Hi! So, I got enough watchers to warrant a mini sequel (actually, I've had enough watchers for a while now). Though, I'm honestly surprised that this thing has one hundred eight two watchers and twelve reviews. Seriously guys, reviews are awesome. Don't you know that?

Anyway, this is ends pretty awkwardly, I'll admit, but whatever. AND IN ADVANCE: This is...yeah. I saw The Avengers last night and wrote this while tipsy as hell. And I was originally going to kill Shanna off...then I realized I have a thing for happy endings (partially the reason why I continued it) and this might be a tad OOC, but whatever, I thought of this when that scene came up, and decided I should give it a shot.

Note: Takes place almost right after the movie. And NO PEPPER x TONY. No offense to the character, but she kind of annoys me and did when I saw the first movie years ago (and I was twelve).

The JARVIS dialogue isn't accurate, I know that already.

Disclaimer: only own the OCs.

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"Would you like to make a phone call, sir?"

Yes, Tony would like to make a phone call. His first thought is Pepper because he sure as hell isn't calling Fury or anyone else from S.H.I.E.L.D. and he supposes the other Avengers are important too, but they're in the process of fighting for their lives and he doesn't think anyone of them wants to hear his last words. But he thinks he really needs to call someone before he goes and his mind jumps automatically to Shanna.

"Call five-five-five, two-six-four, seven-nine-eight-eight."

"Of course."

The phone rings four times, much too long, and what would he say in the first place? Ask her why they broke up? Like he wants to hear that before he dies, but maybe he does. Tell her that he still thinks about her sometimes and that he really wishes it worked out? Sounds better, but he guesses that'd be implied by the call. He wonders briefly if she ended up with someone else or if that fear of commitment got in the way, and -

"Hello?" The voice isn't Shanna's, though he knows it's the right number. It isn't Penny either, and the girl sounds too young to be Tal, who must be sixteen by this point. The accent's all wrong too, distinctly County Clare Irish and he doesn't take him long to piece together why. Then she says, "Who is this?" and sounds way too panicked for a someone watching the news in Ireland.

"Long story, kid," he answers and behind him he hears screaming. The portal's drawing closer and the nuke's time til explosion is running out. "What's your name? How old are you?"

"Seven. I'm Tikva Stark." She's confused but he isn't. He and Shanna were tipsy on Rosh Hashanna once and she was singing some song in Hebrew and he commented that tikva would make a good name. It means hope, and he likes that. He hasn't thought about that night in a long time. "Um, who is -"

"Sorry, Tikva, but I've got about ten seconds to say this." He's taking fast, eyes focused on the portal and how fast it's coming up. "Tell your mom that I -"

Then he's through the portal and in space and connection's lost. Oxygen loss begins immediately and his eyes are closing and all he can think is he's got a daughter who's seven and his ex-girlfriend has commitment issues and it all makes sense now. He isn't angry, and at least he heard her voice before he dies.

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Tony sits across the table from Shanna in a Brooklyn ice cream parlor as their daughter stands on a shockingly long line of incredibly exhausted and injured looking people. She has a bad cut on her temple already closed up from butterfly stitches and bandages running up her right arm. Her eyes are red from crying, her shoulder-length a mess, clothes ripped and covered in specks on debris. Her torn red jacket reminds him of the panda sweater he bought her at the science convention seven years ago.

Mildly, he wonders if she still has it.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asks though he's known the answer since he heard his daughter say seven.

"I was scared," she answers. "I wasn't sure what you'd do, or at least in the long run, and I backed out. Penny forced me to see a psychiatrist a few months later. Diagnosed with depression and phobia of rejection - it doesn't have a real name."

He knows this already. After she told him about her relationship with that teacher he researched it. He never mentioned it. Apparently that was a bad decision. It could've saved them both a lot of heartbreak. The diagnosis of depression doesn't surprise him either, and it should've happened years ago.

"Didn't you think of calling me?"

"About a thousand times. Literally every day after we broke up even after that, all the time. Dialed your number all the time. Almost managed to hit send the day she born, but - well, I don't know. I could never think of a way to apologize. And I honestly did after the news said you were back from - Well, the number was disconnected." She pauses, then adds, "I know it isn't worth anything, but I'm sorry. There's nothing I can really do to make up for it, but if you think of anything, let me know."

For some utterly irrational reason, he still isn't angry. He blames exhaustion, near-death experiences, and shawarma. "Just...don't leave me out of her life anymore," he says tiredly. His mind isn't connecting the dots right and he can't remember the last time this happened. Actually, he can, but has a feeling this mess might've finally brought about the PTSD he was once accused of having.

"I wasn't planning on it."

Tikva's almost at the front of the line. She's getting them him ice cream too, but he doubts he'll be able to eat it. His daughter looks like perfect blend between Shanna and a female version of him, so an awful lot like her grandmother too.

Quietly, Shanna says, "She's got your mind."

He isn't surprised and nods absentmindedly. "Why'd you move to Ireland?"

Though he expects a shrug, he doesn't get one. "I was starting to turn into a nervous wreck, and it was interfering with job. I heard Janet mention something about some American exhibit going to an Irish museum and how they were looking for an American who had a knowledge in his or her own history and European history. I didn't want anyone to know what happened and I knew if I left the States I'd be able to give her your name without much suspicion and I don't know, it was a spontaneous decision. I had a Skype interview and made an impression I guess. Even knew I'd have to go on maternity leave soon. Next thing I knew, they'd paid for my airfare and got an apartment set up for me until I found a place to move. I liked the job, pretty much everyone liked me, so I stayed on even after the exhibit left."

"Well, this might get difficult."

Shanna shrugs. "I can always more back. I'll talk to Tikva but I don't think she'll mind. She has friends but no one close and she's in love with New York. Even has friends here that she talks to regularly online."

"What about you?"

"I miss New York anyway. You know, minus the whole alien invasion thing."

He has a spur-of-the-moment want to ask her to marry him, but he knows he'll say no. She'd say it was battle talking, not him, and she'd probably be right anyway. Tikva comes back and sits next to him. She might be a genius, but at six, she doesn't understand what's going on enough to be wary of him or angry with Shanna. That's probably a good thing. For the most part she looks confused and he wonders how bad her shock is. The girl's going to have be in therapy for years after this, if not the rest of her life.

"Daddy," she says, and the word sounds beyond strange to him, though he supposes after all the shit that just went down anything would and this isn't such a bad surprise anyway in the grand scheme of things. "What's a superhero?"

"What?"

"The tele said you and the other people were superheroes."

Tikva has big brown eyes and he wonders how effective her puppy dog face is. They look a lot like his, too. He answers, "I guess they're people who save the world."

"What's space like?"

Endless, dark, freezing, and terrifying; lacking gravity and filled with stars, a properly named vacuum not meant to live in is the real answer but hell if he's going to say that to his daughter. "Ever been in a planetarium?"

She nods. "Mammy brought me to the National History Museum."

Mammy. God, she sounds so Irish. "Well, it's kind of like that."

"Were there a lot of stars?"

"Millions."

He throws a glance at Shanna, and her eyes are focused on the bright red surface of the table and he has a feeling she's calling bullshit on this one. Tikva says, "I wanna be an astronaut when I grow up!"

"Just stay away from aliens, then, okay?"

His daughter smiles happily and takes a bite of her ice cream and Tony can't remember what being six feels like. He thinks it must be nice.

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Everything happens faster than Tony knows how to deal with. All the Avengers go their separate ways (and he's more disappointed about it than he admits or expects), half of Manhattan's been temporarily evacuated as construction workers from all over the US work frantically to clean up and rebuild, and Shanna's already found a job at the NHM and an apartment in the same building as Penny once it gets patched up. The situation is awkward, but they avoid being alone and don't talk about it when they are alone and somehow they make it work.

"So what're you working on?" Shanna asks on a Sunday morning as she makes breakfast, and he finds it strange that they managed to fall back into certain aspects of their old pattern. He has a feeling like he should hate her but after barely stopping the apocalypse, seeing space and nuking an alien ship, and finding out that this entire disaster happened on Tal's sixteenth birthday, he can't really find it in him. Her shirt's sliding off one shoulder and he can see the bright white bandages covering her stitches from where the paramedics pulled glass from her back. He hadn't noticed it earlier, but she's thinner than she used to be.

Tony glances at her as Tikva draws another red line on the graph paper. Apparently she likes drawing in colored pencils, and he vaguely remembers doing the same thing. He's pretty sure he liked red too. "I'm teaching her how to build a plane."

"A plane?"

He shrugs. "She asked."

Shanna slips their breakfast onto plates that he hasn't touched in ages. They're there for show more than anything else. "Why do you want to build a plane?" she says and sits across from them at the island.

Tikva answers, "I wanna fly around the world."

"You're going to have to wait a few years for that one," Tony tells her and erases a line. "To get the engine to work this needs to be horizontal, not vertical."

"Why?"

So he explains, and the girl listens attentively and he appreciate's Shanna's effort to concentrate on it too. Then again, she spent about two and half years being the soundboard for his ideas, half of which he never made or didn't finish. When he's done, Tikva corrects her line. He's always thought he'd have a smart kid if he ever went about actually having kids, but thinking it and seeing it are incredibly different.

And he's glad he gets to understand that.

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So this a weird, awkward ending, but it was a plot-less story since I guess it really doesn't matter. Review please!...and no flames is pretty cool too.

Note: I got the name Tikva from a lullaby my mom used to sing to me as a kid called "Shoshanna."