AN – and, for the first time in this story – a Pepper-view! I know a number of you said she was pretty cold to Emily, and you saw the beginning of why in the chapter before this. Here's the chapter you also asked for – when she thaws.
Btw – thanks to the always wonderful saichick for keeping my poor college-beaten mind in line – you can't deny children the ability to go to school. You can be told they aren't ready, but they can't deny them schooling. Will I fix it someday? …probably. When I get time.
THIS, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, IS THE ELONGATED VERSION.
Or really, it's the finished chapter. Is it truly finished? No, I cut out a decent amount of the interesting scenes. This was more of a mental Pepper-view than a physical Pepper view. That and I just want to have a happy family together in the next chapter =)

Chapter 11
No Other Choice

It was never a good idea to leave him thinking I was angry at him when he left. If he thought I was mad, he wouldn't pay attention to himself. The last thing I needed was to have a non-english speaking5 year old and a wounded 5 year old.

Alright, alright, I get that I'm being quite mean to Tony's maturity. But it's true – after spending over a decade on the man's beck and call, he's more like a child than anything else. When he asked me if I would move in when he learned about Emily, my blood boiled. He made me CEO so he could go off and die originally, but now it was just so he could play. Sure, I was better at it than him in some respects, but he was taking his role as stay-at-home dad a little too lightly. I knew that when I came home and Emily had a big bandage on her foot.

Now that he was off somewhere being the hero, I was all alone in a big house with her. I'd never been alone with her long enough for much, usually for Tony to go shower or get dinner or something. We hadn't been out in a month. The world stops for Emily like the world stopped for Iron Man.

Did I cave and move in? Yes, I did. He wasn't going to leave it alone. I half-expected to go home to my townhouse one day and find out that all my stuff had been taken out and moved already. I just cut out the middleman. The only thing it really changed was where I slept at night. I was here every day just about anyway. It changed where my closet was, but my house hadn't felt like home for years.

Since I left work early, I had wandered off to my old office that was still stocked as I had left it. Natasha sometimes did work from here, but not as often as I had. I just decided to pluck the laptop for a while and get through some memos and emails while I could.

With laptop in tow, I wandered in the kitchen to brew some tea, then up the stairs to change out of my suit. As good as I looked in them and as skinny as they made me feel, I didn't want to sit in it all day. One of Tony's less greasy t-shirts and a pair of pajama pants were a little more comfortable.

After changing, I peeked into Emily's room. I knew she had to be super tired if I was able to yell at Tony like that and she didn't even wake up. She would be out for a little while, then I'd cook some dinner and maybe watch some TV before it would be back to bed for her. Pretty simple. I'd babysat before, and it was a similar idea. I didn't know when Tony would be back though. I hadn't thought – what if he didn't come back for days? What would I do with Emily tomorrow? I could take her to work with me, but with the press all around it was going to be hard enough.

She looked so peaceful with her mouth open, drool already running down her cheek. She looked like Tony when she slept. I could see it in the curl of her open lip and how her nose wiggled when she breathed out. She really was his child in so many ways.

I closed the door behind myself and wandered back down the living room to set up my make-shift office for the time being. I knew I had to have hundreds of e-mails dealing with the day's unveiling of a little girl with black curls… I was smart enough to NOT check my blackberry for a while afterwards.

After a good cup of tea and a few hundred emails sorted and ridded from the world, Jarvis pinged through the Enya to inform me Emily was waking up. I expected her to be out longer, but it didn't matter either way. When she wanted to, she would come find me and we would see how the rest of the day would go.

A few minutes later, a half asleep little girl, dragging an orange cat behind her, walked down the stairs and crawled up on the couch next to me. I knew she wasn't fully awake because she hadn't asked where Tony was. I pulled her in close with one arm and she yawned into my t-shirt.

She and Tony had become what one would expect from father and daughter. He was smitten, and she apparently didn't do well being away from him for long. I wondered how long it would take until she realized he had left her here. The other side of that would be what would she do when she realized it?

"Where…papa?" She breathed out hazily. She was cute. I could feel her fighting against returning to sleep against me. I didn't mind, as long as she didn't drool on me like she drooled on her pillows.

"He had to go work. He'll be back, and I'll be here." I tried to quiet her. I noticed how uncomfortable I felt to be alone with her. I never really had been other when she was asleep. Never had I had to amuse her somehow and keep her from being upset.

I wondered what Natalie had to deal with when we left the Stark princess with her for only a few minutes. To think she broke away from her – that's frightening. Even without living the majority of her life with her father, she very apparently gained his personality. She got what she wanted in her head. Maybe it was because we were spoiling her to the point that she had learned that we would do whatever it was that she decided she wanted to do. She couldn't have lived this life in Russia. Her mother had other plans, and her grandmother was ill. They didn't seem to have lots of money – but the picture we had seen she looked so happy. Was that only one instance? Had she hidden herself, even at such a young age, behind a mask because she was forced to under her circumstances?

She made a whining noise after what I said, and Jarvis quietly translated shortly after. I'm sure she understood what I said about him not being there. I knew I couldn't tell her when he would be back. I was waiting for her to ask that question, and I knew she would.

"He'll be back when he's done."

"When?" Her knowledge of the language was getting much better, but her grasp of things we said wasn't great. It was still much of an improvement.

"Jarvis-" As soon as I said his name, Jarvis started speaking in Russian to the girl. I knew absolutely nothing, but I knew Jarvis would tell her he would return when he was finished, be it hours or days.

It took all of those few seconds he was speaking for the girl to start crying again. At least she wasn't wailing again, but crying in any way wasn't good. I moved her from my side to my lap to try to comfort her, but even in my arms she didn't seem to want to stop crying.

"Jarvis, will you please tell Tony to call when he's done? So we can get some peace of mind when possible?"

"Yes, Miss Potts. One moment."

She mumbled things I didn't understand through her tears – but what to do? What could make her happier than Tony walking up those stairs and calling out to her in that butter-y voice he had. Both of us wanted him back, but I knew I couldn't cry over it. That wouldn't get us anywhere fast. It would just be two girls crying because they man they loved was gone – even if it was a different kind of love.

And therefore a different part of his heart.

Emily would always be his child, and in his mind, but I knew I held that certain spot, otherwise I wouldn't still be around and he would have been with even more women over the past few months. We occupied his time in different places. Holding her close meant a little more. For the man that only cared about me to care so deeply for someone he had only met a month before meant something. That he cared so deeply – even though he didn't raise her…

Is it not customary that I care so as well?

I signed that paper – she was my daughter too. We were in this together, and I was the one that caused my own downfall. Tony didn't intend to dump her on someone and continue on being reckless – I had seen that now. He just wanted help. He'd never been around kids, never understood what to do with them. Now he knew. Now he was a father, and a good one at that. In this whole time, the only real accident he had had with her was when he left her to play with a wrench downstairs. That wasn't bad for a first time father with little knowledge. She hadn't had to go to the hospital yet. Part of that may have been Jarvis' watch, but I didn't want to pry.

"Miss Potts, Mister Stark would call, but he thinks that would be unwise in the current situation. He says he is most willing to call when he is returning, and he suggested that you take Emily somewhere."

Take her somewhere? She hadn't even been outside other than today before…but maybe it would be better if we got out of the house. Where would we go? The press was already having a field day.

An idea came to me all of a sudden. What kid doesn't like ice cream? Especially with this summer heat, and after her long trying day. Why not go get some ice cream and take her down to the private beach? Wouldn't that be something to make her forget her gone papa?

"Emily…" I spoke to her softly, trying to get her attention. Her puppy brown eyes broke my heart, but I knew I could somehow make them better.

She seemed confused for a moment as I whisked her up and downstairs we went to climb into one of the many selections of cars to choose from. She did perk up when we started walking down, I guess expecting to see Tony sitting at one of his tables down there, but it was dark, quiet, and empty. She whined some more, tears slowing probably from her lack of energy, but I could fix that. We climbed into my Audi, which had a booster seat for her that Tony had long since put in, and off we went.

She was quite perturbed. Having only been out of the house today, she was quiet and very curious about where we were going. At least for the first few minutes.

Then I couldn't get her to stop talking.

She was interspersing English and Russian in her speech, and I heard her say something about a bird. She probably saw a seagull fly beside us and had to comment on it.

She was definitely Tony's child.

We stopped at a small ice cream stand I knew was down on the beach. For it being as hot as it was, there weren't very many people around. It was mid afternoon and the tide was probably low – so the boy at the stand was more than willing for some sort of business. We both got small scoops of vanilla, and Emily wandered back to the car with no qualms whatsoever and no more crying. Her face still had that cute red puffiness, but the tears had long subsided. She apparently had no idea what ice cream was, which made sense when I thought about where she had come from. She was more interested in poking it at first before I showed her to lick it. Then she had a field day.

After one messy car ride and getting melted ice cream all over my leather (which Tony would be paying to be cleaned) later, we were changed and down at the beach within minutes. I decided I wasn't going to get in the water much – but Emily would be welcome to wander as she pleased. It would be a great way to clean her up too.

She did the funniest things. First, she had to determine what sand was, and told me all about it. She picked pieces from her palm and stared at them rather intently, but was quick to change to dancing around in the crashing waves. She talked the entire time. I didn't know a word she said, but she brought me shells from time to time and squealed at the crab skittering around her feet.

Was this bright glow inside the feeling of having a child? The sheer joy of seeing her so happy made me want to cry, and I didn't know how to respond. She wasn't mine – she didn't come from my uterus, I hadn't carried her for months and hadn't changed her diapers, but she warmed me from the inside a way the sun could not.

It was a bit of an afternoon ordeal. We ordered pizza, watched The Little Mermaid, and she was out like a light in my lap by 9:30. I didn't even care that she was drooling on me as I saw the final scene and let loose a small tear for the nostalgia of it all. And after seeing a basic afternoon though the eyes of a 5 year old girl, everything was different. My world changed. Emily meant more than someone else I had to worry about. She was a happy little 5 year old that had so much of her father in her genes. I already felt bad for her mother and grandmother having had to raise her for so long. After 'raising' Tony for a decade, we could have traded great information.

I, and her now drooling on my shoulder, wandered up the stairs to the master bedroom to lie down for the night at 10:15. There was no reason to lay her in her own bed when she was going to come to me anyway. We had the lights out and the alarms set for the next morning by 10:40, and I had my new little heater to keep me warm all night.

What I hadn't expected was the warmth on my back when I woke up late the next morning. Or the drool on both sides of my favorite shirt.

Like father, like daughter.

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

AN – Did I like that? No. I really didn't. But I want to get somewhere. I have plans, ideas! TIME SKIPS!