2008...
Imagine being in her place. The world looks at you like you're the greatest thing to walk. Her grandparents died in a car accident on December 16th, 1991, but most knew they were killed. The reports were shady but made sense enough that the world believed them. Being a young child, everyone wants her to smile and believe that she knows nothing about what happened. If it were up to her, she wouldn't want Tony Stark as a dad. She would leave but had nowhere else to go.
He's like a teenager who has never grown up. He parties all the time. Leaving her in the hands of a nanny, and countless nannies. She's tried every possible thing to get his attention. He knows she's alive and spoils her, but deep down, she just wants him to actually care. Some days she feels like an outside cat, you know, loving the cat, feeding it to keep it alive, but letting the cat do its own thing.
Pepper has always been a mother figure for her, but Avalon just feels too different. She was always there to help her when she had bad days, behavior-wise and mentally. No matter how much a parent tries to protect their child, they can't. She remembers when she was a toddler, learning how to walk, she tripped and hit her head, enough damage that an ambulance should have been called. She remembers the nanny screaming and calling her dad, but the moment he came home her injury was gone. Almost as if nothing had happened. The nanny was fired that day.
Tony Stark always thought it was safer for her to do homeschooling instead of going to any other school. Pepper would tell him it was better for a child to socialize with other children instead of being stuck in a house for the rest of her life with mostly adults. He knew that the public would freak and jump at the thought of Tony Stark having a child.
He was right. Someone in Stark Industries betrayed his trust and leaked to the public that she existed. The press swarmed the mansion in Malibu. They wanted to get pictures of his daughter and to know her name. Turns out, the press wasn't the only one to learn of her. An organization called S.H.I.E.L.D. had come knocking on the mansion door one day while her dad was missing. They used some type of sleeping dart on her nanny and wanted to speak to her.
She sat on the couch, looking at the passed-out young woman sitting next to her. Avalon's knees were against her chest and she was afraid. A tall man with one eye had walked into the room. He was wearing black leather and looked serious, and very intimidating. The moment he had sat down next to the child he smiled.
"I have a daughter. She's only a few months older than you, Avalon." He said, gaining her attention.
"Why are you here?" The girl asked him. "What do you want?"
"You're special. Those special powers of yours, they might start getting out of control." He told her.
"How do you know about them?" She looked at him with wide brown eyes. "My powers?"
"I had an undercover agent act as a nanny. Her real name is Maria Hill. She told us that she witnessed you use those interesting powers." He explained. "My name is Nick Fury, but you can call me Fury. We want to start working with you to control and study your powers. We won't hurt you."
"I'm only a kid," She thought. "What could I possibly be capable of?"
"You know you're more than that, Avalon Stark." He smirked.
Not only did the Press find out about Avalon Stark's existence in 2008, but her father got kidnapped. A man who she was raised to trust was secretly behind the kidnapping of her father. Not only was Tony devastated by the betrayal of his friend, but so was Avalon, to the point where she lost her faith in trusting those around her. After all, she was just a child.
When word had first got out about the kidnapping of Tony Stark, Pepper and Rhodes knew that Avalon could be next, why? Because she was his child, the heir of Stark Industries. In a fit of rage and sadness, Avalon accidentally revealed her powers to Rhodes who was babysitting her at the time. He never said a word about it, he pretended her never noticed what she did. He loved that girl and knew for her best interest, to never say a thing about it. It was afer for her that way.
After being informed by her own father about what Obadiah Stane did to him and the company, he decides to tell her that he is Iron Man. She wasn't surprised but it made sense to her. But when Nick Fury showed up at their home, Avalon was left out of the conversation. Fury had already spoken to her about his offer, this time it was for her father.