Happy Accidents

Bruce closed his eyes, rubbing the sleep away from them, before opening his eyes once more to make sure he had seen what he had seen.

There was a baby on Tony's doorstep.

Of course there was.

In so many ways, it was so expected, that it was almost funny.

He kneeled by the little wicker basket, which held a baby wrapped in a pink blanket – Bruce was going to go out on a limb and assume the baby was a girl. She looked to be about six months old, and had surprisingly thick dark hair and skin a little darker than Tony's. She was sleeping peacefully, so Bruce couldn't say what color her eyes were, but he could definitely see some of Tony's features in her face, but then again that might be power of suggestion. Approximately one million (okay, that was hyperbole) women had sued Tony over the years for child support, but never once had a DNA test proven that Tony was actually the father. Of course, financial motives didn't seem to be in play here – if the goal was to get money, why leave the baby with Tony? He couldn't rule out that this was a plot of some kind, either – all though he had no idea what a criminal would have to gain by leaving a baby on Tony's doorstep.

Tucked in beside the baby was a manila envelope, and Bruce took it, hoping to find clues to the mother's identity. The envelope contained two letters – one to Tony, one to the baby for when she was older – and a birth certificate, which confirmed his assumption about the baby's gender, indicated she was born on Leap Day, and gave her name as Antonia Stark. Giving her Tony's name – first and last – was bold. He took note of the mother's name and, deciding not to read the letters, replaced the birth certificate. "Okay Antonia – let's get you inside," he said softly and lifted the basket, his morning walk completely forgotten.

Tony was still asleep – of course – and Bruce decided not to wake him, considering Tony's DNA (and all the Avengers') was already on file. He headed upstairs, baby in tow, to the biological lab. He wasn't a biologist, but this was easy enough – the process was almost entirely automated. He gently woke the little girl – she fussed a little but was quickly comforted. He couldn't see getting a baby to rinse and spit with saline, so he gave her some water from his previously unopened bottle and hoped that was good enough. He put on gloves and retrieved a sterile cotton swab from the DNA bench. It took some persuading to get her to open her mouth, and when she did she just wanted to suck on the swab. He had to hold her mouth open with his fingers to have enough room to scrape for cheek cells. She objected to this with more fussing – he guessed latex gloves didn't taste good. It was almost impossible not to see Tony in the way she scrunched her face in disgust when he pulled out the cotton swab, but he reminded himself of the power of suggestion.

He returned the swab to the bench, carefully wrapped it in the plastic sheet provided, removed his gloves and pulled up the appropriate computer program. When it asked which of the Avenger's DNA he was looking for, he chose Tony. It wasn't actually a paternity test, obviously, but a partial match would tell him just as much. Because he wasn't a biologist, he chose the option for full automation, and the screen prompted him to insert the swab in a particular machine. He put his gloves back on placed the plastic wrapped swab where he was directed, and watched as a whirling mechanism went into motion, unsheathing the plastic and extracting (hopefully, assuming he'd done it right) the DNA from the cotton swab for PCR amplification and STR analysis.

Returning to the little girl, Bruce noticed her eyes for the first time. They were brown-hazel, the same color as Tony's. Bruce took out his phone and pulled up a picture of Tony – finding a good, clear close-up picture took about ten seconds, given how widely Tony was known. Looking from Tony's eyes back to Antonia's, he noticed their eyes were alike in more than color – they were the same shape, and framed by the same long black lashes. Looking directly at Tony's picture, it was hard to dismiss the facial features they shared – though there could still be confirmation bias involved.

But if this was a con, or some kind of scheme, he couldn't guess the motive. But that didn't mean that it wasn't a con or a scheme.

Antonia was cute, either way. She looked up at him with those hazel eyes, and gave him a little smile when he waved his finger in front of her eyes, and laughed when he made faces at her. It was amazing how easily amused babies were.

"Who's this?" Pepper asked from the door.

"Uh …" Bruce hadn't thought about how he was going to break the news to the other inhabitants of the tower. Especially not Pepper. The redhead stepped to the baby girl, drawn by the sheer cuteness of Antonia.

"Is she yours?" she asked in an excited tone, lifting Antonia from her basket into her arms.

"No. Um … I just found her on the doorstep."

"That's not funny," Pepper said, not even looking up from the little girl's face.

"No it's not." She looked up then, looking exasperated.

"Really?"

"Yes. I'm running her DNA now," Bruce said, and handed her the envelope. Pepper handed Antonia back to him and took the envelope, examining it. She pulled out the birth certificate, rolled her eyes at the name and opened the letter.

"That's for Tony," Bruce said weakly, and was ignored. He raised his eyebrows in a very exaggerated, comical way at Antonia, who laughed.

"Well, she's not asking for money," Pepper said, putting the letter away contemptuously.

"What is she asking for?"

"You can read it," she said, and handed it to him before walking away, presumably to pull Tony out of bed. God help him.

The beeper that let him know when someone was trying to contact him on the "hero line" Tony had set up went off, and Bruce hurried to answer, still holding his newest little friend. "Banner," he said matter-of-factly, bracing himself for the end of the world scenario he was about to hear.

"Hi Dr. Banner – did you access the DNA database?" Reed Richards' voice asked. What a relief.

"Yes."

"You requested Tony's DNA profile. Can I ask why?"

"Um …" Bruce was pretty sure that was actually a misuses of the database – he hadn't realized it alerted Reed when it was accessed. He decided to just be honest. "We've got a baby who might be Tony's … I know it's not really a forensic usage but it was there and I thought I'd save some time and money …"

"Another one?" Reed asked, exasperated.

"This one was on his doorstep, and she looks like him … but maybe that's confirmation bias."

"Have you called social services?" He hadn't thought to … but if she wasn't Tony's she was going to need a home.

"I'll wait on the DNA," he answered.

"Tony's finally got a kid?" Johnny's voice came on, sounding far too eager.

"We don't know that yet," Reed said evenly.

"When are you going to have the test done?" Johnny asked.

"About eight hours," Bruce said.

"Sweet. I'm starting a betting pool – you want in?"

"Johnny!" Reed protested.

"It'll be a unifying experience for the community!" Johnny insisted, and Bruce turned off the transmitter. He'd check in later to see what the odds were and who all was abusing the line to place bets, and how upset Reed was about it.

No sooner had he turned it off then Tony entered, dragged by his collar by Pepper. Tony looked for a moment at the baby in Bruce's arms, and then put up his hands in protest and insisted, "I didn't do it." Pepper rolled her eyes once more.

"We'll see in about eight hours," Bruce said with a smile.

"Until then … I guess … maybe you should take it to a park or something."

"She, Tony. She's a girl. Do you want to hold her?"

"Sorry, Bruce, I don't do well with kids."

"But what if she's yours after all? Come on, just for a second," Bruce insisted, and practically pushed Antonia into his arms. She immediately began to cry.

"Look, there's no way … safe play only for me," Tony insisted, pushing her back into Bruce's arms. "She doesn't even like me."

"I don't think she likes beards," Bruce noted. "She'd probably like you if you shaved," he added with a mischievous smile.

"Not gonna happen."

"Then she'll get used to it."

"Maybe if she were mine, which she's not, so she's not going to be staying here long."

"Read the letter," Pepper ordered, and handed it to him. He took it and read it. He looked progressively more nervous as his eyes scanned the page. He mumbled something about petroleum jelly and underhanded gold diggers.

"Well maybe if you didn't sleep with everything in skirts, this kind of thing wouldn't happen," Pepper snapped. She was definitely not happy with him.

"So … Tony … did you take note of her name?" Bruce asked, changing the subject.

"If she is mine, which she's not, I'm changing it."

"Really?" Bruce would have thought someone as egotistical as Tony would love having a child with his name.

"Yes. I'm not going to do the Tony/Toni thing. I went to school with too many angsty juniors and the seconds and the thirds and my dad's name with an ie who lived under their dads' thumbs. If and when I have children they'll have their own names."

"What would you change it to, if she were yours? Hypothetically speaking, of course?" Bruce asked, still smiling. The more Tony fought it, the more convinced he was. Tony tilted his head to study the little girl in Bruce's arms – she immediately began to fuss in fright and turned her head at the sight of his beard.

"Maria," he said. His mother's name. Bruce didn't ask why having a grandparent's name was better than having a parent's name.

Another figure entered the room, hobbling along on a broken foot. "Storm says he's taking bets on the baby left on Tony's doorstep," Clint announced.

"She's not mine … and I thought you were leaving today to go be with your family," Tony said pointedly.

"I'll leave … I just wanted to get a look before I choose a side," he answered, and stepped closer. He was holding an open bottle of beer in his hand, and as he stepped closer, Maria/Antonia's eyes fell on the bottle and she reached for it, making the universal baby sound for "gimme." Clint glanced down at the beer in his hand, surprised, then laughed.

"Definitely yours, Tony."

"She's just thirsty," Bruce said, realizing she probably hadn't had anything to drink for a while and all he'd given her was a little water and feeling more than a little guilty for not making her comfort his first priority.

"Is a DNA test even necessary – she looks like someone made him a girl clone, only prettier. I mean, look at those eyes – same lashes and everything!" He was still at a fair distance – but of course he was called Hawkeye for a reason.

"See – that could be what happened," Tony said quickly.

"Well you leave your DNA all over town, it wouldn't be hard to find a source," Pepper said sharply.

"The similarity could be accounted for by confirmation bias – you see features she shares with Tony because you're looking for them. It may be a coincidence," Bruce said, ever the scientist, even though he didn't really believe it.

"Thank you!" Tony said enthusiastically.

"Oh come on Tony … this had to happen eventually. I heard condoms fail about eight percent of the time, so statistically speaking you should have a kid born every other week. So really, the fact it's taken so long is kind of a miracle."

"Anyway … I'm going to get this munchkin something to eat and drink," Bruce said, taking his opportunity to leave before the competitive snarkfest got mean and raunchy.

On his way down the stairs, he turned on his transmitter in time to hear Spider-Man taking a two hundred dollar bet on Tony's paternity. Given how much two hundred dollars was to him, he must be pretty sure it was a safe bet. "It's okay Maria … Your Daddy's friends know whose you are even if he doesn't, yet," he whispered. "He'll come around."

Bruce made his way to the nearest kitchen, already knowing he wouldn't find anything suitable there but figuring it was worth a shot. He opened a cabinet, and much to his surprise found several kinds of baby food – vegetables, fruits, and baby cereal – already stocked and ready for consumption. "I took the liberty of calling a grocery store and having some necessary supplies delivered," Jarvis said as he entered the room, carrying a high chair. "This was once Rory Barton's, when certain crises dictated that she and her brother remain in the tower," he said in explanation as he set the high chair down by the kitchen table.

"Thank you, Jarvis." Bruce got Maria/Antonia situated in the chair, and set about nervously trying to figure out how much he should be prepared to give her.

"Just a table spoon of the cereal, Dr. Banner, and then a small jar of vegetables and one of fruits."

"Right," Bruce said, but that didn't help him any. "Which ones do you think I should give her?"
"Try several; you'll find out which ones she likes soon enough." Bruce nodded, and pulled several jars at once. He heard Maria laughing a little baby laugh and he turned to look. Bruce had been so focused on his task that he hadn't looked to the old butler – but he did now. He was smiling, uncharacteristically cheerful, as he tickled Maria under the chin. There were going to be a lot of people disappointed if she turned out not to be Tony's. And not all of them had money on it.

He found a spoon and all the basic vegetables and fruits and brought them to the table. Jarvis excused himself, saying that he had other duties to attend to, but Bruce thought he would have rather dropped everything to stay with Maria a while longer.

"Ok … let's start with the carrots," Bruce said to himself, opening the jar of unappetizing-looking orange mush as he took a seat beside the high chair. He dipped a little spoon into it, and slowly edged it towards Maria's mouth, which she resolutely refused to open.

"Here comes the train …" he said, trying again. "The train is heading towards the tunnel." No response. "It's good," he said, and took the spoonful himself. It was not good at all, but he managed to smile and swallow it. He spooned out more, and tried again. She still wouldn't eat. He tickled her under the chin, and when she laughed he quickly put the spoon in. It was a dirty trick, but maybe it would work. She looked surprised but sucked thoughtfully on the spoon for a bit, then swallowed when Bruce pulled the spoon out. "See … it's good," he said. He took another spoonful and gave it to her, and it didn't take long to finish the jar. He talked to her the whole time – about nothing, really, just talking.

"Ok let's try some fruit …" he said, reaching for some of the other jars he'd brought to the table. He tried pears and plumbs, but she apparently wasn't a fan of either one – she spat them out and made a face when he gave them to her. The third try proved to be the charm – Maria not only failed to spit the peaches out, but smiled and opened her mouth before Bruce could even dip more out onto the spoon. And that's when he got the idea.

"Bruce, what are you doing?" Pepper asked from the doorway. It must have looked odd to her, to find Bruce pulling up pictures of random bearded men on his tablet in between feeding Maria/Antonia spoonfuls of baby food peaches.

"I am attempting to condition Maria to like men with beards by providing a positive stimulus while showing her pictures." He was having mixed success – Maria still fussed and turned her head every time she saw a beard, but seemed to forget the scary beards as soon as she got a mouthful of peaches. Well, at least he wouldn't accidentally condition her to hate peaches.

"Her name is Antonia, and if the test turns out negative you'll have been torturing her for nothing."

"I'm not torturing her … I'm attempting a well-proven therapy," he protested.

"Well, stop it." He looked up, curious about her state of mind. Not happy, apparently. He put the tablet away and finished feeding Maria the peaches – she looked very happy to not have to look at beards for a while.

"She does look like him," Pepper said, finally smiling a little bit as Maria smiled.

"Do you want to give her the cereal?" Bruce asked, hoping that making the baby happy would make Pepper happy.

"Sure," she said, and took the spoon from him.

"Where did all this come from?" Tony protested as he entered, seeing the baby food all over the kitchen table (Bruce had pulled out most of it, in preparation for it taking longer than it had to find food that Maria/Antonia liked).

"Jarvis had it delivered," Bruce answered.

"Do you think he got enough?"
"Well … considering she won't eat the pears or the plumbs … probably about a week's worth," Bruce said with a smile.

"She's not going to be here that long," Tony protested.

"I expected this to be much more of a disaster area," Clint said with a smile as he hobbled in.

"Are you going yet?" Tony snapped.

"I will … I just want to get a picture before I go," Clint answered, taking out his phone and walking to stand on the other side of the table.

"Why?" Bruce asked, genuinely curious.

"So Bobbi doesn't kill me when she finds out how much I put down. Smile precious."

"I'm going to laugh when you lose," Tony said sharply as Clint took the picture of the smiling, messy-faced baby in the high chair.

"Good luck with that," Clint said, studying the picture and then deciding he wanted another one. The meal finally finished, Pepper wiped Maria's face with a paper towel – she didn't really like this, and Clint decided to wait to see if they could get her smiling again since that's when she looked most like Tony.

"She does not look like me," Tony protested.

"What happened to you being open to the clone possibility?" Clint asked, teasing. Tony pointedly ignored him. Bruce took her from her chair and laid him against his shoulder, and started patting her back.

"What are you doing?" Pepper asked.

"Burping her," he answered. He'd thought it was obvious.

"She's kind of old for that, I think," Pepper said.

"It depends on the kid," Clint answered, and they deferred to him.

"Let me try," Tony said, surprising everyone, and took the girl from Bruce. As soon as she caught sight of Tony's beard, she cried. Therapy had been ineffective. Without a further word being spoken, Pepper took the crying child and tried her hand, failing both at making her stop crying and burping her.

"Okay amateurs … give her to me," Clint said good-naturedly, deciding to intervene in the non-parents' fumbling attempts. He laid her on his shoulder, patting her back. "It's okay, sweetheart, you're with an expert now," he told her softly, and she stopped crying almost at once.

"You see? She likes literally everyone except me," Tony said, as though this were irrefutable proof she couldn't be his daughter.

"It's the beard," Bruce said quickly, cutting off whatever Clint opened his mouth to say. Then, with one more pat, the baby girl gave a surprisingly loud burp.

"Good one, sweetheart," Clint said, and handed her back to Pepper. "Should I go, or do you need me to stay?" he asked sincerely. Bruce was annoyed that he thought they were really that helpless.

"We can manage," Pepper said. "Thank you, though."

"All right, good luck guys," he said and left, waving bye to Maria.

The little girl seemed perfectly happy in Pepper's arms, and Bruce got an idea. "What if you and Tony held her at the same time so she'd still be being held by someone she trusts and maybe …"

"Bruce, no more experimenting on the baby," Pepper snapped, and thus cowed, Bruce didn't suggest anything else.

Pepper was perfectly happy to drop everything to play with the baby – and Bruce, suddenly hit with a very strong feeling of loss, made his way back to his own lab to run some tests while he waited on the results from the bio lab. He tuned in to listen to the unrelenting abuse of the hero line, and Reed scolding the gamblers and his brother-in-law uselessly. Steve didn't bet money on it, but informed Bruce he would be bringing a present in the morning, which meant he was convinced. The only people who didn't think Maria was Tony's were all women … Bruce tried not to think too hard about why they'd be so confident. Bobbi was the exception – not only was she presumably not angry with Clint for placing money, but she'd placed another one hundred on it, apparently convinced by the photo he'd taken. It was amusing to listen to for a while.

"Is she yours?" Pepper had asked, looking excited for him. It made sense she'd think that – the little dark headed girl could easily be his and Betty's, if she didn't look so much like Tony, and even though he'd lived in the Tower for years, he'd always been tight-lipped about his personal life. Namely because he didn't have much of one, and what he had was depressing attempt after depressing attempt to make it work with Betty … Well that wasn't a fair description. She'd stood by him through everything, but he tended to convince himself she was better off without him and break it off only for her to show him, however many months later, how much he couldn't live without her. He was more in control of the rage now but … there was still one major issue, and it was why he wouldn't marry her and why they'd never be able to have children. Namely that you could meditate all you wanted, but if sex didn't raise your blood pressure, you were doing it wrong. At first, there had been long stretches where he was horny as all hell and would have been willing to try just about anything to fix that … but now it hardly ever occurred to him unless he was thinking about not having children, and that was just sad.

He'd always wanted kids – he loved kids. When he had worked at the university, he was the only faculty member that agreed to help with the science fair without being held at gunpoint. He'd always thought he'd have two – a boy and a girl, ideally – and he'd treat them so much better than he had been treated as a kid. But it wouldn't happen now – no searching ultrasounds for the string of pearls that was the vertebra, no being there when a little child took their first breath, no first steps, no first day of school, no graduation, no walking a little girl grown into a woman down the aisle.

Bruce intervened in his own pity party by giving in and calling Betty.

After a while, Pepper had to admit Bruce's last idea had been a good one. She hunted down Tony where he was sulking in the garage, working on a suit, his ego bruised by the betting he'd been listening to for hours. "Here … we're gonna do what Bruce said," she informed him matter-of-factly. "You come here and hold me, with your arms around her." He sighed, annoyed, but did so. The baby didn't fuss. He even peeked over her shoulder, and Antonia didn't fuss, only looked a little concerned. Eventually she stopped looking concerned, and Pepper decided to change things. "Okay … I'm handing her to you, but I'm going to keep my hands on her." Tony nodded, and came around to take her – she fussed at first, but stopped fussing when Pepper failed to hand her over completely. She stared at Tony with an almost angry expression. Cautiously, Pepper let her go, and Antonia's expression didn't change. Apparently she had decided she didn't have to be afraid, but she still disliked beards. "Sing to her," Pepper ordered.

"No," Tony said flatly.

"Do it!"

"You sing."

"You want to make her like being held by you."

"She's not going to stay long enough for that to happen."

"Do it anyway." He realized he wasn't winning the argument, and rocked the little girl gently as he turned something over in his mind – she guessed he was trying to figure out what to sing.

"What, you don't know any lullabies?"

"I don't know any that don't disturb me immensely looking back on them as an adult," he answered. She assumed his next thought would be to go to AC/DC or something, but instead he surprised her immensely, and probably himself.

"Maria, I just met a girl named Maria," he started awkwardly and very out of tune. He wasn't known for his singing voice. "And suddenly that name will never be the same to me." Pepper searched his face, wondering if his insistence he couldn't be the father was just a bluff, if he was already thinking about all the wonderful and terrible implications of fatherhood. "And that's all I know," he said flatly.

"Then sing that part again," she insisted. He did, and the baby girl seemed a little less upset. She was slowly figuring out the bearded man wouldn't hurt her, apparently.

Tony had spent the day trying to avoid the baby girl who had been left on his doorstep – physically and mentally. He tried not to think about her eyes, because Clint was absolutely right – they looked exactly like his.

He couldn't even remember what the mother looked like. He hoped that was because she was lying … He'd feel really sleazy if he didn't remember the mother of his child.

He'd never wanted kids … not that he'd ever thought to himself "I'm not doing the kid thing for love or money," but he'd never actively wanted them either. He guessed he was supposed to have daydreams about walking her down the aisle or something. He didn't know what guys who wanted kids daydreamed about, and he wasn't going to start now.

In about two hours now, he was going to find out it was all a hoax or an elaborate con, and the cute little girl Pepper was playing with like a doll in her office would go back to her home and … he actually felt kind of sorry for her. If this was a lie, then at best, her mother was crazy, and at worse she was a con artist, or, worse still, a combination of the two. And if it wasn't a lie … then her mother had started off pulling the dirtiest kind of con you could do, and then grew a conscience and "repented" by dumping her off on her father.

The words of the letter ran through his head … she'd explained, in more detail than he would have expected from a crazy person, he had to admit, how she'd set the "baby trap." She confessed that she had just wanted to have a famous person's baby for the money, and he was better-looking than most (which was a complement he guessed). But as the baby grew inside her, she had slowly realized what it would mean to be a mother, and the magnitude of the deception she had committed sank in. She hadn't asked him for child support or told him right away because she was reconsidering her options, but after a few months she couldn't pretend any more that the best place for Antonia was with her. There was real pain in the letter – she'd left one for Antonia as well, but Tony hadn't read it. Somehow it didn't seem like his business.

Antonia … that was flattering and all, but he was dead serious about changing the name, if it came to that. Which it wouldn't.

Tony heard Pepper come in, and he seriously thought about bolting out the back door, but he stayed rooted to the spot. He didn't want to admit it, but he did want to see the baby girl again. "She's fussy – I think she wants to be fed," she said pointedly. He caught her drift, and with a sigh, he took the baby – who still glared at him whenever he held her – and headed off to the kitchen where Bruce had fed her lunch. To his surprise, Pepper didn't follow – heading back to her office instead. "Wait … I don't know how much or what I'm supposed to give her," he protested.

"I wrote instructions for you, they're posted on the cabinet," she said with a smile. "I'm sure you can manage."

Tony grumbled all the way there.

He sat the baby girl in the high chair – she didn't like the way he did it, and told him so with some nonsense syllables. "Everybody's a critic," he muttered.

"Bah bah," she answered, telling him what she thought of that, and he almost laughed.

He turned to search for all the things Pepper had written on the list, and now that he was alone with her, thinking about the possibility that this was his first day with his daughter was inescapable. He gathered everything and returned to the kitchen table, setting it down in front of her. She gave him a skeptical look – a look a baby shouldn't have been capable of. Again, he almost laughed.

He had picked out spinach for the vegetable. It looked disgusting, but she ate it up with no protest. "Listen, sweetheart. If you are my kid – and I'm not saying you are – there's not going to be any of this spoiled heiress bullcrap. I mean it, if you end up with your own reality show you're out of the will. You're going to go to school and learn how to do something useful, and I do mean useful, not English or psychology." He realized that was a little harsh. "I mean, you can do English if you really love literature and you want to be a teacher or a writer or get a graduate degree and be a professor, or psychology if you want to be a therapist. What I mean is you're not going to go to school and spend my money on a degree you won't ever use." She didn't respond, of course. "You've already got a head start on ignoring me, I see," he said with a smile. But he was talking more to himself than anything else. If she was his daughter, he knew what he wanted from her. But with each spoonful of awful-looking spinach that disappeared into her mouth, he thought of something else he would give her. "I'll teach you how to fix cars, so that if your car breaks down you're not stranded. I don't know … if you like that we can work on cars together. Maybe you'll be an engineer like me. Or maybe you'll be all artistic like Steve – I don't care. Whatever you want to be, whatever you are … I'll show up and pretend I understand it." She seemed indifferent to this – but of course she was. She was a baby – all she knew at this point was that the scary bearded guy was maybe not so bad. "And if I can't get home, I'll call, unless it's serious world-ending stuff going down. But barring that, I'll call, so you'll hear from me every day." She swallowed a spoonful of spinach, not caring. She would when she was older – she'd probably hate him for being away so much, but at least she wouldn't be able to say he didn't call, that he didn't look out for her. If she was his, of course.

The spinach finished, Tony gave her a bottle of formula, per Pepper's instructions. At first he was just going to let her drink it sitting in her high chair – she could hold it, awkwardly. But something took hold of him, and he lifted her out of her high chair and held her against his chest, listening to her noisy sucking and watching her chest rise and fall with every breath. She finished the bottle, and he remembered the scene at lunch. He put her over his shoulder and patted her back the way he had seen Clint do it. To his surprise, it worked – his patting elicited a tiny belch from the little girl. Tony smiled, pleased with himself for being able to do something Bruce and Pepper hadn't been able to, and shifted her position so he could look at her face again. She looked back at him, finally losing the look of distrust she'd had this whole time. Her eyes started to close, but she fought sleep, determinedly opening her eyes a few seconds after they closed. He wasn't sure if she fought sleep because she still didn't quite trust him or because she just didn't want to go to bed yet. He felt himself stifling a yawn – he'd had a hard day of … contemplation.

He gently rocked her, singing her her new favorite song – he'd looked up the rest of the lyrics online. Before long, she stopped fighting sleep, and was out like a light. He held her against his shoulder, and he finally dared to do what he'd wanted for a while … he kissed her cheek. He didn't think she would have liked that if she'd been awake, considering he'd just gotten her to stop crying or looking at him angrily when he held her. She really was a beautiful little girl. She wore his features better than he did.

If they were his features. Which they weren't.

But if they were … he'd be the only father in the world who was justified in thinking his kid was the prettiest baby alive.

The match was pretty definitive – Maria's DNA was a fifty percent match to Tony's, the expected ratio for a parent-child relationship. Bruce got on the hero line for one last round of abusing the line. "Everyone who bet against Tony being the father …" he said in a happy tone, teasing the vast majority who had bet on it. "You lost," he added, and then turned his line off very quickly before he could get yelled at for his misleading start of the sentence.

Bruce sat back, thinking over the results. Was it unfair that Tony, of all people, got to be a father, to a child he didn't really want, while he and Betty weren't given that joy? Yes. But complaining about it wouldn't do any good.

In fact, Maria already liked him a lot. He lived in the tower, didn't he? She wouldn't be his, but he could be a doting "uncle" and watch her grow up, the way he'd always wanted. If that was as close as he would get to having children, so be it.

Well, he'd given Spider-Man, Clint, and a lot of others the good news, now it was time to inform the other inhabitants of the tower. He left the room to tell Pepper in person, and found Jarvis waiting outside the biology lab, spending a suspicious amount of time polishing one light fixture near the door. "Maria is Tony's daughter, all right," he told the old butler, who only smiled and pretended to be surprised.

Bruce found Pepper in her office, doing paperwork. "Where's Tony?" he asked.

"He fell asleep. He's probably exhausted by being pulled out of bed at the 'ungodly' hour of eleven in the morning, and watching me take care of her." Bruce chuckled.

"I think we should wake him. There's big news."

"I take that to mean the little munchkin is his?" she asked with a sigh.

"Yep. Speaking of the little munchkin …"

"She's with him. Tony went and pulled Rory's old crib from storage and set it up by his bed so he can hear her if she cries."

"Oh? What happened to 'she's not staying?' "

"I don't know … I think the idea just kind of grew on him as the hours went by. Anyway, I suppose I had better see about hiring a nanny," she said, all business as she reached for her file cabinets, which held folders and directories of all kinds. "You should go let him know."

Bruce made his way to Tony's room, and when knocking failed to get a response, he quietly opened the door just a crack. "Tony," he said softly. There was no response. He should have known – Tony could sleep through anything. The sight that greeted him when he went through the door was a very sweet picture – Tony and Maria/Antonia, both sleeping soundly. Somehow, Father and daughter managed to sleep in the same position – face down, with arms and legs splayed out all over the place. Maybe it was genetic. It was only out of concern for her safety that Bruce stepped into the room – he carefully rolled the sleeping baby onto her back, which was a safer sleeping position for young babies, and then considered waking her father. Tony looked contented in his sleep – it was sort of cute.

Bruce decided to let him be. There'd always be tomorrow to tell him. Probably when Pepper dragged him out of bed at an "ungodly hour" to accept a present from Steve on behalf of his daughter.