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Tony stared at the picture sent to him by Pepper’s sister. It was accompanied by a single line of text. “I thought it was time for you to know. I’m sorry.”
“Stephen?” he called out to his husband, fighting to keep his voice under control.
“Hmmm?” asked Stephen, slowly raising his eyes from the book laid out in front of him.
Tony tilted his phone to so the other man could see his screen.
Stephen’s eyes widened when he saw it.
An ultrasound image.
Of a baby.
His and Pepper’s baby, apparently.
Pepper… Pepper was pregnant. Had been pregnant.
Before Thanos killed her.
“You knew. You had to know.”
“I did,” Stephen confirmed hesitantly.
“You know, you told me once that there were timelines where Pepper lived.”
“There were.”
“But you led us to this timeline. Where she died. And our child died.”
“Yes.
“Why?”
“Because whenever Pepper lived… you died.”
“Always?”
“... there was only one timeline where you lived, Tony. Just this one.”
Tony sucked in a breath through his teeth. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me that? And why the fuck didn’t you tell me that Pepper was pregnant?”
“What good would telling you have done?”
“I deserved to know, and you kept it from me.”
“What good would telling you have done, Anthony?” repeated Stephen.
“I deserved - “
“It would have only caused us both pain.”
“I have the right, Stephen.”
“...I’m sorry. I didn’t see the point in telling you, when the decision had already been made so long ago.”
“Did she have the baby? In some of those timelines?”
Stephen hesitated.
“Stephen, answer me. Were there timelines where Pepper had the baby?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
Tony’s voice broke. “What was her name?”
“Morgan.”
“You let me name our daughter after my dead one?”
“There are fixed points in time, Tony. No matter what universe, you will always have a daughter named Morgan. The details are left up to fate.”
“No, no no no, not fate. You engineered this.” He jabbed a finger at Stephen accusingly.” You saw all the possible timelines, and you made a choice.”
“Yes.”
“You made the choice to let my girlfriend and my unborn child die.”
“When you look at it that way… yes. I consciously steered us toward this timeline, knowing that Pepper would not live to see the defeat of Thanos. And that she would die before your child could be born.”
“Were there… did I ever get to spend time with her? In other timelines?”
“Five years.”
Tony swiped at the tears that had begun to stream down his cheeks.
“And then you died. She had to sit at your funeral and watch them push your casket out onto the water, covered in flowers.”
“But she would still be alive.”
“Yes. And our Morgan would not be.”
Tony hesitated, and Stephen pressed onward.
“Do you love our daughter any less because there’s a 50% chance she isn’t your flesh and blood?” Stephen choked out a bitter laugh. “Oh, who are we both trying to fool? She’s yours. She may have gotten our surrogate’s hair and face, but she has your eyes, Anthony.”
“That doesn’t mean you should love her any less,” said Tony defensively. “She’s yours as much as mine.”
“I didn’t say that I love her any less because she isn’t mine biologically. We were both there when she was born, she’s grown up calling us her parents. She’s just as much mine as yours. She is both of ours. But if you had died facing Thanos, she wouldn’t be here, because she is made from your DNA.”
“You still should have given me the choice.”
Stephen felt like he’d been stabbed in the gut. To think that Tony might prefer death over living a long, full life with him and their baby girl…
He tried to swallow past the lump in his throat. “By asking you to make the choice, I would have already made it. You only survived in this one timeline, Tony, this one singular timeline. Everything had to be perfect. Absolutely perfect. There was no room to tell you what would happen, or to ask for your opinion. I made the decision I thought was best, that I thought you would want.”
“I can’t… I love our baby, Stephen,” said Tony, his voice small and lost. “With all my heart. But I would have loved Pepper’s baby too. I can’t rationalize exchanging one for the other. Tell me - what’s the difference between our Morgans? Is there a difference? Or does she always end up to be the brilliant, sweet little devil we’ve got?”
“Of course there’s a difference,” Stephen spat, anger flaring. “I’ve told you already. You die in every timeline where Morgan Stark lives - don’t you think that would have an effect on her?”
Tony stepped forward, hand outstretched to place his hand on his husband’s shoulder, but Stephen moved backward out of his reach.
“Morgan Stark didn’t get to spend any time with her father past the age of five. Morgan Stark would live forever in your shadow, in shoes she could never possibly fill because once you died they became larger than life. By the time she was an adult, Morgan Stark would only have vague memories of her father. She wouldn’t remember your face. Morgan Stark-Strange will. Morgan Stark-Strange gets to grow up with two parents, and will never feel the pressure to fill her father’s Iron Man suit because he’s still there to wear it. Our daughter will never have horrible feelings in the middle of the night, wondering why her father abandoned her, and she’ll never feel guilty as hell for thinking that because intellectually she’d know that he did it to save her and everyone else.”
Tony made to interject but Stephen continued, nearly shouting at this point. “And in this timeline, I’m alive too. I don’t kill myself before I turn fifty. Because in every timeline that Morgan Stark was born into, whenever I looked into her eyes all I would be able to see is how I failed you.”
He felt the burn of tears stinging his tired eyes, but he didn’t bother trying to dry them.
Tony made to touch him again, and this time Stephen let him. He found himself being pulled into a hug and he caved, letting out a sob as he rested his tear-stained face in the soft fabric of his husband’s Metallica shirt. “You would always lose a lover and a daughter,” he whispered brokenly. “I only chose which ones. And I chose the timeline where you would be able to watch her grow up, and grow old with me. If that makes me selfish, then I’m sorry. Please, Tony, forgive me.”
Tony ran a hand up and down his back soothingly, and let the other rest in his tangled salt and pepper curls. “Shhhh, sweetheart, it’s okay. I… I’m sorry too. I can't imagine, having to make that decision.”
He looked over Stephen’s shoulder at the haphazard display of family photos resting on the mantle. There was Morgan when she was seven, covered in mud, Clint teaching her to shoot a bow and arrow. Her and Peter and Harley and Rhodey on a rollercoaster at Six Flags - her first ever, which she’d begged to ride the moment she was tall enough. The three of them having a picnic in Central Park when she was a toddler, cooing in delight as she grasped at sparkling butterflies that Stephen had conjured with chubby fists.
Tony pulled away to look into his husband’s clear blue-green eyes, now red-rimmed and glistening with tears. The smiles they exchanged were bittersweet.
“I love the life we’ve built here,” he whispered. “You made the right choice, sweetheart.”