To no one's surprise, this chapter was late! But now it's here, so happy reading.

Tony was thinking.

Not just brainstorming thinking, but thinking thinking.

It was something he wasn't used to. Usually when he got an idea, it was only halfway to his brain before he was grabbing a pen for a new design. Perks of having a genius IQ. He never had to wait too long before something came to mind. He didn't "ponder" things. He didn't think deeply.

He had ridiculous, unpredictable, spontaneous ideas, and used them to his advantage at every interval.

As long as they didn't involve setting someone on fire, they were in the okay zone.

Cat, however, was something he needed to think about.

How had he gotten himself here, anyway?

He'd been snooping around SHIELD's files, for… uh, no reason in particular, of course, then was passing Natasha's when he noticed there was a new security measurement added to her page. A nasty one. All that hard work and dedication to block one paragraph…when he saw something like that, it was just bad manners to not hack into it.

He'd give SHIELD this— they had drastically updated their tech in the last few years. They had really amped up their security to block him from "browsing" through their info.

Anyway, it took him twenty whole minutes to break in and quickly skim it.

"Props to you, SHIELD."

He thought it was fake at first. That maybe some underpaid intern had hacked into SHIELD and typed it up as a joke.

Because there was no way in hell that Black Widow had a kid, right?

Well, Nat had been acting strange lately. She'd been more distracted than usual, constantly making up excuses and rushing off to someplace. Steve and Clint were less verbal questioning her about it. Yes, Tony actually noticed these things, despite that everyone thought otherwise. His guess was that she had turned to SHIELD again and was going on missions to ease her mind.

In the file, there was a photo of the girl. It must have been taken in the foster home she was at, because it was of bad quality and she looked young. He could make out blond hair and brown eyes. Tony could see the resemblance. Not in the colors, but the features. The hard line to her mouth and the determined set of her chin.

He called up Happy. "For reasons too complicated to explain, I need you to drive me to this address."

He took five long seconds to process this. "Boss, it's two am."

"Really?" Wow, time really flew when you were being productive.

"I'm going back to sleep."

"Tomorrow morning, then."

And then he had. He was planning on going to the school, finding out that it was all a joke, and spinning it all into a hilarious anecdote that he would tease Widow about.

Instead, he got… Cat.

Normally, Tony wasn't good with little kids. He wasn't a kid hater— mostly he thought they were innocently funny and just a tad bit needy. But it was difficult talking to kids for some reason. The height of his interactions with them were a simple autograph and a few awkward words were he was supposed to tell them to "follow your dreams" or whatever.

Cat was different. Maybe it was the fact that she reminded himself of a younger, blonde, more ADHD version of himself.

Intellect-wise, she was an adult trapped in a child's body. She spoke and acted like someone several years older. Not only was her vocabulary significantly larger than any other eight year old he had met, but she had clearly gone through hard times. Her face was too controlled, too tight and packed with hidden emotions. It was a face Tony knew well. He saw it every time he glanced in the mirror.

Tony was not at all, in every way, a man made of iron. His father had taught him that better than anyone. But through the constant betrayals, kidnappings, and traumatic near-death experiences, he'd learned to keep his head high and his shiny fake Tony Stark smile on. He kept his cool, insulted a few important people, and had a nice glass of champagne twice in a while.

(Because that, ladies and gentlemen, was called coping.)

Age aside, she was fun to banter with. Tony had never met someone who could come up with a snappy comeback in the blink of an eye as quickly as he could. They had only one conversation, but her wit gave Tony's a run for his money. It was like a wild, uncontrolled dance, and she was trying to step on his toes. He had to swerve and get out of the way, or find a way to defend them.

And when Happy drove away, Tony was left intrigued. Who was she?

He did a little snooping around, nothing too illegal(there was still the pirate to keep in mind), and came up with quite a few interesting things. Orphan at age six, diagnosed with ADHD, and had a bad rep with foster homes.

Maybe he was a little jealous of Cap and Katniss. Why did they get to know and not him? Wasn't he a part of the team as well? And there was no way he was letting the pirate know more about the girl than he did.

There was only one logical solution.

A FEW HOURS LATER(read in Spongebob voice)

Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-dong.

Cat dragged herself from the blankets on the floor with a groan. She checked the time. Four a.m. Who could be ringing the doorbell at four a.m? And why hadn't Natasha woken up before she had to open the door?

Ding-dong. Ding-dong.

She stumbled downstairs. She spotted all of her opened presents from the night before and went over to the pile. She picked out a loaded Nerf gun (just in case) and headed over to the door, the doorbell still ringing. She peered through the peephole.

"Jeez," she muttered. She yanked open the door, and shouted, "Have you never heard of proper doorbell ringing protocol?"

"Good morning to you too," Tony Stark said, not looking offended in the slightest, "I thought I was going to have to stand here forever."

Right. Tony Stark was standing on her welcome mat. She had to take a couple yoga breaths and tell herself, This is completely, utterly, one hundred percent normal. He was wearing a suit, his usual sunglasses, and holding a cup of coffee and for some reason, a box of chocolates.

"Chocolates?" he offered, holding out the box.

Cat took it wordlessly and set it down on the small table behind the door. Who was she to refuse chocolate? She was still pointing the Nerf gun at him.

"Coffee?"

She eyed it carefully. "Now you're talking to me on a spiritual level."

He just grinned. That stupid grin, she wanted to wipe it off his face. But he had bought her coffee...

Cat took the cup and downed it. When she finished the mug of goodness, she set it down with the chocolates. She wiped her mouth with her sleeve, suddenly feeling like Tony Stark was her most favorite person in the entire world. He had bought her coffee.

This couldn't be Tony Stark. Tony Stark did not barge into random children's houses after having kidnapping them from school. He didn't bring chocolates. The only explanation for him showing up at her door was that he was an imposter. Or maybe he planned on putting a bag over her head and kidnapping her again.

She was starting to sound like a broken record player, with all of her "oh my God I can't believe this is happening Tony Stark Iron Man billionaire really rich why is he doing this what is happening." She had made the executive decision to treat him like a normal person instead of a celebrity, but it was hard. Especially because every three seconds she'd look at him and think, I can't believe this is happening.

He didn't put a bag over her head. Instead he flashed an acre of teeth at her. "Also, surprise!" He did jazz hands. They didn't suit him.

"It's a little after visiting hours, Stark."

"Yeah, I noticed. Hence the 'surprise' part of my 'surprise,'" he added. "And I thought I told you to call me Tony."

"Is this," she waved her Nerf gun at him, "going to become a regular thing? If it is, next time can you pick up some paper towels while you're at it?"

"Paper towels?"

"Yeah, we're out. We're also out of Thin Mints, Kleenex, bubble wrap, lotion— Actually now that I think about it, we're out of everything. The only thing we have is disgusting kale and this expired brownie mix and Natasha doesn't trust me to not set the kitchen on fire after last time, so I can't even use that."

"Do you know who you're speaking to?"

"Pretty sure you told me to call you 'Tony.' Is that a yes to the paper towels?"

"I don't run errands. I leave that to the interns."

"Could your interns—"

He interrupted. "Is that a Nerf gun? Were you about to shoot me?"

Only if you were a bank robber. I mean, a house robber. Is that a thing? House robber? Natasha says it's also okay to accidentally on purpose shoot the snotty tax collector man but he hasn't come by yet so I don't know."

"You can put that down now. You know, since I'm obviously not the snotty tax collector man. Or a house robber."

She complied. "So it is a thing?"

"It is now." His eyes strayed to her left hand, which no longer had the torturous purple cast on it. "I see you've gotten the cast off," he said casually.

"Yep." She wiggled her fingers a little bit to showcase his point.

Two days earlier, she'd gone to see Dr. Matthews at the local hospital. They took an x-ray. Her arm had healed twice as early as they had expected it. The doctor deemed her all healed but suggested to not do any strenuous activities. Cat was okay with that; it gave her a week's free pass from PE.

He quirked an eyebrow at her in a way that might have been comical if the situation hadn't been so bizarre. "Are we just going to stand here?"

"How rude of me. Well, this was a nice conversation, but I'm going to close the door now."

She began to do so but he moved his foot just in time to wedge it between the doorframe. The door thudded against his shoes. He opened the door again, examining his shoe, which had the tiniest smidge of dirt on it.

"Now look what you've done. Is this what I get for coming over to your house bearing gifts? You ruin my shoes?"

"I'm sure you'll manage somehow." Like he didn't have another fifty-two hundred pairs of shoes he could wear to replace them. "I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you didn't come all the way here from your big fancy tower to say hi. So what do you want?"

"Maybe I did come here all the way from my fancy tower to say hi. Maybe I am just that wonderful."

"Answer the question or the door is gonna close, whether your foot is there or not."

"I see the familial resemblance now."

She began to close the door.

He moved his foot before it closed on it and reached for Cat's forearm. She saw it coming but wasn't prepared for the sudden movement. The vision of his fingers wrapping around her skin in an iron grip filled her with fear. Before he could touch her, she ripped her hand away from the doorknob like it had burst into flames.

"Don't," she warned loudly.

Stupid. She had switched from calm and relaxed to angry and defensive in 0.2 seconds, which had most likely freaked Tony out. She stood still now, her heartbeat loud in her ears.

He put his hands up, looking at her warily now and with a bit of surprise. "Okay. Okay. I didn't hurt you, did I?" he added as an afterthought.

He hadn't even touched her.

"No." It came out more aggressive than she had intended. "I mean, no, you didn't," she said in a slightly more amiable voice.

"Okay then. I shouldn't have touched you. That was my bad. May I come in?"

She paused, wavering. She wanted to amend her sharp tone by saying yes, but at the same time, he hadn't told her what he was doing here, so she wasn't sure if it was a good idea.

He paused, seeming to be deciding what to do. "You're having trouble deciding, so I'm going to rephrase myself. I'm coming in." He pushed past her and shuddered as he entered the room. "Jesus, it's cold in here."

Seeing that she had no choice but to let him in, Cat shut the door behind him.

Tony cranked up the heat, rubbing his hands together in satisfaction. "Much better. Hey, where's Romanoff?"

"Sleeping, probably."

"Lovely, lovely," he mused delightedly, ignoring her sarcastic tone.

She looked at him closer. "Why are you wearing sunglasses? It's dark outside."

"...reasons."

"Fine. Be like that."

"I will be like that, thank you." He strode over to the kitchen and pulled out a chair. "Have a seat, Cat," he said like he owned the place.

But since he had given her coffee, she obliged. "Why are you—"

Tony, however, remained standing. "Hold up, Miss Twenty Questions. Priorities first. Where's the food?"

Keep on avoiding the question it is.

"Look in the fridge."

He opened the door and his eyes lit up. "Ooh! Cake! What's the occasion?"

"It was my birthday yesterday."

He nearly dropped the plate. "It was your birthday? Why didn't you tell me?"

"We barely know each other. You don't tell a complete stranger when your birthday is."

"Yes, you do. You tell everyone when it's your birthday."

"Maybe you do. That's begging for attention." Cat looked at him. "Then again, I shouldn't be surprised."

Tony rifled through the cabinets for a fork, lifting up the plate with one hand, waiter style. "Touché." He set down the plate on the table and offered a fork to Cat. "Cake?"

"Thanks."

They didn't bother cutting into the cake. They both took a bite in unison. Cat's piece was smaller than Tony's. She'd learned the hard way that too much of it at once could give anyone a sugar crash.

Tony choked on his bite. "Dear Lord. This is what diabetes taste like."

Cat was already pouring two cups of milk.

Tony chugged down the entire cup in one go and gestured for more.

"It can't be that bad. Even Natasha didn't think it was that bad, and she drinks kale smoothies."

"Tell me where you bought that cake and I will sue the store."

"Steve made it."

"Of course he did," Tony said acidly. "Clearly they did things differently back in the forties. Cap can't cook anything except ramen. As a self respecting scientist, I know that you can't burn water, but he gives it his best shot."

There was another bout of silence before Cat remembered what she was about to ask him before he cut her off.

"Mr. Stark," she started, "I had one conversation with you, and suddenly you decide that we're BFF's? You come to the house, bribe me with chocolate and coffee. What do you want?"

"Let's just say," he began slowly, "I want to be the fun one."

"The fun one?"

"Yeah. You know, the fun rich uncle that lets you do whatever you want."

"That doesn't sound bad," Cat mused. "Other than the fact that it sounds completely insane. I barely know you."

"You're going to be seeing a lot of me, obviously. Frankly, I'm a little pissed at Natasha for not telling me you existed. We're a team, and not to brag or anything, but the 'Earth's Mightiest Heroes'. When we don't know stuff, you'd better bet that we're going to know stuff. Starting with secret relatives that the rest of us never knew existed. So I'm going to make a petty comeback, which means that you're going to have to work with me."

Cat looked at him blankly. "So you're going to… what, exactly?"

He paused, wondering. "I don't really know, but my gut is telling me that we have to start with food and work our way forward. Now, what do you have here that won't kill me before I hit fifty?"

"There are pizza rolls in the freezer," Cat offered, then realized how stupid that sounded. Who ate pizza rolls at four a.m.? "We also have Cheerios and gummy worms."

"That'd be grand. The pizza rolls, not the gummy worms." He took off his sunglasses, revealing his tired eyes, and slumped into a chair with all of the exhaustion of a middle-aged man in the midst of a midlife crisis. (Hey, try saying that five times fast.)

Cat hadn't expected him to agree, so she just sat there for a moment or two.

He lifted his head to look at her. "I'm a billionaire. You can't honestly expect me to microwave my own pizza rolls. Chop chop."

But before she could say anything to that, he shook his head and got up with a loud sigh. He made it look like it took a great deal of effort. "I'm totally kidding. That would be child labor."

Five minutes later, the kitchen was filled with the smell of pizza rolls.

There was something nice about being awake really in the early hours of the morning. It was quiet and calm and serene, which could almost fool you into thinking that it was going to be a quiet and peaceful day. They both sat at the table and ate food in comfortable amiable silence.

Cat was mulling over their conversation, replaying parts of words in her head. The idea that she might get to know Tony Stark on a regular day to day basis was baffling. The 'fun uncle'? What was up with that? She was also marveling at the fact that they could be talking about something serious, then switch to another topic in the conversation and keep the ball rolling like it was normal. How had they made the switch from the fun uncle to pizza rolls?

Tony chewed on a pizza roll thoughtfully. "This isn't bad."

Cat laughed.

"What?"

"It's just— I'm sharing pizza rolls with a billionaire for breakfast."

Tony looked perplexed. "We have to eat, too."

"I know. It's just funny."

"You're weird," he commented.

"You're weird."

"You're weirder."

"You're—"

"You don't do anything after school, right?" he asked abruptly, shifting from one position to another in the chair.

Startled by the question and the sudden change of topic, she could only say, "Huh?"

"Because if you don't," he said, raising his eyebrows expectantly at her, "you should drop by to the tower sometime."

Smooth, Tony thought to himself, real smooth.

"What?"

It wasn't that she was trying to be insulting, but the sheer lack of reality in his sentence made her words skeptical. Why would he want her to visit the tower? They hadn't even known each other for a full 24 hours! And now he wanted to spend time with her? Cat wanted to shout, "WE DON'T KNOW EACH OTHER!"

Most people would have stuttered and become uncomfortable, but Tony soldiered through. "You should drop by the tower sometime. You could help out in the lab. Like an intern. But not. Because I've got an intern already, his name's Peter and you'll love him. Kid just has a way of growing on you, you know? So you'll be a kind of... mini intern. Pre-intern? Huh, I don't think that's a thing."

"If you already have an intern, then why do you need me?"

He gave her an annoyed glance, like she was the one who was making no sense. "You think interns grow on trees, kid?"

"Maybe if you offered to intern a sapling—"

"No, they don't! That's because interns have lives, and even with their awesome new job they still have to do other things. Namely, not interning. But if you can be there, I won't have to go through the headache of phoning an intern every time I need someone to hold my blueprints up for me to see when my hands are full."

When he paused for breath, Cat took her chance.

"Tony."

"Yes, dearest Kitty-Kat?"

"Don't call me that," she growled fiercely. Only one person in her life got to call her that.

He raised his hands mockingly. "Aye-aye, captain. Ask your question."

"Why me?"

"Because Pepper's been badgering me to interview and find a new intern, and I've been putting it off because that kind of work takes a lot out of me. You know how hard it is to find a teenager that ticks every box? Not to mention, she's the CEO of the company so she's supposed to find people to help find people for me. But she won't, because she keeps on going on about how busy she is and since she only owns twelve percent I might as well— you know what? That was one comment I made and ever since then it's been coming back to bite me in the— well, you know what I mean."

Cat shook her head, still struggling to follow his train of thought. She had no idea what events he was referencing. "I still don't know what this has to do with 'why me?'"

"'Cause you're smart. You don't talk like the kids I've talked to. You've never had your IQ tested, but I bet if you did, they'd be off the charts. Probably has something to do with that photographic memory, right?"

"How do you know that?"

"I have my way of getting information," he said enigmatically. "AKA, I'm a hacker."

"Isn't that illegal?"

"Not if you're me. And since I am me, there's no problem with it."

"I think that the police would think otherwise. And I wasn't talking about that anyway. Isn't interning me illegal?"

"Technically, you're not interning for me. It's pre-intern, remember? You'll kinda just help around in the lab, talk about whatever you kids talk about with the others, memorize stuff for me. But speaking of the photographic memory, that is awesome. You know what you could do with that? You know how many people would kill for that kind of memory?"

Her eyebrows drew together. "Are you spying on me?"

He looked slightly affronted. "Spying? No. I don't do that. But I might've, maybe, exchanged a few words with your teacher."

"About me?"

He gave her a deadpan stare. "No, not about you. We had an exciting ten minute discussion about the mating habits of eastern box turtles."

"Alright, I get it," she said, glaring a little. "So, define 'a few words'."

"It was a little conversation, okay? Don't read too much into it. I asked a few questions, she told me interesting stuff, it was a normal thing. Just minor necessary investigating."

"Or," she pointed out, "you could've just, oh I don't know, asked me?"

"Not the point," said Tony, holding up a finger to halt her next train of thought. "What about it? Yes? Is that a yes? At least give me a definite maybe. Say, 'I'll definitely maybe consider it.'"

"I'll definitely maybe consider it."

"Then that's all I needed." Tony pulled out a Stark phone. The screen lit up when he brought it to his face to check the time. "Holy guacamole! Is it really 4:50 already? I should probably go before anyone comes down."

Cat looked at the clock, surprised at how quickly time had passed. And how not tired she felt. She felt like she'd been awake for hours.

Tony placed the phone on the table. "New model," he said casually, straightening his tie and pushing up his sunglasses. "Keep the phone, Cat. It's got my contact info in it. If you need anything, just give me a call. It's got Happy's number in it too, if you want to text him."

She grabbed the shiny new phone and ran a finger over the casing, hardly believing that it was real. It might've been the most expensive thing she'd ever had. "Niiiice."

He squinted at her suspiciously. "I don't hand things like this out willy-nilly, so I can trust you to not give the number to anyone else, right?"

"I'm not an idiot," she said scoffingly, then realized how rude that sounded. She normally didn't care, but just look at who she was talking to. "I mean, of course not, Mr. Stark." She gave him her best dimpled smile, the one with all the teeth.

"For the last time, it's Tony, or I'll keep on calling you Kitty-Kat. That seems to tick you off, doesn't it?"

"Bye, Tony," she said forcefully, getting up from her chair and prodding him forward.

"You haven't seen the last of me," he promised, before the door was opened for him and he was shoved out of it.

Cat shut the door. She stayed standing for a moment, her fingers still on the doorknob. Her fingers that she had used to shove Tony Stark out the door were slightly tingling, the sensation one gets after placing their fingers in fizzing soda. She was barely breathing, thinking what any sane person had to be thinking if they were in her shoes. She voiced her thoughts aloud.

"How the frick did that happen?"

Spoiler alert: she didn't use frick.

Two hours later, Natasha found Cat sitting at the table playing checkers with herself, head propped up by a hand. This wasn't an unusual sight, as Cat was always hyper and had trouble sleeping after given an excessive amount of sugar. Perhaps letting her eat as much of the chocolate cake as she wanted wasn't the best parenting choice of last night.

But it was her birthday, and her first celebration in a long time(Natasha could tell), so to hell with good parenting choices.

Cat looked up. Her eyes were awake and alert, which meant that she had at least gotten a fair amount of hours of sleep. Natasha could tell when she didn't, and it was most days. "Hi," she said, which was more of a greeting than Nat usually got. "We're out of paper towels."

"Oh?"

"And Kleenex."

"I'll ask Steve to drop by the store." The redhead pulled out a chair and sat down. She moved one of the red pieces and took two black checkers in a move.

"I saw that one coming."

"Why does it smell like pizza rolls in here?"

"Breakfast," she said dully, playing with the strands of her hair. She moved a black checkers and took one of the red pieces.

Natasha made a face, about to rebuke it with a harmless comment when she noticed something odd. "Then why are there two dirty plates?"

"Because Tony Stark was using the other one," she responded in the same monotone.

"Ha-ha," Natasha said, rolling her eyes.

"No, actually."

"That's hilarious, Cat."

"Suit yourself," she said, and went back to playing the game by herself.

Natasha took out her phone and checked her messages. A text from Steve.

Have you seen the news?

It was odd that he didn't just tell her outright. She frowned— then froze as she saw the headline on the news app.

It screamed STARK'S SECRET CHILD in all caps, with an unmistakable picture of Stark sitting in a car with a certain blond haired girl. She skimmed the few lines of text underneath, unsurprised to find that it was full of garbage. It had shady conspiracy theories, none actual facts or information. But the picture was a hundred percent real and completely undeniable.

This was bad. This was really bad. She needed to contact Director Fury. But not before she wrung Tony Stark's stupid neck and smacked the smug look off of his face. But before she did that…

"You're so dead," she started slowly, looking up to see that the girl was grinning nervously at her.

"In my defense, I did tell you."

"You couldn't have told me earlier?"

"It just sort of… slipped my mind."

"Oh, I bet it did." Nat glanced up. "Is that a Stark phone on the counter? God, he was here? As in, here this morning?"

Cat winced. "Um. Yeah."

"And you couldn't have lead with that?" she demanded.

She shrugged.

Natasha held up her phone, revealing the picture. "And what's with this?"

"It's kind of a long story…"

Hope this satisfied you guys. I'm going to stop promising to update quickly because I don't want to disappoint anyone, but I HOPE that the next chapter comes soon. Peter's coming up in the next chapter! Yay! (Or possibly the chapter after that chapter.) But yay!

I want to thank all my loyal reviewers for reviewing! Thanks for all the cc, the compliments, even some of the hate, though I haven't gotten a lot of that. I'm seriously looking back at chapter 1 and wishing that I did a lot of things differently. Thanks so much!