday!


Primrose's Age: Six years and eight months old.
Date: June 4th, 2008

Primrose started summer vacation, and even though she was behind on her school work, with the help of her tutors she was able to catch up and pass every subject with a good grade. The reason why Primrose had been behind her school was that her father was kidnapped just three months ago.

It was the fortnight after his return, and with his injuries healed Primrose started drawing again to show how much she missed him. All she did was draw her dad in many ways and Tony just started placing them all over his bedroom's walls. He didn't care whoever would comment on it.

Primrose was most excited about spending the month with her dad, the whole month! Her mom and dad decided that for the next three years (this one counting as the first one), Primrose could choose which month she wanted to fully spend with her dad for him to be able to compensate the weeks he missed while kidnapped.

Today, her dad was taking to see uncle Rhodey. It was good for her because her dad has been spending some of his time inside his shop whenever he wasn't with her. It was a bit strange that he didn't allow her inside the shop but Primrose didn't mind, as long as he was nearby she was content.

"Daddy, why are we visiting uncle Rhodey at his job?" Primrose asked as she walked hand-in-hand with Tony.

The two were walking on the U.S Air Force Base tarmac, with Happy waiting behind on the car, Primrose was barely containing herself from skipping instead of walking normally, she wanted to be a good girl and behave around the soldiers and make her daddy proud.

"I want to talk with him about something, isn't this jet cool though?" Tony asked her nonchalantly as he tried to change the subject.

"Yeah!" she replied, excitedly.

When they walk inside the hangar, a familiar voice is heard just a plane is being rolled up. Primrose sees a group of people all dressed in simple green Air Force uniforms following her uncle on something like a tour.

"The future of air combat, is it manned or unmanned?" Rhodey is revealed, leading the group of young men through the building, past the rows of jets as he speaks, "I'll tell you, in my experience, no unmanned aerial vehicle will ever trump a pilots instinct, his insight, that ability to look into a situation beyond the obvious and discern its outcome, or a pilots judgment."

"Colonel?" Tony cuts him off before he can continue any further, everyone turns to look at him and Primrose in surprise, "Why not a pilot without the plane?" he asks, adding to Rhodey's speech.

"Look who fell out of the sky, Mr. Tony Stark," Rhodey supplies to the group as his friend walks up, shaking the hand of the nearest man, "And he brought along his cute daughter," he turns to the group with a proud smile, "My goddaughter." Rhodey ruffles her hair affectionately, earning a small giggle from her.

"Hi, uncle Rhodey!" Primrose greets happily.

"Speaking of manned or unmanned, you gotta get him to tell you about the time he guessed wrong at spring break. Just remember that; spring break, 1987." He turns to Rhodey now, "That lovely lady you woke up with-"

"Don't do that!" He interjects his tone not far off from that of a warning, "Did you forget Prim is here?!"

"What was his name?" Tony continued, confusing Primrose.

The group laughs at that as Rhodey continues to protest.

"Don't do that."

"Was it Ivan?" Tony questions with a sly grin.

"Who's Ivan?" Primrose asks, look between her dad and her uncle.

"Don't do that. They'll believe it. Look at your daughter! Don't do that." He repeats, giving his friend an exasperated smile with a shake of his head.

"That totally happened, by the way," Tony commented as if it were just common knowledge, "Honey, uncle Rhodey made a friend named Ivan–"

"Stop it, Tony!" Rhodey exclaims.

"Okay," The billionaire concedes as he turns to face the group, "Pleasure meeting you."

"Give us a couple of minutes, you guys," The Colonel states, the group starting to turn away as he moves to face Tony. "I'm surprised."

"Why?"

"I swear I didn't expect to see you walking around so soon."

"Daddy is not hurt anymore." Primrose states as she hugs his legs, Tony automatically places a hand on her head and starts patting her gently. Rhodey just smiles at her.

"Yeah, I'm doing a little better than walking," Tony states with a smug grin.

Rhodey crosses his arms and gives his friend a questionable, if not slightly wary look, "Really?"

"Yeah. Rhodey, I'm working on something big," He elaborates, raising an eyebrow, "I came to talk to you. I want you to be a part of it."

Rhodey allows a small smile to creep past his lips, "You're about to make a whole lot of people around here really happy, cause that little stunt at the press conference, that was a doozy," He states with a hint of a laugh and the shake of his head.

Primrose wonders if her dad was talking about his secret project that he didn't let her see.

Tony noticeably hesitates for a minute, trying to find the right words, "This is not for the military. I'm not" He shakes his head, earning him a curious glare from Rhodes, "Its different."

The Colonel furrows his brows, "What? You're a humanitarian now or something?" he tried not to sound too harsh for Primrose's sake, but he was starting to get impatient.

"I need you to listen to me-"

"No," Rhodey cuts him off, "What you need, is time, to get your mind right. Spend some time with your daughter, God knows how much she missed you."

Tony offers a tight-lipped smile, but the hurt is obvious in his features as his friend continues. Primrose looks up at her dad with visible concern on her expression.

"I'm serious," Rhodey adds.

"Okay," Its barely a whisper, accompanied by a short nod from the billionaire before his face falls altogether.

"It's nice seeing you, Tony, take care baby girl," Rhodey says, more softly towards Primrose as he ruffles her hair again, he was clearly done having this discussion as he begins walking away.

"Thanks," The billionaire says, so quietly almost anyone would have missed it. His gaze is far off is friend leaves him.

"Are you okay, daddy?" Primrose asks meekly, not liking seeing him like this.

He quickly recovers as he smiles down at her, "I'm fine, honey, let's go. The visit is over." he grabs her hand and the two started walking away from the hangar.

"But daddy–"

"Do you want some ice cream? Because I want some ice cream." he cut her off, looking into the distance, "Lots of it."

She frowned at him, "Sure daddy I want some ice cream." Primrose didn't know why her dad looked so sad, but over the years she learned that he didn't like talking about why he was sad. He would just change the subject quickly and Primrose learned to go with it. When she asked her mom about it, she simply said that her dad was a 'complicated person' but not to worry about it much.

Primrose, however, worried all the time.


June 8th

Primrose is humming a merry melody as she uses her blue bunny to play in an imaginary world that only she can see. She laughs as she makes plane noises, seeing her bunny fly around. She is inside Tony's workshop, running around and pretending, playing happily as a child should.

Then suddenly she bumps into a table and cries in surprise when a robotic hand falls from it and crashes on the floor, breaking in pieces.

Tony suddenly walks inside his workshop, his eyes widen at the sight of his project broken around his daughter, and as he approaches Primrose, the little girl recoils with a fearful expression.

"Primrose! What are you doing here?! Haven't I told you that I don't want you near my workplace?!" he yells at her, face red with anger.

"B-But–"

"Look at this mess! You ruined everything!" he yelled, pointing at the broken hand.

Primrose hugs her bunny close to her, as if to protect her, and tears up, "I'm sorry daddy, I was just playing!" she cries.

"You know you're not supposed to play here! It's the rules! JARVIS, take her away from here!" he yells at the ceiling, but the AI doesn't answer.

Tony, instead of being confused to why his butler isn't talking back, hears his daughter fully sobbing at this point. He goes to her, placing his hands on her shoulder, and starts shaking her.

"STOP CRYING! STARKS DON'T CRY! YOU'RE BEING WEAK!"

"D-Daddy stop it!" Primrose begs, dropping her bunny because of the shaking.

"You're too much work! I'll just have to send you to that school, you left me no choice."

Tony looks at her, the scene around him suddenly changes and now he's inside Howard's workshop.

"You need more discipline, Tony," he tells her, coldly and calculating.

Tony suddenly rose up from his bed, sweat beads sliding down his forehead as he tried to regain control of his breathing again.

"JARVIS, lights," he orders out of breath, hands shoving the thin blankets out of his body.

His lamps are instantly turned on, and he looks around frantically. He was inside his bedroom, "JARVIS, what's the time?"

"It is currently twenty-two past four in the morning, sir. Is everything okay?" the A.I asked.

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine." For the first time, he didn't have nightmares about Afganistan. However, he didn't feel like celebrating. Tony rather have nightmares about his kidnapping than about treating his daughter like that.

He didn't know how to feel about this one though, did he subconsciously feel guilty about not being around Primrose these past days? He's been so immersed with his suit project that he didn't see the hours of each day pass by.

Tony got up from his bed, not feeling like sleeping anymore, and walked straight to his daughter's bedroom to check on her. He had a proud dad moment when he saw Primrose sleeping peacefully, hugging her blue bunny close to her. Tony decided to tuck her in and plant a kiss on her head.

Tony's nightmare was that he had become her Howard. His cold, calculating father that has been distant all his childhood. He wasn't like Howard, for almost seven years he's been a loving, attentive father that patiently listened to his daughter's babbling and conversations without sense. Right?

The billionaire was sure that if he was doing something wrong, someone would tell him. His father didn't have many friends, only work friends and Obadiah was the only one Tony remembers visiting them and actually staying for dinner. Still, Tony had good friends and even though Obadiah didn't tell Howard that he could've been more loving towards his son, times were different now and Tony hoped that if he ever hurts Primrose in any way without realizing it – his friends would tell him.

Primrose was the most important person in his life, but he also had other people he wanted to protect. Like Pepper, who he has realized he loves. Emma, his best friend, and mother of his daughter. Rhodey, even though he shut him out days ago the colonel was the closest to a brother Tony had. And even Happy was starting to really grow on Tony.

These people were important to him.

Tony decided to go back to bed and try to sleep to save strength for the rest of the day, he wanted to spend it all with his daughter.


10:33 AM

When Primrose woke up, she remained in her bed for at least ten minutes, stretching and snuggling close to her blankets, before she finally got up and started her day. Like a big girl she was, Primrose already showered by herself and brushed her own teeth.

Of course, she'd eat breakfast first, it didn't make any sense to brush her teeth and then eat. So she showered and choose her clothes: a lavender with floral-print dress paired with a pink bomber jacket and on her feet she chose a pair of white converses. She decided to let her below shoulder brown hair down, mainly because she had no idea how to do a ponytail or a braid on her own.

Happy, she smiling at the body mirror attached to her closet and decided to go see if her dad was awake for both of them to have breakfast.

Primrose was used to the halls of her dad's big house, what she loved the most as she walked on them was looking outside through the floor-to-ceiling windows into the ocean. It was so pretty, the sunset hour was her favorite time of the day. It was when the sky showed different hues of colors that inspired the little rising artist to experiment with colors on her own.

She walked down the stairs and started hearing music coming from the kitchen.

"Good morning JARVIS!" she called out, following the music.

"Good morning Ms. Evans-Stark, your father is currently in the kitchen, burning your supposed bacon." The A.I greeted, already answering the question the little girl asked every time she'd wake up.

"Thanks!"

Truth to JARVIS's words, when Primrose entered the kitchen she gasped at the black smog coming out of the frying pan her dad was currently hitting with a dry kitchen cloth.

"Stupid bacon, stupid pan, I swear to God I'll fu–"

"Sir, I advise you to hold your tongue since your child is present in the room." JARVIS quickly inputted.

"Prim!" Tony exclaims, "Aw baby, you're supposed to be asleep it's early!" he says as Primrose walks up to him, she has this amused expression on his face that makes her look older.

"Dad. It's almost eleven." she states, eyeing the burnet frying pan curiously, "Yummy, we're having coal and ashes for breakfast?" she licks her lips jokingly, earning a playful glare from her dad.

"Very funny," Tony widens his tired eyes and checks the time on his very expensive looking gold watch, "Damn it is almost eleven. I thought it was eight."

"Daddy, what time did you wake up?" Primrose asks, sounding a little concerned.

That was something Tony hated doing to his daughter, worrying her. So he put up his best smile and said: "Just an hour ago, I slept pretty well. How about you?" He placed a hand on her hair and felt it a little wet, "Oh you took a shower?"

She nodded proudly, "I told you I could do it now! I'm a big girl!"

Tony gave her a half-tipped smile, on one hand, he was proud but at the same time, he didn't like that she was growing up quickly.

"Sure you are. Tell you what big girl, since I pretty much created a new black color with bacon I'll let you choose where'll have breakfast, or well, brunch."


12:30 PM

They ended up going to a brunch place called Fanny's, it was small but homey and Tony was actually enjoying his time, there weren't many people here, only other families taking their kids out for brunch that seemed more interested in themselves other than Tony Stark and his daughter.

There were a few glances that Tony pretended to not see, he was just glad these people, the waiters and owners included, respected his privacy.

Tony was hungry, he ended up ordering a Turkey B.A.L.T, which is a turkey sandwich with roasted turkey, bacon, avocado, lettuce, tomato and mayo, four deviled eggs, a side of fries and to drink an iced coffee. Primrose ordered a chicken burger with fries, a slice of peanut butter chocolate pie for dessert and to drink a Lipton Peach Iced Tea.

As they ate, Tony couldn't help to look at a certain table where a mother, a father and their son sat at. The boy looked to be older than Primrose, probably ten years old, enjoying his time and happily eating his pancakes. Tony couldn't help to see himself, which was odd because his parents never took him out for brunch, the only times they went out to eat was when his father needed to make a good impression on someone and Tony never enjoyed it.

At least he had his mom. Had.

Seeing that boy brought memories he'd buried a long time ago, so when Primrose looked at her dad to ask him a question about straws, she held her voice when she saw his haunted expression.

Not knowing what to do, Primrose simply followed his eyes and looked at the table with the family as well. Confused, she finally decided to speak up as she tugged at her dad's shirt to get his attention, "Daddy? Are you okay?" she asked timidly.

Tony's body jolted as he was suddenly brought back to reality, eyes-widened he glanced at his daughter and let out a weak chuckle that sounded like he's just been scared by a friend and then realized it was a joke, "Prim! Wow, don't do that sweetie. You scared daddy's blue out of his jeans."

She couldn't help but chortle at his choice of words as he sipped on his iced coffee.

"I'm fine, I was just thinking about you," he stated, leaning back on his chair to give her a look. He was going for an obvious fake scowl, and when she tried not to smile at him Tony knew he was doing it, "I'm serious, very serious."

Playing along, like she was used to, Primrose said: "Oh no daddy, what did I do now?"

"You're growing up. I told you not to do that, remember? I specifically ordered you, didn't I?" he scolded her lightly, still trying to hold his scowl.

Primrose started giggling as she swung her legs underneath the table, "It's human biology daddy, I can't stop it."

He gasped, "Human biology? How much do you understand about that?" Now that he was getting nervous about another certain subject, his fake scowl dropped into a genuine nervous one. He was not ready, not at all.

"Duh!" she rolled her eyes, "Humans grow up because of evolution. Our DNA just tells our body what to do."

"That's somehow true. And, nothing else? Not about certain curiosities?" he was mentally screaming at himself to shut up before his curious daughter asked what he was talking about.

"No, is there anything else?"

"Eat your fries, honey."

After they ate everything, Tony paid for his bill and he also told the waitress that he was paying for everything on the table with the family he saw. They left the place and Tony rode back home, happy that he bonded more with Primrose and had a good time with her.

June 25th

Primrose was sitting on her special television room, lying on the carpet with art supplies all splattered around her, working on her latest project as 'Planet Treasure' played as a background sound – even when Primrose occasionally said some of her favorite lines along as she drew.

The month was almost over and soon she'd return to New York. It's been almost a month and Primrose had to admit that she missed the city noise and going to the park to see her friends with her mom. Primrose wondered if her friends even remembered her, they've been so busy with school that they rarely saw each other during the school year.

Primrose hoped they haven't forgotten.

As she focused on finishing the last building, she looked at the line art of her work and smiled, she was satisfied with her drawing of New York City, now all she had to do was color it. When Primrose was thinking about how many hues the sky would have, she heard someone knock on the door of the room, startling her a little.

Expecting her dad or Pepper, Primrose was surprised to see Obadiah. She changed her position and sat on the carpet instead, smiling at him, "Hi, uncle Obie!"

The charming greet made Obadiah smile, "Hello kiddo, sorry to interrupt. Just passed by to say goodbye."

"You were here?" she asked, confusedly.

He nodded, "I came here to talk with your father, but I'm leaving now," he paused as he glanced down at her work, "Ah, another masterpiece from our artist?"

Primrose blushed, "I'm not done yet! You can't look!" she protectively hugged the paper to herself, earning a chuckle from the bald man.

"Don't worry I won't look. But I'm sure it's good. Starks are always geniuses when it comes to something, your father and grandfather are technology tinkers. You, well, are not."

That made Primrose's happy expression drop.

"Oh, don't worry about it!" Obadiah quickly adds, "Sorry, I didn't mean to make you feel sad about it. It just means that maybe you weren't made to be one."

"One?"

"I don't know, your dad probably has to find another heir to carry on with his legacy if you're not interested in his work. How will the company continue if their CEO doesn't even know the basics? Your dad was able to make a circuit board when he was four, what did you do?" he smiled at her, but Primrose was started to feel uncomfortable.

"I don't know," she replied, looking down at her drawing. Now, after hearing Obadiah, her drawing seemed to be the ugliest thing she has ever drawn. She no longer was proud of her work, all she wanted to do is trash it.

"Well," Obadiah seemed satisfied, "Don't think about it too much kiddo, I'm just an old man after all. Maybe you'll start tinkering soon, you might be a late bloomer," he ruffled her hair, but Primrose didn't move, "Goodbye Prim, see you another day." he didn't wait for her to reply as he left the room.

She dwelled on Obadiah's words for a moment, and all she could feel was an emptiness in her heart. What if Obie was right? Is she going to ruin her dad's industries? Scowling, she was about to rip her New York drawing when a sudden part of a scene from her favorite movie stopped her.

"Now, you listen to me, James Hawkins. You got the makings of greatness in you, but you got to take the helm and chart your own course. Stick to it, no matter the squalls! And when the time comes you get the chance to really test the cut of your sails and show what you're made of! Well, I hope I'm there, catching some of the light coming off you that day."

Coincidence or not, Silver's speech (and one of Primrose's favorite parts of the movie) seemed to have brought motivation back to the six-year-old. Her expression showed determination, so when she looked back at her drawing, she decided that she did like it – and she was going to color it in an amazing way, show it to her dad and mom, and continue on with many other drawings.

Obadiah was right, Starks are geniuses. So if she was going to be one, she was going to choose at what.