Chapter Text
“So everything is really going fine so far? Madam Secretary isn’t acting out yet, is she?”
Peter shakes his head, laughing as he watches Morgan run across the beach from where he’s sitting on the porch, safely out of the heat. “It hasn’t even been a full day, Tony. I know this is your first vacation in ages, but in case you forgot-- you’re supposed to be trying to relax.”
There’s silence on the other end for a few moments, Peter hearing Pepper say something in a teasing voice-- Tony grumbling incoherently in response.
“Alright, well, seems both you and Pep are in agreement, which means I’ve already lost. Just-- call if you need anything, okay?”
“I know you’re nervous, but we’ll be fine. Besides, I think I can handle a seven year-old - even a very mischievous one - for five days.”
“I’m going to remind you that you said that when you’re calling me for help trying to get her to stay in bed and go the fu-- fudge to sleep.”
Peter rolls his eyes, still smiling. “You’re not on speaker, Tony-- you can swear. And I promise you, we’ll be just fine. Also, don’t you two have a snorkeling thing booked in like,” Peter glances at the time on the cell phone before putting it back to his ear, “twenty minutes?”
“How is it that you know our vacation schedule better than I do, huh?” A chuckle. “Alright kid, I trust you. Give the munchkin three hugs each for us, alright? We’ll call again right before Morgan’s bedtime to say goodnight. Love you.”
“Love you too,” Peter says fondly, hanging up and putting his phone down with a soft sigh.
He glances around the cabin, the sound of Morgan chattering to herself intermingling with the soft buzzing of insects and the quiet of the water gently lapping against the shore.
It’d been nearly three years since the world had been made right again, Captain Marvel snapping her fingers and ending Thanos and his armies for good. It felt almost like a bad dream now, those first few months of readjusting back into the world.
But now, just a few weeks into his summer break after finishing his first year of Columbia, Peter was glad in more ways than one that life had finally settled into a newfound rhythm.
His phone buzzes again, Peter glancing at it before smiling at who it’s from - MJ sending him a selfie of her shooting him the finger in front of the Mona Lisa. He taps out a reply, watching as the text bubble lights up.
If Peter is honest, he’d hoped that he and MJ would have a little more time together for their first summer break as college students, especially since she’d chosen to go to MIT for undergrad. But when the opportunity came up for her to do a prestigious summer art internship at the Louvre, Peter had been the first one to encourage it.
The transition from high school to college had been rough - rougher than either of them had expected, but they’d made it through - considering they’d weathered far worse when his secret identity had been exposed by the Daily Bugle after their summer vacation from hell.
Peter texts her back and forth for a few minutes before glancing back up, looking around for Morgan and spotting her near where the shore met the treeline-- picking through some rocks for a sandcastle. Peter stands and slips his phone in his pocket before calling out, “Hey, Mo! Time for lunch!”
“But I haven’t gone swimming yet!” she yells back, head turning to Peter before unceremoniously dropping the rocks on the ground, Peter snickering to himself as she runs towards him.
“Can we go swimming first? Please please please?”
“But Mo, aren’t you hungry?” Peter offers up-- his stomach rumbling loudly from not having eaten since breakfast that morning.
“No! I want to go swimming first!”
“Morgan, I’m sorry but I really need to eat something and so should you, for that matter,” Peter replies, doing his best to remain upbeat so as to avoid a tantrum. “How about we go right before dinner instead?”
Morgan cocks her head, considering him with narrowed eyes.
“Your proposal is acceptable,” she finally replies as she trudges up the porch steps, sounding so much like Pepper in that moment that Peter has to laugh.
This was another thing he had missed while he was busy with classes, college life in the city taking up more time than it ever had in high school. His visits up to the cabin were few and far between this semester, what with trying to cram in Spider-Man, lectures and exams.
And now, with his upcoming summer internship with Dr. Otto Octavius beginning in a few weeks, he’s grateful that for a while at least he can focus on getting some quality time with Morgan before the days yet again slipped away from him.
Morgan scampers up the steps, skidding to a stop before staring at Peter with an eyebrow raised - a look that’s eerily similar to Tony as she asks, “What are you doing?”
“Waiting for you, squirt. Come on, we can make sandwiches or something.”
Morgan rolls her eyes, sighing dramatically, “Dad usually makes us carbonara on Tuesdays.”
“Well, your dad is also retired and has entirely too much time on his hands so,” Morgan frowns, Peter smirking as he ruffles with her hair a little, “sandwiches it is.”
“You’re the worst ,” Morgan says teasingly, Peter grinning before she gently poking her in the side.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Now let’s go find some grub-- last one in has to wash the dishes!”
After lunch, Peter suggests they play a board game, but at the word game Morgan jumps up and down excitedly, saying, “Hide and seek! Please, Peter?”
Peter sighs fondly, smiling down at her before looking around outside. It’s still sunny if windy out, but with just the two of them out here - and knowing for certain who Morgan will want to be the seeker - he knows he’ll have to set some ground rules first.
“Okay Mo, but no hiding outside, okay? We can only play if it’s just in the cabin.”
Morgan groans but doesn’t make too much of a fuss, just points to the large kitchen pantry and demands Peter count in there. She waits patiently until he has the door closed before Peter hears her scamper off-- deliberately ignoring his enhanced hearing as he loudly counts to one-hundred before entering back into the kitchen.
He heads for the living room first - in the opposite direction he’d heard her feet go - and makes a loud show of wondering where she could be hidden as he checks behind the couch and curtains. After doing the same thing in the den, Pepper’s office, and two downstairs guest bedrooms, he heads upstairs-- feeling confident that he’d heard them creak even without his enhancements around numbers fifty-nine or sixty.
Carefully he combs through first Morgan’s bedroom and then Tony and Pepper’s-- only to frown to himself when he doesn’t find her in either, as her go-to hiding spot last time they’d played had been under her own or her parent’s beds.
But that had also been at Christmas - only months ago to an adult but seemingly forever in the life of a seven year-old - so Peter supposes it’s not surprising she’d have a new favorite spot now. With a knowing smirk Peter heads for the only bedroom left upstairs-- his own.
“Hmm, I wonder if Morgan is in here,” he says as he enters, looking around the room. There aren’t many places to hide but Peter takes his time, slowly rifling through the closet that he can tell is empty as soon as he opens it before heading into the bathroom and checking behind the shower curtain.
“Where did she go?” he asks playfully as he leans over onto his knees, only to lift up the bed curtain and yell, “Aha!”
However, his face falls when there’s nothing there but dust bunnies and what looks like a very expensive piece of modern art wrapped up in plastic.
“Morgan?” he calls out, rising to his feet-- looking around the room again even though he knows there’s no way he could have missed her.
A quick double-check of the second floor has him going back down to the main level and doing another run-through-- even taking the time to go down into the basement lab even though he is positive Morgan isn’t supposed to know the code to the door. True worry starts to flood him when she’s not down there either, and he races up the basement stairs three at a time, finding himself back in the living room.
“Morgan? You can come out now, you won!” he calls out one last time-- finally using his enhanced hearing to check for her heartbeat throughout the cabin. His worry graduates to panic when he realizes there is no trace of it-- that Morgan isn’t in the cabin at all.
“FRIDAY, where is Morgan?” he asks.
“Little Miss exited the cabin eleven minutes and forty-eight seconds ago. She was last picked up by my perimeter scans on the western edge of the lawn nine minutes and thirteen seconds ago.”
“What! Why didn’t you say anything?” Peter cries out, running for the lakeside door.
“Little Miss is allowed off-premises provided she stays on the hiking path and only goes as far as the treehouse,” FRIDAY replies.
But Peter is hardly listening, already outside now-- only to hear the porch steps creak under his feet, realizing with no small amount of self-recrimination that those must have been the stairs he had heard earlier while he counted.
“Morgan!” he yells, barely looking around the lawn and over at her small play-tent before racing for the western edge of the treeline and the opening of a path at the far corner.
As he sprints toward the treehouse he tries again to listen for her heartbeat. But for as much as he loves the Stark’s home, he simply hasn’t spent enough time up here to know the different sounds of a forest like he knows the wide-ranging noise pollution of a city, and the reverberations of a thousand creatures ranging from hummingbird-quick flaps to slow and steady turtle steps assault his senses almost immediately.
He doesn’t let it stop him though-- getting all the way out to the empty treehouse and yelling Morgan’s name before it occurs to him that he hadn’t even glanced at the lake when he’d run out of the cabin.
The same lake Morgan had wanted to go swimming in not an hour before, and had been very disappointed over when Peter had said no.
Oh god-- what if she went in the water? he thinks as he races back down the path. Morgan could swim pretty well for her age but she still wasn’t yet allowed to enter the lake unattended or without floaties-- and the depth at the end of the dock came up to at least Peter’s neck.
God, what if she had been right there and Peter gone right past her, oblivious?
“Morgan!” he yells again just as he exits the path, eyes desperately scanning across the dock and farther out over the lake-- terrified he’ll see a set of tiny hands reaching for the sky or worse, a small body bobbing listlessly in the waves.
He’s just reached the shore when he senses movement to his left-- relief overcoming him when he spots Morgan coming out from between some trees not thirty feet away from the treehouse path.
“Morgan,” he says sternly, jogging up to her. “What were you doing? I told you to stay inside!”
“But Cubie was out here!” Morgan says, pointing back at the path. “He was waving at me!”
“Cubie?” Peter asks, looking back over at the western edge of the lawn but seeing nobody else. Concerned, he turns back to Morgan, kneeling down and wrapping his hands around her arms. “Who’s Cubie, Mo?”
“My new friend,” Morgan says, as if that explains everything. “He was waving at me to come outside. And then we went to the treehouse and he made a rainbow in the sky just by waving his hands, and after that we went for a walk and he turned all the leaves any color I asked!”
Peter shakes his head. “Morgan, there’s no way you didn’t hear me calling for you. Now tell me the truth: why did you go outside when I told you not to?”
“But I told you already,” Morgan pouts, stomping her foot. “Cubie was out here! And he said if I stayed with him then he’d make the leaves all turn blue and gold like mom’s suit, and he did!”
Peter sighs. He had heard Morgan make up stories before to her parents, but she’d never done it with him. He supposes it’s not surprising she would do so now though, to get out of trouble.
“You really scared me, Morgan. I didn’t know where you were,” he says, getting to his feet.
Morgan bites her lip, looking slightly more ashamed. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to see the leaves. I’m really sorry!”
Peter sighs again, looking back over at the treeline one last time. But just as before, there’s nobody there.
“Alright, Mo,” he finally says, taking her hand and leading her back toward the porch. “But from now on, you have to listen to me when I tell you not to do something, okay? And because you didn’t listen just now--” he steels himself for a tantrum, “--no swimming this afternoon. We can go tomorrow instead.”
Morgan scowls for a few moments, only to nod quietly and accept his words-- Peter figuring she had probably been lectured more than a few times by Tony and Pepper about the dangers of wandering into the forest on her own.
“Can we watch a movie?” Morgan asks softly just as Peter opens the porch door.
Peter smiles-- another wave of relief passing over him that she was safe and well. “Sure thing, kiddo.”
After their failed game of hide and seek, Peter figured the rest of the afternoon and evening should be spent in the cabin, even if Morgan argued against a marathon of the Star Wars movies.
“I don’t want to watch a space movie, Peter. Space is boring ,” Morgan whines, Peter choking back on his soda as he looks at Morgan.
“Space is boring? Are you kidding me? Space is awesome , Mo. There’s so much out there that we don’t know.”
“Yeah, like what?” Morgan asks, making a face as Peter starts to consider how to explain something that he’s loved all his life.
Despite his one lone trip to the ends of the universe ending in disaster, Peter still loved it - loved the intricacy and all that there was to know, all the possibilities it held and how people spent lifetimes trying to learn all they could, even knowing they’d never even scratch the surface.
He would’ve guessed that Morgan would have learned all about it from Tony but then, Peter thinks, his own memories of their trip were brief and untinted with grief whereas Tony had had five years to dwell and mourn.
All things considered, Peter wouldn’t be surprised to learn Tony wasn’t eager to relive the experience any time soon.
“Well, like the Hubble space telescope,” Peter finally replies. “Has your dad ever told you about that?”
Morgan shakes her head, Peter bringing his phone out of his pocket and tapping out the website before showing it to her.
She squints, looking at the screen up and down before asking, “What is that?”
“That,” Peter says, moving the phone so that he can look at it too, pointing to the image with his free hand, “is what Hubble ’s looking at right this moment.”
Morgan blinks, looking at it before turning back to Peter. “It’s just a picture.”
Peter laughs, “No, Mo, this is space. Right now, you and I are looking at what a telescope that’s hundreds of miles above the planet is seeing, looking at stars and galaxies that are literally light years away.”
“What’s a light year?” Morgan asks, Peter putting his phone down as he sighs.
Morgan was smart, almost too smart for her own good as Pepper would say. But she was still only seven - Peter forgetting sometimes that while she was Tony’s daughter, she also wasn’t anything like what he’d imagined a seven year-old Tony would be. She wasn’t building circuit boards at four or graduating middle school around the age most kids were learning to tie their shoes.
But Peter didn’t mind, not really. He had always liked the idea of having siblings growing up, even if Ned told him endlessly that it was entirely overrated. Yet Peter had wanted it all the same and even if Tony wasn’t his dad in so many words, he was the next best thing - Morgan being the closest thing he’s ever had to a sister.
Morgan wasn’t an exact copy of Tony but Peter also didn’t want her to be. Because she was still one good thing - maybe the best thing - to have come from the five years when he’d been gone.
In the end, Peter loved Morgan for who she was-- and loved now that he got the chance to spend some time with her, considering Happy was on his own much-needed vacation and Captain Rhodes was on a mission.
“A light year is a way of measuring distance when you’re in space, literally how long it would take for light to travel in one Earth year,” he says, holding back a laugh as Morgan’s eyebrows wrinkle in confusion.
“Is it like time travel?” she asks, Peter actually having to stifle a giggle-- pretending he has a tickle in his throat instead.
“Not quite, more like…” Peter tries to think of a suitable example for her when Morgan pipes up, “Can we watch WALL-E?”
Peter sighs, shaking his head as he smiles. “Okay how about I make you a deal?”
He leans in conspiratorially, Morgan looking at him curiously.
“We can watch WALL-E again if we get to watch one of my space movies.”
Morgan purses her lips, considering her options before Peter sees her face change into a smile, nodding as she says, “Yeah, okay. We can do that.”
Peter takes the silent win before nodding to the kitchen. “You wanna go grab the popcorn bowls for me?”
Morgan leaps up from the couch, Peter following after her before opening up one of the cabinets to grab a couple of popcorn bags.
“Can we have pizza for dinner?” Morgan asks.
Peter rolls his eyes. “I promised your mom I’d feed you a vegetable at least once a day, so no.”
Morgan pouts only for Peter to wink and add, “We can make pizza later this week though, if you want.”
She beams, Peter grinning as he starts to get the popcorn ready - Morgan already trying to “help” him as they unwrap the packaging and put the bags in the microwave.
“I missed you,” Morgan says, Peter blinking a few times before looking back at her with a soft smile as she continues, “even if you won’t let me eat pizza.”
Peter rolls his eyes, nudging her with his elbow and putting an arm around her, unsure of where the random outburst of affection came from but welcoming it all the same. Morgan leans into him as they watch the popcorn revolve around the little microwave, her warm pressure at his side reminding Peter of how it had been on those first few days hiding out at the cabin after his identity had been revealed.
How he’d make popcorn together with the three Starks just like they were now, only to sit down to a happy family film. How Peter had felt safe, and had been able to forget - if only for a little while - how in shambles his life felt at the time.
“Missed you too, Mo,” Peter says, tightening his grip around her shoulder.
It was nice to be away from everything, away from the city and away from the responsibility that he knew he could never really run away from. He loved being Spider-Man, even more so now that his secret was seemingly protected forever - the world taking his identity being revealed as nothing more than an absurd conspiracy theory, at least after the press release and Fury getting a shape-shifted Skrull to stand in for him with fake face and fight as Spider-Man on national television. The only traction Beck’s video or any of the Daily Bugle follow-up reports ever got now were random message boards on the internet.
“You know, for someone who has met literal, actual aliens, I would think you’d be a lot more interested in--”
“Space is boring. Only WALL-E makes it fun.”
Peter rolls his eyes, settling into the couch. “Okay, Mo.”
Morgan may not like space much, or not nearly as much as Peter would’ve liked.
But that’s alright-- Peter had the entire week to change her mind.
It’s when Peter’s washing the dishes at the end of the night, The Empire Strikes Back playing in the background that he feels it - the familiar itch in the back of his neck, snapping his head up and looking around.
Morgan’s half-passed out on the couch, her head bobbing up and down anytime she started to drift off. Peter’s eyes scan the rest of the room before closing his eyes, listening for anything in the area.
If he really focuses he can make out the different noises of crickets, frogs, all kinds of animals chittering about. But Peter pushes it further, hearing cars pass each other distantly on the highway that leads off towards the cabin before focusing himself back on the cabin and the steady rhythm of Morgan’s heartbeat in the living room.
Peter opens his eyes. There’s nothing there, no one around them for miles - yet the low buzz of something being wrong still hums in the background, prompting Peter to call out, “Hey FRI?”
“Hello Peter,” FRIDAY’s voice rings out, “Is there anything I can help you with?”
“Yeah, can you-- can you run a perimeter check for me?” he asks, frowning as his fingers tap against the countertop.
“Certainly,” FRIDAY responds, Peter waiting until she says, “Perimeter check complete. I do not detect anything out of the ordinary, Peter. Is there something specific you wanted me to look for?”
Peter sighs, shaking his head, “No FRI, it’s all good.”
He glances over to Morgan, any effort to try and stay awake now gone - her head leaning back and mouth open as she sleeps.
Peter turns back to the sink and resumes washing the last of the dishes - forcing himself to focus on the task at hand and not the buzzing in the back of his mind.
Everything is fine, FRIDAY confirmed it. With that assurance, Peter forces the hum out of his thoughts.
But even as he settles down with a book, and the night wears on without interruption-- his gut feeling that something’s not quite right never completely leaves.