Chapter Text
The first time they have to buckle Morgan into a car seat—just heading home from the hospital, with Happy driving because even Tony doesn’t trust himself behind the wheel right now—Tony looks down at all those straps and buckles and freezes up.
Pepper tends to Morgan while Tony leans against the trunk, his mind flooded with images of webbing wrapping around a giant’s feet, and Peter getting backhanded across the tarmac, and flailing in terror when Tony showed up to help.
Tony couldn’t even keep a superpowered teenager safe (couldn’t even keep him alive)—how the hell is he supposed to protect an infant ?
The first time Morgan throws her little arms around his neck, she’s barely a year old; Pepper spots the look on Tony’s face and takes her back with a sympathetic yet troubled smile.
Tony retreats to his lab before he can come undone, caught up in the memory of the hug he rejected: That wasn’t meant to be a hug, I was just opening the door for you.
And the moment when Peter had fallen to dust in his arms.
It’s honestly surprising (and largely due to Happy’s unflagging efforts) that the specter of paparazzi doesn’t show up during the first two years, but Tony and Pepper had both known that Starks don’t get to be anonymous.
The first time they bring Morgan to the big city, just for a minor celebration, Tony is reminded of how he’d gone public with his identity—almost literally the minute he had an American cheeseburger in his mouth again—without once considering how this might impact a family he wasn’t even dreaming of at the time.
He also thinks of how Peter had never been out, couldn’t risk that threat to his loved ones—and yet his alias and biometric data are stored on a database somewhere, a vulnerability that the kid would never have accepted if Tony, his trusted mentor, hadn’t been backing the Sokovia Accords.
Morgan is three when she sneaks into Tony’s lab for the first time; the freakouts (from Tony, Pepper, and JARVIS) scare her, leaving her crying about how ‘I jus’ wanna be wike Daddy.’
Later on, in calmer moments, he’ll hate himself for acting just like his dad, rejecting his kid’s first attempts to mimic him.
Now, though, as he updates security features, he recalls another eager youngster (‘I just wanted to be like you’—‘I wanted you to be better’ ) and how Tony had been looking forward to seeing Peter’s brain at work in a proper lab, geeking out over alien marvels and breakthrough tech from Wakanda… and how that brilliant young mind and its glowing future are gone for good.
While she’s had her fair share of scrapes and sniffles, it’s not until she’s four that Morgan gets sick enough to cause real concern—and, of course, it happens out of the blue during a Christmas party.
Maybe Tony could’ve handled it better if not for the wording: ‘Daddy, I don’t feel so good’ before the puke started, and then, as they were trying to coax her into the car, ‘I don’t wanna go.’
Pepper has to drive, because Happy’s out sick (which might be where Morgan got it), and Tony’s holding Morgan close to his side and shaking so bad that Pepper doesn’t need to ask him why.
So when they come to him with their ludicrous plan and the very real possibility that it might unravel everything he’s built over the past five years, Tony finds his instincts at war with each other.
Because he’s got his life with the woman of his dreams and the child he never expected to be a good father for, and they love him despite his scars, despite the nightmares and despite all the unhealthy behavior that he regularly partakes in just to be able to cope with what’s left of his life.
And yet—and yet—it’s like Peter is waiting for him, and Peter deserves so much better than Tony was ever able to give him; that’s why, despite his protests, he can’t move on without giving this a shot.