Prologue

Tony Stark stared at the lawyer sitting across from him, the folder laying open on the table between them. He was pretty sure they'd met before, but he couldn't quite remember anything more than that. She had glasses…had his last lawyer had glasses? Or was this the same lady? He couldn't remember. He had a feeling this one was new. Or maybe his groundskeeper was new and his lawyer had been here a while. Head lawyer, he should say. The head of his legal team. Nothing but the best for Stark Industries. And God knew he needed his own legal team.

The glass of whiskey beside him was half water by this point…he'd been sitting there for long enough that the ice was nearly melted. But he couldn't bring himself to ask his assistant to bring him another. She would, despite her disapproval…disapproval over the drinking and over the fact that he'd been working down in his lab for almost 24 hours straight when she interrupted him to let him know that his legal team needed to speak to him. She did most of what he asked of her despite her disapproval, and for a moment, he wondered if he should find another assistant…one who didn't make their disapproval quite so obvious.

Obadiah didn't need to know about this meeting. Despite the fact that he was so buzzed it was hard to walk a straight line, he knew that much. He didn't think he could stomach the lecture along with all the booze…not now. He'd been careless. Stupid. So fucking stupid. All these years, and never before had any of the women he'd slept with come back with a claim like this. At least, none that had gotten through his legal team and all the way to him. But he guessed he could only get lucky for so long.

It was true. Even as he agreed to the paternity test, he knew it was true. He remembered her. Mary…something. Fitz? No…there was more to it. But it didn't matter. One woman in a long string of one-night stands. She was a…chemist? Biologist? Something in robotics research? Okay, so he couldn't remember her profession, but he remembered her. Big brown eyes and long, dark hair. A turtleneck and a necklace with a tiny gold cross hanging from it.

It didn't matter. He'd never planned to see her again. But now his lawyer was informing him that she'd tried to call, going through the company first, and some key words had triggered the intervention of the legal department. Namely 'I'm pregnant.' That always prompted an investigation. Obi wouldn't risk him having bastards out there somewhere.

It seemed like even his lawyer couldn't hide her disgust for him as he showed him the paperwork he needed to sign. Hell, if his lawyer was disgusted, what would his father have thought?

Tony didn't give a fuck. That's what he told himself. Who the hell cared what Howard Stark would have thought of him fathering a bastard child? It didn't matter. None of it mattered. He had work to do and whiskey to drink, and sure, he'd spare the time to submit a DNA sample, and when they told him that it was his kid, he'd give Mary a couple hundred thousand dollars to do whatever she wanted with it.

And that's what he told his lawyer before going back down to his lab. He had weapons to build. Designs to perfect. A father to be better than.

It was only three days before his lawyer called him in for another meeting.

They met in the conference room he used for these things, the view of New York a nice distraction from the information she was trying to impart. He wasn't even surprised when she handed him the sheet of paper confirming that he was in fact the father of a 6 month old…fetus? The recording device sat on the table in front of him, and he stared at it as his lawyer laid out his options, going on about child support and visitation rights and confidentiality agreements. The mother was asking him to be a part of this kid's life. He didn't know if it was a trap, or if she really thought he'd be good at something like that.

He held up a hand before she was halfway through her spiel. "Just pay her." He took another drink of his water, wishing it was whiskey. "The agreed upon amount."

The woman whose name Tony would guess was Amanda but he wasn't 100% sure, hesitated. "Mr. Stark…"

"Pay her. Installments or lump sum. Whatever she wants to keep this quiet."

Maybe-Amanda nodded slowly. "Okay." She wrote something down, lips pressed together in a tight line.

All of this would be saved, he knew. The transcript would be typed up and put in a file somewhere, and hopefully that would be all that remained of his link to this child. It was better off anyway, he told himself, wishing he'd thought to get himself a drink before this meeting. Rhodey had been around more lately, taking some time off to…well, apparently to stick around the tower and distract Tony in the lab. He hadn't exactly asked his best friend why he was around so much, mostly because he suspected there was a lecture about his drinking in the near future. So he hadn't been imbibing as much as usual, which meant he wasn't nearly drunk enough for this. He'd be a shit father, he was sure, just like his own dad. No need to subject another kid to the family legacy.

"Mary also asked if you would like to be involved in your daughter's life at all. She's offered visitation, or to send pictures…"

He shuddered. A daughter. A little girl. Jesus, no one on the fucking planet should ever trust him to be a father to a little girl. He thought about what his father had done to him. The belt. The broken bottles and the screaming…the times he'd sobbed alone in his room until Jarvis had found him. The unbearable pressure of trying to live up to one of the greatest minds of his time. Being sent away to boarding school. The thought of that happening to his own child…to his little girl, made him want to throw up.

And it would happen. No matter what his best intentions were, it would happen. Because no matter what he told himself, there was no way Tony could ever be better than his father.

He hadn't wanted to know it was a little girl. Hell, he wanted to drink until he could forget.

"Look, I don't want to see pictures...hell I don't want to know anything about her. I don't even want to know her name. Tell Mary to take the money and leave me the hell alone."

His lawyer nodded, and he knew that she hated him. Could feel it in the air when she looked at him, and he wondered if she had a child too. But he told himself he didn't care. This was better for everyone. He'd ruin that little girl's life. With Mary, at least, she'd be safe. She'd grow up with a mother that loved her and enough money that she'd be taken care of. And one day, she'd grow up to be better than him in every way.

God he hoped so.

He toasted to it an hour later, papers signed by himself and reviewed by his lawyer whose name turned out to be Alice. She would only work for him for another two months before she got poached by another law firm. Tony wouldn't even notice. Alone in his lab, he held up the bottle of dark liquor he'd grabbed from the back of his dwindling supply in his personal bar and nodded to the empty lab where his newest project sat, half assembled, the robot's claw still not attached.

"Here's to you, kid. Good luck," he told the empty room, then took a long swig straight from the bottle.

And that was the last time he let himself think about his daughter for almost fifteen years.