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It's actually pretty rare to have all of their family around at the same time. Tony is always there with Morgan, yes, and Peter joins them whenever NYU lets him go. Harley and Riri are trickier, further up north at MIT, and Nebula is the hardest to arrange a family dinner with, given that she prefers interspace over the mundane life on Earth.
Pepper is therefore surprised but delighted when Tony says that the Milano will be in orbit in early February and that Nebula will be over for dinner, and they immediately begin to arrange everyone else's journey home too.
"Next weekend," he says to the speaker while trying to teach the basics of bridge structures via Lego blocks to Morgan who is not as interested as he'd hoped. Pepper is secretly relieved; they have enough geniuses for one family.
"I don't know, Mr. Stark," Peter says because he can never call him by anything else, no matter how familiar their relationship gets.
"What do you mean you don't know, it's Nebula," Tony says. "You can ask her about the thermo-chemical reaction of mixing your web-fluid with the mineral they’ve discovered near Deiria Z9K5!"
"I know!" Peter says petulantly. "But May's been planning to take us to this classical concert for a while; she says she can't spend enough time with me since I've been in college."
Pepper steps closer. "I'll talk to May," she says. "Get her tickets rescheduled."
Peter and Tony both exhale in unison. "Thank you so much, Miss Potts," he says, because he knows better than to call her Mrs. Stark.
After he hangs up, Tony leaves Morgan to build brick animals or something and gives Pepper a firm hug. "You're the best, Pep," he says.
She kisses the top of his head. "I know," she says.
May is a lot easier than Harley to convince to rearrange. She understands what the extended Stark family means to Peter, and so does Harley, but he has some extra papers due and is in the middle of an experiment she only understands half of.
"I'm so close to the breakthrough, I can't just up and leave," he says indignantly.
"I can send the jet for you," Tony says, because he is Tony, and old habits die hard. She tuts at him from the other side of the workshop where she is supervising Dum-E's and Morgan's playtime. "I can!" Tony insists. "Three or four hours won't make that big of a difference to miss-"
"You know that's not how science works," Harley fires back. "You of all people should know-"
"I also know that you will regret not spending time with family more than a failed experiment," Tony says, voice raised. "You of all people should know that."
God, the two of them are so alike. Harley reminds her of what Tony used to be like around the time they first met, even though Harley is in his early twenties now and Tony was over thirty when Pepper got hired to be his PA.
She only believed the job to be a temporary jumping point in her career. She went to business school to be a businesswoman and applied to Stark Industries because it was the leading tech company in the market and she had to pay her student loans. Initially, she believed the most she could use her degree for would be to schedule meetings and answer emails, but managing Tony was the hardest part of her employment at the time.
It was worse than having a child because Tony was loud and inebriated and careless, and those three don't mix well with dry-cleaned suits and board meetings he had no desire to attend. Whenever she complained he told her she was not his boss and he was an adult and could make decisions on his own, and then he of course proceeded to do the exact opposite of what she recommended.
Harley, at least, doesn't drink, and nor does he carry the responsibility of running the most valuable company in the US before turning twenty. But he gets lost with his tech and designs, and it takes Tony more bribing than Pepper would like for him to agree to fly down to them and join dinner.
Riri doesn't even answer the phone for a few days. Eventually, Pepper suggests that Harley go and find her, and he does, elbow-deep in a new suit that looks futuristic even compared to the Iron Man suits Pepper is used to. But it's also as sleek as the Rescue armor and Pepper feels a rush of pride, or something even deeper, at that, like she and her are somehow linked through space and metallic design.
It must be what Tony feels for them too.
Pepper watches the holo while Tony is drawing with Morgan; he, an engineer, has a better concept at angles and light than Pepper does, even when it's about princesses. It's Pepper who sees the way Riri brushes the hair out of her eyes, just like Tony does all the time, and how she doesn't notice when she gets grease over her dark skin.
"I'm doing another test drive tonight," Riri says, barely looking up. "I need to get this fixed for the warmer weather."
Insulation and heat regulation is an important part of flying a suit, Pepper's come to learn.
"You can fly over with Harley, or test the suit, and get some food out of it," Tony offers.
"There's this arms dealing ring I'm pursuing and they are making the move sometime soon," Riri says. "I gotta stay. But I will be over as soon as I can, promise!"
No matter what Tony - or even Pepper - says, it doesn't waive her stance.
That, too, is eerily familiar.
Riri is so much younger than Tony was when he took on the armor and the weight of the world, but just like him, she refuses to accept help. She wants to save everyone no matter what it costs her, and given the death of her family Pepper understands where she’s coming from. She and Tony have talked about Riri often, constantly wondering what to do for the teen, and if there was any way to aid her. What they settled on was what had helped Tony, which was to offer as much as they can, let that be supplies, a warm hug, or just an ear ready to listen - and make sure she knows she's not alone. Hopefully, she will realize that one day, just as Tony had with Pepper and with the Avengers.
The Avengers stay in Pepper's thoughts, like they often do, leading up to and including Nebula's, Peter's and Harley's arrival. Pepper thinks that few things influenced Tony as much as the death of his parents and then Afghanistan, but the Avengers are definitely up there, for better or for worse.
They greet each other with warm embraces; Harley remarks that Tony has more white in his hair and beard than before and Tony counters that at least he keeps everything neatly trimmed. Peter is as awkward as always, and Nebula doesn't smile, but Pepper doesn't let that throw her off. Not anymore.
"Who's protecting the city while you're here?" Nebula asks Tony.
That stings, that Tony still hasn't been able to put the Iron Man armor down despite defeating Thanos. He still suits up whenever the threat is bad enough - that is the only way he can live with himself. Peter and Nebula and even Harley know what that feels like. Pepper, and for now, Morgan, thankfully, don't.
But it wouldn't be Tony if he were different. They moved out to the outskirts after Morgan was born, and Tony is still the owner and Pepper the CEO of SI, but neither of them are on site often anymore. They can hear the birds chirping every morning, and Morgan can grow up with her parents' full focus on her, and that is a gift that is worth everything.
Still, if aliens were to attack again, Tony would suit up, and maybe Pepper, too. The only reason she is hesitant about that is because Morgan needs at least one parent alive, and Pepper would handle Tony's death better than the other way around.
She sadly has a lot of practice in that.
"I've told Barnes and Noble to only call me if the world is ending," Tony answers Nebula.
"Barnes and Noble?" she asks.
"Cap and Winter Soldier," Tony waves.
Peter nods in understanding. "I agreed with Venom to keep an eye out, too," he says.
"Venom?!" Tony whirls to gape at him. " Venom ?!"
"Their heart is in the right place," Peter straightens. "Besides, if something happens, I can't let Ned and MJ deal with it on their own!"
"MJ can stand her ground," Nebula says approvingly, because she has given MJ some (unsanctioned) self-defense lessons the last time she was around.
Tony is still not over Venom, and the alien symbiote also wouldn't be Pepper's first choice, but what matters is that Peter trusts him. Them. She is not entirely sure.
Peter is so much better with teamwork than how Tony was in the beginning. Tony had a hard time trusting anybody, and who could have blamed him after Stane's betrayal? He didn't even want to give Rhodey the suits in the beginning, let alone any government. Then the world proved to be too big of a place to save on his own, and the Avengers were formed, and Tony... Tony did not play well with them at first. He was too certain he could and had to do everything on his own.
It took a while for him to stop wanting to sacrifice himself to save the day and let others help him. It took even longer to forgive, both himself and the team, after what happened with the Accords. But Pepper saw how much the mismatched, traumatized group of people meant for him, and how much more stable he was when he had others to rely on. Even if those others sometimes betrayed him.
Peter understood that from the beginning, and instead of keeping his identity secret from everybody, he reached out, and now he has his own team. Because Tony is worried, he tells Peter often that it's irresponsible, that he can be putting his friends in danger; but Peter knows this and doesn't want to take anybody's choice away. Pepper approves, and she thinks deep down, so does Tony.
Peter is the team player that Tony never really let himself become, not for a long while.
Dinner is loud, and messy, and wonderful as always. There is no occasion to toast to, but they do drink to themselves, and try to teach Nebula Earth customs, and Tony remarks that knowing Thor and Barnes helps when it comes to brainwashing and aliens. Harley teases Peter about letting his girlfriend save the day, and Tony interjects that that's what he's been doing with Pepper from the beginning.
"Really?" Nebula asks.
"Let's see," Tony says. "She killed Stane, got Hammer arrested, and killed Aldrich Killian, so I'd say yes."
"Killed?" Harley gasps and Pepper has to put her hands on Morgan's ears.
"Guys!" she says. "It wasn't like that!"
"Oh, and when you weren't around, I first let Ultron loose, then broke the Avengers up," Tony goes on, the lines around his eyes strained, but voice deceivingly light. "Let's face it, honey, without you, I'm a hot mess."
She smiles at him, remembering that's what she also said when she had Extremis, before Tony found a way to neutralize it. But she also remembers how it still messed her up, to have all that power rushing through her, skewing her senses and wanting to burn Killian down.
And she did. It would be a lie to say that it was all the serum and none of herself, because she also pushed the button that exterminated Stane, but Killian was different, and she tried to carry on as if life was normal - she went for a long business conference and all hell broke loose with Ultron back home within a week. After that she realized that it wasn't sustainable, that she needed to either be there or not, so she took a break.
At the worst possible time.
She doesn't regret it. She did need that break, to reflect on how she went from PA to CEO and how the womanizing, one-night-stand billionaire Tony became a partner she considered for life, and what it meant to be dating a superhero and living with superheroes, and... she's faced Tony's death so many times before. There was Afghanistan, when Tony was considered dead for three months and only Rhodey kept hope alive in her. There were the first rounds of alien attacks when she watched him carry a nuclear bomb into space : there was their mansion blowing up; there was a city-sized meteorite dropping on him; oh, and how could she forget, the time when his own arc reactor was poisoning him. Just to name the bigger ones, most she still had nightmares about, replaying what it felt like to be alone and never to talk to him again.
Just like Tony, she was a workaholic and lacked immediate family. She had a few cousins and uncles, but she had been going home alone and spending the holidays alone until Tony, and so she had to sort through everything carefully to make sure she was up for this.
She does regret the timing, though. She likes to think that if she had been there, Tony wouldn't have jumped on Ross' ship so eagerly and she maybe could have talked sense into Steve, who was just as hot-headed as Tony when it came to these things.
Peter looks at her with a mix of awe and fear, Nebula with approval, and Harley is folding something from his napkin to entertain Morgan.
"We're both hot messes without each other," she says, and reaches for Tony's hand to squeeze. Tony smiles his tired but adoring smile at her, the one she, in the end, decided she can't live without. "So it's a good thing we do have each other."
After dinner, they retire to the workshop, because where else would they go with so many mechanical geniuses around?
Pepper takes it upon herself to play with Morgan while Nebula and the boys ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ around a new transmitter that Tony is developing, and she doesn't feel as much an outsider as she used to. Firstly, when it comes to running a business, she is leagues better than Tony, and also: Tony chose her and their normal life over the crazy of everything else. They have a kid now, a kid who is no doubt very smart, and whom they love very much, but who isn't a prodigy, just a normal child with normal needs.
They are not raising her to be the heir of SI. Tony wanted to, in the beginning, and they still joke around that she will be the first female president if her parents are any indication, but Pepper doesn't really want that. She wants Morgan to be able to decide for herself without being forced into any direction. If she wants to open a second-hand bookstore or a flower shop, well, she has the funds and her parents’ support already.
Tony calmed down next to her daughter, too. As much as someone like him is able to, she thinks, seeing that the quartet is now examining The Egg, aka the hoovering, semi-intelligent crib that Tony developed to carry Morgan around if her parents are both in their suits. (Pepper forbade a full-on suit until their child is old enough to understand firearm safety.) But Tony is able to expect and accept from their family what he hadn't quite been able from the Avengers, and now he can extend that towards others.
She would never have thought any of this was possible, when they first met. That Tony would be this well suited to being a father, being so loving and so responsible - yet it showed even before Morgan came along. Hell, Pepper wouldn't have agreed to have a child with him if she hadn't seen how he was with his other kids, with Harley and Peter, and knew how well he was suited for the role. He just needed to stop being afraid of turning into his own father and repeating old mistakes.
But Tony can't even be mentioned on the same page as Howard who groomed Tony to be the future of SI while neglecting his needs as a child. As soon as Tony was able to shake the chains of the past off, he showed that this is truly who he was: the caretaker.
Even the new Avengers came to him with things from how to tie their ties to which bakery offers the best cinnamon rolls in Manhattan.
Nebula is the least animated in their little group, and Pepper hopes that she will get there as well. She had a horrible childhood and father, too, but Pepper believes that if Tony could overcome what he went through, then with his help, so can Nebula.
Dum-E rolls over to Morgan and offers her a smoothie in a sippy cup, and after taking it, Morgan pats his support strut.
"Good boy," she says.
Pepper rustles her hair and smiles at her. Come to think about it, Tony's fatherly streak should have been visible from the way he treated Dum-E from day one.
She lifts Morgan and they watch as he rolls towards Peter, Harley, Nebula and Peter, who now have Riri on a holo so she could share what she thinks the best power solution would be for The Egg's new long-range flying kit.
Yeah, she thinks, kissing Morgan's forehead and letting her drip some of the smoothie down Pepper's blouse. Their kids are pretty amazing.