Everyone came back within the next two days, as promised, but Pepper, Romanova and her dad were all incredibly busy putting out fires caused by the incident in Monaco. (Apparently, Pepper had found Romanova more suitable as an assistant than Tony, which did not help Rosie's concerns about the spy.) Sure, Tony had declared that no one else would have his tech for the next twenty years at the Senate hearing, but he'd been proven wrong by the maniac in Monaco. She was pretty sure that SI stocks would have plummeted like crazy by all the combined events of the last week, so Pepper wouldn't have any more free time in the near future.

Her dad had stopped by to say hi, but couldn't stay long either as he'd had to go and convince National Guard not to bulldoze over the property and take away all of Tony's suits. Rosie did understand, but she was worried as well. She had planned to tell all three of them and Happy about Romanova at the same time, but that was definitely not happening now.

Swallowing her nervousness, Rosie went down to Tony's workshop and knocked on the glass partition. "Hey Tony? Mind letting me in?"

He buzzed her through without looking away from the screen where J.A.R.V.I.S was running a search.

Rosie hesitantly sat down beside him, laying a hand on his arm. "Uncle Tony? Could you, um... initiate lockdown in the 'shop for a few minutes? I've got something to tell you."

"Lockdown?" He asked dully, looking as tired as he did after a three-day binge in the workshop. There was a huge bruise on one side of his face that was thrown into sharp relief when he turned to face the light.

"Yeah. I'm not sure if you already know, but if you don't, you have to hear this."

He stared at her for a few seconds, before making up his mind. "Jarvis, Initiate Code Lockdown. Full blackout. Nothing in or out."

The shutters closed over the glass and many of the beeping machines fell silent. Rosie waited till she saw the CCTV cameras in the corner power down as well before deciding not to beat around the bush.

"Natalie Rushman is a S.H.I.E.L.D agent, Tony. She's here to supposedly keep an eye on you and compile a profile or something to check your eligibility for the Avengers Initiative."

He jerked upright, all laziness gone from his posture. "Where'd you learn about the Avengers Initiative?"

Rosie looked down at her shoes when she answered, "I might have hacked into S.H.I.E.L.D?" Before he could scold her for it, she hurriedly continued, "Look, the real reason I asked for the lockdown is because Natalie's name is actually Natalia Romanova, codename Black Widow. She's an assassin and a skilled infiltrator."

Tony cursed under his breath and Rosie was only able to catch one word that sounded like 'fury'. "How far did you get into their system?"

Rosie blinked. "Um... Personnel files and mission reports?"

"Has she said anything about you?"

"Nope. I'm pretty sure she thinks that I was just visiting the last time and went back home soon after."

The relief was palpable in his voice as he said, "Good. Let's keep it that way, okay? I don't want you getting mixed up in S.H.I.E.L.D anytime soon and neither does Rhodey."

"Yeah, okay. But Tony, she's an assassin! You're letting her into your house and she's spending all her time with Pepper!"

"I'm not worried about that," he wrapped an arm around her shoulders comfortingly before explaining. "I've known about S.H.I.E.L.D for some time now and as much as I don't like Pirate, he's not gonna order a hit on me. If Romanova's file says that she's here to do a profile on me, then that's what she's here to do."

"Are you sure? I wanted to tell Dad, Pepper and Happy-"

"Don'ttellthem!" He nearly shouted, before clearing his throat and continuing, "I meant, don't tell them."

"But Tony-"

"Listen, kiddo. They've all got a lot on their hands right now and this will just add unnecessary stress. I'll handle it. Promise me that you won't tell them."

Rosie hesitated, but she trusted Tony to do as he said he would and promised to keep it to herself.

"Thanks, squirt. You know I love you, right?" The look on his face was a little unsettling as Rosie replied, "Love you too Uncle T," before leaving.

In what seemed like no time, it was Tony's birthday. Rosie secretly fixed all the bugs in his newest suit overnight, presenting the finished piece to him as soon as he woke up on his birthday. He'd watched, open mouthed, as J.A.R.V.I.S ran a systems check on the new suit and announced that it was in perfect condition and ready for use. He's given her a big hug and thanked her, before saying that he was sorry that she couldn't attend the party that evening.

"It's fine, Tony. Not like I want to go or anything. I'll have a calm, restful night binge-watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S."

And that was what she was doing, when J.A.R.V.I.S interrupted her show. "There is an emergency in the Ballroom, Miss Rosie. Boss has commandeered a suit whilst inebriated and is currently wreaking havoc in the area. Colonel Rhodes is trying to handle the situation, but the guests are not safe. What should I do?"

Rosie jumped up from her position lounging on the bed, and called out in a clear voice, "Jarvis, code Emergency. Authorisation 1-3-8-0-9-3-2, the squirt is a nerd."

"Voice activation and code is accepted. Activating the suits."

She focused her attention on the StarkTab in her hands and began giving out commands to the suits and helping J.A.R.V.I.S get the guests to safety while her dad and Tony duked it out. J.A.R.V.I.S' unflappable tone echoed through the suits as he asked the guests to not panic and leave for the exit in an orderly fashion.

The suits protected the fleeing guests from flying shards of glass and other debris while leading them to safety. Rosie kept an eye out for Romanova and Pepper, and quickly spotted them, flying one suit over to pick Romanova up and bring her to the living room, while another protected Pepper from shards of glass that were flying around before lifting her up and bringing her to Rosie's room.

Security took over the situation once the guests were outside, allowing Rosie to depower the suits. Pepper stared up at her with wide eyes, "You were the one who sent the suits?"

"Uh-huh. Are you hurt?"

"No, but you thought that something like this would happen?"

"I kind of expected an attack on the house that would compromise it's structure, not that Tony would do that himself while drunk. The plan did work, though."

"It did," Pepper agreed weakly. "Thanks for getting me out, kiddo."

"No probs. But I think you'd better get to bed. I'm pretty sure you'll need to do more damage control tomorrow. And before you ask, Jarvis is showing Natalie to an empty room right now."

Pepper nodded, looking mournful. "Tony's never gotten drunk since you moved in. Something made him break the streak... God, was it because he gave the company to me? I've been messing everything up-"

Rosie shook her head, "Hey, hey, hey, Pep, he made the right decision choosing you and we all know it." She gave Pepper a hug. "You're gonna do great, just calm down and stop worrying so much about it."

Pepper stumbled forward when she stood up, barely catching herself before she went sprawling. "Getting to bed does sound really good right now."

As she got ready for bed, Rosie remembered something she'd forgotten to do earlier. She knew how important the information she had found in the S.H.I.E.L.D database was, so she slowly began to gather all that she had learned, put it in a box in her mind, locked it, and shoved the box into a dark corner of her head. This was a useful skill that she had come up with, which allowed her to push memories and certain pieces of information to the back of her mind, away from her everyday thoughts.

She'd started this when the effects of her eidetic memory had her remembering absolutely everything she read and saw in a day, leaving her with horrible headaches. Shoving away information like this kept it out of her thoughts, while not fully forgetting it. It also reduced the chances of her accidentally revealing super-secret S.H.I.E.L.D stuff. She flopped down on her bed and closed her eyes, worried about what was going to happen the next day.

Rosie was shaken awake the next morning by Pepper. "I have to leave soon, so listen to me carefully. Word about yesterday has gotten around, and your dad has taken the War Machine suit off to the military to keep them from breaking into the house and taking the rest of Tony's suits. He wanted me to tell you that he's proud of what you did yesterday, but he doesn't want you living here with Tony anymore and I agree with that."

"Why?" Rosie was indignant, "You don't think that I can take care of myself?"

"It's nothing to do with that, honey. Tony's going through a rough patch at the moment and we have no clue what crazy stunt he's gonna pull next or even why. We both know he wouldn't hurt you on purpose, but there is a very big chance that you could be revealed to the press, okay? Happy's piloting a jet to the Tower today afternoon, and you're going to be on it."

"But-".

"Rosanna Carter, I want you on that jet when it leaves, so get your things together." Pepper's tone left no room for argument. "Fine." Rosie grumbled, getting out of bed. Pepper gave her a hug, "I'll try to keep you updated as much as I can, okay?"

Rosie was taking out her frustration on a punching bag in the training room at the Tower. It had been days since she had been forced to move to the Tower, and Pepper had not contacted her at all. She'd been basically cut off from the outside world and almost imprisoned in the private floors of the Tower. And now, everyone had gone off to the Stark Expo and she had been ordered to stay back for 'Safety Reasons' and excuses that she was too young to be dragged into things like this.

MARLENE was running the footage from the Expo on a small screen in the corner, but Rosie was ignoring the feed and had muted the volume. Some sort of weapons presentation by a guy called Hammer. She's heard Tony making fun of his tech earlier, so she didn't think of it as important enough to watch.

She was interrupted from her repetitive punching by MARLENE telling her that she had a call from Natalie Rushman's number. "Accept it."

"Rosanna? Are you in the Tower?" She heard Pepper's urgent voice.

"Yeah." She caught a glimpse of the footage and gasped. Hammer's presentation was a mess; the drones he'd been showing off were shooting at something she recognised as Iron Man. Even the Iron Man suit that she knew her dad was in was targeting Tony. "Holy shit."

"You're seeing the footage."

"Pepper, what the hell is going on?"

"Ivan Vanko, the man from Monaco, has taken control of the drones which Hammer was presenting at the Expo. Hammer's saying that he's at the facility and Natalie's going there to stop him. She already knows that you know us, so I was hoping you'd be able to help her with the technical part of the computers? "

Rosie thought it over in her head and made a decision. "Sure, give her the phone." It was a no-brainer. Her anonymity wasn't worth the lives of the hundreds of people who were currently in danger at the Expo.

"Rushman."

"Oh, drop it, Romanova, or is it Romanoff? I know who you are."

"How do you know?" she hissed over the line.

"I think that that's a discussion for later, Agent. Maybe after we stop the drones from killing innocent people?"

"You're a child. How can you help?"

Rosie scowled, even though Romanova couldn't see her. "I'm the child who coded a learning AI on her own," she snapped.

There was no answer for a few seconds, but she could hear the agent giving instructions to Happy to drive to Hammer Industries. "What can you do?"

"Vanko's remotely controlling the drones, which mean that I might be able to override him and shut them down. I'll need a direct connection to the server, but I should be able to do it."

"Right. How does that work?"

"Look under the divider between the front and back seats in the car. There should be a small box there. Did you find it?"

"Yes."

"Grab a USB cable from the box that's marked with the Stark Industries logo and two of the small, rectangle-shaped objects. They should be roughly half the size of your phone."

"Found them. What now?"

"Get Happy's phone, use the USB to connect it to any system you can see inside Hammer's building. Stick the rectangles on a CPU, or anything else that remotely resembles a server. I should be able to access the server through them and hopefully shut Vanko out."

"Right."

Rosie tapped her watch to maintain the connection and sprinted to her room. She needed her computer. The snippets of code that she had pre-written on it would make her job much faster. She was going to take every advantage she would get. She heard sounds of gunfire and faint yelling and thuds from the call, and assumed that Natasha had gotten to the factory. Rosie tapped into the extremely powerful WiFi router at the top of Stark Tower and used its strength to boost her signal and find Natasha's phone.

She had insisted on Happy's phone because Tony had added a few extra features in it, which would help her to break into Hammer's server system that much more easily. The signal amplifiers would help her pin down exactly where Vanko was in the building.

"Plugging in the phone now."

Rosie waited with bated breath, hoping that her assumptions were correct, and... "Yes! I'm in! Only two devices are running in the entire building at the moment. They're both connected to the same line on the floor above you and are running heavily encrypted programs. Vanko's actively altering the codes he's put into the drones as well."

"What do you mean by that?" Romanoff snapped.

"I can't hack into the system externally with him there. You're gonna have to distract him long enough for me to gain access to the system via a weak spot before he fixes it."

"I can do that. You keep trying until then."

"Will do."

Rosie kept typing, looking for an opening, but it would be reinforced before she got the time to use it. After about ten minutes, the changes abruptly stopped. "Yes!" She cheered, using it to her advantage and finally gaining access to the rogue systems. Quickly pulling up the War Machine suit controls, she sent in one of her custom-designed viruses that were capable of targeting specific bits of code.

Whatever Vanko was using to control the suit had to have been added after her dad took the suit to the military, so she destroyed everything that had been changed after Tony's birthday, having no time to sit and sort through the coding. It was then that she realised something.

"Romanoff!" she shouted, "I'm going to need you to manually return control to Colonel Rhodes! You should be seeing a message on the screen right now!" She yelled into her phone, hoping she could do that.

She heard the sound of rapid typing, and Natasha said, "Done. What about the others?"

"I can try, but it'll take me quite a lot of time. I'll have to rewrite most of the code for the drones if I want to have any chances of controlling them. Colonel Rhodes' suit was a rushed job, unlike the others he built from scratch, which was the only reason I was able to fix it as fast as I did."

"Good work, kid." The connection was cut off.

"Marls, can you pull up the news coverage of the Stark Expo?" Rosie saw Iron Man and War Machine working together to destroy the drones, before they flew off camera. She saw police cars at the Expo and a man she vaguely recognised to be Justin Hammer be escorted to a cop car. There was a quick glimpse of a familiar head of strawberry blonde hair, and Rosie breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Pepper safe and walking out of the building.

Suddenly, the cameras changed to an aerial view which showed an enormous explosion some distance away from the Expo, and various smaller explosions all around. "The drones are self-destructing." She realised, horrified. Rosie let out a small scream when she saw a drone right in front of Pepper, who had no idea that it would explode any second. "Get out of there!" She uselessly yelled. "Pepper!" Just in the nick of time, Tony swooped down in his suit and carried her off to safety.

Thank God. Rosie shut her computer and collapsed on the floor, relieved that the ordeal was over. She realised that she was never going to fall asleep without reassurance that the others were safe, so Rosie went to the kitchen and made enough food for everyone. She was right to guess that they would come to the Tower once everything was settled. The familiar ritual of cooking helped calm her down, and by the time four exhausted adults came in, there were steaming bowls of Italian meatball soup and garlic bread waiting for them, along with a relieved fifteen-year-old who fussed over their injuries as they ate.

Rosie was not ashamed to admit that she burst into tears when Tony told her that he had been dying from palladium poisoning for the last few months. The stress and constant state of worry had wreaked havoc on her nerves and she was a mess of emotions at the moment. She grabbed fistfuls of his shirt in both hands and buried her face in his chest as she sobbed, trying to come to terms with the fact that the chances of him not being alive had been really high.

She shuddered when she thought that if it hadn't been for the video of Howard Stark, Tony might not have been sitting with her at the moment. He awkwardly patted her back, offering her a fairly clean rag from his pocket to wipe her face when she finally let go.

"Will it make any difference if I say sorry?" he finally asked.

Making a sound that was half laugh-half hiccup, she punched his arm. "You're an idiot."

"Does that mean I'm forgiven?"

"Nope. I'm still pissed at you for not asking for help. I get it, I'm a kid and you didn't want to tell me, but you could have at least said something to Dad if not Pepper and Happy!"

He looked sheepish, "I-uh, didn't want you to-"

"Worry?" she finished softly. "Tony, we're going to worry about you either way and nothing you say or do is gonna stop us. You're family and family always cares about each other. Remember that Disney movie we saw? Ohana means family..."

"...Family means no one gets left behind or forgotten."

"Yeah," she smiled at him. "I trust you to help me when I need it, Uncle T and I hope that you'll come to realise that you can depend on me as well. I'm always in your corner, even if I'm pissed at you for something stupid you did, okay? Try to keep that in mind."

He nodded dumbly.

"Now that that's done with-" she narrowed her eyes, "-Anthony Edward Stark, what was it about you not wanting me to be a failure like you when I grew up, huh?"

Tony looked extremely guilty, "Nothing?" He squeaked, his voice rising an octave higher than usual.

"Are you sure? Do we need to have the 'I love you, you idiot and you're not a spectacular failure of a human being' talk again?"

He shook his head, but Rosie could see that he didn't believe it fully.

She sighed. It wasn't possible to fix someone's self-esteem issues overnight and it was much harder when Tony refused to see a therapist - not that she blamed him for it - The last two he'd seen had revealed everything to the press within a day of the first therapy session he'd had with them. She wrapped her arms around him in a hug, resting her head on his shoulder and whispering in his ear.

"You might think you're broken, but you're not, Tony. You've survived where others would have given up long ago. That, in my opinion makes you the strongest dude I know. You aren't a normal Godfather, which is perfectly okay. Normal's overrated anyway."