Sweet Child O' Mine

Guns 'N Roses

It had been a long time since Maggie had last rested her head on Tony's chest, in fact she couldn't remember a time when she ever had in fact done so. She did however find peace in the soft blue glow and nearly imperceptible buzz of the arc reactor, like a child comforted by the soft voice of its mother. Her face felt stiff from the dried tears and the arm of her chair dug in just below her ribcage, but it had been a long night and she soon drifted to sleep. Tony kept his arm thrown around her shoulder, and tried not to squeeze her too tight. He wished he could sleep too, but the florescent lights offered him no comfort. If they could just move Steve to Stark tower, this would all be easier on everyone, but no, SHIELD insisted they use their facilities.

"Thanks, Doc," Bruce said with a soft pat on the doctor's back as they emerged from the room. Tony warily watched the nameless doctor walk away. Everyone was so anonymous here, everything was so sterile. It felt like one of those whitewashed nightmares where everyone was faceless and talking to you in a language you couldn't understand. Bruce could clear this up, Bruce could tell them what was happening. Tony went to move, but Bruce raised a hand to stop him so that he wouldn't wake up Maggie.

"He's fine, or he will be in about two days. Howard was thorough, Steve heals about three times as fast as any human. He should be awake within a few hours."

Tony could not have sighed deeper and Bruce excused himself to find a cup of coffee; the Other Guy always tired him out.

"How's she doing?" Tony looked up to find Natasha sporting a thickly bandaged hand and a cut lip, otherwise she looked fine, or at least better than the rest of them. Natasha sat on the other side of Tony and carefully laid her head back against the wall.

"Steve's going to be perfectly fine in a few days, Bruce said he should be waking up soon," said Tony in a very tired tone. He closed his eyes against the burning florescence, but it hardly made a difference.

"I know, I talked to Bruce. I asked how she was doing," Natasha responded.

Tony sighed again, but not out of relief. "I don't know," he said hopelessly. Things had finally been going well with Maggie, even after her begging them to let her "go to school with the mutants." She learned how to control her speed so she wouldn't raise suspicion at track meets, she started mixed martial arts training with Natasha, and was finally starting to appear as though she cared about school. She even made a few friends, total nerds in Tony's opinion, but they were better than the first round of girls that were obviously only friends with her because of her wealth. She hadn't come home crying all year, but sometimes Steve said she looked sad. Tony never noticed though because he was always busy in the lab. With Steve's brush with death, and the many close calls all of them had met in the past couple of missions, though, Tony was starting to regret not playing an active roll in his daughter's life. He thought of all the times he sang her to sleep when she was a baby, all the times she begged to help in the lab. Tony considered how he was placing fewer memories in the 'Maggie File,' and if a time would come when only important things like a wedding or a grandchild would make it in. He didn't want to be like his father, cold, calculating.

"These days I think she talks to you more than she talks to me," Tony said finally breaking the silence. Natasha couldn't argue with that. She was receiving calls nearly three times a week from Maggie and was frustrated that she couldn't answer them all. So much had been going on since the Earth's shield had faltered. Everyone was in danger, especially those with whom they were close. Maggie was probably their biggest weakness.

"I think she has a little crush," Natasha continued, trying to keep the conversation light.

"What? On a boy?" Tony sputtered, trying not to wake Maggie.

"Mhm," Natasha nodded with a slight smile. "His name is Wade, he's one of the instructors at the MMA club she's been going to. She said he's the only person who has ever challenged her."

"Wade? Wade, what?" Tony asked suddenly getting anxious at the idea of his little girl liking a boy, much less an instructor. How old could he possibly be? "I need JARVIS to run a background check."

"I already did, and you won't like what I found," said a very even voice. Tony turned away from Natasha to find Pepper with two cups of coffee. She put one cup on the table then slowly sipped from the other. She knew better than to hand something to Tony in a time like this.

"Wade Wilson, alias: Deadpool. As far as I can tell all his mental faculties are gone. He's a former mercanary, trying to turn his life around and 'give back to the community.' He's being heavily monitored and is referred to as 'The Merc With the Mouth.'" Pepper recited as if she had memorized the information just for this moment. "He is also nineteen years old, five years older than Maggie. You can deal with that however you like, I'm going to go find Bruce and finalize the details of having Steve moved to Stark Tower," Pepper said, happy to leave Tony with the responsibility of dealing with his teenage daughter, a task he often gave to Pepper.

"I'm going to go find Clint," Natasha said with a pleased smirk in response to the utterly ridiculous look on Tony's face. Completely alone, and trying to think of a way to have this Wade person disposed of, or sent off to Iceland, Tony began stroking Maggie's hair and humming to himself. Soon the humming turned to singing the way it always had when he held baby Maggie in his arms.

"Sweet child o' mine
Sweet love of mine

She's got eyes of the bluest skies
As if they thought of rain
I hate to look into those eyes
And see an ounce of pain."

Suddenly Maggie stirred. She blinked a few times wiping away the bleariness then turned her head to look up at Tony. She sat up straight rather quickly, in her memory her and Tony had never been this close and she felt strange even though at a time like this there were few people she wanted to be near more than her father.

"Any news?" Maggie asked cautiously.

"He'll be fine in a few days," Tony answered brusquely, unintentionally going back into his usual guarded ways, despite wanting to break down the wall between him and Maggie. The wall that had been gone while she slept, just like when she was a young child. He had never meant to push her away.

"So, who's Wade?"

"What?" Maggie sputtered.

"Wade Wilson, your hot MMA instructor. Aunt Tasha said you find him very challenging. What else do you find him, Maggie?"

"Dad, are you serious right now?" Maggie's question was met with a face that said quite clearly that Tony was, in fact, very serious. "Since when do you even care?"

"Since your father almost got blown up and I realized you're all that I have!" Tony looked surprised at himself then tried to fix what he had done. "That. . . came out wrong, and like I said, your father is going to be alright, but I think it is time that I start caring. Especially since this Wade guy is dangerous!"

"He is not!" Maggie said standing up in a very defensive stance, with her fists clenched.

"You don't know him like I do," Tony said trying to calm Maggie down.

"You don't know him at all! A profile isn't a person, Dad," Maggie was always incredibly quick for her age, she obviously realized Tony had accessed her crush's file somehow.

"Yeah, well you don't know what's on that profile," Tony said standing to gain at least a height advantage on his daughter. With Steve's DNA it was likely she could knock him into next week, that had never even been a danger until now.

"Tony," a weak voice suddenly wobbled out of the room across the hall, "Maggie?"

"Daddy!" Maggie bolted into the room and ran to the far side of Steve's bed and grasped his hand tightly in hers'. Tony mouthed a quick "This isn't over," then sat in the chair on Steve's other side.

"What were you two yelling about?" Steve asked quietly as he narrowed his eyes to make sure they knew he wouldn't accept any lies.

"We'll talk about it later," Tony said firmly, and Maggie made to object, but Tony continued, "I just want to spend this time enjoying the fact that we're all alive and safe right now." Maggie couldn't argue with that and at the end of the night, as she was curled up next to Steve on the gurney, with his arm wrapped around her, the anger she felt towards Tony ebbed away as she slept, bathed in the glow of Tony's arc reactor.

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