"Happy birthday, Petal."
Tears slowly trickle down Tony's cheeks as he stares down at the grave in front of him. Today would've been Y/N Stark's 18th birthday.
Tony looks up to see that he isn't the only one crying.
Steve and Bucky are leaning into each other for comfort as they stare down at the grave of the girl who was their goddaughter. Beside them is Sam, who is trying to stay strong for the sake of his friends, but his facade is starting to fall. Behind him is Thor and his brother Loki. While Loki hardly knew Y/N as a child, he was there to comfort his brother, who still feels responsible for the girl's death even though he had nothing to do with it.
On Tony's left, he can see Vision holding Wanda as she sobs into his chest. Bruce is watching Natasha clean the area around Y/N's headstone and carefully place all the bouquets of flowers they brought for her. Tony knows she's only doing it to keep herself busy in hopes of not bursting into tears in front of everyone.
Lastly, there's Peter, standing next to his father as he stares down at his little sister's grave, whom he misses with all his heart. He still wonders if there was anything he could do that could've saved her.
"When is Pepper coming?"
Tony darts his eyes over to Bucky, who is looking at him with a nervous look on his face. He knows it's the question everyone has been secretly wondering, but Bucky seems to be the only one brave enough to ask.
"I've been told that she is coming by later with Morgan. I'm surprised she even knows what today is."
They can all see the bitter look on his face as he thinks about his ex-wife. Y/N going missing caused an enormous strain on their marriage. Tony blamed Pepper and Pepper blamed Tony. While her kidnapping put a strain on their marriage, nothing compares to what the news of Pepper being pregnant did.
It was two months after Y/N's disappearance when Pepper finally decided to tell Tony the news. She had discovered she was pregnant two weeks after Y/N was taken from them. She decided to wait and tell Tony because he was hardly home as he looked for any signs of Y/N every day. After a month and a half of keeping her pregnancy from Tony, she finally decided to tell him as she was starting to show slightly, and she hoped to get his mind off Y/N. She too wished more than anything to have her little girl back, but Tony was going to end up dead with the way he was going.
She thought telling him would make their lives a bit better, but it only made it worse.
***
"Tony, can you please sit down and have dinner with Peter and me."
"I can't. My little girl is somewhere out there scared and alone and wondering when her dad is going to save her."
"You won't be able to save her when you pass out from you being malnourished. You've hardly eaten in two months. You've lost some weight and not in a healthy way. I want her back here just as much as you, but when we find her, I want to be well enough to hurt those who have hurt her."
Tony grumbled something angrily under his breath as he stood up behind his desk in his little home office.
"Fine. I will eat the dinner you made, but then I'm coming back in here, and I'm not leaving until I find something."
They walked to the kitchen of their little cabin. When they adopted Peter at three months old, they decided that living at the compound full of accident-prone heroes with superpowers and special abilities was not the best idea. They moved into a cabin in the middle of nowhere so they could live their family life in peace and away from the dangers the rest of the world brought.
While walking into the kitchen, Tony saw Peter patiently waiting for his parents to join him at the kitchen table. He kept asking where she was, and they were running out of things to tell him.
Tony and Pepper silently joined Peter at the table. Tony quickly started to eat the chicken on the plate in front of him.
"Slow down, Tony. We haven't seen you in weeks, and your research will still be there when we're done."
Tony glared down at his plate. "It's not just some silly research. I am trying to find–" he stopped himself as he glanced over at Peter– "I am trying to find something important to me. I'm sorry that it doesn't seem that important to you."
Pepper huffed in annoyance. "She is just as important to me as she is to you."
"Then act like it!"
Peter jumped at his dad's outburst. He looked at his parents who seemed to have some kind of stare-down.
"When is Y/N coming home?"
Tony and Pepper looked at the boy who was nervously playing with his food as he waited for his parent's reaction. Tony sighed as he prepared to finally tell the boy the truth. He was tired of keeping this from him, and he knew Peter would keep asking.
"Tony, don't."
"He deserves to know. I am tired of all the lying, and he deserves to know. She's his sister."
"He's just a kid. He doesn't need to know."
Tony ignored her as he turned toward Peter. "P, do you remember your birthday party two months ago?"
Peter softly replied as he nodded his head, "We had a big party at the compound."
"Correct. Now, do you remember how we told you that the reason your sister didn't come home with us that night was because she got sick and went home with Uncle Steve and Uncle Buck?"
"You said that she ate too much cake."
Tony took a deep breath as he steadied himself to tell the boy that his sister was missing.
"P, your sister wasn't sick, sh–"
"Tony!"
Tony looked back at Pepper, "He deserves to know."
Tony turned back to Peter and looked into his scared, tearful eyes, "P, your sister was taken."
"Taken?"
"Some very bad men took her from the party, and we don't know where she is."
"How?" Tears fell down Peter's face as he tried to come up with an explanation in his head. He didn't understand how his sister could be taken from one of the most protected places in the world. His family was the Avengers, and somehow his sister was taken from a party they were all at.
"We don't know. We have been looking into everything, and we are doing everything we can to find her. We won't stop until she is home."
"My sister was taken, and you've been lying to me this whole time!"
"P, we–"
"No! I don't want to hear your lies!" Peter jumps up from his seat and storms off to his room. They can hear him slam his door shut.
Pepper stood up from her seat and grabbed Peter's plate to put it away in the fridge in case he got hungry later in the night.
"I told you not to tell him."
"The longer we kept lying to him, the more upset he was going to be with us when we finally decided to tell him." Tony got up from his spot at the table and brought his plate over to the sink to wash it.
Pepper knew this wasn't the right time to tell Tony the news, but she couldn't keep putting it off. She didn't know how he would react, but she hoped he wouldn't respond too poorly.
"Tony, I have to tell you something."
Tony quietly mumbled in acknowledgment as he dried his plate.
"I'm pregnant."
Tony immediately stopped drying the plate in his hand, and Pepper could practically feel the tension radiating from his body. Tony turned his head toward Pepper.
"No."
"No?"
"No."
Pepper huffed frustratedly, "What do you mean no?"
"I mean no! I can't deal with this right now! My little girl has been missing for two months, and you are already trying to replace her! Is this why you seem to not give a shit about her being missing?" Tony throws the plate in his hand into the sink. It shatters into pieces from the harsh impact.
"I am not replacing her! I miss her just as much as you do!"
"Do you? You've basically gone back to your life as if she was never in it. Why is that? Is it because now you're pregnant with a biological child? Some girl who was left in front of the compound means nothing to you now?"
"She is not some girl! She is my daughter too! I didn't plan on getting pregnant! I found out two weeks after she was taken from us. What you should really be asking is how the hell was our daughter kidnapped from the compound without no one knowing? You brag all the time about how secure and advanced that compound is, and yet you have nothing! You can't even say what time she was taken!"
"Her kidnapping isn't my fault!"
"How is it not? I begged you to leave all of this Avenger nonsense when we adopted Peter! I told you that something bad would happen, but you let your massive ego do the talking, and you claimed that nothing would ever happen! Now look! Our daughter is gone, and we should start facing the fact that she's probably already dead!"
Tony thought he was angry before, but now he was furious.
"Y/N is not dead."
"How do you know that? It's been two months, and you haven't gotten any closer to finding her than the night she was taken. She is three years old, and we have to face the fact that there is about a 99% chance that she is dead. You know the statistics!"
"How have you just given up on her? Until I find her, alive or dead, I will never give up on looking for her. I promised her the day she was dropped off on our doorstep that I would always be there for her. I wasn't there for her when she was taken, but I won't stop until I can be there for her again. Just because you have given up hope doesn't mean that I have."
Tony stormed out of the kitchen toward the front door as Pepper followed him. He slipped on his tennis shoes that were sitting near the door and grabbed his keys from their key bowl.
"Where are you going?"
"I can't be here right now. I'm sleeping at the compound tonight."
"You can't just run away from this. From us."
Tony sighed as he finally looked up at Pepper, "I am not running away. I need to get out of here. I'll be back tomorrow. Hopefully, by then, you'll realize that our daughter is still out there, and I will find her."
Tony rushed out the front door and went straight to his car. Pepper watched dolefully as Tony drove away from their home. Tony returned the next morning, but he returned with a moving truck and divorce papers.
***
"What time do you leave tomorrow?"
Tony blinks away from his memories at the sound of Clint's voice. He looks over to Clint, who is staring at him with concern in his eyes.
"We leave at 9:00 AM tomorrow. Someone should be there cleaning the lake house now."
"Are you excited, Pete?"
"Oh yeah. Three months in an isolated lake house with my dad, my uncles Steve, Buck, Sam, Bruce, and Thor, and my aunt Tasha and Wanda. It's gonna be a blast," Peter replies sarcastically.
"Hey! What's wrong with spending time with us? Bird boy, I get, but what's wrong with me," Bucky quickly objected. Sam gives Bucky an offended look at the terrible nickname he called him.
Tony signs solemnly while looking down at Y/N's grave, "This will be the first time we've gone back there since she was taken. She loved the lake house. Three years old, and she somehow figured out a way to sneak onto a jet and have JARVIS take her there. I remember her saying how she wanted to live there when she was older."
"It will be hard, but it's for the best. We are going there to celebrate her. She might no longer be with us physically, but she is with us in our hearts," Wanda added, "Plus, I've heard that the town near it has even grown quite a bit in the last several years. I mean, the murder rate and freaky happenings are kinda high, but it seems like a cool place."
"How does it having a high murder rate make it a cool place," Clint asked with a confused look on his face.
"One, I said it's kinda high. Two, I said it seems cool, not that it is cool."
"I'm just hoping that burger place on the edge of town is still open," Steve added.
"What was that place called again," Peter asked.
"Bob's Patty Shack."
"How do you remember that? I can't even remember the name of the town," Bucky looked at Steve questionably.
"That's how good their burgers are. They've never left my mind."
"What's the town called again," Peter asked.
"Beacon Hills."