It isn't until three weeks later that his daughter reenters his life. Or, rather, he reenters hers. Tony is the best at compartmentalizing when it comes to his personal life. The morning he puts her file away, storing it in some deep cavern of J.A.R.V.I.S.' hard drive, he closes the door on her. His mind doesn't stray to her in the early hours of the morning. A fleeting image of her doesn't come across his mind when he looks at the open door of his lab. It never occurs to him that she may be driving halfway across the country, having to stop the car every few miles to catch her breath for tears, though that is what's happened. It never occurs to him that she returns to her life a very different person, though it's the truth. It never occurs to him that she's had to build armor of her own after their encounter, though she has. No. There are no thoughts of her at all. That is, not until the phone call.
The mountains pass him in a blur and the wind whips the product out of his hair. Golden sunshine is reflecting off of the hills as he tears down the road. The sound system bumps some obnoxious tune or another. Then, the phone rings.
"Answer that, will you?"
The words roll of his tongue, asking J.A.R.V.I.S. to do his job.
"Mr. Fury for you, sir."
Tony sighs and rolls his eyes, slapping the palm of his hand on the steering wheel. A terse voice comes from his lips.
"Put him through."
"Stark," the familiar voice of Nick Fury says.
A sarcastic quip follows.
"No, you're not. I am."
He smirks. It's good to be back. The annoyed director ignores the comment, deciding instead to control his tone carefully. Every word comes out more sharp than the last.
"Stark. We need you."
The billionaire shakes his head, not realizing or not caring that Fury cannot see him. It is not, after all, his problem anymore.
"No can do, One Eyed Willie. Not a superhero anymore."
Fury ignores the eyepatch jibe and feels his hands clench. Control, Nick. Control.
"Need I remind you of the deal that we struck after you destroyed your suits?"
How could Tony forget? The man showed up in his house in the middle of the night, hidden by the darkness, and reminded him that there is a suit waiting at Stark Tower for him. A suit that is his until a new Avenger is chosen. Heading falling back for the briefest moments, Tony shoots a "why me" look at the sky, as though the sky holds any kind of answers.
"Nope. Got it."
Thinking of New York, of the Avengers, of the suit… A fresh wave of panic sets in. He begins his breathing exercises. He counts. He readjusts his nervous hands on the steering wheel. He clears his throat. He tries to think of something else. For a moment, he contemplates peeling off of the road.
"We've found him."
Relief washes over Tony like a cold shower, all at once. Breaths fall easily in and out of his chest once more, and his vision clears. He doesn't have to suit up again. Good. Good. Tony doesn't even have to ask who it is. Fury is more than happy to divulge. After all, Stark is going to help them hook this kid.
"Peter Parker. Age 17. Alias: Spider-man. He's our new man."
Interest is piqued within Tony. That's a familiar name…Where has he heard…But before he even has time to wonder, J.A.R.V.I.S. has the files pulled up on the car's dashboard screen.
"Lucky bastard," Tony mutters under his breath, glancing down every few seconds at the photographs and news articles before him.
"We need you to recruit him."
Tony immediately shakes his head.
"Not part of my job description."
"If you get this kid, then you can hang up your suit for good. No more midnight phonecalls, no more unexpected visits, no more panic attacks."
Furrowing his brow, he presses on the gas pedal a little harder than he should.
"How do you know about-?"
Fury ignores Tony's protest and barrels forward. The less time spent on the phone with Tony Stark, the better Fury's sanity will end up.
"He's a teenage kid, Tony. He's a scientist. You walk around, show him your tech, impress him. He'll be an Avenger before-"
But Tony has long since tuned the director out. At "teenage kid," the brakes of his shiny car slammed against the bottom of the car, frantically halting the entire machine.
"Son of a bitch."
He doesn't even bother to mutter it under his breath. The revelation hits him like a ton of bricks.
"Call you back," he shouts, pressing a button on his steering wheel.
The phone clicks, leaving a confused and slightly annoyed director on the other end of the line. Tony doesn't care. Because now, he's found a use for this daughter of his. Her face finally hovers in the back corner of his mind. She may just be his key out. The realization takes a moment to sink in before he hits the accelerator and turns the car about. The speedometer hits unsafe heights, but he doesn't care.
"J.A.R.V.I.S., chart a plane for Miss. Potts. She'll be meeting me in Dallas."
"Dallas, sir?"
The supercomputer knows before he even asks. A small, rundown apartment complex outside of Dallas was the last known residence of a one Miss. Lee McCarthy.
"I've got a kid to get."
24 hours. Eighteen cups of coffee. Three frantic phone calls from Pepper. And he has, finally, stopped his car. He looks down at his GPS, then back through the windshield. A singularly Tony Stark expression of confusion crosses his face. Something must be wrong with J.A.R.V.I.S. He'll need recalibration. This cannot be this kid's last known address.
"J.A.R.V.I.S., where are we?"
He knows where he is. But, perhaps, some dark, small part of him is hoping that this is all a mistake, though in his gut, he knows it is not.
"Miss. McCarthy's home, address sir. Were you expecting something else?"
Yes. The short answer is yes, Tony does expect something else. Her mother is a serial socialite, flitting around the country, looking for men to screw and cheat out of money. He does not expect for her kid to live in a dump. And it is, to be perfectly frank, a dump. A modern American tenement. It has obviously, somehow, skirted past inspection dates, but Tony cannot understand for the life of them how they've made it. The foliage is overgrown, digging cracks into the sidewalk and façade of the apartment complex. Grafitti covers the exposed walls, the only paint the place has seen in years. The stairs look a breath away from collapsing. Windows are shattered. Screen doors are ripped. Tony is certain this place has been the scene of multiple crimes. It just has that stench around it.
This place isn't Hell, but it's about as close as one can get.
"You're kidding me."
J.A.R.V.I.S. deadpans back.
"You haven't programmed me to joke in that manner, sir."
Tony nods, pulling his lips inward and looking around cautiously. His hands grip the steering wheel as he attempts to put away the paternal instinct that claws at his gut. She's not my kid, he reminds himself, she's not my problem. You're just here because she's convenient. Use her. Get to Parker. Get the Hell out of dodge. A few tight breaths and moments later, Tony leans back in his seat, managing to pull his eyes away from the vivid train wreck that is this girl's house. He thinks out courses of action, what to do, but nothing comes to him except, "burn the place to the ground."
Then, he sees her. Tony almost laughs. She keeps her head down, eyes focused on the cracked sidewalks as she walks. Everything in her, from her gait to the slump of her shoulders, tells him that she knows how bad her home is; she is not unaware of the danger of living here. Her arms overflow with grocery bags-the brown paper kind that they use in all of the old movies. A key sticks out from between two of her fingers, hidden, yet poised for action should it be needed to take out an attacker. The sun is just starting to set behind the decrepit building. Night will fall soon. She is hurrying. Tony takes it as his cue. He slides from his car and strolls toward her, reaching her just as she grapples through arms of bags to unlock her door.
"Some place you got here."
The bags drop. The eggs break. The soda is shaken. A few peanut butter cups roll across the concrete. But she doesn't turn around. Weeks worth of swallowed hatred and suppressed emotion squirm around within her. She closes her eyes for the briefest of moments, kneels down to collect her things. Most of it will have to be thrown out. There goes sixty dollars in groceries. Her voice flatlines. There is no playful edge to muffle the sarcasm.
"Thanks. When I looked for apartments, my only thought was, 'I really hope Tony Stark approves.'"
A million thoughts run through her head. Every question that she once asked herself lingers. But, the one word that bangs on the drum in her head is: why? He had no interest in listening to her three weeks ago. She briefly looks up from the ground, only to see the shiny red exterior of some soft top convertible.
"You leave that car there, you're gonna lose it," she says.
Of course, she doesn't care if Tony Stark loses his car. It's just a reflex that she can't seem to control. He follows her to gaze to the car over his shoulders, and then shrugs.
"I've got others."
She nods, a biting, breathy and mirthful laugh escaping her.
"Of course you do," she mutters, scraping eggshells from the sidewalk into the bag. It will all be tossed anyway. She might as well make the dump as clean as it can be.
"You should leave it there. It's an improvement."
Lee doesn't miss the tilt of his head and the fold of his arms.
"Do you have a reason for being here, because you just destroyed my groceries."
She knows he hasn't come for a friendly chat. He hasn't come because he's guilty and he hasn't come to welcome her with open arms. He's come because he needs something. She just wants to know what that is.
"Yeah. I do, actually," he says.
Nodding her assent, she wipes away egg yoke on her already stained pants.
"Go ahead."
Tony is going to ask her, straight forward, to come with him to New York and sort this whole Peter Parker mess out, but he can't help the question that escapes his lips. It's too tempting, too tantalizing, too confusing. Her files were so alive with information. He can't simply ignore them.
"How did you get from MIT early freshman to roach motel in Dallas?"
Heaving the now ruined groceries into her arms, she presses the broken door with her hip, granting the pair of them entrance to the decrepit apartment. Her response is a deadpan that could put her father to shame.
"How did you get from leading weapons manufacturer to Avengers lapdog?"
He isn't backing down.
"Terrorists."
Neither is she.
"Me too," she snaps, dropping the brown paper bags into the garbage can before going to scrub her hands free of grime.
Tony's jaw locks. It's the first time he looks like a father, pointing to her with a disapproving look sliding down his nose at that particular jibe.
"That isn't funny."
Leaning against the counter, folding her body across the cheap countertop to incline herself into him, she raises an eyebrow. He isn't here to make nice. He isn't here to be a father. She cannot allow herself to hope for that sort of thing.
"How bored are you that you come here and invade my life?"
The excuse, the lie falls so easily from Tony's lips it may as well be the truth.
"I just…I felt bad. It weighed on my conscience."
She snaps like a twig beneath a boot. There is no room for sarcasm or humorless laughter. Now, she can feel a hand tugging at her stomach, bringing back familiar feelings from the day that he kicked her out of his home.
"No, it didn't. If it weighed on your conscience you would have shown up before now."
Silence. Tony debates with himself before finally sighing and offering up his sincere, if guarded, gaze.
"I need your help."
She smirks. If Tony had any fatherly inclinations, he might have been proud of it.
"Now, that's more like it."
Ignoring her, because this is now completely about him, he barrels through with his explanation.
"There is a deal I've made with S.H.I.E.L.D. I can't leave The Avengers until I've gotten a replacement. You heard of Spider-Man?"
He slides a file across the kitchen counter toward her, a hard copy of everything Fury sent him the day prior. Photographs and school reports. News paper articles and Physics quizzes. She investigates them, listening to every word her father says.
"Who hasn't?"
Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Tony picks a tangerine up from the bowl on the counter before noticing its browning exterior. Food doesn't last too long in a place like this. He distastefully puts it down, wiping the nonexistent grime onto his pant legs.
"Yeah, well, I have to recruit him."
"What'd you need me for, then?"
"I'm sure you're a relatively attractive young girl when you're dolled up real pretty."
"Gee, spare me the compliments. I'm practically blushing over here."
"I don't think my tech is going to be enough to reel Parker in."
"But you think dangling your daughter out there like a rack of meat on a spit will do the trick?"
He splutters, reaching out blindly to offer anything that might entice her. He just needs out. He needs out of the Avengers. Out of the suit. Out of the superhero gig.
"I'll pay for your college education. MIT. Set up a trust fund. Whatever the Hell you want, it'll be yours. Just do this for me, kid."
"Please," he adds for good measure.
She doesn't want the money. She doesn't want to go to MIT and she doesn't want anything from him. His stuff isn't going to buy her. But she sure as Hell can make him think it will.
"I'll go and get packed."
She doesn't want his money. But time in New York is time with him. And for a girl who's never had a father, that's more than she could ever wish for.
I know! I am the WORST. I don't even have an excuse for how long this took. It's been onmy computer since Juen and I've just neglected it. If you all still have a heart for this story, please let me know. I'm trying to see which stories need continuing and which ones should get the plug pulled, so please let me know! I hope you enjoyed it! Please review and I'll apologize personally for all of teh time this took!