AN – Abby L, since I can't reply to your reviews, I'll comment here instead for everyone to see –
I wish the chapters were longer myself. I really have to force myself to add more to them sometimes. I'm a bit of a minimalist writer, and when I read fics that have 8k+ chapters on a regular basis, it makes me sigh and condemn myself. My first priority is finishing the thought/scene I have, and the second one is getting it to the readers as quickly as possible (and I'm failing on that currently). When you work a 12 hour job 4 days a week, it's hard to come home and write up some things. But I know I have to get these things out or I'll explode, and so will you guys =3
This chapter I reaaally tried to make it longer by giving you a couple of little scenes instead of one big-ish one.
Kudos to whoever catches the most recent chapter names.

Chapter 5
…and I don't feel the same

The first week, Natashatalie slept in her room with her. We had the foresight to put a large bed in her room instead of a child sized bed, which made it easier for the woman to stay with her. I still held that twinge of jealousy – that feeling that I should have been the one sharing the lavender sheets with the frail Russian girl.

She was gaining weight. She was ravenously hungry at all times, so she snacked often. I had Jarvis keep track of her daily caloric intake, base measurements of her vitamins and minerals as well as the amount of strenuous activity she had throughout the day. Whenever it would be that we had to return to the doctor to show that I wasn't starving her, I had data and a plan ahead.

She looked healthier each day – her eyes seemed more alert, her hair seemed shinier, and she seemed to glow more in the light. I felt horrible knowing that she had gone through such terrible times before with her family – but at least now she was getting anything and everything she needed.

Pepper forced me to go to the grocery store – a terrible place with weird ass people at 2 in the morning. It made the most sense because then no one would see us, but I felt bad for Emily. We made her an impromptu bed in one cart and threw everything else into another. Occasionally we would ask her if she liked something, and she either just shook her head or nodded sleepily. The girls did most of the work - I was more interested in not touching anything and acting like a child myself. Hell, I didn't know they still made golden crisp – that shit was my favorite as a kid. Not that anyone had been buying for me before. I now had a case of it for munch food down in the workshop kitchen area.

Natasha (I'll just stick with that, since that's what my daughter calls her) stayed at the house at all times. I was paying her for her constant services just like she was being paid to be Pepper's assistant, so it wasn't a loss for her. I heard them running around upstairs all day while I tinkered and screwed around downstairs.

Occasionally I would pop up upstairs to have lunch with them or grab some coffee. All three of us made sure we ate with her every night for dinner so she got some socialization time and heard us speak to her in some English.

I don't think I'd ever seen a kid who loved noodles that much. That's all she really ever wanted to eat. She would eat other things, but she always wanted noodles. Spaghetti, mac and cheese, lasagna – whatever had pasta.

Thank god Natasha could cook – because for as much food as we bought, I didn't know what the hell to do with most of it other than some frozen pizzas and peanut butter. She made full dinners – roast, chicken spaghetti, stuffed pork chops. The woman could cook – and my house, for once in over 20 years, felt like a home again. Like a family actually lived in it with the smells of home cooked dinners wafting around past 6 at night.

Whenever I did come upstairs during the day, normally the two were either in her room (Natasha reported that she was trying to teach her some English on a daily basis there) or in the living room watching some children's program or playing with some of the myriad of her toys.

I, one afternoon, was graced by her presence somewhat by accident. My curiosity seemed to come through my genes. Natasha had been called by Fuhrer Fury for some reason or another and she left Emily to play on the rug in the living room. She had been watching some child's tv show, but something else called to her. A certain staircase she had never been taken down before.

I didn't know any different until I saw that little pale face up against the plastic tech boards that were the door to my workshop. She wasn't looking at me – she was looking at everything around me. She seemed so interested in all of the new things she saw in front of her – like she was looking at my toys and was thinking about going to tell her mommy that she wanted that boy's toys instead of her own.

I had been physically testing the heat index of different metal alloys to see which would work best for volcano temperatures. I had on thick dark-tinted goggles and a thick suit of leather and other fabrics dipped in fire retardant material. In English – I looked something like a monster to her.

When I walked over to get her and take her back to her play area, she screamed. She didn't run, but she did scream, and I did hear it through the tech board. Sure, we hadn't known each other more over a week, but she wouldn't be screaming at me – but I realized then why. I tore off the top layer and pulled up my goggles before I kneeled down and opened the door to quell her starting sobs. She still wasn't sure about me for a moment as I stared back at her and reached out to touch her arm, but then I realized what would make her sure it was me. I pulled up the long shirt I had on underneath to show the glowing reactor in my chest. Then, and only then did she walk closer to me and lay her hands on the warm technology lodged in my chest.

"It's just me." I whispered quietly. She seemed content enough for that moment that I dropped the hem of my shirt to pull her in with one arm. She didn't protest, and on the inside I beamed.

Closer, she could see the light coming through the thermal shirt I had to wear underneath that suit, and I will never forget what happened next for my life.

As I held her closer to me in one arm, she reached out her hand and pointed to my chest.

"Papa."

I turned my head quickly to look straight down at her face, trying to understand for a moment what had just happened. I apparently looked as perplexed as I felt – because she turned her hand up and pointed to my face.

"Papa."

Natasha had been at the top of the staircase the entire time watching, but didn't see any need in involving herself. We were having a sacred moment – something even language barriers couldn't stop. She had acknowledged me as her father, as the reason she was here. And I couldn't have been happier.

After a few moments I picked her up in one arm and took her back upstairs only to be met with the dark redhead waiting for me. She immediately complained that I had gotten something akin to soot on Emily's blue dress she was wearing from the gloves I still had on, but I didn't mind in that moment that one of the two women who ran my life was chiding me like normal – I was more interested in the girl who already had wandered off to the couch to grab a toy.

I had a hard time continuing whatever I had been doing downstairs.

Not only that, but just to push my buttons (as well as show me that I wasn't just paying her to follow around my kid), Natasha had Emily call me to dinner through Jarvis.

"Mr. Stark, a call from upstairs."

"What, I'm in the middle of some-"

"Papa. Din-nyer!"

I almost dropped my soldering iron. One, it was damn loud, and two, it hadn't been Natasha telling me dinner was ready like it had been for the last week. And she sounded so very happy to be calling me.

The longer time went on, the happier she seemed to be. At first, she was so delicate and apprehensive to her new world. Now she was giggling and happy to see each of us every night at dinner time. Natasha told me that she had started understanding how her world worked now even – I'm dad, Pepper's mom, and Natasha was her keeper/teacher.

I wasn't sure how she got the idea about Pepper being her mother until I noticed something. Every night before dinner I always kissed Pepper. Was that what gave her that idea? Or the fact that we were always together when she was around? I was curious as to her connection maker, but I also had to realize whose child was the one making connections.

A few days later, both of the women were gone. Natasha was busy playing secret double agent, Pepper had gone to have dinner with family, and it was just me and my daughter after dinner.

Never before did I ever think I was going to have to learn to bathe a 5 year old. Well, I knew I wanted to have kids sometime – but I didn't think I would be the one bathing them. Especially a 5 year old girl.

I found out through a number of ways that when she had lived in Russia, she had never been alone – never slept alone, never ate alone, and never bathed alone. Everyone always did it for her – everyone usually being her grandmother.

She had a strict schedule that I was given a written form of – after dinner, she was bathed, then teeth brushed and face washed before getting into bed for a story.

None of these things I knew how to get a 5 year old to do, much less a 5 year old who didn't understand what I was saying.

But, she was very compliant. After our simple dinner of sandwiches and mac and cheese (during which I half-assed tore apart the apparently needing-to-be-fixed blender), Natasha left and left me with a tiring little girl, dishes, and a long list of chores.

She was compliant to sit patiently while I cleaned up enough for my taste (which was basically move the dirty dishes – cleaning is not my job) but then I had to wrangle her upstairs and find her nightclothes.

Finding the clothes wasn't the problem – nor getting her out of her other clothes so they could be washed – it was just the awkwardness of sitting by the bathtub to wash her. We couldn't really talk to each other. Occasionally she would ask some odd question that Jarvis had to translate and I would answer back only to have to be translated again.

One of her questions was why the thing in my chest was glowing. I couldn't exactly explain the actual concept, or really dumb it down – but I tried my best. She also wanted to know what kind of sick I was to need a light bulb in my chest. Now that was just funny to think about – did she really think there was a light bulb stuck into my chest?

I learned how much shampoo to use on a 5 year olds head. How long they can sit in a bath tub even after it gets cold and still play in the freezing water. It was like pulling teeth to get her out of the damn tub, even if it was freezing cold.

I learned how big her head was, how the curve of her arm felt, and how soft her skin had become. She had no aversion to me washing her back or scrubbing her head or even under her arms – she seemed so comfortable with me, and we hadn't known each other for two weeks yet.

Up until this night, Natasha had always slept in her bed with her. For possibly the first time in her life, she was going to sleep alone. It was going to be hard to explain the concept to her – that Natasha had to go to work, Pepper had gone to see family – and that she needed to be grown up and see if she could sleep alone for one night.

The storytelling was the worst. I could tell her a story all I wanted and she wouldn't understand a word of it. So, instead, I made a great decision on my part – I laid on the bed with her, myself on top of the sheets and she inside, and we watched some taped kids shows on her small TV. She seemed to be really interested in some Dora the Explorer show. I didn't get why. It's about a Mexican girl going on adventures with a monkey and telling a fox to not steal things by yelling in his face "NO SWIPING!" She seemed most interested in doing that, too.

It wasn't too too long before she was nodding off to Dora. This way, I didn't have to garble some Russian and explain to her that she had to sleep alone tonight. If this was the way to make her more independent, so be it.

For some reason or another, I made the decision to get into bed myself. There were a number of things to be done downstairs, but I didn't feel comfortable leaving her alone up here in case she woke up later. If she did, she probably wouldn't enjoy not being able to find me. At least this way my bedroom was the first door to her right when she walked outside, and she knew that.

At some point in time, I fell asleep with the TV on – I was on my 4th rerun of the original Star Trek series when I stopped hearing what was going on. Jarvis turned the TV off in the night, and all was quiet for some time.

A few hours later, however, I heard a noise – a noise I hadn't heard in a while, especially not while half asleep.

I groaned and turned over, not thinking anything of it in my half-dead stupor until I heard a soft voice from across the room.

"P-papa?" she sobbed quietly as she held onto the side of the door.

That woke me up immediately. I was sensible enough to sit up and look over in the light from my chest at the young girl crying in my doorway.

"Emily…come here." I motioned for her to come to me, holding my hand out over the side of the bed for her. I scooted some so I could get my arms out to her once she scrambled over to the side of my bed. I picked her right up and pulled her in under the thousand-count sheets with me.

She was quick to snuggle into me as she sniffled and coughed. I didn't know why she had been crying or why she felt the need to come get in bed with me, but I wasn't complaining. This is what I wanted the whole time – and I finally had that connection with her that I had wanted for the first 12 days.

Natasha was smart enough to click a picture in the morning of the fact that we have the very same asleep face – and both she and Pepper had to comment on how cute it was to see one small head then another large bearded head with the same facial expression of contentment and dozing.