4

                                    

                                          
I knocked on the door of my apartment. "May?"
                          
When she didn't answer I took the spare key from under the mat and used it to get in, looking for her. "May? Are you here?"
                          
I walked all around the apartment, into her room, Peters room and my room. Nothing. I checked in with the neighbor who said they hadn't seen her in 3 weeks. I sighed.
                          
"May?" I called out desperately, one last time, before collapsing onto the floor in a ball, sobbing. 
                          
I stayed there for 5 minutes, so consumed in my tears that I didn't hear someone else walk into the apartment. 
                          
Only when I felt hands on my shoulders did I look up. Tears were streaming down my face as Tony Stark looked at me sympathetically. "I'm sorry kid." 
                          
"I have no one. Everyone I've ever loved either leaves me or grows to hate me."
                          
"That's not true."
                          
"It is and you know it. I'm more trouble than I'm worth." 
                          
He sighed. "What's say you and I get a bite to eat, just the two of us?" 
                          
"What about Pepper?" 
                          
"She'll understand. Come on, kid." 
                          
20 minutes later I was sat in a 24 hour diner with Tony Stark. 
                          
"What am I going to do, Tony? I can't go back in the system." 
                          
"CJ, I've been thinking a lot about this over the last few weeks." 
                          
"Thinking about what?" 
                          
"You're a smart kid, but you need someone to guide you."
                          
"What do you mean?" 
                          
"I want you to live with me and Pepper." 
                          
"You and Pepper? As amazing as that would be, I don't think Pepper would agree to that." 
                          
"Maybe not, but if I know Pepper, and trust me I do, she would be even angrier at me if I didn't ask you to stay with us. You and I, we're alike in a lot of ways. We're both geniuses, and philanthropists, and if you were taken care of by me you'd also be a billionaire. Not a playboy though, that's off the table."
                          
I smiled. "You really want me to live with you? " 
                          
"I don't think anything else would make rational sense. What do you say, kid?" 
                          
I got up and wrapped my arms around him. "Thank you, Tony." 
                          
I sat down and a waitress came over to take our orders. "I'll have a cheeseburger with everything. " 
                          
The old woman looked at me with a smile. "And you sweetie?" 
                          
"I'll have the animal style nachos please." She nodded and walked off. 
                          
"Hey I just remembered something you said back on the ship." 
                          
"I said a lot of stuff in the ship, you're gonna have to be a little more specific." 
                          
"When you were talking about how you ran away and met may, you said uh..." 
                          
"That I changed my name?" 
                          
"Yeah that. So did you change it to CJ, or was CJ your original name?" 
                          
"Well, both really. CJ is an abbreviation of my first name and my middle name, and I changed it because kids made fun of my name." 
                          
"What's your birth name?" 
                          
I mumbled very quietly under my breath. 
                          
"What was that?" 
                          
I took a deep breath and looked up at him. "Céleste Jane Brooks. I was born Céleste Jane Brooks." 
                          
"That's a gorgeous name." 
                          
"Really? I know you're just saying that because you think you have to." 
                          
"No. It's gorgeous, elegant and classic. Just like you." 
                          
"Thanks." 
                          
"You know it means-" 
                          
"It's short for vroix céleste meaning heavenly voice yeah." 
                          
"It's a great name." 
                          
"You can uh- well-" 
                          
"I can what?" 
                          
"You can call me Céleste if you want. I never really liked it when I was younger and it was used hurtfully, but you make it sound so sweet and smooth. So yeah, you can call me that if you want." 
                          
"I appreciate it."
                          
Then the woman came back with our food. 
                          
"It's so nice to see a teenage girl having a nice meal with her father, I remember when I was your age, honey, I never talked to my daddy. You be good to him, sweetie." 
                          
"Oh I'm not-" I blushed. 
                          
"She can be a little devil sometimes, she gets it from her mother. Can we get the cheque please? " Tony lied with ease, smiling at the older woman. She hurried off to get our cheque, while I looked over to Tony who still had a smile on. 
                          
"Why did you lie to the nice old lady?" I whispered across the table. 
                          
"Do you want to be the one to explain to her that you're not actually my daughter and make her feel bad for assuming? In a way, I'm doing a public service by lying to the nice old lady." 
                          
"You have a very twisted mind, Tony Stark." 
                          
"Hey, you're the one who chose to live with me. Now eat your nachos, she's coming back." 
                          
Another hour later I was on a plane to Malibu with Tony, Pepper and Happy Hogan - Tony's Head of Security. "Does this plane have any little packets of peanuts?" 
                          
A small packet came hurling in my direction. I looked the way it had come from to see Tony Stark suspiciously looking around with a smirk on his face and sunglasses even though we were on a plane. 
                          
"Tony?" 
                          
He looked over at me, smiling. "Yes, Céleste?" 
                          
"Thanks for the snacks."