AN – I apologize profusely for the fake out! Apparently someone got through to this because they reviewed…but every time I post a chapter I go on the website itself and read it. After reading it, I realized I technically threw together two separate chapter ideas! Tony/Pepper staying together for the first time with Emily there, then Emily going outside for the first time. ;;…I feel quite embarrassed. So, I'm fixing it. The first night together will be first. I'll post 8 quickly after this. It's mostly done – I can only hope it some sort of consolation!

Chapter 7
Where you can always find me

Days flashed by. Nights came and went. Emily always started the night in her own bed, but woke up the next morning under my chin. It wasn't helping my plight in making Pepper move in. I was hoping that I would somehow convince her to finally stay – but she was worried about intruding on father daughter time at night. She didn't know how Emily would react if we were in bed together.

I suggested we try and see what happened.

So, that's what we did. After a long Friday of work for her, and play for the Stark duo, we ate dinner as a family as to be expected. What happened after was what was different.

As normal, we both tucked her into her covers and laid with her for a little while. She was learning more words, learning some grammar, and able to keep up to a degree. I had to watch what I was saying in front of her. I learned that when she repeated one of my many exclamations later to Pepper when she threw a toy and hit her lamp. I didn't hear the end of that.

"Goodnight Emily." I said quietly as she hid under the blankets of her lavender bed with her favorite cat stuffed animal she named Anya.

She grinned at both Pepper and I on the side of her bed. I looked forward to her sleepy smiles at night like I once looked forward to the bottom of that scotch bottle. The difference was I woke up with a little girl in my arms instead of a massive headache and bleary eyes.

Pepper and I both kissed opposite cheeks before leaving her to her moonlit room, at least for the next few hours.

"What time does she normally crawl into bed with you?"

"Jarvis?" I called up as we laid on the couch, the TV on in the background.

"Miss Stark has a pattern of leaving her bedroom between 12:30 and 1:15."

"So we just have to be in there before midnight. Sometimes she comes a little early…Jarvis, alert us to any change in her sleeping."

"As usual, sir."

Alone time was sacred anymore. With a child, alone time meant sleep time and that was about it. Even bathroom time was a little iffy. For some reason, kids have this thing of wanting to know what you're doing in there. It got reeeaallly awkward down in the workshop sometimes when I retreated into the little bathroom in there.

"It's…really been different around here. Toys everywhere, you're eating regularly…you've almost become a normal 37-year-old man, Tony Stark!"

"Yeah, like that will happen. Maybe I should have a full-on weekend bender with you, ruin it all. Rhodey could take her…" The idea was so tantalizing. Pepper and I off somewhere, a three day weekend, no clothes, that soft skin against mine in a way I haven't had in weeks-

"Not so early, Tony, and you know that." She turned around from her comfortable place cuddled under my arm so that we were eye to eye.

"I was kidding, I know that. She still hasn't been here long enough for me to feel comfortable…leaving her alone."

"Me either, Tony."

"Then how can you leave her here every night?"

She didn't say anything to that. She didn't have an answer, and I knew when she turned her face away and sat back down in the crevice between my arm and my body. If she made it through the night fine with us together, then everything would be in perfect set for her to move in officially. This was the last thing she could think of to keep her from staying in the house. There couldn't be anything else!

My free hand reached over to run the back of my fingers softly along her cheek, my head cocked just so slightly to see her reaction better. She didn't need to answer me, we both understood.

"If tonight goes well, promise me." I whispered to her, hoping I could snag her. Plus, I had an ace up my sleeve. I had already had an interesting conversation with my daughter about that today –

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

I was deep into some tiny wiring, magnifying glasses and all with Emily not but 5 feet from me watching some odd TV show and she was yelling at it in Russian. Sure, Jarvis was of use to clear anything up as necessary. If she wanted something and didn't know how to express it in English, she looked up at the ceiling and said it. She had learned that the computer in the ceiling would explain her. The majority of her words were still Russian and she was getting better at her understanding of basic English, but we needed a gap bridging ability. I really started to notice it more and more at night.

I could tell she was mumbling to me about having bad dreams, but I couldn't understand what she was telling me. The only thing I knew to do was hold her close and show her I was there. No one had ever taught me what to do with a sobbing 5 year old girl who crawled in bed with me and wouldn't stop.

All of this would have been easier if I had just knocked up a French model. I knew French just fine.

But I had an idea hit me.

If I could make wireless headphones for my mp3 player (not an iPod, but not too far from similar technology; I just made it myself) that would block sound other than Pepper's voice, why couldn't I make an ear plug that would translate her words in my ear?

It only took the morning to create the small plug that fit snuggly into my ear. It came with Pocket Jarvis for my own translation abilities as well, but was still connected to the house mainframe. This was only a test run. Later, I planned to find a way for the words that came out of my mouth in reply would be in Russian if necessary. How I was going to do that, I had no idea, but hey. I made Iron Man in a cave. With some scraps.

Once it was wiggled deep enough into my ear and I could hear the dulcet British tones well enough, I turned my rolling chair around to look at the back of my little girl.

She was filling out. The doctors said she was reacting her goal weight, and seemed to be growing again. She was stunted a few months of growth because of the malnutrition, but we had put her back on track. She looked so much healthier than the day I met her first. And she seemed so much happier.

"Jarvis, ask Emily what she's doing." I whispered.

The AI asked of the little girl quietly, and she replied in Russian back very matter-of-factly.

"Watching Gabby Gabby. They do it wrong!"

Jarvis complied quickly after the words came out of her mouth.

Success. The translation process worked.

I gave her an odd look before looking up to the giant TV she was watching. On the screen were colorful monsters dancing around like she was, but she was doing it a little differently.

They were singing about sharing and colors and adding dances to it all. Kind of reminded me of some odd drug binges I had in college that involved watching Sesame Street for 3 hours. I wasn't really happy to relive that moment in my time, but she seemed to enjoy the show…as much as she said they did it wrong.

"What's wrong with it?"

"They do it wrong! It's supposed to be like this!" She proceeded to do some sort of dance unlike the one shown on the screen before giggling and running over to get pulled up into my lap.

Are all 5 year olds this endearing? Do they tug at everyone's heart this way, or just mine? Pepper had said that she felt strongly about her, but as strongly as I do?

"Em, I want to tell you something." She was busy grabbing at my tools on the table. She finally settled on a wrench and dragged it into her lap to look at it. She just nodded her head while she played with the hole meant for 15 mm nuts between her fingers.

"Mama is going to stay here tonight with me. When you get in my bed tonight, she'll be there. Okay?" I was looking at her, but she was busy finding every cranny of the steel wrench.

She looked up only when Jarvis talked to her through the plastic screen above my head and stared at it for a moment while he spoke. She seemed perplexed at what he said (since I knew she understood that there was a man that lived in the walls of the house), but had nothing to say about it. She kept playing with the wrench between her tiny fingers and didn't particularly seem interested in whatever I or the computer had to say.

Okay, so she wasn't interested. So, I sat her down from lap and decided to scrap the idea for the moment. Maybe later she would be more receptive.

She went back to the couch to watch TV, and I returned to my soldering.

It was only a few minutes later that she screamed and started sobbing that I remembered that she was over behind me. And that she had a wrench.

I was quick to jump up and throw the soldering gun across the room. I had more, I didn't care. It was cold anyway.

She was screaming crying because the wrench I had forgotten she had taken had fallen on her foot. She had broken her big toenail and was bleeding more than I thought a 5 year old could. She had her arms out and was wailing for me to fix everything. No one ever taught me how to fix these kinds of things.

"Oh, shit, okay…Emily, calm down…" She was reaching out for me and making my ears ring. The ear piece was ringing from the loud noise and I threw it somewhere just to get it away from me. I knew I would have to find it later, but I didn't give a damn. How do I keep a little girl from piercing my ear drums?

I picked her up and whisked her off to the kitchen area and sat her down on the counter so I can look at her toe. Yeah, she had taken off the nail completely and I had blood on my shirt and a trail had followed us on the tile.

"Dummy, butterfingers, put up the tools and clean up the blood on the floor. Emily, calm down-" I took hold of her foot, and she cried more. I wasn't anywhere near her toe yet! Had I been this bad as a kid?

I didn't know how to help it stop bleeding without stemming the flow with pressure, but she wouldn't let me near it.

You wandered over with the first aid kit as well as a spray antiseptic. That was the place to start – but more than likely it would make her scream more from the burning…

"Hold still, Em." I went for it anyway and kept hold of her ankle while I sprayed her toe. As to be expected, she screamed louder and tried to get her ankle out of my grasp. She was chewing on my last nerve, but this was part of being a parent, according to anyone of worth. Pepper, Happy, Rhodey had all said the same thing – kids meant testing limits. And this was one of them.

After a few seconds she calmed down to where she was just regularly crying and not screaming her head off. The blood was slowing, finally, and I probably could wrap it up finally.

"Gauze." I reached out to the kit on the counter and dug around until I found the small soft roll. As quickly as I could without her screaming more, I wrapped it tightly around her big toe and ripped it off before taping it down with medical tape. That should stem it for now…

She was still weepy, but absolutely quieter. I was so relieved when I scooped her back up off the counter and wandered with her out the door of the workshop.

"I think we're done down there for the day." I said with a sigh. She was busy clinging to my side and seemed winded by the whole ordeal. A nap was probably in order after some lunch. I could only hope that everything else that day wouldn't involve anymore blood or screaming 5 year olds.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-

I never said the talk went well, I just said we talked about. Pepper had cooed and coddled the dark-headed child when she came home and asked about what happened. Emily obliged with a quick-fire rendition of her day's happenings complete with method acting and fake crying. If the kid was 5 and doing this, I was frightened to see what she was going to do at 14 and going through the rough teenage girl time.

Fast forward, and here we were. Two 'parents' allowed some alone time.

She didn't answer me. She just got up and walked into the kitchen. For someone who had never really known of commitment before this, she seemed to be the one that was not good at it.

After some wine, a few kisses and some lost shirts, we retreated up to my bedroom. She was first to crash between the sheets in her matching bra and underwear, and I wandered in the bathroom to take care of physical needs and anything else I saw fit, like staring at my scraggly ass self for a few seconds.

What I walked out to I didn't expect.

As the light turned off from behind me and I looked to my bed in my own 'natural' glow, I saw Pepper and Emily together in bed and fast asleep.

I fought away the tear that fought for birth, but couldn't get rid of the goofy smile I'm sure was on my face. At least no one would see. I found my space behind Pepper's thin form and pulled her back into my chest. My arm slid over her and my hand rested on the soft cotton of Emily's nightgown. She only stirred slightly under Pepper's chin, and with that image in my mind, I drifted off.