Joy Fahey, Ele, A Lake Elohcin, Anna Marcia Gregorio, all got the whisk reference. It was indeed Billboard Dad…when I said 'next' chapter, I used the term loosely…as I forgot.

AmuletSpade: I like you. You're silly.

Do I know how to neglect a story or what?

Tony was mildly concerned. No way was that kind of reaction normal. Of course, if he wanted normal, that was unfortunate. Very soon, he'd find himself in a much more bizarre situation.

They'd gotten ice cream as planned. Anna ate hers. In order to disprove her small-minded theory, he let her have some of his. Then he let her have three more scoops of chocolate mint and neopolitan. No harm, right?

On the way home, Anna wouldn't stop wiggling in her seat the entire time. Neither would she shut up. She talked. About everything. The sky's really blue. Why are clouds white? The leather was shiny and slippery – that had led to a fight to get her to put her seat belt on and stop sliding onto the floor; he had a big nose – a brief name-calling argument had followed. Anna won by default. There are just some things one shouldn't say to kids; and apparently, his beard made him look like the big, bad wolf. At one point, he'd gotten so annoyed he seriously contemplated kicking her out of the car.

Then he reminded himself that he volunteered for this, and it was his idea to give her ice cream even after Logan had warned him. And she was eight. Morally, it was also wrong. There was probably some other reason, but he felt a headache coming on and couldn't focus on what it could be.

As he shut the door of his home, Anna was spinning in a circle around the room. Tony turned around, and his legs were immediately tackled by the curly-headed Howlett, and he threw his hands up with a startled yell as he fell back and hit the door. With a grunt and a smarting back, he looked down at the girl with a death-grip on his right leg.

Her silver eyes were bright, her smile was wide, and there was some dried ice cream on her upper lip. Frowning a little, he absently thought he'd gotten all of that off. And he would have too, if she hadn't tried to bite him.

"Hi," she said.

"…Hey. Get off."

"'Kay!"

She launched herself away from him and to the hall. Tony warily followed her with the sense that if the kid ever needed supervision, now was it. No sooner had he stepped foot in the hall, than Anna was running past him back into the living room. She zoomed around the room, jumped on then over the couch, crawled under the coffee table, then back out before he even blinked.

And now he was scared. Because that just was not normal. But then, both of her parents were mutants. She wasn't though, right? Logan would have told him if the kid was, right? But that hadn't been normal.

"Anna?" he called out.

Her head popped around the far corner. "Knock-knock!"

Tony introduced his palm to his face. He pushed his fingers through his hair and hoped whatever was wrong with her was temporary.

"Who's there?" he sighed.

Anna grinned incredibly wide and giggled.

"Wendy."

"Wendy who?"

"Wendy wind blows the cradle will rock. Get it?"

"Yeah, I get it."

Her stark amusement and joy suddenly morphed to a more serious expression.

"Why was there a baby in a tree?"

"What?"

"'Cause! Rock-a-bye baby in the treetop! Why's the baby in the top of the tree?"

Because she wouldn't stop talking, Tony thought.

Fortunately, Tony didn't have time to come up a better answer before Anna lost interest and took off again. He found her behavior odd. She wasn't nearly as energetic or insane before. Was this normal?

Tony pulled out his phone out of his jacket pocket, and then tossed the jacket and his tie onto the couch. At first, his fingers flew over the familiar number of one Pepper Potts. Before he hit 'Send', he paused. The…conversation he'd had with her earlier ran through his mind, reminding him she was upset with him. Calling her right now, he'd probably just end up with the 'Professional Treatment' and a load of 'Mr. Stark's thrown in there. He hated when she distanced herself like that. He hated when he made her mad enough to do that.

Pressing the 'End' button, he decided on Plan B. Along with the ring signal, he could hear Anna a distance off singing, "I've got a lovely bunch a' coconuts!" Tony walked towards the kitchen and the moment he opened the fridge, his friend picked up.

"Rhodey."

"What's up?"

"Do me a favor. I ne-"

"No."

He grabbed a bottle of water, frowning at the interruption and the negative answer.

"Wait. What? You didn't even let me finish."

"Because the last time you said 'Do me a favor', I ended up in Vegas, handcuffed to a lady with a pink, feather boa who only spoke Russian, and nearly got deported."

While Rhodey ranted, he'd drained half the bottle and set it on the island in the center of the kitchen. He hopped onto the surface to argue the point.

"Well, if you remember all that, you should remember I told you to run. And there was no lady with a pink boa who spoke Russian. The boa was purple, and she spoke German."

"You didn't say run."

"Yes, I did."

"That isn't what you said, Tony!"

Anna rushed into the kitchen and clutched his pant leg.

"I'm thirsty!" she cried desperately.

"Then get something."

"Can I have root beer?"

"Yeah, sure," he waved her away. She skipped off, and Tony said to Rhodey, "You know you had fun."

"I got strip-searched, Tony."

"How is that not fun?"

"I'm going to hang up on you."

"Wait, wait! Don't do me a favor. Just answer a question."

"Fine."

"Can kids get high off of ice cream?"

There was a long pause. Tony took the phone away from his ear and looked at it. Nope, he hadn't hung up. Anna slurped her soda loudly. Then she burped even louder, and he blinked in surprise. At least she said "Excuse me." Who taught her manners anyway? He'd certainly never seen Logan be polite to anyone.

"Hello?" he said into the phone.

"You gave her ice cream?" Rhodey finally replied.

"Yeah."

"How much?"

"Not…a lot."

"You have got to be the stupidest genius ever."

"Okay. Can you tell me why?"

"You realize ice cream or sugar period is to kids what tequila is to you?"

"Oh."

That explained so much. Really.

"You honestly didn't know that?"

"Why would I know that? How often have I actually been around a kid for more than, like, fifteen minutes?"

"You're a moron."

Anna ran past him to the left, when he had been pretty sure she was already over there, and upstairs.

"At the moment…I can't entirely disagree with that. How long will she be like this?"

"Couple of hours maybe. She's gonna have to run all that energy off and then she'll fall over somewhere and sleep even longer. Just stop giving her sugar."

Tony's mind replayed Anna burping and then shooting around his house like a rocket afterwards. He might have a problem.

"'Kay, thanks, bye." Tony ended the call, slipping the phone into his pocket

"Anna!" Tony called out.

"What?"

Her voice came from upstairs, and Tony followed. He passed several open bedrooms, all of which the beds looked a little rumpled. He came to the fifth, blue room and wondered why he had so many bedrooms. Inside, he found Anna jumping on the king-size bed.

"Hi!" she chirped. "Wanna play jumping with me?"

"Um..." he said.

And when he said it, he thought. In her current state of sugar drunkenness, he couldn't leave her alone. Doing any sort of office work was out because she wouldn't stay in the same room, it seemed, for more than a few minutes, and if she did, she wouldn't shut up. He wasn't even going to entertain the idea of taking her down to his lab with him. Anna anywhere near a blowtorch screamed bad idea to him. Basically, he wasn't about to have any time to himself for a while, which is precisely what a person agrees to when they agree to babysit.

He thought all of this in the space of that 'Um', and in the next instant, came to a conclusion with an,

"Okay."

And that was how the CEO of the multi-billion dollar company of Stark Industries ended up spending a good portion of his afternoon jumping on one of his several beds in his multi-million dollar beach home.