[𝟏] 𝐈𝐑𝐎𝐍 𝐃𝐀𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐄𝐑

𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝘄𝗼: 𝗮 𝗱𝗮𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁𝗲𝗿'𝘀 𝗱𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻

Stark manor, 1998

TONY HAS NO idea how long he's kept himself in the lab, just working away on his inventions. Earlier that day, he and Howard got into a fight about telling the public about Claire; Tony downright refused to tell the public about her since it's only been a week since he took her in and he didn't want Claire's name to be suddenly thrown into the headlines or for her face to be on tv just yet while Howard thought that the sooner the public knew about Claire, the better it would be. While the father and son were fighting about this, Claire had brought her hands up to her ears to cover them from the loud fighting and seeing as how it'd be a while for them to stop fighting, Maria had brought her granddaughter up to her bedroom where the two colored. After the fight between himself and Howard, Tony locked himself in the lab in hopes of forgetting about the argument while he worked away on his inventions. The only time he ever left the lab was when Claire asked him if he could tuck her to bed and after he had done that, he found himself back in the lab. And as he worked, he couldn't help but let Claire, his sweet little girl, consume his thoughts. 

It had only been a week since Tony had taken his daughter in since Victoria had her custody rights taken away and arrested. Ever since Claire was officially living with her father and her grandparents, both Tony and Claire had been getting along well. For the first two days, Claire had been a little hesitant and shy around Tony or her grandparents and Tony had been extremely nervous around her, worried about messing up but after the first two days, it was like Claire and Tony clicked because out of nowhere, the father and daughter started bonding. And now, Claire adored her father and Tony had grown protective over his little girl, never wanting anyone or anything to hurt her. 

Tony was so distracted by what he was working on that he didn't hear the glass doors being opened or noticed his three-year-old daughter slowly walking over to him, her little arms wrapped around herself as if she was trying to keep herself from shaking. "Daddy?" Claire's small voice reached his ears as she reached his desk, tugging his arm lightly.

Feeling the tug, Tony looked up from his work and let his eyes gaze over, landing on his daughter that stood there with a fearful expression on her face, no doubt worried that he'd get mad at her for getting out of bed this late. "Hey, munchkin," Tony told her gently, frowning slightly when he saw the worry written on her face. "What are you doing up? Shouldn't you be in bed?"

Claire looked down at the ground, nodding a little as she refused to meet her father's eyes, afraid that he was going to get mad at her for bothering him while he was working. "Claire, what's wrong, munchkin? Did something happened?" Tony asked again, trying to figure out what got her so spooked that she got out of bed this late. 

"Daddy, you're not gonna let mama come and take me away, right?"

Tony felt himself freeze from the question, his brown eyes going wide a little bit as he stared down at her. He had no idea where this was coming from but the very thought of letting Victoria take Claire away from him was enough to both scare and anger him. The idea of Claire going back to someone as terrible as Victoria scared him since he knew that Victoria wouldn't give a damn about his little girl and the idea of Victoria coming back to take Claire away from him was just enough to make him furious because over his dead body was he going to let someone like her take his daughter from him. No, whenever it was Victoria or someone even worse than her, they'd have to pry Claire from his dead body because when it comes to her, he wouldn't back down without a fight. 

"Of course not, munchkin," Tony said, lifting the three-year-up up and setting her down on his lap. "Nobody's gonna take you away from me, okay?"