"This dream isn't feeling sweet

We're reeling through the midnight streets

And I've never felt more alone

It feels so scary, getting old"

- Lorde

Tony Stark wasn't impressed by a lot of things, but Daniela Barton had been a recent exception. He saw early on that she was incredibly gifted, although she still had a lot to learn. But what she lacked in technical terminology, she more than made up for by picking things up quickly. Danny wasn't afraid to ask him questions and was tedious when it came to following instructions.

Within three days, she had assisted him with finishing the plans for the flight stabilizers, even if she didn't dare touch his holographic table. "I don't want to be responsible for breaking that thing," she had said.

"You won't." He had assembled the blueprint and showed her how to weave her arm through the hologram, which followed her movements. The look of childlike wonder on her face was enough to warm the cold cockles of his heart. "Cool, right?"

Within another five days, they had finished the housing of the stabilizer prototype. Danny was helping him to clip the gauntlet wires to his chest bandolier when someone came down the staircase. "Up two… Alright, set that," he told Danny, looking up to see Pepper come in with a cup of coffee sitting on top of a small package.

"I've been buzzing you," she said. "Did neither of you hear the intercom?"

"Hi, Pep," Danny greeted, waving with a free hand. "Had our hands full."

"Yeah, everything's…" He lost his train of thought. Tony braced himself against the workbench as he and Danny simultaneously screwed the gauntlet to his forearm. To Pepper, he stuttered, "I'm sorry, what?"

"Obadiah's upstairs," Pepper answered, placing down the things in her hands. "What would you like me to tell him?"

"Great, I'll be right up."

"Is this what you two have been doing all week?" Pepper watched as Danny maneuvered around Tony, stepping beside her. She looked around at the mess in the workshop. "I can't believe – I thought you said you were done making weapons," Pepper chastised.

"It isn't," Tony said, lifting the gauntlet and extending his arm out. He pressed a button to activate the Repulsor Transmitter in the palm. "This… This is a flight stabilizer. It's completely harmless." The gauntlet powered up and he let a burst of RT from his hand – effectively throwing him onto the floor, knocking over a toolbox and sending wrenches flying. Pepper and Danny both flinched away. Tony pushed himself into a sitting position, sighing. Having the wind knocked out of him, he confessed, "I didn't expect that."

"I'm going back upstairs" was all Pepper said before turning on her heel and departing. Danny was at his side again, a mocking grin plastered on her face. "Too much thrust again, Mr. Stark?"

"Shut up and help me out of this thing."

The bandolier and gauntlet were removed in no time. Tony had the door open when he noticed Danny was still at the workbench. "Are you not coming up?"

"I don't want to intrude. Sounds like a grown-up issue," she responded without looking up at him. Danny reassembled the gauntlet, screwing the housing closed.

"Don't blow anything up," Tony said in stride.

"No promises," Danny said before he bounded up the stairs.

Reaching the main level, Tony was met by piano music. He watched Obadiah for a moment before asking him about his meeting. When he saw a box of pizza sitting on the coffee table, he knew the answer immediately. "Wow. It went that bad, huh?" He sat on the couch beside Pepper, opening the box.

"Just because I brought pizza back from New York doesn't mean it went bad," Obadiah said, continuing to play the keys.

"Uh-huh. Sure doesn't," he sighed. Tony picked out a slice. "Oh, boy."

"Would've gone better if you were there."

Tony took a bite, saying, "No. You told me to lay low, and that's what I've been doing. I lay low, and you take care of all the…"

Obadiah got up from the piano and took the steps. "Oh, come on. In public, the press." The ice in his glass clinked as he sat down beside him. "This was a board of directors meeting."

"This was –" Tony swallowed quickly, brows raising up on his forehead. "This was a board of directors meeting?"

"The board is claiming you have post-traumatic stress," Obadiah revealed. "They're filing an injunction."

Tony couldn't believe what he was hearing. They're filing – "A what?"

"They want to lock you out."

"Why, because the stocks dipped forty points? We knew that was gonna happen."

Pepper interjected, "Fifty-six and a half."

Tony turned to her, exasperated. "It doesn't matter. We own the controlling interest in the company."

"Tony," Obadiah started slowly, "the board has rights, too. They're making the case that you and your new direction isn't in the company's best interest –"

"I'm being responsible, that's a new direction? For me – for the company." Obadiah and Pepper just stared at him, and his face blanched. Tony stuttered out, "I mean, me on the company's behalf, being responsible for the way that… Oh, that's great." Slightly annoyed, Tony stood up abruptly and grabbed the pizza box. "I'll be in the shop."

"Hey, hey, hey. Tony, listen." Obadiah's voice was almost disappointed as he got up, grabbing the genius's shoulder. "I'm trying to turn this thing around, but you gotta give me something! Something to pitch 'em."

He continued when Tony didn't respond: "Let me have the engineers analyze that," Obadiah offered, pointing at the arc reactor on Tony's chest, "draw up some specs –"

"No," Tony answered immediately.

"It'll give me a bone to throw the boys in New York –"

"No, absolutely not. This one stays with me." Tony turned on his heel. If he had learned from anything, he was not going to let the arc reactor technology into anyone's hands but his. "That's it, Obie, forget it."

"Alright, well, this stays with me then." The box was snatched from his grasp. Tony's brows rose up on his forehead. Obadiah returned the look, before dropping it. He reached out with the box once more. "Go on, here, you can have a piece. Grab two, I hear the kid's downstairs."

Tony raised the slices up in thanks, but stopped short when Obadiah asked him, "What is she to you, Tony, some sort of charity ward?"

Defensively, Tony deliberately said, "The kid's name is Daniela, and she's part of the new direction of 'responsibility' that I was talking about." He turned back to the staircase, making a quick exit. "Quote me on that and tell it to the BODs."

Obadiah called after him, "Do you mind if I come down there to see what you're doing?"

"Good night, Obie," he called back in finality, already halfway down the stairs. When he returned from the workshop, Danny was laying down on the couch, scrolling through her phone. He handed her the pizza without a word and made a beeline to the flight stabilizer.

"You don't look very happy," she pointed out, taking a bite of the slice.

Tony plopped down into a seat, picking up a screw driver. "Nice observation, Sherlock."

With a mouth full, Danny mused, "I'm assuming it didn't go well, considering the consolation pizza –"

"Are you done?" Tony snapped, turning around in his seat to look at her. Danny gave a meek apology, almost shrinking into herself. He returned his focus to his tech, a thick silence blanketing them for a while.

It wasn't until later, when Tony asked for the small laser from the computer table, that he realized she had fallen asleep. Danny was curled up, her face buried in the cushion. Knowing that she had slept way less than he had over the last few days, he decided to leave her be. Tony grabbed the folded blanket from a chair and placed it over her, grabbing the laser and going back to the stabilizer.

Pepper came down a few minutes later. Tony held a finger up to his lips, signaling for her to be quiet. "Obadiah left," she said in a stage whisper, closing the door behind her. "I just wanted to see if you needed anything else."

"I'm good for the night," Tony whispered back.

"Should I wake her up?" Pepper asked, walking to the couch and sitting at the arm rest. She reached a tender hand to Danny, softening her rogue hair back.

Tony shook his head. "No, she's good. I'll get her before I head up." He turned fully in his seat, watching Pepper as she watched over Danny. He let a smile find its way to his face, saying, "She could definitely be mouthy sometimes, but she's a really good kid all things considered."

"It definitely hasn't been easy for her," Pepper agreed. For an unknown reason, Tony felt like she meant it in more ways than one. "Although I must admit, I am a little jealous of you."

"Please enlighten me," he grinned, placing his hands on his knees.

"I was her first foster mom, after her parents died. She didn't even speak for the first few months when I had her." Pepper got up, taking a couple of strides to stand a few feet from him. "I can see that you'd grown on her pretty fast. You both can bond over your sciences; it sort of makes me feel…" She trailed off, trying to find the words. "Replaced."

Tony looked at Pepper with disbelief in his eyes. "You are the most capable, qualified, trustworthy person I have ever met. You are not so easily replaceable."

Pepper gave a small smile, her eyes falling to the floor before she looked back up. "Will that be all, Mr. Stark?"

"That will be all, Ms. Potts," he told her, smiling.

Danny was beyond excited when she realized that the windows of the mansion could put up displays, which made it so much easier to search and file things away. Over the last month, she had been compiling articles about the facility and the things that affected her. Doing research on The Workshop had proven a lot of things for Danny. She proved that there was in fact something in New York that hid itself as a private research organization. She proved that there was a cocktail of unimaginable things running through her veins. She also proved that Tony's network archives were vast and far-reaching. Files on 'Captain America' and redacted SSR files kept coming back from her investigations, but not as much as the name 'Dr. Bruce Banner.'

He was a scientist from Culver University that volunteered to try the army's recreated Super-Soldier Serum back in 2005. News articles and previously broadcasted conferences over the last few years showed that he was greatly marred by its side effects. It was obvious that science was not kind to him, being as he had radiated and turned into a large, green hulking thing. The experiments that Reddik had subjected her to were done in an attempt to recreate his transformation; she was grateful it didn't succeed in the way he had imagined.

"JARVIS, pull up the last time Dr. Banner was spotted." Danny carefully took a seat at the foot of her bed, facing the display expanded across the clear window. She watched as video clips appeared alongside the front pages of many newspapers. The timestamps and print dates revealed them coming from more than a year ago. Incredulous, Danny muttered under her breath, "How can a green giant hide from the world for so long?"

Bruce Banner was… Danny could only describe him as 'incredible.' He was incredibly intelligent (evidenced by his many degrees and contributions to the scientific realm). Danny was no doubt fascinated by him – the man underneath the green exterior. He could teach her how to further control what she recently started calling the Sharp One, the split personality that came from the very recesses of her own mind. It was obvious that Banner was the only person alive that could possibly understand their mutually disastrous conditions.

And then, her mind did begin to wander. It was the curly hair, the kind brown eyes, the perfect cupid's bow of his lip. Danny's eyes took in the details of his photos; she hated to admit that he was incredibly attractive. She's had her fair share of celebrity crushes, stars and public figures alike; hell, she could admit that Tony was handsome in his own right. But Bruce Banner was something else entirely.

Suddenly, Danny saw a streak of silver off in the distance. Through the window, she watched as the flying humanoid figure approached the cliffside mansion over the water. It wasn't until it zipped past her window that she realized it was actually Tony in the Mark II suit that she had been helping him with. Danny began waving away the displays at the window when her ceiling abruptly caved in. She let out an unintelligible scream, her heart pounding in her chest. As she tried calming her heart rate, she noticed the gaping hole in the floor.

Danny approached the edge of the gap cautiously. Looking up through the ceiling, she was shocked to see the dark sky sprinkled with glittering stars. Sounds caught her attention below, the spraying of a fire extinguisher and numerous car alarms. Danny peered over the edge, seeing the piano in the foyer smashed to pieces and a hole going through to the garage. The silver suit was staring back at her from two stories below.

"Tony!" she called down, concern filling her bones. "Tony, are you okay?" Figuring that he probably couldn't even hear her, Danny threw a sweatshirt over her tank top and made her way down the spiraling staircase. She stopped at the first level briefly, sadly.

Damn, did she love that piano. More specifically, she loved hearing Tony play the most beautiful pieces on the most random nights. She carefully tiptoed past the fragments of the instrument, pausing for another moment to sigh, before sprinting down the stairs again.

Danny had unlocked the glass door to the workshop by the time Tony attempted to sit up on his own. Catching her breath, Danny walked up to him, sprawled across the damaged hood of his now-totaled Shelby Cobra. She asked him, "Please explain to me how you fell through the entire length of your house."

His voice was robotically tinged as it came through the suit: "I knew the armor was heavy, but this was a minor miscalculation." The face plate of Tony's helmet flipped open, revealing the pale face of the billionaire genius. Danny noted a reddening scratch on his eyebrow. A small smirk was growing on his lips. "Also," he added, "I accidentally discovered an icing problem."

It was slow going, but Tony made an attempt to get to his feet, straining against the weight of the suit of armor. Before repercussions had even crossed her mind, Danny reached for his metal-clad forearm and assisted with pulling him off the smashed car and to his feet easily, glass shards crunching. The girl mentally kicked herself, in disbelief that she'd let it slip so easily.

Fuck.

She immediately let go, as if electricity had shot up her arm, upon seeing the look of both shock and confusion on the raven-haired man's face. Tony questioned her, giving the short blonde a full onceover, "Am I tweaking? How in the living hell did you just do that?"

Danny opened her mouth to muster a lie, to continue her charade of being a girl who wasn't exposed to the horrors of others' will of wanting to play God. The Sharp One was in her head, encouraging the deceit, and Danny pushed it to the back of her mind. She knew Tony deserved more than hidden secrets. He had opened his home to her, and he himself had opened up to trust her. And she wanted to trust him, too.

"Tony, I haven't…" Danny cleared her throat, feeling the uncomfortable dryness of her mouth. She shrunk under Tony's scrutiny. What would he do once he realized she's been hiding things from him? Yell at her, kick her out? Would he attack her? Hoping to avoid the worst, she suggested, "Let me help you out of the suit."

Every time the opportunity had previously presented itself for Danny to bring it up to him, she would chicken out. Real bad. More than anything, she feared his reaction. It had been eating her up inside since the very beginning, because Tony was slowly becoming someone she looked up to, someone she confided in, someone whom she cared for. For the first time in years, she didn't want to be the reason that could sever one of the only good things in her life.

When Tony was clear of the suit, the lingering tension was almost thick enough to cut with a knife. She hesitantly handed him an ice pack to nurse his head. Danny fidgeted with her hands as Tony finally said, "Are you going to tell me what's up, kid?"

And so, she did, reluctantly. Danny told him about The Workshop and the medieval experiments, the serums and the surgery; he had barely said anything since she began speaking. But she omitted the presence of the Sharp One and all the bodies they left behind. When she was done, Danny searched Tony's face. It was stoic, unreadable. He got up and walked past her without a word, only stopping to place a hand on her shoulder momentarily. Despite feeling a pang of guilt in her chest, she knew that they both needed some time to process.

She didn't sleep well that night.

A/N: and i oop

Updates might be somewhat sporadic in the future. Classes have started up for me again, but I have sooo many ideas for this story! Please leave a comment and hit that kudos!