Chapter Text
It was a line you had heard a thousand times throughout your life. “I’m sorry, I just got busy.” Yeah, too busy for chorus concerts, dance recitals, banquets, award nights, even freaking fifth and eighth-grade graduations that may not seem to be that important, but at the time they meant the word to you.
And the worst part was that you couldn’t blame him. He was busy. He’s Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, one of the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. He wasn’t always going to all of her extracurricular activities, but it would be nice if he showed up just once .
And then there was Peter. It wasn’t that you didn’t like Peter, quite the opposite, really. Peter was great; he was smart, nice, a little naive in some ways, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
The thing that bugged you though was that your dad seemed to care about Peter more than you, his flesh-and-blood daughter, or at least he showed that he cared about Peter more. While you couldn’t get Tony to show up for a dance recital, one that was scheduled four months in advance, for the life of him, Peter could just spring on Tony that he had an event for decathlon thirty minutes beforehand and your dad will drop everything he’s doing to go. Whenever you needed help on your math homework and you tried to get help from your dad he would always tell you to ask Bruce because he was busy doing whatever, but when Peter needed help with something to do with his suit Tony would, again, give him his undivided attention. It just wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.
So there you were, trudging to your dad’s workshop/garage/lab, holding a piece of cake from yet another chorus concert that he missed.
“Hey, where have you been? I missed you at dinner,” your dad said as soon as he saw you while tinkering with a hologram prototype of his suit.
“At my chorus concert,” you said, depositing the cake on his workbench.
Tony ran his hands over his face. “Oh kid, I’m sorry-”
“Yeah, you were busy,” you interrupted. “You always are,” you grumbled before beginning to walk out.
“What the hell was that supposed to mean?” Tony asked from behind you.
Crap. You didn’t mean for him to pick up on that. “Don’t worry about it, Dad,” you told him after you turned back around.
“Y/N, what did you mean?”
You leaned against the wall you were closest to. “It’s just that it seems to me that whenever I have something that I really want you to be there for you never show up. I ask you for help with math or science, things that you know, that you’re good at, but you still say that you’re ‘too busy’ for me. For other people though, like Peter whenever he asks you to go somewhere for his decathlon team or to help him with something in physics, you drop everything for him. I get that you’re busy, that being Iron Man is a full-time job and that being my dad will always come second, but it would be nice if just for once you would show up,” you confessed with a deflating sigh.
Tony came up to you and put his hands on his shoulders. “You don’t believe that, do you? That you come second?”
You shrugged. “(Y/N), I’ll admit that I haven’t always been there for you, but you don’t come second to me. Ever. But that being said, why didn’t you tell me that you had a concert tonight?”
When your dad said that last sentence you just saw red. You had told him, multiple times even. You had told him when you got the schedule for all of the chorus events of the year. You had put it in his personal calendar, which FRIDAY read out to him every morning whether the genius likes it or not, his work calendar, even the calendar he shared with Pepper for numerous things. You hadn’t shut up about the concert all week , mentioning about how you were worried about messing up the choreography you were being forced to do, or the words for songs you were having trouble learning, or how you were really excited for that one particular song. You had texted him to remind him to be at the school by 7 o’clock, called him right before the show only to be answered by his voicemail. You had texted Pepper, Happy, and Rhodey to remind him specifically to be there and they had told him. But, alas, he never came.
You shook your head at the man. “I really can’t believe you. I told you! Every day for the last week I’ve told you! I’ve told you, Pepper’s told you, Rhodey’s told you, even Happy has told you, but you just don’t care enough to listen. They could remember to come, so why couldn’t you?” you screeched, tears making their appearance.
“I know that you aren’t into the things I’m into! I know you would rather I was a genius who understands all of the math and science stuff that you and Peter are into! I know you never wanted this, wanted me, but could you at least try? Try to take an interest in the things I like, that I care about? Would it kill you to at least pretend?” you cried out.
After a few moments of you wiping the tears away from your eyes and Tony just staring at you, you said to his shocked face, “I need to go to bed now. I’ll see you tomorrow,” before storming off to your room.
Nearly an hour later, after you had gotten dressed in your pajamas, turned your lights off, and at least tried to fall asleep, you heard a knock at your door. “Y/N, can I come in?”
“FRIDAY, lock the door, please?” you asked the AI while you turned your back to the door.
“I am sorry, Miss Stark, but I can not do that.”
“Of course you can’t,” you grumbled.
“Y/N, I’m coming in,” he told you before opening the door.
So why even bother asking? You thought.
Tony sat down on the bed beside you before he started talking. “You were right; I don’t listen. I haven’t been fair to you, because you’re right, we don’t have the same interests, and it’s not fair of me to just ignore the things you’re interested in just because of that. I will do better. I will be there for you, I swear. If I ever break that promise I expect you to punch me in the throat, or do something equally as painful, because that is what I deserve.
“But now, and I really need you to listen to me, I have never, not now, not ever, not wanted you. Maybe when I found out your mom was pregnant with you I was scared, Actually, scratch that, I was scared, I still am. I’m scared that no matter what I do that you still won’t get all the things in life that you want, that you need. But, my point is that there has never been any point in time that I did not want you, that I didn’t need you. You’re my reasoning for living, kid. Without you, I never would have found the strength to get out of that cave in Afghanistan, or found another source for the arc reactor, or really just be here today. Period. The end. I love you, kid, and I am so sorry if I ever made you feel like I didn’t,” he confessed before taking a deep sigh.
“Well, I better let you get some sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow, kid. I love you,” he told you before kissing your temple and leaving your room for the night.