Dani was halfway down the stairs to the workshop, when the windows suddenly exploded.
Some sort of weapon had gone off, and broken glass was now covering the floor.
She cautiously continued down the stairs, and stared at her dad. He was wearing a hand repulsor, and breathing heavily. "Dad?"
He turned to look at her, and she took a small step back at the hardness and anger in his expression.
She had never seen him like this before.
He took a deep breath, and his expression softened. "What are you doing up?"
"I couldn't sleep."
"Nightmare?"
She nodded, chewing her bottom lip nervously. "What are you doing? Why are you mad?"
"I'm mad because people have been lying to me, and taking advantage of me. They've been using my weapons to hurt other people."
"Oh."
That all seemed very big.
She stared at the hand repulsor.
"What are you going to do?"
He heaved a sigh, and looked down at his gloved hand. "Hopefully the right thing. But not before I take you back to bed. Give me a sec, alright?" He walked to the workbench, and removed the glove. "Jarvis, get the suit ready."
"Of course, sir."
He walked back over to her, and took her hand. "Do you want to talk about this nightmare?"
She shrugged, and looked down at her feet, as they went back up to her room. "You left and never came back."
Her dad's grip on her hand tightened slightly. "Let me tell you something." He picked her up and deposited her on the bed, before kneeling in front of her, and taking her hands. "I can't promise anymore, that that's not going to happen. I wish, more than anything, that I could. But I think we both know that I'd fall short. I can promise, though, that I'll always do my best to come home, alright? I will always fight like hell to get back to you. You, little miss, are my guiding star. I told you that you kept me going, while I was taken. And that's because you're my star. When the sky gets dark, and I don't know how to get home, I think about you and I see my path." He smiled slightly, and chuckled lightly. "You're my yellow brick road."
She giggled. "Does that make you the cowardly lion or the tin man?"
He grinned at her. "Well let's see...definitely the tin man. Now come on. Sleep time."
She crawled underneath her covers, and looked up at him. "Are you going to do something about the people who are hurting others?"
He leaned against the bed, and looked at her thoughtfully. "I am. Which means, I'm probably not going to be here when you wake up, alright? But don't panic. Pepper will be around, and if you want to talk to me, just tell Jarvis and he'll connect us."
"You'll be sa-" she stopped herself, remember his words. "You'll be careful, right?"
He nodded. "I'll try to be, yeah."
She brought her hand up, and stuck her pinky out to him. "Make it official."
He wrapped his pinky around hers. "There. Now try and sleep." He brushed her hair from her face, and kissed her forehead. "I love you."
"I love you too."
Dani watched him leave, and wrapped her arms around her stuffed ewok. "Jarvis?"
"Yes, Dani?"
"Please take care of him tomorrow."
"Absolutely."
. . .
Just as he had said, her dad wasn't home when she woke up.
She checked his room and the workshop, and then wandered to the kitchen and dining room.
A covered plate was waiting for her on the counter, with a note signed from her dad.
To the moon and back.
A smile grew on her face, even more when she removed the cover and saw crepes piled on the plate.
"I could get used to this."
"Your father wanted me to remind you not to forget about your science project," Jarvis said.
"I'll do it." Dani grabbed the powdered sugar and syrup, and carried everything over to the couch. "Turn on Disney Channel, please."
"I see you'll be having a productive morning, then."
Dani settled into the middle of the couch, and began to eat, switching her attention between her plate of crepes and "Wizards of Waverly Place". "What my dad doesn't know won't hurt him. I'll get busy after breakfast. Dad's still alive, though, right?"
"Yes."
"Good. Keep him that way."
. . .
It wasn't until midday, when her dad flew into the workshop, and landed heavily on the ground.
Dani looked up from the model rocket she was building, and stared at him in shock. At first glance, nothing looked different, but the more Dani stared, the more she realized that the suit had taken damage. There were holes in the armor, and the chest plate was cracked.
"What happened?"
Her dad pulled his helmet off, and set it on the table, before walking to the center of the shop. "Took care of the bad guys, and ran into the US air force. Jarvis, lift me up, let's get this thing off."
Dani walked closer to him, as the floor opened and raised him up, so that the robotic arms could set to work on removing the armor.
Dummy and U hurried over to help.
"Daddy!"
"What? Dani, I'm alive. I'm fine. The armor did it's job and protected me."
"You look like you could have been killed."
"I could have, hey!" He jerked away from a robot. "Ow! Ow, ow, ow, ow."
"It is a tight fit, sir," Jarvis commented.
"Hey." Her dad pulled his arm back.
"Sir, the more you struggle, the more this is going to hurt."
"Be gentle. This is my first time."
Dani didn't have a clue on what to say, or do. All she could do was stare at the scene, with her mouth open slightly.
"I designed this to come off, so -ow! Hey! I really should be able to..." he lifted a leg, and tipped back slightly, trying to pull an arm and leg free at the same time.
"Please try to move, sir."
"What's going on here?" Pepper asked.
Dani turned to see her walking into the shop, wearing an expression of shock and confusion.
Her dad froze, and slowly turned his head to look at Pepper. "Let's face it. This is not the worst thing you've caught me doing?"
"Are those bullet holes?"
"It's actually a rather amusing story," her dad tried to explain passively, turning away so that he could focus on what the arms were doing. "I think you'll enjoy it."
"Tony, what are you doing? What is...what is the suit for?"
"My weapons are still being sold, and people are suffering because of it. Innocent people are dying. Kids are dying. Ow!" He managed to pull his right hand free. "So, I'm using the suit to destroy the weapons and stop the terrorists." He used his hand to help the robots remove the armor from his left hand.
"You were the training exercise, weren't you?"
"What's that?"
"Rhodey's press conference."
"Ah. He went with that, did he? Yeah. That was me."
"Tony-"
"Look, can we do this later? I need to fix this up." He managed to get his legs free, and the platform lowered.
Pepper stared at him in shock, then scoffed and turned on her heel to leave the shop.
"Alright, squirt, you wanna help me with this? How's your rocket coming?"
Dani still didn't know how she was supposed to be reacting. Everything seemed so big and complicated.
"Earth to Dani, are you with me?"
She slowly turned to look at him, and nodded. "My rocket is almost done."
"Cool deal. You wanna help me fix this?"
Dummy and U had carried the top half of the armor over to the work space, and connected it to chains to keep it up.
"Are you going to keep doing this?"
"Doing what?"
"Chasing bad guys."
He shrugged, and sat down in front of the armor. "I don't know. Probably. At least until I know that my weapons aren't hurting anyone anymore."
"But you'll get hurt."
"I'll be fine. The armor protects me." He sat down on the stool, and began to examine the chest plate. "Can you get me the wrench?"
She handed him the tool, and watched him work for a few minutes, her hands fidgeting with each other. "The tin man doesn't have a heart."
"Hmm?"
"In the story, the tin man doesn't have a heart. It couldn't love."
He glanced over his shoulder at her. "Where are you going with this?"
"You can't be the tin man, because you have a heart."
He laughed lightly, and turned back to his armor. "He gets a heart in the end, right?"
"Yeah, I guess."
"Come closer, I need your small hands." He moved over slightly, so that she could stand next to him. "Alright, I need you to hold this, okay?" He placed her hand on a bolt inside the armor. "Keep it still."
"I love you, daddy," she said quietly.
"I love you too."
They spent hours working on the suit together, until it somewhat resembled how it originally looked.
"Hey. You busy?" Her dad asked a few hours later, looking at Pepper who had walked back into the shop. "You mind if I send you on an errand?" He stood, and dropped the two tools he had been using, on the table. "Keep tightening that," he added to Dani, who moved to where he had been, in order to get a better angle on the suit. "I need you to go to my office. You're going to hack into the mainframe, and you're going to retrieve the recent shipping manifests. This is a lock chip. This will get you in. It's probably under executive files. If not, they put it on a ghost drive, in which case you need to look for the lowest numeric heading."
"And what do you plan to do with this information, if I bring it back here?"
"Same drill. They've been dealing under the table, and I'm going to stop them. I'm going to find my weapons, and destroy them."
"Tony," Pepper sighed. "You know that I would help you with anything, but I cannot help you if you're going to start all of this again."
"There is nothing except this," Tony said firmly, and Dani went still, slowly lowering the wrench she was using. "There's no art opening. There is no benefit." His voice rose in volume and pitch. "There is nothing to sign. There is the next mission and nothing else."
Dani turned to look at him.
She had never heard her dad talk like that before.
"Is that so?" Pepper asked quietly. "Well, then, I quit." She tossed the lock chip onto the table, and turned to leave.
Dani was about to protest, but her dad beat her to it.
"You stood by my side all these years, while I reaped the benefits of destruction," he said, his voice low. "And now that I'm trying to protect the people that I put in harm's way, you're going to walk out?"
"You're going to kill yourself, Tony. You're going to die, and Dani is going to be left alone without you. Think about that." Pepper said from the door. "I'm not going to be a part of it."
Tony sat down, and looked at Dani for a few seconds. "I shouldn't be alive." He looked down. "Unless it was for a reason. I'm not crazy, Pepper. I just finally know what I have to do. And I know in my heart, that it's right."
Pepper sighed shakily, and walked back over to pick up the chip. "You and Dani...you're all I have left too, you know." She offered a smile and a small nod, and left the shop.
They sat in silence for a few moment, Dani mildly nervous to move to talk. Her heart was pounding now, especially as she went over everything that she had heard.
"Jarvis, order us some pizza, the usual."
"Yes sir."
"I kind of wish you hadn't been here for that conversation," her dad muttered.
"Me too." She looked at him, her hands fiddling with the wrench she was still holding. "I don't want you to do this, daddy."
"I don't have a choice. People are suffering because of me, and I need to fix that."
She knew that she couldn't argue with that, but she wanted to anyway. It was selfish thinking, but she didn't want her dad dying for the sake of other people. She needed to get out of the shop, and back to her room. She needed to process and think about everything. "I have to go do some history homework."
"Dani-"
"And I'm not hungry, so you can eat without me." She put her tools down, and tried to walk away from the area, but her dad placed himself in front of her.
"Tell me what you're thinking."
"No." She tried to push past him. "I don't want to."
"I'm not going to be mad."
She stopped trying to get past him, and sighed. How was she supposed to express her thoughts, without sounding selfish?
"I don't want you to save other people, if it means that you die."
"I'm not going to die, Dani."
"You said you can't promise that."
"I know I did. I know." He sighed heavily, and got down to his knees. "Somebody has to do this. Somebody has to make the sacrifice and protect those who can't protect themselves."
"Why does it have to be you?"
"I don't know. But if I don't do it, then nobody else will. I don't want to do this, any more than you and Pepper want me to. I'm just as scared and worried, but sometimes we have to be brave, and do things that scare us." He reached up, and gently thumbed away tears that were beginning to slide down her cheeks. "Do you understand?"
She hated it, but she understood it. Or at least she tried to. "Yeah."
"Come here," he pulled her into a hug. "We'll figure this out as it comes, alright? And I will always do my best to come home to you. Do you believe me?"
She sniffed, and wrapped her arms as tightly as she could around him. "Yeah."
"Good." He tightened his arms around her. "Now, are you really not hungry, or were you just saying that because you were mad at me?"
"I was just saying that," she mumbled.
He laughed, and his chest rumbled against hers. "That's what I thought." He pulled away, and wiped her cheeks and hair away from her face. "Come on. Let's go eat. The Pizza should be here soon."
"It is en route, sir," Jarvis announced.
"Excellent." He stood, and took her hand. "I'm starving."
Dani wasn't completely settled on the idea of her dad risking his life, but she believed that he was doing what he thought was right, and that he would do his best to always come back home to her.