before the storm / bucky barnes

I don't care if she's my kid or if she's Batman's kid. She's not safe.

"MR STARK-"

"Hold on Potts, I'm in the middle of something,"

Tony Stark stood in the middle of his office, in one of his many ten-thousand dollar suits pressed with not a crease to be found as he grasped onto a golf club — with a golf ball just waiting to be hit merely inches from the perfectly polished club. A Stark Industries mug sat a few feet in front of him — Pepper Potts assumed that was what he was using as a goal.

"Mr Stark-"

Tony Stark hushed her again, adjusting his grip on the club and bouncing on his toes.

Pepper took in a sharp breath before straightening herself up, and clearing her throat lightly.

"Anthony Stark!"

The abruptness in Pepper's voice causes Tony to prematurely hit the ball, allowing it to drift a couple inches to the left before being halted by a table leg.

He childishly huffed before dropping the club to his feet and looking over at Pepper Potts, who clasped a thick binder labelled Classified: Sensitive between her crossed arms against her chest.

"Yes, Pepper?" Tony finally gives in as he went to sit in his desk chair and hesitantly give her his undivided attention.

"Before I tell you this, I want to ask you one thing – is it so hard to keep it in your fucking pants for once?"

Tony stopped and pondered for a second, before he responded with "no."

Pepper rolled her eyes at the man who sat in front of her, before sliding the large binder from her arms and onto the desk that separated them.

Tony cooed over the binder, running his hands over the front and delaying the process of opening it.

"You put a lot of work into this one, huh?" Tony smirks at Pepper as he admires the binders outright complexity.

"Open it. Now." Pepper ordered him, he opened the binder.

The front page held a photo of a girl. Quite a small girl, born 30th of March, 2000. She's just turned two years old.

"It's a kid, what's so classified about a kid?" Tony questioned Pepper, who seemed mildly stressed about the situation.

"Keep reading..."

Mother, Elizabeth Janet Fulson.

And her Father? Listed here as Anthony Edward Stark.

"Is this a prank?"

"Why would I joke about this, Tony?"

"I don't know, is it April yet?" Tony questioned before looking back at his calendar. Pepper ignored him.

"The Mother, Elizabeth, has come forward and is claiming the child is yours, the timelines match up. You were both in the same building in Vancouver around the estimated date the child was conceived," Pepper flipped the page over, where there were an abundance of photos of Tony and Elizabeth conversing. "And you two left the party with each other that night,"

"Is it my child?" Tony's eyebrows furrow as he flips back to the photograph of Cassandra Fulson.

"Possibly. Elizabeth is raising her by herself– or maybe with her boyfriend,"

Pepper turned to the third page where there is a file on Elizabeth Fulson and her boyfriend, Christopher Stranton.

"She called into your office while you were away yesterday morning about Cassandra," Pepper explained and Tony raised his eyebrows at her, surprised that he was being told so late. Pepper ignored it.

"She was looking for you and she wanted money in exchange for not going public about your supposed child. She didn't sound..." Pepper took a pregnant pause as she fished for the right words. "...all there?"

"Elizabeth?" Tony seeked the name from the depths of his mind. "Elizabeth Fulson?" He murmured before it clicked. "The journalist?"

Pepper nodded. "Quit and moved to Massachusetts after discovering she was pregnant."

Tony's eyes scanned the page before flipping it over to page four. Pepper quickly leaned down in an attempt to prevent him from seeing the contents of the page without warnings – but it was too late.

"Abuse? Neglect?"

"Minor cases, we think,"

The file is riddled with photos that were most likely seized from the child's daycare — signed off as injuries from the playground.

"You know what? I don't care if she's my kid or Batman's fucking kid. She's not safe," Tony shut the file with a slam and shoved it to the edge of the table - the corner of the file dangling over the oak desk.

-

Child protection services apprehended Cassandra Fulson at 11:45am on the 10th of July, 2002. It was a Wednesday morning and Cassandra had been at daycare for 5 hours after Christopher had dropped her off an hour before they were open, noticeably intoxicated. CPS was called by the daycare workers who were thankfully there — unaware that Stark Industries had planned to apprehend Cassandra that day regardless.

Anthony Stark, despite being left with his Father's multibillion dollar company before he could grow facial hair, was never faced with responsibility like this.

He took it upon himself to care for the child as if she were his own — he was granted custody and had signed adoption papers as well as authorised a name change, Tony couldn't give less of a shit if Cassandra Stark was his child or not.

Tests were done, sure, but that letter sat unopened at the bottom of Stark's locked drawer in his office the moment he had found it sitting on his desk after dropping Cassandra off at daycare.

Cassandra's first word was Daddy, because despite being two when Tony became her Dad, she had yet to speak her first words. Probably due to the neglect faced due to her birth mother, who evidently hated the child after realising what she was a product of.

Tony never cared to find out where Elizabeth and Christopher ended up post-custody battle.

And it was only one afternoon, after he had noticed the certain tone of her voice, and the glint in her eye as she walked up the home base at 7 years old during her first softball game of the season did the thought cross his mind. Tony Stark made a bet with himself. If she managed to get a homerun then and there, he would open the letter after she went to bed.

She ran it.

And when Tony Stark opened that letter the same night to read that he in fact was the Father of the one thing he loved to death and would give his life for, he sat at his desk and cried.

He cried. And cried. And cried.

i love this bonus chapter 🥺 we hit 25k so i had to stick to my word n upload this for yall u kno

also im OFFICIALLY out of bonus chapters & i got no ideas so seriously just drop ideas in the comments i want to give u guys fresh content!!