Chapter 6:
Tony POV-
In actuality, I wasn't asleep when Danielle lefty for school in the morning, I was down in the lab, the same place I had been since she went to sleep the night before. Call me paranoid, but it seemed like there was something that she wasn't telling me about herself, so I decided to investigate.
I had brought down her adoption papers that read her official name as Danielle Fenton, however, when I did a search on her, nothing came up. And that, is most definitely saying something considering I have one of the largest hacking systems in the country.
So, I tried again, this time including hair and eye color, still nothing, for her, at least. No birth records, no social security number, no parent records, no domestic violence case reports, nothing.
Instead, the search bar came up and asked: Did you mean Daniel Fenton? It asked me. Feeling like it wouldn't hurt, I clicked on the boy. Suddenly my page was bombarded with birth records, school report cards, parent information, and pictures of him, even one in Genius magazine, which I found weird considering that it's a woman's magazine (or I would be front page all the time).
The weirdest thing however, was that, this boy, looked nearly identical to Danielle with the exception of being two years older and well, obviously male. They had the same, ice blue eyes that contrasted with their black hair. I started reading one of the articles.
'Daniel James Fenton of Amity Park Illinois, discovered what no one else did. That Sampson, a purple backed gorilla in captivity in the Amity Zoo, was actually a Delilah, thus allowing scientists to be able to further the species…' I didn't really care too much about the purple backed gorilla but the name of his city, for some reason, did stand out to me.
"Jarvis," I told my artificial intelligence system, "Do a search on Amity Park Illinois."
"Yes sir," he replied, making the images of Daniel Fenton disappear and replacing them with images of Amity Park.
What I found was that there were very few pictures of the town itself, other than the town sign that read "Amity Park, a nice place to live." Most of the articles related to a famed Danny Phantom. I studied the mostly grainy images of what appeared to be a teenager with white hair in a spandex uniform.
I scoffed and continued reading through the articles. One article told about how Amity Park had reached number one on the most haunted places in the world, list. And another talked about the new mayor of the city.
'Billionaire, Vlad Masters was recently appointed mayor of Amity Park…' I read. Then I realized why Amity Park had sounded so familiar. Actually, I knew Vlad Masters.
Of course, I only knew him loosely, mostly considering that we lived on opposite ends of the country and I was much richer than him, but I still knew him. Each time I met him, I didn't like him. He always had this eerie smile on his face and was always talking about himself, the Packers, himself, some woman named Maddie, or himself. Of course, I talk about myself too, but, at least it's expected from me, and I way more money to back up my arrogance.
I studied the image of Vlad's creepy smile on the screen, quickly deciding to close the window and start tinkering with my Iron Man suit. At some point I must have fallen asleep because I woke up the next morning to a loud beep and saw myself splayed out in my chair. I sighed and searched for the cause of the beep, it was Danielle.
Upstairs she had tried to enter the hallway that leads to this lab, and was, denied access. I chuckled, seeing her pout from the camera I had posted in the living room. Then, for a brief second, her face lit up with a devious smile, I blinked, suddenly confused, and then the smile flashed away the second Pepper opened the door, leaving me wondering if I had imagined it. Pepper took Danielle, and thankfully the dog (I was glad I wouldn't have to deal with it today) and left as quickly as she had come.
I drummed my fingers on my desk, not sure what to do when I remembered that Danielle now had Jarvis installed on her phone, which meant that I could hear everything she was saying.
"Girl, what happened to you? You actually look good," I heard a voice I didn't recognize exclaim.
'That must be one of her friends,' I thought and continued listening.
"Are you saying that I don't always look good?" Danielle asked and I chuckled as pretended to be offended.
"No, I'm saying that you usually look like something the cat threw up," the other girl laughed and Danielle laughed too, "Seriously though, what happened to you?"
"I got adopted," Danielle said and I could practically see the smug smile on her face.
"Oh my gosh, really! That's so great!" the other girl cheered.
"Yeah, it is!" Dani replied, "But the best part is, guess who I got adopted by."
Not that I really cared if Dani did tell her best friend, but I wondered if she would as the other girl asked, "Who?"
"Tony Stark," she said and I shook my head, I should have expected that.
"You're joking?" the other girl asked, not that I can blame her, it did seem far-fetched, for me at least.
"And guess what else!" she exclaimed.
"What?" the other girl asked.
"I got a puppy!" Danielle told her.
'Great,' I thought sarcastically, with a smile, 'Now I'm the father figure, animal lover of the year, someone call in the media.'
"No way, what's its name?" the other girl asked.
"Ghost," Dani replied, and then both girls burst out laughing, so obviously she knew the inside joke that Dani had refused to tell me.
"Well, I'm coming over to see him," the other girl announced.
"No problem, I'll let Pepper know that I'm bringing a friend home," Danielle told her, I scoffed a little, even though I really didn't care if she invited a friend over.
"Wait a minute!" the other girl shouted, "You have an iPhone too!" ooh, so she's admiring Dani's new technological upgrades, I smirked a little and turned on the camera to her phone so that I could now see both of the girls without them knowing that I was eavesdropping. I could see the other girl now, she had platinum blonde hair cut in a pixie style, Caribbean blue-green eyes, a black t-shirt and pink skinny jeans.
"Well, when you're adopted by Tony Stark…" Dani shrugged, causing me to grin.
"Tony Stark," I heard another voice, the camera whipped around and I saw a short girl with long brown hair tied up in a high pony tail and in a low-cut green t-shirt and mini skirt. "Wow Danielle, I knew you were poor, but I had no idea you were also a liar," the girl continued. I saw Danielle tense but she said nothing.
"She's not lying," the other girl interjected, "See, Tony even got her an iPhone." Okay, so I didn't technically buy her the iPhone, Pepper did, but she bought it with Stark Industry funds, so I guess I did play some part in the purchase of that phone.
"Oh, so you have an iPhone, I guess that makes you a thief too," the mean slutty girl sneered again.
"You know Scarlett, you are such a bitch," Dani's friend said, moving towards her, the look on her face said that she clearly wanted to mess that chick up, but for some reason, Danielle held her back, "Come on Issa, she's not worth it."
'So her name is Issa?' I wondered about her friend.
Slowly, Danielle and her friend started walking in the opposite direction.
Suddenly, her friend spoke up.
"You know you have the power to shut her up for life, right?" Issa asked.
Dani sighed at this, "Of course I do, I just can't mostly because that would expose, my secret and secondly because it's not right."
'Wait a minute? What? What does she mean by 'have the power to shut her up for life' and what secret does she have?' I asked myself.
"But she deserves to be knocked down a couple pegs," her friend whined, and I couldn't help but agree with her.
"Um…Issa, I think I know that better than anyone, but I still can't do it," Dani said.
"Why not?" she whined again.
"Do you think Danny ever reacts when people are bullying him, no. He gets pushed around and shoved into lockers and lets it happen everyday," I told her.
Again I was confused, 'Who the hell is this 'Danny' guy?'
"But Danielle, you're not your cousin, you can make your own decisions," she told me.
'Oh, so Danny is her cousin, but wait, then why isn't she living with him?' I wondered, not that it really bothered me that Danielle was living here anymore.
"I know, but Danny always does the right thing, so at least for now, I'm going to follow his example," Dani stated in a very 'this-is-the-end-of-this-discussion' tone.
Suddenly, the bell rang for them to start first period and I decided to cut out, severing my connection to Dani's phone.
I thought for a minute.
'Maybe Dani can't do anything against that girl, for whatever reason, but I can at least prove that Dani wasn't lying,' I grinned, a mischievous smile playing on my lips.