James 'Rhodey' Rhodes sat there on the couch, his mouth hanging open as he looked at Tony and Ruby. "Is this some kind of a joke?" He asked, his eyes wandering from Tony to Ruby.

Ruby snorted a little. "Please, I have much better things to be doing with my time than play childish jokes on people." She told him, before folding her arms across her chest where she was standing.

After Pepper had rushed off to take everything to the lab, Tony had introduced her to his best friend. Who was currently in a complete state of shock at the fact that Tony probably had a teenage daughter.

"Oh God, she's serious. That's… that's just how Jasmine used to look when she was serious as well." Rhodey pointed out. He had know Ruby's mother as well, the three of them had all been really good friends. But when Jasmine left Tony, she left Rhodey as well.

"Yeah, she definitely has her mother's glare." Tony told him, chuckling a little.

"I need a coffee." Ruby mumbled, letting her arms drop to her side as she walked away and into the kitchen area.

"When did you find out, Tony?" Rhodey asked him quietly, not wanting Ruby to overhear them talking about her.

"I got a letter from Jasmine just over a week or so ago now. It arrived the day after she had died. Explained everything in there, she was pregnant when she left." He told him, joining him on the couch.

"Man, I told you something was up. Didn't I tell you?"

Tony just let out a sigh. Yes, his best friend had noticed something was wrong, but he had been too stupid to take notice of anything. "Yeah. Well now I have a teenage daughter to look after."

"Not yet you don't." Ruby called, walking into the room carrying three mugs of coffee. "Like I said, in the eyes of the law you are currently no one and have no rights over me what so ever." She reminded him, handing Rhodey a coffee and placing Tony's down on the table in front of him.

Rhodey just looked at Tony, the confusion etched on his face. "What's she talking about?"

Tony let out a sigh as Ruby sat down on the couch as well. "Jasmine didn't put the name of Ruby's father on her birth certificate. The only way to get that fixed is with the DNA test that Pepper is currently dealing with."

"And until that happens, I would like to remind you that you are not the boss of me. So, if you would be so kind as to get JARVIS to let me out so I can at least go for a walk, that would be nice." Ruby asked, pulling a face as she drank her coffee.

Tony had noticed her face and couldn't help but laugh. "Not used to coffee?" He asked her.

"Oh, I'm used to coffee, it's the damn sugar I can't stand. What I wouldn't give for a sack load of jellybeans right now." She said with a sigh.

Immediately Tony realised what she was talking about. "I'll send Happy out to get you some." He told her, pulling out his phone and sending a message to his personal driver and trainer. "You need to start eating properly, Ruby, or this isn't going to stop." He warned her.

"Yeah, I know. Once everything has calmed down, maybe I will." She informed him, taking another swig of her coffee.

"Miss Matthews, your phone appears to be ringing." JARVIS called to her.

She let out a groan. "Well it can keep on ringing."

"It has been ringing for the past 12 minutes, Miss Matthews."

"I swear, if this is SWAIN just trying to get my attention, I'll set the damn lions on him as well." She grumbled, putting down her mug and heading out of the room.

"Well, she's definitely Jasmine's daughter." Rhodey commented as he watched her go.

"Tell me about it. Jas told me she had a lot of my attitude as well, I'm a little bit worried about that." Tony told him, picking up his mug from the table. "I already know she's smart, and crafty, and stubborn."

"She's a teenager, Tony, what do you expect?" Rhodey said, trying his best not to laugh. The thought of his best friend having to deal with a teenager was hilarious. He was used to Tony acting like the teenager, so he couldn't wait to see how he was going to cope.

"What if I'm useless, Rhodey? I have no idea how to be a father. Jasmine wanted to keep her out of the light of the press, that's why she kept it a secret." There were so many worries running through his head. "What's going to happen when the whole world finds out?"

"Tony, Tony, calm down. You said it yourself, she's smart. I'm sure she can handle it, I bet she's thought about it already." Rhodey assured him.

"I don't know, Rhodey. Her mother seemed to keep check on me, she knew what was going on in my life, every one did."

Rhodey let out a sigh. "Tony, if Jasmine didn't want you to have anything to do with Ruby, you wouldn't know about her, and she wouldn't have found you. This is what Jasmine wanted, she probably spent a lot of time thinking about it."

Tony knew he was right, but he still couldn't help the way that he was feeling about everything. He knew that the minute the press found out, neither of their lives would ever be the same again. She would be thrown into the spotlight, and he would have more pressure on him than ever before.

Ruby returned, a slightly broken phone in her hand. Tony looked at her and chuckled. "Swain?" She just nodded at him. "What did he do this time?"

"He was being annoying, and nosey." She mumbled, fiddling with the phone in her hand.

"So, you decided to break your phone?"

Ruby shook her head at him. "No, I decided to make a few modifications." She told him, clipping the phone back together. "Should keep him occupied for a few hours."

"Okay, I give up." Tony announced, looking at her. "Who the hell is Swain?"

Ruby smirked at him, she had been prepared for this. "Hey, JARVIS, mind if I… uh, hack you for a few minutes?" She didn't really give him a chance to reply, before she hacked him. "SWAIN, you there, you annoying asshole?" She called.

"Indeed, Miss Matthews. And please refrain from using such language." The new British male voice called from nowhere.

"Oh, shut up. SWAIN, meet Tony Stark and James Rhodes. Lads, meet SWAIN, my seriously wicked artificial intelligence node." There was a smug grin on her face, as Tony looked at her in utter shock.

"What the hell did you do?" Tony shouted, panicking a little.

"Um, I kind of… hacked JARVIS… and… gave SWAIN access." She answered nervously.

"JARVIS?" Tony called, wondering if he really was still there.

"Yes, sir?" The British voice that he was accustomed to replied.

"What the hell is going on?" Tony was annoyed, frustrated, and dare he admit it, proud as well.

"If I might, Mr Stark." SWAIN called. "Miss Matthews bypassed the security preventing access to JARVIS. I assure you that no damage has been done to your system."

Ruby rolled her eyes. "Right, you can go away now, SWAIN. Go back to your cupboard in Denver." She tapped away at her phone, undoing everything she had just done, and leaving Tony's AI in perfect condition. "Sorry, JARVIS."

"A little more warning next time, Miss Matthews." JARVIS called back to her, sounding slightly annoyed.

She hung her head a little in shame. "Yeah, sorry. I just wanted SWAIN's arrival to be… something we could all remember."

"Okay, I am totally confused. What the hell just happened?" Rhodey asked, looking from Tony to Ruby.

"It would appear that Ruby has her own AI, and she decided the best way to introduce him was by taking control of JARVIS." Tony answered, staring at the young woman before him. "You have some serious explaining to do, young lady." For the first time, Tony Stark actually felt like a father.

Ruby let out a sigh. "Yeah, I guess I do. I, er, set SWAIN up about 8 years ago. Was a lot more basic back then, but as I got older, he became more advanced." She told him, playing with her hands as she stood there. "He, uh, he's kind of helped me through a lot. As well as got me into a lot of trouble at times."

"Wait, wait, wait. You created your own AI when you were 9?" Tony asked her. She just nodded at him. She really did feel like a kid who was being told off now. What happened next surprised not just her, but Rhodey as well. "That's my girl." Tony chuckled, wrapping his arms around her.

"You're… you're not angry?" She whispered, not understanding why he seemed so happy with what she had done.

"Oh, I'm angry. And trust me, when those DNA tests come back, you are so grounded." He told her, chuckling a little. "But you have just proved to me that you really are a Stark, whether you like it or not."

"But you can't ground me just yet." She reminded him with a grin on her face as she pulled away a little. "So I'll just pop outside for a while." She told him, before making a run for the door.

"JARVIS…" Tony called, hoping that his AI would stop her from going outside.

"I am afraid Miss Matthews has overridden your request and unlocked the doors." JARVIS called back to him.

Tony was quick on his feet to chase after her, scared that she would actually just get in her car and drive off. But he was surprised to see her just sitting outside of the door in the sun. "Now, you're double grounded." He told her, folding his arms across his chest.

There was a grin on Ruby's face. "Oh well, it was totally worth it."

He decided to sit down next to her. "How the hell did your mother cope with you?" He wondered.

"Trust me, most of the time she couldn't. She had a lot of help from other people, people who done a lot more than just ground me." She groaned, remembering all the people she had met as she had been growing up.

"What do you mean?" He was very curious to find out about her childhood.

"Well, I caused a lot of trouble, which resulted in me drawing a lot of attention to myself." She told him. "Which is why you can't find much about me on the internet, and why I have so many people checking up on me."

Tony tried to piece it all together. "Like that Tasha, you spoke to?"

Ruby nodded at him. "She's one of them. Actually, she's the only one I really like. Everyone else treated me like a stupid kid, even though I knew a lot more than them. She kind of… trained me."

"Trained you in what?" He asked her, frowning a little.

"Hand to hand combat." She told him simply, not wanting to go into details. It was something she knew had to be kept quiet. "Anyway, shouldn't you be getting back to Rhodey? I swear I am not going anywhere." She insisted.

Tony couldn't help but worry. "You going to be okay on your own?"

Ruby rolled her eyes and waved her phone in front of his face. "I'm never alone with SWAIN around. I… kind of connected him and JARVIS, so if anything is wrong, he will let JARVIS know, who will in turn let you know."

"Great, so now I don't just have JARVIS getting cocky with me, I have to deal with SWAIN as well." He moaned as he pushed himself off the ground.

"SWAIN isn't cocky, just… protective. He has a lot of my mother's personality thrown in, it was kind of to reassure her."

"Yeah, well you have a lot of your mother thrown in as well." Tony commented. "Seriously, that glare of hers used to give me nightmares."

Ruby couldn't stop the laugh from escaping her lips. "Hey, it still gives me nightmares, and it will till the day I die."

"Well, I have you now, so I'm sure it's going to be the same for me now." He told her, giving her his best smile. "Don't stay out here for too long. You still need to eat properly."

"Sir, yes, sir." She said, saluting him before he turned around and went back inside to his best friend.

Ruby was content to just sit there and watch as the world went by. It had been a long time since she had actually just stopped and not don't anything. She had been doing everything for her mother, she had arranged the funeral, and then the task of finding her father. None of it had been easy for her, and no one had been there to help her.

"Miss Matthews, I would like to remind you that you did say you would call Mr Roberts today." SWAIN called to her, breaking her out of her little world.

She let out a sigh. "Sure, call him." While SWAIN connected the call, Ruby carried on looking up at the sky.

"It's about time." A man's voice called as it answered at the other end. "I thought you were going to call me every day. But no, I have to find out what's going on by asking SWAIN. And even then he won't tell me everything."

"I know, Liam and I'm sorry. It's been a little… hectic." She told him, rubbing her eyes a little.

"So have you found him then?"

"Um, yeah, I think so. We're just waiting for DNA to come back but he's pretty convinced." Ruby told him, wondering if she should tell him who the man was.

"So, you were worrying over nothing then, Ruby? Even without the DNA he's confident that you're his daughter. You must have made a really good first impression." Liam said to her. She couldn't help but notice that he seemed a lot more cheery than usual.

"Yeah, I guess. If hacking into his computer system and infecting it with the lions virus is called making a good first impression." She mumbled down the phone.

"Christ, Ruby. What did you go and do that for?" It was clear he was less than happy to have heard what she had done.

"He was bugging me, trying to track me down. I had to do something to stop him. I didn't want him finding me before I found him." Ruby protested. "He attacked SWAIN as well."

"Well, what do you expect? And besides, I thought you had stopped with all that? Isn't that what Tasha is constantly checking up on you for?" Liam questioned her. Of course, he knew all about Tasha, and why she had been training Ruby.

"Tasha is checking up on me to make sure she hasn't got to get someone to come and bail me out. I swear, those guys think all I do is cause trouble when I don't. But maybe I should start being the troublemaker they expect if that's all they're ever going to think."

She heard Liam scoff at the end of the phone. "Now you're just being dramatic. You know why those guys keep check on you. It's not because they think you're a troublemaker. And you know Tasha does care about you right? You're like her little sister or something."

Ruby couldn't stop herself from laughing a little. "Yeah, right. Anyway, send my love to Val and I promise to talk to you again soon. Once we have the results."

"Sure, and you look after yourself, Ruby. I don't want SWAIN to be giving me bad news."

"I'll be fine, Liam. You worry too much, just like everyone else around here does." The both chuckled a little before the call ended, leaving Ruby to sit there with her thoughts once more.

"Miss Matthews." JARVIS called to her. "Mr Stark has had some food prepared and wishes for you to join him."

"Tell him I'm on my way." She said, pushing herself up from the ground and heading back into the mansion.

If someone had told her last week that she would end up in Malibu, waiting to find out if the great Tony Stark was her father, she'd have laughed in their face. But now she was sitting in the kitchen of his mansion, eating lunch or breakfast, or whatever they wanted to call it, with him. It all just seemed so surreal, and Ruby couldn't help but find the whole situation amusing.

Ruby ate in a comfortable silence, while Tony and Rhodey chatted away about something that she clearly wasn't interested in. She was trying to work out what to do with SWAIN if the DNA proved that she was a Stark, because she couldn't cope without him and she doubted Tony would let her go back to Denver and live on her own there.

This was where her feelings became conflicted. She hated being wrong, and being proved wrong just made it even worse, she had told a complete stranger that she has reason to believe he is her father. If it came back that she wasn't, then she would just be completely embarrassed. But if it came back and he really was her father, her life was going to change so much.

She had never had a father, or anyone close to that while she had been growing up. It had always been Ruby and her mother. Plus, she didn't even know the guy, and he had a reputation and a whole life that she was just crashing into.

"Ruby?" Tony called, for about the sixth time.

"Uh, yeah?" There was a confused expression on her face. She had been so far into her own little world that she hadn't realised anyone had been talking to her.

He frowned at her, just sensing that something was wrong. "Everything okay?"

"Yup, everything is fine. I just need a distraction. Mind if I go back outside and do a little tinkering to Maggie-May?" She asked pushing her half empty plate away from her.

"She's not outside anymore." He told her, getting up from where he was sitting. "She's downstairs. Come on, I'll take you down there."

Ruby followed the man down the stairs and into what looked like a cross between a garage and an office. The first thing she noticed was the rows of cars that were lining the room. "Not a bad little collection you have here." She told him.

He just smiled at her and led her over to where Maggie-May was now parked. "If you need anything, just ask JARVIS. And try not to blow anything up."

"But if I do blow something up, how long is the grounding for that?" She asked him curiously. She was especially good at blowing things up, most of the time it was deliberate.

"Depends on the damage, but at least a month."

Ruby just shrugged her shoulders at him. "I can handle that."

"Plus a week for sending JARVIS that virus, add another week for hacking him, and lets add one more for unlocking the doors and letting yourself out." Tony told her, standing there with his arms folding in front of his chest.

"Why don't we just round it up to 2 months? I'm sure I'll do something else before the day is out that warrants me being grounded again. Or maybe several, depending on how I'm feeling." She said, popping the hood open on her mother's car.

Tony didn't really know what to say, it was like she was admitting to planning on causing trouble. "Let's just go the whole hog and say you're grounded until you're 21?" He suggested.

Ruby just looked at him as she pulled out her phone, a smirk on her face. "I'd give it 3 day's before you couldn't handle it anymore and had to unground me." She said, before turning back to her car. "SWAIN, you know what you're looking for." A purple light shone from the back of the phone, scanning everything under the hood of the car.

"What are you looking for?" Tony asked curiously.

The light suddenly disappeared, and Ruby reached her arm in, grunting a little as she felt around for something. "This." She told him, pulling out a small device. "Can I at least blow this up?"

"What is it?"

"Tracking device. SWAIN already blocked the signal from it, so it's pretty useless, but I'd much rather blow the damn thing up." She admitted, glaring at the small chunk of metal in her hand.

Tony took it from her hand and looked it over. "Or you could just do this." He dropped it on the floor and crushed it with his foot.

"Well, that was boring." Ruby grumbled, looking at the pieces on the floor. "Explosions are way more fun."

"So who was tracking you then?" He wondered. He knew that he had been trying to track her, but someone had actually fitted a device to track her.

"Tasha. My guess is she had Liam stick it in there. Unless she actually had some free time and came to do it herself, but I'm betting on it being Liam." She told him, turning her attention back to the car.

"What exactly are you planning on doing to your mother's car?" Tony asked, watching as she leaned over to get a better look inside.

"Take her apart and then put her back together again? Or just give her the once over. Depends on how I'm feeling. I've rebuilt her a few times now, once more wouldn't hurt before she ended up on the scrap heap."

Tony frowned at her. "Why would you send her to the scrap?"

She let out a sigh and turned to face him. "Maggie-May isn't as young as she used to be. And I can't really afford all the parts to get her back into best condition. I wasn't even sure she was going to make it all the way to LA. I will miss her, she's all I have left now."

He could hear the sadness in her voice. The car was her mother's, and clearly she was attached to it more than she wanted to admit. "Just don't make a mess. And like I said, no blowing things up."

Ruby mock saluted him, before turning her attention back to the car. He watched her for a minute, before heading back up the stairs and to where Rhodey was still sitting.

"Everything okay, Tony?" He asked, putting a fresh mug of coffee on the table for him.

"Yeah, I just wish those stupid results would hurry up." Tony was a little frustrated now, because he wanted so badly for her to be his daughter, and he couldn't explain why.

"I'm sure Pepper will be back with them soon." Rhodey assured him. "How's Ruby doing?"

Tony shrugged. "I don't know, it's hard to tell. She was crying this morning, but she denied it when I asked her."

"It's only to be expected. I mean, she's just lost her mother and gone in search of a father she has never met before. It can't be easy for her, it can't be easy for anyone." He said, knowing that his best friend was worrying.

Tony knew he was right. Ruby had no family left now, no one to be there for her when she needed it. Except now she had him, and he was determined to do the best he could for her.

A/N: Well, I hope you liked it. It gets more interesting soon, I promise. I've already started writing up the first movie and have all my notes on things for the second.

I'm going away tomorrow, but I will still have my laptop with me so will still be able to update. I'm just not so sure on when it will be.

So, keep the reviews coming, they are awesome and so are you!

Pippa.