Chapter Text
Internal audio/video logs for Stark Tower, Penthouse, Wednesday, 4 January 2012:
Mr. Stark is sitting on the Penthouse floor with his back to the rear wall, gazing out at the city with an unfocused expression. Held in his hand are the three letters Miss Potter has sent to him thus far, rolled together, and a copy of their genetic testing results. Hedwig is visible sitting on the corner of the bar. The mail tube and harness have been removed from her, but are sitting beside her on the bar.
The elevator opens, and Ms. Potts enters the penthouse at a brisk pace. She looks around and spots Mr. Stark. She rushes over to him, kneeling beside him.
Ms. Potts: Tony? What’s wrong? JARVIS said you needed help.
Mr. Stark looks at Ms. Potts in surprise, then looks up at the ceiling.
Mr. Stark: Of course he did. Thanks, J.
Ms. Potts: (Fearfully.) Tony, what is it? Did something happen to Rhodey? Heavy metal poisoning again—?
Ms. Potts cuts herself off sharply when Mr. Stark shakes his head.
Mr. Stark: Pepper…I have a kid.
Ms. Potts: (Confused.) You…you have a kid?
Mr. Stark: Just got the test results back.
Ms. Potts: You have a kid?
Mr. Stark: Yeah. Also, Dr. Chen thinks I have some kind of one-in-a-billion genetic chimerism, but—
Ms. Potts: (Emphatically.) You…have…a…kid.
Mr. Stark regains a more typical attitude.
Mr. Stark: Yes, I think we’re established that, Pep.
Ms. Potts: Since when?!
Mr. Stark: July thirty-first, 2000, apparently.
Ms. Potts: (Pause. Angrily.) You answered a paternity suit without consulting me?
Mr. Stark: It wasn’t a paternity suit. It was a letter. From the kid.
Ms. Potts: (Pause.) The kid sent you a letter?
Mr. Stark nods.
Ms. Potts: What about the mother?
Mr. Stark: Her mother’s dead. Ten years ago.
Ms. Potts: Oh…
Ms. Potts slumps slightly and sits down on the floor next to Mr. Stark.
Ms. Potts: Okay, you have a…daughter? And she sent you a letter…And you already took a paternity test? What, did you already bring her here, too?
Ms. Potts looks around the Penthouse. Analysis suggests a sarcastic attitude.
Mr. Stark: Hey, I wouldn’t go that far without telling you…Besides, I can’t right now. She’s at a boarding school in Nowhere, Scotland.
Ms. Potts: Scotland. Boarding school…I…Why didn’t you leave something like this to me? I’ve handled all the other claims.
Mr. Stark: The letter came while you were out for Thanksgiving. I didn’t want to bother you.
Ms. Potts: Then why didn’t you just leave it in my inbox?
Mr. Stark: Because it didn’t come to your inbox. It came to the bedroom.
Ms. Potts tenses with a worried expression.
Ms. Potts: It was delivered to your bedroom. As in, not just the Penthouse, but your room? Our room?
Mr. Stark: Yeah. By that.
Mr. Stark points at Hedwig. Ms. Potts looks over, sees Hedwig, and starts slightly in surprise. She stands up and begins approaching the bar cautiously.
Ms. Potts: Is that an owl?
Mr. Stark stands and follows Ms. Potts.
Mr. Stark: Yep. Her name is Hedwig.
Ms. Potts: (Pause.) The owl or your daughter?
Mr. Stark: The owl. My daughter’s name is Holly.
Ms. Potts: Right. And she can…deliver letters like a carrier pigeon?
Mr. Stark: Like a very large carrier pigeon with razor-sharp talons and eyes that are always judging you.
Hedwig: (Vocalization transcribed as “Prak!”)
Ms. Potts: Judging you, you mean. And she brought…Holly, you said? She brought Holly’s letter directly to our bedroom?
Mr. Stark: To the window, yes. And no, I don’t know how. That’s one of the things I need to ask her about.
Ms. Potts: So you haven’t talked to her yet?
Mr. Stark: I can’t talk to her. Her school doesn’t allow phones or computers.
Ms. Potts turns around and stares at Mr. Stark incredulously.
Mr. Stark: I know. It sounds crazy. She claims her school is so far out in the middle of nowhere that they can’t get coverage. Their only communication is by radio or…
Mr. Stark gestures at Hedwig.
Mr. Stark: That’s one of the other things I need to ask her about.
Ms. Potts: So you can’t actually communicate with her except by carrier…owl? All the way from Scotland? How did you even do a test?
Mr. Stark: She mailed me a DNA sample. Even came up with the idea to do a mail-in test herself, and…well, even if everything else she said was a lie, the paternity test isn’t.
Mr. Stark holds up the documents in his hand.
Ms. Potts: Let me see that.
Ms. Potts takes the handful of documents from Mr. Stark. She regards the roll of parchment with curiosity, but does not open it and sets it down on the bar. She opens the DNA test results and reads them.
Ms. Potts: This says there’s a 40% match, not fifty.
Mr. Stark: I know. Believe me, I went through all the possibilities with Dr. Chen. The only things that work require so many nonexistent family members that Chen’s explanation of chimerism makes more sense.
Ms. Potts: Chimerism?
Mr. Stark: DNA weirdness where I’m genetically my own brother…which is kind of uncomfortable to think about that way, but it works better than if I had a real brother walking around out there who I don’t know about.
Ms. Potts: Oh, right. I think I heard about something like that on the Discovery Channel once…JARVIS, do you agree with this?
JARVIS: Yes, Ms. Potts. While the test results are unusual, after considering all of the variables, that Mr. Stark is Miss Potter’s father is statistically the most likely explanation.
Ms. Potts: (Surprised.) Potter?
Mr. Stark: Coincidence, far as I know. Unless you know something?
Ms. Potts: No, we’ve never been Potters. Not since we came to America, at least…
Ms. Potts gives a heavy sigh. Mr. Stark walks behind the bar and sets out two glasses.
Ms. Potts: Tony, I think you’d better start at the beginning.
Mr. Stark: Well, on Halloween of ‘99—
Ms. Potts: Not that beginning! I can guess that part.
Mr. Stark: Oh, right. Drink?
Mr. Stark holds up a bottle of bourbon.
Ms. Potts: (Pause.) Yeah, that sounds good right now.
Mr. Stark begins pouring two drinks.
Mr. Stark: So, Saturday after Thanksgiving, the wise old owl—
Hedwig: (Loud vocalization transcribed as “SREEE!”)
Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts both startle. Mr. Stark spills some bourbon on the bar while he is pouring.
Mr. Stark: I hate it when she does that. Sorry, the wise young owl shows up at the window with that tube on her back.
Ms. Potts: (Hesitantly.) Does it…she…understand you?
Mr. Stark finishes pouring, then wipes off the bar with a rag. Ms. Potts picks up her drink and takes a sip.
Mr. Stark: Sure seems like it. That’s another one for the list. Anyway, after I made sure she wasn’t carrying a pipe bomb, I let her in and found out she was carrying a letter for me.
Ms. Potts: From your daughter?
Mr. Stark: Yep. Fancy parchment and everything.
Mr. Stark takes a drink. Ms. Potts picks up the roll of parchment and briefly examines it, but does not unroll it.
Ms. Potts: Fancy parchment? Well, I haven’t seen that before…Wait a minute, Halloween of ‘99? Wasn’t that the one you got thrown out for pulling out a “real lightsaber”?
Mr. Stark: Why is everyone so hung up on the lightsaber?
Ms. Potts: Because that was the first mess I ever had to clean up for you. You don’t just swing around a plasma torch like that, especially since you’re you, and people were worried it would cut like a real lightsaber. And then I show up to do damage control, and I find you taking some girl in a witch’s costume up to your…oh…
Mr. Stark: Yeah, that was Holly’s mother.
Ms. Potts takes a drink.
Ms. Potts: And now, her daughter…Your daughter wrote to you back in November?
Mr. Stark: Yep.
Ms. Potts: And you wrote back?
Mr. Stark: Uh huh. Would’ve just sent a form letter, but with all the weird stuff about her school, I needed more information. You know, where are you? Do you have a better way to talk to people? Are you in a cult? Can you do the paternity test at Christmas?
Ms. Potts: (Skeptically.) And?
Mr. Stark: And she couldn’t. Not enough time to make the arrangements or something. But she came up with the obvious next step: do the test by mail.
Ms. Potts: And you just got the results from that?
Mr. Stark taps the DNA test result twice.
Mr. Stark: I am now the proud father of an eleven-year-old British girl I know next to nothing about.
Mr. Stark pours a second drink and drinks it in one shot. Ms. Potts immediately removes the glass from his hand and sets it down on the bar. She nudges him by the arm to come out from behind the bar. Mr. Stark picks up Miss Potter’s letters on the way. Ms. Potts leads him in the direction of the sofa.
Ms. Potts: You don’t know anything about her? I thought you would’ve had JARVIS dig up everything he could find on her.
Mr. Stark: Oh, I did that when I got the first letter. JARVIS, pull up the file on Holly.
Mr. Stark pauses beside the Penthouse’s main holoscreen. The holoscreen displays the records that have been found to date for Miss Potter, centered around her school photo. Ms. Potts approaches the holoscreen and studies the photo.
Ms. Potts: Huh, I can see the resemblance.
Mr. Stark: Really? I think she takes a lot more after her mother.
Ms. Potts: She looks like you when you’re trying to convince me that something’s not bothering you.
Ms. Potts looks back at Mr. Stark.
Ms. Potts: Yes, like that.
Mr. Stark: (Pause.) Okay, I probably deserve that. Anyway, the problem was there wasn’t much to find, and what there was…It raised some red flags.
Ms. Potts examines the photo more closely.
Ms. Potts: That looks like a nasty scar.
Mr. Stark: And that’s not the only thing. JARVIS, bring up the records of Holly’s mother and her family.
The holoscreen displays the records that have been found for the Evans family, including all of Lily Potter’s records, Petunia Dursley’s records up until her marriage, and their parents’ records.
Mr. Stark: Notice anything?
Ms. Potts studies the spread of records.
Ms. Potts: Lily’s records are missing. From…age eleven? Her sister’s look normal. Their parents’ look normal…
Mr. Stark: But Lily disappears. No school records. No mentions in the newspaper. No photographs. No work history. No birth announcement for Holly. No obituary. There’s an address, but no home title or rental contract. And the address doesn’t exist. No car title. Not even a TV license. And her husband’s a complete ghost: barely anything but a birth certificate.
Mr. Stark swipes through the files to display Miss Potter’s records.
Mr. Stark: And Holly, she only turned eleven last summer, but look: no school enrollment this year, and the way she described her school didn’t make any sense.
Ms. Potts: So you think she’s…
Mr. Stark: In a cult, maybe. Even though she said she wasn’t when I asked her. Or she’s Amish. British-Amish, whatever. It would explain most of it…except for why Lily started going to an Amish school when she was eleven when her sister didn’t. And also she didn’t strike me that way when I met her.
Ms. Potts swipes the holoscreen back to Lily Potter’s records.
Ms. Potts: There’s a diploma listed here.
Mr. Stark: The school’s closed. It’s not where Holly’s going now…even though she said it was the same school her mother went to. But when I asked her where her school was and why it doesn’t allow technology, she dodged the question.
Mr. Stark holds up Miss Potter’s letters.
Ms. Potts: You think she didn’t want you to know?
Mr. Stark: Maybe…But I don’t understand why. I mean she has to know I’d find out eventually.
Ms. Potts shakes her head and leads Mr. Stark the rest of the way to the sofa.
Ms. Potts: Kids don’t always act rationally. Even yours. (Pause.) In fact, with your genes, I’d say especially yours.
Mr. Stark gives Ms. Potts an annoyed look. They both sit down on the sofa.
Ms. Potts: So, what are you going to do?
Mr. Stark: What do you think? I’m gonna take her. Give her a normal life—
Ms. Potts: You? Normal?
Mr. Stark: —be a better father to her than mine was.
Ms. Potts: (Pause.) What about the people she’s living with now?
Mr. Stark shakes his head and holds up the letters in his hand.
Mr. Stark: You haven’t seen her letters. She was practically begging me to take her away from her aunt and uncle. Even offered to pay rent.
Ms. Potts looks sharply at Mr. Stark.
Mr. Stark: Like, rent rent. With money…She said she inherited some from her stepfather.
Ms. Potts: She offered to pay you?
Ms. Potts looks back at Miss Potter’s school photo. Analysis suggests she is studying the forced smile on Miss Potter’s face. She then turns back to Mr. Stark and looks at Miss Potter’s letters.
Ms. Potts: Do you mind if I see them?
Mr. Stark: Knock yourself out. This was the first one.
Mr. Stark extracts Miss Potter’s first letter from the roll and hands it to Ms. Potts. Ms. Potts unrolls it and begins reading.
Ms. Potts: Anthony Stark?
Mr. Stark: Well, she didn’t know I was the right Anthony Stark, did she?
Ms. Potts: (Pause.) Huh, I never thought of that. I wonder how many Anthony Starks there are.
JARVIS: A complete tabulation of names in the United States Census is not public. However, a preliminary investigation suggests between one hundred and two hundred. And it would be plausible that Miss Potter would not recognize Mr. Stark’s middle name and birth date.
Ms. Potts: Which…would also make it less ridiculous that she offered to pay you.
Ms. Potts continues reading.
Ms. Potts: What’s this about Post Owls?
Mr. Stark: No idea. I even had JARVIS go digging. No confirmed reports of people using owls to carry letters, especially not an organization. They’d have to be running it completely offline and not show up in anyone else’s records.
Ms. Potts: Which…would make the “cult” angle seem more likely.
Mr. Stark: Exactly. But then there’s the problem of how Hedwig could find me without knowing I’m the Tony Stark. It feels like it has to be connected with whoever told her I’m her father, somehow.
Ms. Potts: How did she find out?
Mr. Stark: JARVIS couldn’t find anything on that, either. I don’t like it, Pepper. (Pause.) Here, this one came in mid-December. It’s not much better.
Mr. Stark hands Ms. Potts Miss Potter’s second letter. Ms. Potts begins reading.
Ms. Potts: “I don’t care if you bring a lot of women home”? Tony, what did you tell her?
Mr. Stark: I told her the truth! I didn’t think she was mine, and I had good reason not to. I set her straight in my next letter.
Ms. Potts scoffs and continues reading.
Ms. Potts: (Aghast.) She doesn’t even know what her mother looks like?
Mr. Stark: The aunt and uncle. I told you it didn’t look good.
Mr. Stark hands Ms. Potts Miss Potter’s third letter. Ms. Potts reads it.
Ms. Potts: (Confused.) Why did she tell you her eye color?
Mr. Stark: Oh, in my last letter, I mentioned she looked like her mother, but I didn’t know if they had the same eye color. JARVIS couldn’t find any color photos of her.
Ms. Potts: Ah…So, now what?
Mr. Stark: Now? Now, I want to know what’s going on with her. What school is she going to? Why is it so weird? Why didn’t she want to tell me about it. How did they know I was her dad? Are they trying to stop her from contacting me—?
Ms. Potts: Tony!
Mr. Stark stops and stares at Ms. Potts.
Ms. Potts: The first thing you need to do is not scare her off. I don’t know what’s going on with Holly, but if her home life is as bad as you think it is, it sounds like that school is the one good thing she has. You don’t want her think you’re going to take that away without hearing her out first.
Mr. Stark: (Deep breath.) Fine…Yes, you’re right…If she’s going to school at all. I’m not even sure how much to believe of what she wrote. In fact, I would’ve just thought she was trying to write a sob story for extra sympathy, except…
Ms. Potts: Except for the lack of records.
Ms. Potts pauses for 5 seconds, then places her hands on Mr. Stark’s shoulders.
Ms. Potts: Tony…really…are you okay with this?
Mr. Stark pauses in thought for 8 seconds.
Mr. Stark: Honestly…no. Kind of freaking out right now, in fact. I have an 11-year-old daughter I’ve never met, and she might be in 3 or 4 different kinds of trouble that she’s not telling me. I already didn’t like the things I saw in her letters when I thought she wasn’t mine. And now…
Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts are silent for 7 seconds. Then, Ms. Potts makes a visible effort to relax back on the sofa.
Ms. Potts: Well, I can get started on the paperwork: lawyers, NDAs, citizenship, passport. Get everything lined up for when she gets an official paternity test.
Mr. Stark: And sort out that 40% thing.
Ms. Potts: That too. I’ll have Dr. Chen ready to witness. If Holly’s aunt and uncle don’t contest custody, we should be able to take care of it overnight.
Mr. Stark: (Angrily.) And if they do, I’ll have a talk with them.
Ms. Potts: No, if they do, I will bury them in paperwork while you wait before you do something you can’t take back.
Mr. Stark: (Deep breath.) You’re the best, Pep.
Mr. Stark kisses Ms. Potts.
Ms. Potts: Well, I had most of the stuff lined up in case one of the tests ever came back positive. Although foreign national wasn’t high on my list.
Mr. Stark: (Interrupting.) Pepper…? Are you okay with this?
Ms. Potts: (Pause. Shaky) I…No, I don’t think I’m okay, Tony. I’m prepared. I always knew there was a decent chance this day would come. I’ve had everything lined up for years…But I’m not okay. (Pause.) But when you need help…and you will…I’ll be here for you. Because right now, there’s an 11-year-old girl in Scotland who needs your help, and it sounds like even your parenting skills are miles better than what she’s dealing with now.
Mr. Stark: Hey, I’m not that bad, am I?
Ms. Potts: I have parenting classes on the list.
Mr. Stark: (Surprised.) You’re serious? (Pause.) Just to be clear, that’s for me and not a threat to use them on me?
Ms. Potts: Yes, for you. That’s a good idea, though; I could get tips on how to set your bedtime.
Mr. Stark: (A groan.) I had to say it, didn’t I? (Pause.) But really, Pep, thank you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.
Ms. Potts: That makes two of us.
Mr. Stark: So, answer Holly’s letter. Paperwork. Learn to parent.
Ms. Potts: And you still have the race in Dubai next week.
Mr. Stark: Ah, crap. Can I cancel?
Ms. Potts: You could, but people would ask questions.
Mr. Stark: Just tell them I’m…being me. They’ll believe it.
Ms. Potts gives Mr. Stark a stern look.
Ms. Potts: You know how Omar would react to you backing out.
Mr. Stark: (A sigh.) Fine. Answer Holly’s letter. Fly to Dubai. Kick GI’s ass. Paperwork, and learn to parent. Piece of cake. (Pause.) Actually, there’s one more thing you can do right away.
Ms. Potts: Of course.
Mr. Stark: Find an excuse to buy the company her uncle runs, and do a full audit. If there’s anything actionable, I want them dealt with before she even gets home from school.