Ava shook her head. "No, he never held me there against my will. I chose to stay in Stark Tower."

The lawyer tilted her head. "He never held you against your will? Even when you first 'stayed' with him?"

Ava shook her head again. "Never."

The lawyer had a strange grin on her face. "After Mr Stark was taken into custody, we were able to requisition audio files from the past year in Mr Stark's residence. This particular clip caught our attention."

She held up a clicker, and pointed it at the tv that had been wheeled into the room. She pressed play, and motioned for everyone to stay silent. The voice that came out of the speakers was undeniably Tony Stark's. "Jarvis, I want that room on lockdown. Our guest isn't to leave, okay?"

The AI responded in a calm voice. "Sir, isn't that akin to kidnapping?"

Tony's voice responded, slightly grouchy. "Just do it."

The lawyer cut off the feed, and turned back to Ava with one eyebrow raised. "Does that sound like a consensual situation to you?"

Ava shrugged. "Tony had good reason to believe that I was a danger to myself." She paused, and closed her eyes for a moment to take a deep breath. Then she peered up at the lawyer. "When Tony found me, it was right after I'd jumped off of a bridge. If you listened to the other sound bits, you'd know that I wasn't entirely stable at the time, and was willing to endanger myself. He was saving my life by keeping me there. And it was only for a day. After that, I was there entirely by choice."

The lawyer stared at Ava. "First you said that you were never held there against your will. Now you're saying that you were held against your will for a day. Next thing we know, you're going to be saying that it was only a week you were held against your will."

Tony's lawyer stood up. "Objection! Leading the witness."

The judge nodded. "Sustained." He looked at the lawyer. "Please, continue."

The lawyer looked back at Ava. "So, I just wish to be perfectly clear. The first time you ever stepped into Tony Stark's home, was it of your own free will?"

Ava blinked as she considered the question carefully. The first time she'd been brought to the tower, it was while she was unconscious. After that, the first time she had left had been on a walk, and she had then returned easily enough. So the first time she had actually stepped into the tower had been completely her choice. If the lawyer had just asked about her first time being there in general, then Ava would have been stumped.

She smiled gently, and nodded. "Yes. The first time I stepped into the Stark Tower, it had been only because that's where I wanted to be."

The lawyer frowned, but she couldn't argue against how genuine the kid sounded. She cleared her throat. "Do you believe that Mr Stark had the right to take guardianship of you, despite the fact that your parents had no knowledge of your interactions with him?"

Ava nodded again. "Tony had every right to take me in, and he did it out of the kindness of his heart. My parents were terrible parents. I don't know if anyone's mentioned it yet, but it's true. I practically starved to death under their so called 'care', and when I was hospitalized from a car accident, all my mother would say to me is that I should have done a better job of dying. That's when I got the bright idea to jump off a bridge. Then Tony took me in, like my own personal savior. He gave me something worth living for: a home, and a family. A place where I knew that there was always going to be people who care about me."

The lawyer looked a little shocked at that confession. "So you're saying that your birth parents abused you, which led to you being taken in by Stark?"

Ava shrugged. "When there was no one else in the entire world who cared, Tony did." She took a deep breath, and shot Tony an apologetic glance before she continued on. "Besides, Stan and Marge Bench are not my birth parents. Tony Stark is my biological father."

There was a sudden uproar from the audience, and the judge had to bang his gavel several times to get them to quiet down a little bit. The lawyer, clearly taken aback, had to clear her throat a few times before continuing on with her questioning. "What makes you say that?"

Ava reached into her pocket slowly. "A journal my mother left behind. She wrote that I was a… test tube baby, made partly by Tony Stark's DNA. When she got very pissed off by Stark, she decided that she would punish him by taking me away. I guess she didn't take into consideration how much work goes into actually raising a child." She pulled out the pages that she had torn from the diary, and handed them to the attorney. "Here's the pages. And if you want to conduct a DNA test, I'm more than willing to provide a sample."

Tony stared up at the witness stand in shock. He felt like his entire world was just spinning around, even more so than usual. He peered over at Pepper, but she appeared to be as nonplussed as he was. She looked at him curiously. "Is she just pulling all of this out of her ass?"

Tony shrugged. "I literally have no idea." He looked up when he realized that the judge had been talking to him. "Mr Stark, are you willing to undergo a DNA test?"

Tony's lawyer shook his head. "If this almost believable story turns out to be true, then they'll be able to pin you with a motive. Birth parents often are found guilty of kidnapping their own children."

Pepper made a noise of disagreement. "If Ava really is somehow Tony's kid, then that means the Bench's kidnapped her in the first place, so all Tony did is guide her back to her rightful home."

Tony frowned thoughtfully. "How long do you think Ava's been sitting on this little nugget of information?"

Pepper shrugged. "Well, if those pages really are from the journal, then she's probably known ever since the two of you recovered that little book."

Tony sighed. "What do you think I should do?"

Pepper shrugged again. "This is really a decision that you need to make, Tony."

The judge cleared his throat impatiently. "Any time now, Mr Stark."

Tony nodded. "Alright. Do the test. What the hell."