The first thing I realized when I opened my eyes was that I was in an unfamiliar bed. I sat up slowly, taking in my spacious surroundings, or what I could see of them in the dim light that was let in around the edges of the window's curtains. Tan walls hung with scenic watercolour paintings, a large wooden desk with a leather rolling chair, two maple wood dressers and a matching wardrobe, the same wood as the night tables and the bed. The bed itself seemed to be on a raised dais, as it seemed higher than everything else. The bedding was various shades of cream, matching the brown and beige theme of the rest of the room. As I looked closer, I noticed gold accents in the fabric, in some of the wall accents, and embroidered on the lampshades that sat on each night table. The main light in the room hung from the ceiling with frosted panels and—what else—gold designs. I slipped out of the bed, and down two steps, my feet landing on plush cream and tan carpet. I walked over to the window, brushing aside the light brown curtains to let in the sun. The high-up view confirmed my suspicion that I'd spent the night in the tower. I wondered how I'd gotten to the bed—I'd have to ask Tony.

Leaving the curtains open, I opened the door to go find Tony, or at the very least to find food. I found myself looking at a small round hallway, wide enough for two people to stand with their arms outstretched, lined with eight doors. Having a feeling one of those might be Tony's bedroom and not wanting to accidentally invade his privacy, I reached out to the AI.

"Good morning, FRIDAY?"

"Good morning Miss. Y/l/n, how may I be of assistance?"

"You can just call me Y/N. Is Tony already up?"

"As you wish, Y/N. Yes, Mr. Stark is awake, and is making breakfast. Would you like me to tell him you're looking for him?"

"No, that's okay, but if you could just direct me to him, that would be great."

"Of course, Y/N. You'll want to go through the door two down to your left and follow the hall straight through."

"Thanks FRIDAY."

I did as she said, that hallway leading into an open-concept space, with a set of couches and a TV close to a wall of windows, a small dining table slightly behind that, and a kitchen on the opposite wall, separated from the rest by a small island. Beyond that was a set of wooden doors, and I realized this was probably the personal suite I'd been told about.

Standing in the kitchen were Tony and his girlfriend…Pepper. Based off her pajama set, I presumed she'd also spent the night. I remember him saying she half-lived with him. They were both turned towards the counter, quietly chatting, her head resting against his shoulder as he stirred something. I felt a bit like I was intruding. I debated retreating back to my room, but before I could, my stomach gave a loud growl, betraying my presence. I felt myself blush as I entered further into the room.

"Good morning, Tony, Pepper."

They chorused a response back. Pepper smiled, "How did you sleep?"

I shrugged, "Pretty well. You two?"

They shared a small look before responding in kind.

Tony looked at me over his shoulder, "You up for pancakes? Pepper's here, so they should actually turn out edible."

"Pancakes sound good…are you not a big cook then, Tony?"

Pepper laughed before he could respond, "Oh god no, never let him cook for you unsupervised. He'll burn the tower down. Or give you food poisoning. Or both."

I chuckled, "Noted. Guess I'll be doing most of the cooking once I move in then."

Pepper turned to look at Tony, "You never told me she was moving in?"

He shrugged, "You know me—I never remember to tell you stuff."

"Still, this is big Tony, you should have told me!"

I interrupted, "If it's a problem, I don't have to. I can easily go elsewhere, I don't want to be an intrusion."

They both turned, alarm in their eyes, her answer coming first, "No! Of course, it's not a problem. You're his daughter, honestly I shouldn't have been surprised. It makes sense. The problem is that your father fails to keep me up-to-date on things."

Tony gave a rough nod, "This is going to be your home." He turned back around and started pouring batter into the frying pan, "By the way, if you have some time today, I was going to have a lawyer come over so we can legally make you a Stark."

"Sorry, Tony, I'm fully booked with all the nothing I have to do."

Pepper chuckled into her coffee, and I could feel Tony roll his eyes even though I couldn't see them.

"How'd you end up this sarcastic without even meeting me?"

"Must be strong genes, I don't know. Oh—but I'm not going to change my name, by the way."

He gave me an offended look, "What's wrong with my name? Stark is one of the most powerful last names you could have."

I swallowed, answering hesitantly afraid to hurt his feelings, "I'm just used to this last name. And it will help me stay more anonymous—which you said will likely end up becoming a concern. Plus, well…it's my mom's last name."

His gaze softened at my last point, "Fine, but I'm still getting your birth certificate changed to include me." He gestured the spatula at me in emphasis.

I nodded, accepting that. Then remembered my earlier question, "Oh, also, how did I get from the couch into that bedroom last night?"

"Your bedroom, just for the record. Unless you'd prefer one of the others. You can also obviously redecorate if you want. But well…I carried you."

Oh. I didn't know if I was touched or embarrassed by that. A little of both. I blushed, "Thank you. You know you could have just woken me up and sent me back to my hotel?"

Now it was his turn to look embarrassed and he turned back to the pancakes, flipping some onto a plate to give to Pepper. "I figured if you fell asleep, you must have needed your rest. And I think I remember hearing once that it's bad to wake a sleeping child."

I snorted, "Pretty sure that only applies to actual children, Tony. I'm 16, almost 17."

He handed me my own plate of pancakes, "Exactly, a child." A nervous expression crossed his face, "Would you have preferred the hotel?"

I grinned at him, "I mean, I wouldn't have had to see you first thing in the morning, which would have been a plus."

He narrowed his eyes at me, "Cold, kid. Real cold."

I stuck my tongue out at him then dug into my pancakes.

We finished breakfast just as a grumpy looking man in a suit came in. I recognized him from outside the Stark café the other day.

I shot Tony a questioning look, "Unless you're about to tell me that's a seriously overgrown high school student, I'm confused because I thought only four of us had the fancy access card?"

Tony glanced towards the door, "That would be Happy. He's a security guard, so his clearance structure is different."

I looked at the man again, then doubtfully back at Tony, "He doesn't look very happy."

Happy approached, and I realized how exhausted he looked. He heaved a sigh as he glared at Tony, "This kid is going to be the death of me, I hope you realize that." Then he noticed me, and his eyes widened in panic, "Oh god, there's two of 'em?"

Tony chuckled, "Happy, meet my daughter, Y/N."

"Your daughter—"

"You have a daughter, Mr. Stark!? That's so cool!"

I startled as a scrawny brown-haired guy burst through the doors and ran over to us, skidding to a stop in front of me with his hand outstretched, "Hi, Y/n, I'm Peter!"

I blinked at him, taking in his unruly hair and cute smile, and shook his hand, "I take it you're Tony's other kid?"

Choking sounds came from behind me, and I cast a concerned glance at Tony, while Pepper hit him on his back. I turned back to Peter, who was staring at me with wide, confused eyes, "What? No, I'm not Mr. Stark's kid, I'm um-a,"

"The intern. I know, I was kidding. Though you do have suspiciously high clearance. And the way he's talked about you…you may not actually be his kid, but you might as well be."

More choking noises, followed by a strained, "Clearly my pancakes poisoned you."

I rolled my eyes and refocused on Peter, choosing to pretend I didn't notice his not-so-subtle checking me out, "So, Intern-boy, what brings you to Stark's personal penthouse suite, at," I checked my watch, "9 am on a Saturday morning?"

He blushed, "Mr. Stark said we were gonnaworkonthesuittoday, and I was reallyexcited so I made sure I got here earlier than usual," his eyes widened, "I didn't mean to interrupt though! I didn't know you were here—I didn't even know Mr. Stark had a daughter," panic entered his eyes, "Notthat he doesn't talk about you, I'm sure he does just not with, youknow,me."

I watched amused as his panic grew and he chaotically rambled, saying something about how normally Tony would already be in the workshop at this hour and a few other things I didn't catch through his speed-talking.

As he geared up for what I think was the fifth or sixth apology, I held up my hand to him, "Calm down, dude. Breathe. And enough with the apologies. You're very sweet trying to cover Tony's ass for not talking about me, but he wouldn't have, because until a few days ago, he didn't know I existed. Ditto for the interrupting thing, because me being here for breakfast was a very unplanned thing. You're all in the clear."

Breathing slightly fast as he tried to re-oxygenate after his ramble, he stared at me, the panic retreating from his wide eyes as he smiled shyly, his blush returning, "You think I'm sweet?"

I gave a short laugh. Boys. With a smile on my face, I turned back to Tony and Pepper, who were standing there looking a little lost. Standing up, I gestured between Tony and Peter, "I'll leave you to working on…a suit?" My head tilted at Tony, "You do tailoring?"

"What? No. Of course not. It's…Spiderman's suit. The boy helps me maintain and upgrade it sometimes."

Huh. Interesting. I shrugged, "Okay well, you two boys have fun with that. I'm gonna head back to my hotel to get changed, and then go explore New York City a bit. Maybe find a décor store, because yes, if I have to stay in that bedroom, I'm redecorating. I'm not living in beige-land, no matter how fancy it is."

Tony gave me a look, "You know, you just broke the heart of one of the most expensive interior designers money can buy."

I shrugged and started walking towards the door, stopping as he called after me, "Wait, Kid. Happy'll go with you."

"What?! Am I the babysitter now?!"

"Of course not. You're the Forehead of Kid Supervision." Tony's voice softened, "You're going to keep her safe for me."

I debated arguing that I wasn't a kid, nor did I require supervision and safe-keeping, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to have someone with who actually knew the city, so I kept my mouth shut.

Instead, I gave a final wave goodbye to Tony, Pepper, and Peter, shouting back just before I slipped through the doors, "See you at 1, Tony!"

I heard a muffled response as the door closed behind me, and followed Happy-who-was-not-happy through the hallway maze and open living space of the main penthouse, and out to the elevator. As we descended downwards, I turned to him, "So why are you a forehead?"

He gave a long-suffering sigh, "Because your father has no respect."

I shrugged, "Sounds about right."

I got perhaps the tiniest twitch of a smile before his passive expression resumed. "So, Y/N, where are we going?"

I gave him the address of my hotel, and we drove there in a fancy black Mercedes. I tried to start a conversation a few times, but he wasn't a very talkative person, so I gave up pretty quickly. I took out my phone and realized it was dead. Oops. I tried to think of when I'd last used it… sometime yesterday morning? A bolt of panic went through me as I also realized I hadn't checked in with anyone from home for a few days. Double oops.

The first thing I did when we got to the hotel was plug my phone in. Happy had insisted on waiting down in the car, even though I'd told him I wasn't sure how long I'd be. I hopped in the shower, and when I came out, my phone screen was lit up and I could see notifications from several missed texts and calls. Wrapped in a towel, I laid down across the bed and slid my finger across the screen, careful not to pull the cord out of the wall. As expected, most of the messages were from Jeremy, the close family friend that the house would be in trust to. He was freaking out big time. Sighing, I dialed his number.

"Y/n! What is going on, where have you been?!"

"Sorry, my phone died and I didn't realize. I've been a bit distracted."

"Is everything okay?"

"Yeah… yeah, everything is fine. I found out that Tony Stark really is my dad."

"You—that's great. I'm happy you know now. Does that mean you're coming home soon?"

"Actually, he wants me to stay here, to move in with him."

There was a good beat of silence, before his hesitant voice came across the line, "Y/N… is that really the best idea?"

"He's my father, I want to get to know him."

"He's Tony Stark. He's an alcoholic playboy with too much money and not enough sense, who wears a ridiculously weaponized tin suit so he can feel important."

I looked at my phone confused, "I thought you didn't know anything about him?"

"I can google. But that's not the point—what about school? Your friends? The house?"

I frowned, why was he switching the topic? I shrugged, deciding to just go with it, "I can switch into a school here, I don't exactly have the best social life anyways, and the house won't be going anywhere anytime soon."

My mind flashed back to my breakdown the night before. Yes, it would be so much simpler to go back home, to go back to everything familiar. And there was a part of me that wanted that. But a much larger part of me wanted to move forwards and wanted to get to see what it was like to be Tony's daughter. While what I'd told Tony had been true, that I considered Jeremy an uncle, it would be more accurate to say I personally considered him to be a distant uncle. My mom and him were best friends and I'd grown up with him around, and with him being labelled as my uncle, but I myself had never really been close to him. I only stayed in contact with him now because before Tony I hadn't had anyone else. And besides, he oversaw the house. But there was no real draw for me to go back to live near him.

My revery was interrupted as his voice took on a new tone, a tone that he knew I hated. I called it the 'fake parental voice' because it was the one he used every time he'd tried to discipline or control me in place of my mother, "Listen, young lady," Oh, this was not going to go well, "Take a few days if you must, live it up in the big city. Then come back home. This is where you belong."

I could feel the blood pounding in my ears. How dare he try to tell me what to do! My voice came out icy, "I don't have to listen to you." And I hung up.

I stared at the wall for a moment, then muted my phone. Leaving it plugged into the wall, I got dressed and went back downstairs to Happy. We drove around the city for a while, with him pointing out some of the major sites like Central Park, the Empire State Building, Times Square, and Broadway. I did end up finding a home décor store as well and spent a good bit of time looking around inside, Happy following me around silently. I winced at a lot of the price tags, and even though I knew Tony probably didn't care about the price, decided I'd wait and see if beige-land improved at all once my belongings from home were moved in. Maybe redecoration wouldn't be necessary.

We stopped at a burger place for lunch, and Happy opened up slightly to tell me how when Tony had first returned from his Afghanistan captivity, the first thing he'd asked for was an American cheeseburger. After that, we headed back to the Tower, arriving a few minutes early for the meeting. I followed Happy down a few of those too-white halls of Stark Industries until we came to a wall of windows looking into a small boardroom. Inside was Tony and a silver-haired gentleman in an expensive-looking suit.

I thanked Happy and pushed through the door, going to sit beside Tony, trembling slightly as I thought about the fact that we were about to be one step closer to him being my legal guardian.

"Hello Miss. Y/l/n, I'm Mr. Johnson, it's nice to meet you."

I smiled at him politely, "It's nice to meet you too."

Tony leaned back casually in his chair, "Shall we get this show on the road?"

Mr. Johnson nodded respectfully, "Of course, Mr. Stark."

What followed was possibly the most boring hour of my life and my brain hurt from all the legal terminology that had been thrown around. But Mr. Johnson seemed pleased with the progress, cheerfully proclaiming as he left, "She'll be all yours by the end of the week, Mr. Stark, I'll be in touch."

Tony turned to me, throwing an arm over my shoulders with forced casualness—but I knew him enough by now to tell he felt awkward doing the motion, "What now, Kid?"

I blinked at him, "If I was of legal age, I'd say a drink," then slyly narrowed my eyes, "But since I'm not, I'd settle for a milkshake?"

His look of dismay melted into relief as he grinned, "I can arrange that. FRIDAY have Happy pull the car around."

"That poor man, constantly being at your beck and call."

He waved it off, unconcerned. "It's what I pay him for."

I rolled my eyes and followed him back down to the main floor and to the car. Tony turned to me, "By the way, why didn't you answer my text earlier?"

"Your text? Oh, sorry, I left my phone at the hotel to charge."

It was his turn to roll his eyes, "I thought teenagers were supposed to be attached at the hip to their phones. Good thing it wasn't anything important."

I looked out the window, hiding my smile at his obvious annoyance at his inability to keep tabs on me. I chuckled quietly when his next words were to order Happy to stop by the hotel first, so that we could pick up my phone.

Tony walked up with me, causing a few double looks from people we passed, and I blushed, their curiosity evident. I let us into the room, and he wandered over to the balcony doors while I went into my bedroom to grab my phone. As I unplugged it, I noticed I had an unread message from Jeremy. I sighed and opened it, immediately freezing as I read it.

Tony chose that moment to walk in, saying something about how if I was going to take all day the milkshakes were going to melt before we got there. But his cavalier tone suddenly dropped off, replaced by concern as he presumably registered my behaviour, "Y/N, are you okay?" Y/N?"

I couldn't make myself speak, too in shock at the words on my screen.

You'll come back home, or I'll sell the house. And everything in it.