Chapter Text
-ˋˏ ༻𖤓༺ ˎˊ-
It was a sunny day in California.
The 26- year old billionaire was riding in his Corvette with his new driver. His driver was three days old and he almost drove them off a cliff. Almost. That billionaire? My father.
And where was I on this faithful day? This is when my tale starts.
Sunny California. They drove on the unoccupied rode that over looked the setting golden sun settling on the sea. Palm trees above swayed slower than the blasting music in coming out of the car much to Tony's content.
"Hey, Hogan. Could you turn it up?"
Tony asked with a bit of smugness, just trying to piss off his driver, which was a horrible idea because he could drive him off a cliff. Like he would do that. Reluctantly, Happy turned up the music which was gonna make him deaf if it didn't stop.
Over time, Happy will not become deaf from Tony's blasting music.
Tony scrolled on his phone. He was currently swooning a local journalist. And ignoring the death threats from her partner.
He was Tony Stark it's not like he could die. He was also currently looking for a new assistant, because the other two.. were... too much?
He needed someone that will let him breathe and do what he wants.
Even though his assistant couldn't let him do that.
At home, the place of parties and bad decisions, there was probably a stack of Stark Industries documents and reports piling to the roof, that he needed to get rid of one way of another.
The bright white mansion sits on the ledge of cliff with big gates that had. T.S. In black lettering. He added it when his parents passed eight years before. No, it was only seven. Tony, don't think about that.
He dispelled it from his mind and when Hogan approached the gates to the large Stark Mansion he stopped.
"Hogan?" Tony asked putting his phone down.
"There is something in front of the gates." Hogan unclicks his seatbelt and Tony furrows his brows and follows outside and what waits for him is the rest of his life.
Lying in some damp newspaper, tired together with some bright blue masking tape, a small note card tucked into the paper was a baby, cold and freezing.
The card?
Lenora.
Notes:
-ˋˏ ༻𖤓༺ ˎˊ-writtenbymal-ˋˏ ༻𖤓༺ ˎˊ-
Welcome my dearest to Hearts of Metal. This chapter is about really short so I didn't wanna publish it by itself because 300 words is a little too low for my standards. I don't have a posting schedule because school is harder this year, and I'm all over the place.So, enjoy the crazy ride we have ahead of us with Lenora.
Like always, have a lovely rest of your day!
Chapter Text
-ˋˏ ༻𖤓༺ ˎˊ-
There I sat in a pile of newspaper as my father stared at me. With a look of, 'oh god no.' My greenish brown eyes bore into his as small tuffs of hair curl around my face.
"Do you want me to call the cops?"
Tony just stared at the baby (me) and I stared right at him. I stretched out my thick baby hand and I tapped his face. It smooth and his eyes weren't like my mom's. They weren't icy, but soft in a state of panic. Even baby me could sense that.
"Tony?" Happy asked again looking at the baby in front of his boss that really really annoys him.
"Do you think she's mine?" He mutters gently tapping my forehead like I was a foreign species.
"I'm gonna call cops." Happy grabs his phone.
A few hours later that sat in a hospital room as I was being hooked up to machines. I was malnourished and I developed hypothermia from the cold of being outside.
A few hours later they were at the hospital so they could help me. Hypothermia turned my body a bit blue and I had a dangerous case of malnutrition. I was also small from my age, doctors estimated I was around one.
There was a social worker by Tony as my childlike eyes stared into his panicked ones. He looked scared. Why was he scared?
"So, Mr. Stark, you have many options. This child was left at your doorstep, does she have a name?"
Tony was still frazzled as he speaks slowly, "uh.. Lenora. She had a card with her, that said Lenora."
"Okay, so Lenora. We could take her, put her up for adoption" The social lady suggests but Tony narrows his eyes.
"Is she my kid?" Tony asks with a hint of bristle in his voice. He didn't know what he wanted at this point, and if he really asked himself he never knew what he wanted.
He just didn't think. But now he needed to. He had a life in his hands. He knew how corrupt the system was because sometimes he was left at a home by his father and his mother had to pick him up.
"They are getting the tests done, but we are just talking about the possible options." She offers a soft smile, as she continues but Tony doesn't listen as his eyes go back over to me in the small children's bed. I was a little toddler with brown hair and bright eyes. Why did he have to decide my fate?
"When do the test results come in."
"In a few days from now."
"But, I'm Tony Stark." He tries to argue, but the social worker didn't crack. Good for her.
"I'm sorry, but you can't control that, Mr. Stark."
He just scoffed and shook his head. And I was the child.
"So, when she's all rested up, we can take her until-"
The thing my dad says next always makes me question if gut feeling is real or what he was even thinking.
"I'll take her, back to my house. The system is beyond fucked up."
"I'm not-
"I'm taking her."
DAY ONE
HOUR SIX
"JARVIS? How do I burp a baby?"
Tony was in his lab that was currently in his lab learning to be a parent. I was in front of him in a large baggy T-shirt that was covered in food, milk, and.. he didn't really know. My diaper was backward, and there was a pile of failed attempts sitting by the already full trashcan.
How can a baby go to the bathroom this much. Was she even a baby or is she considered a toddler?
Let's say his mind was racing. Did he have to start potty training.
Slow down this probably wasn't even his kid.
"First pick her up and support her back so it's straight." Tony gently hoisted me up and looked to make sure I was sitting up straight, like the worried fathe-no-person he was, "Now, gently pat her back."
Tony slowly pat my back, gently. There was no way in hell he was gonna hurt this kid- I spit up on his black tank and he pulled me away immediately, holding me far away from him as I laughed. He was funny. My baby laugh was gentle, and it was more of a giggle.
He held me like I was diseased and slowly looked at the vomit that lined his shirt and skin.
"Dammit, Lenora." Tony hugged and put me back on the table, and I sat up and continued laughing, and then a small, "uh-oh!" left my lips. It felt odd. I was scared to use my voice, I didn't want to get yelled at. Would he yell at me like Mommy?
He froze and then my baby face morphed into my big eyes staring at him with my mouth open. Was he gonna yell at me?
He better not yell at me. This man has a talking-something that I can't see.
"Did you just say a word? JARVIS? Can babies say words?" Tony asked still looking at me with wonder in his eyes.
"Considering the fact Lenora is 12 months old, she should start developing the use of language at this time, sir." JARVIS responds with his calming robotic voice.
Tony looks at me as I still have that waiting look on my face, that I can't quite describe. I knew I was nervous but I didn't think he was gonna hurt me. A large smile came across Tony's face.
"What else can you say, Lenora?" Tony asks, and I tilt my head.
"Uh-oh."
"Uh-oh?"
"Uh-oh."
"Okay, Miss Uh-oh, we need to make sure that my shirt doesn't get stained for life." He gently picks me up as he asks the thing in the walls.
"JARVIS? Order me a few new shirts."
"Of course, sir."
DAY ONE
HOUR ELEVEN
It was the dead of night and Tony was working in his lab, still because Tony Stark didn't sleep, but I did. In the back of his lab, the only place he baby proofed, I was laying fast asleep in a grey bouncer that he had ordered because I wasn't gonna sleep in newspaper ever again.
Sure, he had so many other things to worry about. So many other things, to do, but he wasn't gonna put the poor kid in cardboard box. He wasn't working on some new weapons for Stark Industries that Obadiah and him designed a few weeks ago.
It was a handgun that could shoot with the power of a rocket launcher. Something that could be easily tucked away, and do major damage that wasn't a grenade.
He had made this business thrive, and he was falling asleep. He groaned and went over to the coffee maker where Lenora was sleeping. It was been a while since he felt the need to rest. Well, he probably needed it after that last few days. He found a baby at his door and he decided to take the baby home.
Stupid Stark.
DAY TWO
HOUR SIX
It was 7:00 in the morning and Tony woke to, "Good morning. It is 7:00 in Malibu and It 74 degrees. It is partly cloudy with the chance of rain later this afternoon around 4:00. So, I would bring an umbrella today."
(Around 23 degrees Celsius, got you readers from around the word :))
"Uh-oh!" I yawn as my eyes look out the window where I wasn't last night. I remember falling asleep looking at the man working at something, the warm lighting pouring over his work station as the dark surrounded me.
Now, I stared outside at the looming blue and the looming blue above it. So, far away. My head turns to the sound of footsteps behind me.
"Uh-oh. To you too, Lenora." Tony unhooks me from my bouncer and pick me up as he pass down the stairs to the kitchen.
"Let's hope I never drop you down the stairs, because that would be an uh-oh." Tony jokes as he sets me on the counter, "Probably should change your diaper before I feed you."
After that, Tony grabs a bottle from the fridge. He needed to wash it again.
So, after he washed the bottle he filled it with the milk the hospital provided. He was gonna have to get some more. Where he was gonna get it? He didn't know. New assistant added to the never ended things he needed to do.
"JARVIS? How many times should I fed her again?"
"Three to six times a day, sir."
Tony puts me in a makeshift high chair, and holds the bottle by my mouth and puts it awkwardly in my mouth.
"JARVIS? Am I doing this right?" Tony asks, but before he can answer I'm already droning the milk.
"Never-mind. I got it."
"Sir, I would suggest-"
"I got it."
His phone rang and the name, 'Obadiah appears on screen and JARVIS' connects the call after Tony tells him too. People need to stop talking from the walls. My baby brain thought as the words processed in my head.
"Tony. I'll see you at work today?" It was asked as a question but delivered as a statement.
Tony looked over at me and scrunched his nose and I repeated the gesture, which made a small smile appear on his face but it dropped quickly when he spoke to Obadiah again.
"I'm gonna stay home, again. I'm not feeling the greatest," Tony faked coughed and hit his chest. He was not fooling anyone. Even little me knew that.
"Well, you better take some Ibuprofen and toughen up, son because the marketing team meeting is today and you need to be here for it"
Tony put his hand over the speaker and grained and looked over at me, "Can you hold down the fort for today?"
I just blink, "uh-oh!" I wanted to learn how to talk like him, so I could tell him not to leave me alone. Mommy was gonna get me.
"Okay, I'll be there give me an hour." Tony huffed and Obadiah smiled and laughed over the phone.
"Great, see you there Tony."
Tony sighed and then groaned putting his head on the ground and I copy his movement from earlier and scrunch my nose.
"JARVIS? Babysitters near me."
DAY TWO
HOUR SIX AND A HALF
"You said you were 60." Tony looked at the photo of the old women he hired and then up to the blonde teenager that looked like they just got done smoking a huge pot of weed.
"Spiritually." she answered and was this man crazy?! Was he gonna leave me with this crackhead?
He was slowly walking out the door.
No. He was not leaving me.
"Hey, baby." The teenager said, "where is your dad's alcohol?"
I didn't even look at her and I just cried. I wanted the man with the goatee back. Not this crazy woman who smelled like Mommy.
"Just chill." She lifted me from my bouncer as I cried at she put me on the counter in the kitchen, and then she walked away as she figured out how to use the speakers to drown out my cries.
For the last 40 minutes she was on her phone. I didn't fall off, and I cried more and she groaned, "Just.. stop!!!"
After more time on the counter passed my cries stopped because the music was so loud, and I almost rolled off the counter, until the door slammed open. The man was yelling at the girl and she looked like she was yelling back. I couldn't quite pick up what. He wanted her to leave. He pointed at the door.
"Get out of my house you crack head." Tony yelled as he walked back in to the mansion and JARVIS turned down the speakers.
"Woah, you're early. You gotta pay the early charge, man." The teenager gets up off the couch with a shrug.
"My kid is on the counter about to fall off. I don't owe you shit!" Tony yells while his hands make a big motion and she scoffs.
"It's an independence skill!"
"She's one!"
"You're still gonna pay me."
"Hell no." Tony annunciates the hell, as the teenager storms past him.
"Well fine, no one wants the money of a war criminal!" She slams the door and Tony runs a hand through his hair a very obvious sign of frustration.
"JARVIS? Make sure she can never come back here." Tony commands as he makes his way over to me, while trying to paste a smile to his face.
"On it, sir." The voice in the was replies.
Tony gently hoists me up and smiles, "You are never gonna see that crazy girl again."
Notes:
So, how we looking? We like the my kid? Also! I'm making Lenora smart for a one year old for a reason, if it makes sense. The song for this chapter is flowers in her hair by the Luminners
It's working pretty well! And have an awesome day!
Chapter Text
LENORA'S EPIC VIBES PLAYLIST
Flowers in Your Hair The Lumminers
Chiquitita ABBA
Deceptacon Le Tigre
Banana Pancakes Jack Johnson
Uptown Girl Billy Joel
Lilly0708 on Chapter 2 Wed 03 Sep 2025 12:06AM UTC
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