It was storming, thick raindrops pelting against the window as flashes of light lit up the room as Tony Stark had a restless sleep, tossing and turning. He woke up, startled when the loud noise of thunder boomed across the sky, making him sit up.

He lets out a deep breath he had been holding in as he starts to breathe heavily trying to calm himself down. He rubbed his face, wondering whether it was the storm or the nightmare he was having that woke him up, he wasn't sure. He looks at the clock on the table next to his bed to see it was two in the morning.

The nightmares have been ongoing ever since the attack of New York, when he flew into the wormhole, not knowing whether he would make it out or not. His PTSD is better than it used to be, from having nightmares every night to every once in a while. Tonight, was one of those nights.

He turns his head towards Pepper who is still sleeping peacefully next to him, that woman can sleep through anything. Smiling to himself he leans and presses a soft kiss to her head before he lifts the duvet off himself and gets out of bed, knowing he won't be able to go back to sleep.

He treads down the hallway towards the kitchen, rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he sees the lights on in the kitchen. That's funny, He was sure he turned them off.

He walks through the door to the kitchen, stopping in his tracks when he sees a young girl with a bowl of cereal in her hands sitting at the bench. He takes a moment to just stand there and process what was going on as he watches her shovel the spoon in her mouth.

Her clothes were wet, meaning she hadn't gotten there that long ago, her long brown hair, almost black, falling straight down her back. She had on a grey hoodie with black sweat pants. She had a bruise forming on her cheek and dried blood coming from her nose where she had tried to wipe it away.

She turns her head and looks at him as she shoves another spoonful into her mouth. She sits there staring at him with a blank face, not seeming a bit fazed that she had been caught while she eats his food.

"Pepper? Why is there a teenage girl eating our food?" He calls out to Pepper, knowing very well that she most likely won't be able to hear him. She sits there still staring at him, not saying a word before she looks down at her cereal and keeps eating.

"Okay, let me try again," he mutters under his breath before asking. "How did you get in?"

This time she opens her mouth to speak for the first time. "Word of advice, I'd get a better locking system if I were you, I mean, you wouldn't want the wrong people getting in,"

He sighs, crossing his arms over his chest. "That doesn't answer my question,"

"I hacked in," she shrugs her shoulders as if it was nothing.

Tony raises his eyebrows. "You? Hacked into my system? What are you, fourteen?"

"Sixteen actually,"

"Oh," he says sarcastically, as if that makes it even better, "so what is a sixteen-year-old like you doing breaking into my tower? Is it money you want? Because kid I know I'm a billionaire but I'm not ready to share,"

She rolls her eyes at him, he is so up himself, it's pathetic. She decides to play with him. Why not have a little fun? She puts her bowl down and stands up from the chair. "Oh my god I am like, your biggest fan, I love you so much, can I have your autograph?" she says in a high voice sounding like a fangirl.

Tony furrows his eyebrows, feeling a bit offended "Why am I getting the feeling you're being over the top sarcastic right now?"

She fakes a confused look "what? how did you know?"

"Honey, I invented sarcasm,"

She rolls her eyes before she becomes serious "I just...," she wanders off, becoming serious before she keeps talking. "I need a place to stay,"

"To stay? I know that I'm a superhero that you think you can come to but this is below my paygrade kid, I can call the police if you want? I'm sure they will help you,"

Now she is getting frustrated and a little nervous, why doesn't she just spit it out, rip it off like a band-aid, nice and quick, maybe this was a bad idea in the first place? Why did she come here? She wishes she had turned around and left when she had the chance. Maybe she should leave? But where would she go?

"Kid, where's your mom?" Tony brings her out of her thoughts.

She looks down trying to keep her voice even. "She died a little over a year ago, from cancer,"

"Oh," he didn't know what to say to that, that he's sorry? He's sure she's heard enough of that. "And…what about your Dad?" he asks carefully.

"That's actually why I'm here," she says as her breathing starts to quicken.

A confused look comes across his face as he looks at her, not saying anything. He wasn't prepared for what came out of her mouth next.

This is it, it's now or never. "I'm your daughter, Tony"

This was like another one of his nightmares, he often thought about the decisions he made years ago and hoped it wouldn't come back to bite him. Looks like it just did. He decides to play it off as a joke. He begins to laugh as she gives him a frown. "Good one kid, you're real funny, you know that?"

Angry tears well up in her eyes, she knew she shouldn't have come. "This isn't a joke Tony,"

His face drops immediately, seeing the tears in her eyes. She's either a really good actor, or she's not joking. Well, shit. His breathing quickens as does his heartbeat, which feels like could jump out of his chest at any moment. He won't have a panic attack, not now, not in front of her.

"Um, right. Okay, would you just give me a minute?" he asks without giving her enough time to answer he turns around and heads out the door.

"Uh, sure," she says before she turns back to her food and continues eating.

xxx

He walks back down the hall towards his room and once he reaches it, he slams the door behind him as he leans up against it and slides down onto the floor.

The Slam of the door awoke Peppa as she rolls over to turn on the lamp on the bedside table, squinting at the bright light. "Tony?"

When she doesn't get an answer, she hops out of bed and sees Tony sitting on the floor with his head in his hands. She walks over to him and kneels down in front of him, cupping his face in her hands to make him lookup. "Tony, what's wrong?" she asks, then waits for him to calm down before answering, she knows she needs to give him time and be patient.

"Th-there's a sixteen-year-old g-girl in our kitchen, and she's claiming that she's my d-daughter," he stutters out as tears well up in his eyes as he lets out some deep breaths.

Pepper sits in front of him stunned as her hand comes up to cover her mouth. She doesn't know what to say, she's lost for words.

He looks up at her. "You don't think she's lying, do you?"

"What would be her reason for lying?" Pepper questions.

"Oh, I don't know Pepper maybe the fact she could be after money, and I happen to have lots of it,"

Pepper rolls her eyes and frowns at him. "What was her name?"

"I don't know, I didn't ask her"

"You didn't ask her?" she repeats "Isn't that the first question you should be asking?"

"No, I was too busy freaking out about the fact that, you know, I might have a daughter that I didn't know about for the last sixteen years to ask her,"

Pepper thinks for a moment. "Okay, what we're gonna do is go out there and talk to her, get some more information, okay?"

"Okay," he says as Pepper grabs his hands and pulls him up off the floor before she drags him back to the kitchen.

When they walk back in, they see she has moved from the kitchen to the living room, reading a magazine, while she had her dishes all piled up on the sink. Wow, she's really making herself feel at home.

When she sees Pepper and Tony, she sits up straight and throws the magazine to the side as they sit on the couch in front of her.

They sit there for a few awkward moments, no one knowing what to say or how to start.

"Hi, I'm Pepper," Pepper starts off, introducing herself.

"Emilia," she responds as she looks between them.

"It's nice to meet you, Emilia," Pepper smiles before she glances at Tony then back to Emilia. "so, you say your Tony's daughter, who told you that?"

"My mom," she answers.

This is where Tony decides to step in. "And, who is your mom?"

"Her name was Scarlett Anderson,"

Recognition flashed in Tony's eyes as he nods, then furrows his eyebrows. "you said she died of cancer?"

She replies by nodding her head as she looks down at her hands, fiddling with them. A sad look crosses his face as he closes his eyes.

Emilia's hand goes to the pocket of her pants, as she remembers what she had stuffed in there. She slides her hand in and pulls out the crumbled-up piece of paper she had in there as she opens it up and tries to straighten it out, making sure it was still readable. She reaches her hand out to hand it to him.

"She wrote me this note for when she died, it's how she told me you are my father,"

Tony takes the note from her hands and begins to read. The whole room is silent while they wait for him to read, you could hear a pin drop. Tears form in his eyes as he finishes reading, blinking them away as he carefully folds the note up, then hands it back to Emilia.

"I'm really sorry for just showing up here like this, but I don't have any other family and I didn't want to go into the foster care system," she tells them.

"Where have you been for the past year then?"

"On the streets," she shrugs, embarrassed. "as I said, I wasn't going to go into the foster care system,"

"And, why didn't you come to me earlier?"

"Well, let's just say I'm not exactly your biggest fan, but I got desperate," she tells him honestly.

He tried to hide the offended look on his face, but she saw it, not that she cared. This is the guy that use to be a playboy, he's selfish and arrogant, thinks he's all high and mighty because he's a superhero. Thinking the whole world revolves around him, he even thinks he owns it. This is the stuff she wants to tell him, but she knows she shouldn't, so she bites her tongue.

Before Tony can get a remark out, Pepper steps in. "So, what your saying is, you want to stay here, with us?" she asks.

Emilia nods.

"Okay, Tony and I are just going to have a conversation down the hall, okay? We will be right back,"

"Okay," she says as she lies back on the couch.

Tony and pepper walk out into the hall, far enough so they know Emilia can't listen in. They turn toward each other, saying nothing for a few moments to give them time to think.

"How are you feeling about all this," she asks him.

"Like a dream, I'm still having trouble believing I'm actually awake," He runs his hand over his face.

"Just by looking at her. I don't think she's lying, Tony, she looks like you,"

He doesn't say anything, just looks down that hall towards the room where Emilia is.

Pepper continues "But if it makes you feel better, you could do a DNA test,"

Tony thinks for a minute before he looks around the corner into the lounge room where he sees Emilia lying down with the Tv remote in her hand, flicking through the channels. He smiles, then shakes his head.

"I don't need to," he pauses "she's my daughter,"

Pepper nods, before she smiles at him as she leans in, wrapping her hands around him and kissing his cheek. "we will get through this together okay, I will be right here with you," He gives her a small smile back as he nods.

Pepper and Tony walk back into the room to find Emilia dozing off. She gets startled when she feels a hand on her shoulder.

"You must be exhausted, come on, we will show you to your room," Pepper says.

Emilia feels a weight lifted off her shoulders, though she still felt weird. She couldn't explain it. She had been living without a home for over a year that she got used to it. She couldn't remember what it was like to have a place to call home. It will take some time to get used to.

"I can stay?" she asks.

"Yeah kid, what am I gonna do? Kick you back on the streets? that wouldn't be very heroic of me now would it?"

She gives him an annoyed look before she gets off the couch and starts following them.

"Just to be clear, I'm not changing my last name to Stark,".

xxx

Tony stops outside a door as he opens it and gestures for Emilia to walk in. As she walks in, she can't help but look around the room with a blank face, not an ounce of emotion showing.

"This- This is my room?"

"yeah, it was a guest room, but with time you can make it look however you want it to, make it yours,"

She walks over towards the bed and sits down on it. Her lips tremble as she tries to stop herself from crying as she was feeling really overwhelmed. She hated crying, especially when it was in front of people she barely knew.

She didn't think she would ever have this again, a decent roof over her head let alone a room to herself. A huge one at that.

Tony stood there awkwardly not knowing what to do, was he suppose to comfort her? How did he comfort her? He was sure she would punch him if he went over there and hugged her, he knew they weren't there yet. He had yet to sort this whole Dad thing out. His heart broke for her as he watched as tears streamed down her cheeks, she was only sixteen yet, he knows she's been through so much already.

That's also when Pepper walks in, having just got a towel and spare clothes for Emilia to change into.

"Okay, get some sleep, and we will talk more in the morning," Tony says as he goes to turn around and walk through the door. He doesn't do well with crying kids. Before he can walk out, Pepper grabs his arm and gives him a look.

Pepper walks over to Emilia and sits down beside her "You okay honey?".

"Emilia nods as she wipes her tears away "yeah, I'm fine, thanks, I'm just really tired," she tries playing it off, shrugging, feeling embarrassed. They didn't look convinced. "see you in the morning," she says as she grabs the clothes from Pepper, trying to hurry them out.

"We will be just down the hall if you need us," Pepper tells her before they walk out of the room closing the door behind her.

Emilia strips away her wet clothes, leaving them in a pile on the floor before she puts the dry ones on, which consist of a blue t-shirt and black sweat pants. She hops into bed and turns the lamp off, falling into a deep sleep as soon as her head hit the pillow, finally feeling at ease. That would be until the nightmares started, which she knew they would eventually.

A/N: Hello! finally here's chapter 1. I actually had this chapter done like 2 weeks ago but I was not happy with it and kept changing and adding to it and to be honest I'm still not happy with it and might change it again but for now, I'm going to leave it as it is. Hope you are enjoying it so far and thank you to those who have favorited, followed, and left a review. that makes me so happy! Also, tell me if I make a mistake because when I'm editing sometimes I skip past them.