Chapter Text
“Did you bring my coffee?” Morgan said as Karla dropped a brown bag in front of her. She barely spared Karla a glance and continued tinkering with the wire in her hands.
Karla hesitated. “You didn’t tell me you wanted any.”
“Yeah well, you’ve known me for how long?”
“If you really want coffee why don’t you go downstairs and get some?” Karla sounded like a three year old. They usually bickered back and forth between each other over petty stuff, once even over Karla's regular absences (she decided to skip whatever this was to go hang out with her boyfriend). Morgan entertained the idea of letting her go before remembering how much she hated getting up while she was in the heat of the moment.
Morgan looked up from her hands and squinted. “You’re not being serious, are you?”
Karla rolled her eyes. “You’re unbelievable.”
Morgan turned to her computer and muttered under her breath, “She’s not serious- Karla? Are you serious?”
Karla ignored her and stomped out of the room, muttering something about how she knew taking the internship was a bad choice. Morgan went back to her work, oblivious that she’d done anything wrong.
“You know, you should really be nicer to your assistants.” The knock at the door made her look up, inciting annoyance in the disruption of her work. When she saw who it was it she broke into a smile.
Morgan pushed her chair away from the table and moved towards Peter. “Technically she’s not my assistant.”
“Intern, right?” He glanced out the door. “What is she, fifteen?”
“She needed help passing Chemistry, I offered to tutor her in exchange for…”
“Slave labor?” Peter supplied.
Morgan laughed awkwardly. “More like the odd favor.”
Peter leaned over her shoulder and shuffled her blueprints around, frowning at the chicken scrawl that was her hand writing. Initially she was scared that the frowning was a sign of disapproval but after one particularly heated argument over the mathematics of the volume of a pipe she learnt it just mean he was trying hard to concentrate.
He grabbed one of the papers and brought it closer to his face. She watched eagerly to see if there was any shift in his expression, maybe the tilt of a smile or the tug of an even deeper frown.
“Is something wrong with it?” She asked anxiously. When he didn’t answer her stomach churned. There were so many things that could be wrong. The calculations were off, an anomaly had affected her results, or even worse— she was going off a theory that wasn’t even correct.
Peter let out a long-exasperated breath. “Wow this is… this is—”
“Terrible!” She blurted. “I know, it’s just schools gotten in the way so I haven’t had time to adjust the calculations, and you know how it is. All of my father’s notes are really hard to read and—”
“What? No! This is amazing!”
She looked at him, stunned. “Really?”
“Of course, look,” He sat down next to her and snatched the pencil from her hand, “If you just move the move the switch from the left to the right and use lead to avoid radiation poisoning you should be fine.”
Morgan slapped a palm to her forehead, “Of course, how could I forget? Gamma radiation is only reduced by lead, not copper.”
The table shook as she placed her head down on it in defeat. “I guess I just got caught up in making it light and portable. The rumors are true, God has abandoned us.”
“Don’t be so melodramatic,” He handed her a mug of fresh steaming coffee and instantly she perked up and snatched the cup.
A coffee break was much needed. How long had she been working? Morgan unlocked her phone to ten missed calls (most from her mother, one from her best friend Sal). She cursed and spilled some coffee on her greased covered apron and cursed again. When she remembered to look at the time it was already eight forty-five, three hours after she promised to meet her mom for dinner.
She grimaced at him and stood up. “Peter, I have to go, my mom’s calling me.”
“Yeah I know.” He dead panned. “Why do you think I’m here? Sit back down.”
She plopped back in her seat and tilted her head back giving out a sound that resembled a dying whale. This was the third time she’d stood her mom up in a week. There was no way she was going to get off without being grounded.
Peter sipped his coffee and looked at her over his mug. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Morgan crossed her arms and looked at her blueprints. “I’m okay.”
“Right. How’s school?”
“I don’t know, how’s life? How’s global warming? How’s Obama?” She sighed. “Does it matter?”
He pointedly looked at her. She shrugged. “School’s like it’s always been: full of hormonal teenagers with way too much stress and pent up anger then the daily recommended dosage.”
He studied her for a moment. “Is anyone bothering you again?”
“I think, the more important question is, are they going to ever stop bothering me?”
He set down his mug and stared at her. “Do you want the truth?”
“Yes.”
Peter leaned back and plopped his muddy shoes all over the desk and said, “No.”
Morgan shoved her work away from his shoes and shot him a dirty look. “Thanks for the encouragement Gandhi.”
“I’m serious, Morgan. Bullies are going to be everywhere, even when you get older.”
“Ah, you see but they have a name.” He stared blankly at her. “They’re called ‘the press’. That and weird-creepy-stalkery fans.”
He chuckled and stood up. “Come on, let’s walk you home.”
They made their way downtown after letting Karla know she could go home.
The truth was, it wasn’t school that was eating her up, it wasn’t even the press. It was what always plagued her. Her father.
It was the you’re-so-much-like-your-father and your-father-would-be-proud-of-you’s, and all the other crappy things people said to make themselves feel better about an awkward situation. The reality was that Morgan resented her father, though she would never admit it.
Why did he leave her? Why couldn’t he have cared enough to have stayed for her mother? But she wasn’t there during the war. She never remembered life before Thanos and for this Peter forgave her, even if she didn’t know it.
“You’ll tell me if anything’s wrong, yeah?” Peter said as Morgan walked up the stairs of her front porch, hauling her bag up her shoulder.
“Of course, Uncle Peter.” She said as he turned away.
Pepper grounded her. For a week.
For most kids grounding meant no leaving the house, for Morgan it meant not entering her lab. She didn’t even realize how entitled it sounded until Sal pointed it out.
“Is whining about not being able to enter your-hand-me-down laboratory entitled?” Sal jabbed a cold French fry her way. “Yes, the answer is yes.”
“It’s really not.”
“All that is missing is you telling me how I’m not invited to go sailing on your Yacht anymore.”
Morgan groaned and took another bite of her sandwich. “First of all, you don’t sail on a Yacht. Second of all, I don’t even have a Yacht. My mom sold both of them.”
“You’re lucky your nerdiness makes up for any stupid shit that comes out of your mouth.” Killian set down his tray next to them and sat next to Sal. They both glanced at each other and back at Morgan.
Killian pushed his hands down across the table and waited for Morgan to grab them. He elbowed Sal to do the same. It must have looked weird to everyone else in the cafeteria but
Killian didn’t care, whenever he demanded attention he always held out his hands.
“We need to talk.” Killian said. He and Sal shared a nervous look before looking at Morgan. Immediately Morgan sat up straighter and leaned in, her heart pounding in her rib cage.
“Please don’t tell me you’ve gotten worse.” Morgan whispered hurriedly, giving Sal a distraught look.
“No, it’s not that.” Sal said. Morgan calmed down and breathed a sigh of relief.
“It’s about your dad.” Killian blurted. Morgan recoiled and took her hands back, looking between them, confused.
“Look,” Sal began, leaning back and flattening her hands on the table the way she always did when she had something serious to say. “There’s been some rumors going around about you and your family.”
“Oh, again?” Morgan looked relieved. She’d dealt with rumors since the day she’d been born. People speculated about her in the newspapers when she was first born, she was on the cover of New York Times by the time she’d turned one. The rumors were never about her specifically but usually targeted her dad. Usually they were ludicrous, the usual ‘Tony stark, hero or fraud?’ She had grown used to it by now.
“That’s okay,” She went back to picking at her sandwich. “Why did you guys scare me like that?”
Killian hissed as if he was getting ready to disappoint her. He probably was. Most of the stuff he did was questionable, but she loved him regardless. “Well, it’s a lot worse than the stuff that’s usually spread about you.”
“Hit me, I’m ready for it.” She meant to say it as a joke but instead was confronted by Sal throwing a newspaper onto the table, none too gently. Morgan didn’t even have to turn the paper the right way to read the headline.
Her stomach sunk. Right there, on the top of the New York Times:
New evidence suggests that Stark is still alive.
That wasn't even the worst bit. The wort bit was that there was a picture of him at a newspaper stand, hoodie up and all.
The news papers on the stand were dated the sixteenth of April 2033. They were dated for yesterday.