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At first, she didn't notice.
Morgan always refused to talk more than necessary with Peter even though Mom said he was very important to Dad and they should stay in touch, so she said “hello” to her brother and his aunt the few times they were invited to dinner, but she wanted nothing more than to keep her distance.
Peter tried. He tried to play with her and tell her silly stories about their dad, but it only made her cry. Why would he throw in her face all the time he had with her daddy? She didn't want to hear that he loved Peter so much that he left to bring him back. It wasn't fair.
Aunt May was her favorite thing on every visit. She knew how to braid Morgan’s hair, and she made Happy laugh—not many people could achieve this. She was also really good with Mom when she cried—Mom said that May lost her favorite person in the world too, so she understood.
So, it wasn't really weird to spend some time without seeing or talking to Peter.
Morgan knew he was Spider-Man; Dad told her all about it, but it was supposed to be a secret. When his face was all over the news, Mom got really stressed, and Morgan was angrier than ever. It was supposed to be a family thing. How could he tell everyone? Dad would be angry too.
As the months passed, Morgan thought her mommy was still too mad at Peter, and that's why he and Aunt May weren't visiting, so she said nothing, serves him right. It's not like she wanted to see him.
But after a looong time, she just got sad. Dad was always so excited about Peter; he used to tell her all the ways they would get along, be friends, and give him more gray hair. Maybe she wanted to have a brother. Her friends at kindergarten were always saying that it could be annoying, but they also told a lot of fun stories about their times with their siblings.
She started to notice things: Peter’s face was no longer in the news, but maybe it just wasn't important anymore; Mom was no longer so stressed, but Peter and May were still not visiting; Happy was no longer smiling.
“Why doesn't May visit us anymore?” she decided to ask when they were on their way to school.
Happy took a long time to answer; she was starting to think that maybe he hadn't heard.
“May had to go… like your dad.” His voice was weird.
It didn't take long for panic to reach her. If May was gone… “Is Peter alone now?”
“Who?”
“Peter,” she repeated. “If Aunt May is gone, where's Peter?”
There was silence again. Long silence. Morgan didn't like it.
“I don't know, honey.”
The entire day at school was a waste; the only thing she could think about was Peter. How did Happy not know where her brother was? He was always taking care of him. That's bad. Peter could be alone and scared, and she didn't even know for how long.
When she finally got home, she went directly to her Mom, hoping for an answer.
“Mommy, we have to find Petey.”
Her mom looked at her like she had no idea who that was. “Who, darling?”
Morgan huffed. “I know you're angry at him because he broke our secret, but Aunt May is gone. He can’t be alone.”
Mom crouched to be at her height and put her hands on her shoulders. “Honey, what secret?”
Morgan wanted to cry. “That he is Spider-Man.” She felt her eyes blurring. “But maybe it wasn't him! You can't be mad forever.”
“You know who Spider-Man is?” she asked slowly.
“Yes! He's my brother,” she screamed, feeling tears going down her cheeks. “Why are you pretending you don't know him?”
Mom hugged her. “Oh, honey, it's okay. We'll figure it out.”
Morgan couldn't answer. It was like she couldn't breathe, only sob. She didn't remember going to bed.
…
When her mom said she would figure it out, Morgan thought they would search for Peter, not that she would be sitting in a huge chair and talking to a stranger. At least it was a really comfortable chair.
“How are you today, Morgan?” Ms. Walker asked with a gentle smile.
“Fine.” She was definitely not fine, but she indulged the woman. “I like your chair.”
“I'm glad.” She smiled brightly. "It's good to be comfortable while we talk.”
Morgan’s brows furrowed. “Do I have to talk?”
“Only if you want to,” she said. “And we can talk about whatever you want.”
“It's because of Peter, isn't it?”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because she’s pretending she doesn't know him.” It was the only logical conclusion in her mind. Mom had been answering all her questions about Peter in a weird way, like she was just doing it to avoid her crying again.
“Would you like to talk about Peter?”
“No. I want to find Peter and no one is helping me,” she snapped.
“Could you tell me more about him?”
Morgan knew this woman was a doctor of sorts, but she just needed someone to listen to her without looking at her weirdly.
“He's my brother,” she whispered. “I was angry at him.”
“Why were you angry at him?”
“Because Daddy went to bring him back and he didn’t come back.” Since she started to wish for Peter to be back, she also started to think that being angry at him was wrong.
Ms. Walker nodded. “And when Peter came back, he didn't live with you?”
Morgan shook her head. “He visited, but I didn’t want him to,” she felt bad saying out loud. “But I miss him now, and he's alone.”
“Why is he alone?”
“His Aunt May went to heaven, and since Daddy is already in heaven…”
“Can you think of any reason for your mom to pretend she doesn't remember him?”
Morgan talked a lot with Ms. Walker. It felt good to talk to someone who actually seemed to believe in what she was saying. About almost everything that she knew about Peter—except about Spider-Man, because it was still a secret to her—she said, and by the end of it all, she was convinced that Ms. Walker believed her, so maybe now her mom would too.
Pepper.
Pepper tried really hard to keep her cool since Tony died. She was a mother, a CEO, a friend, and some would say she was a hero. Lately, she just felt like a failure.
The worst part of losing Tony came after two weeks of his service. It didn’t matter how loved he was, how famous, how rich, what he sacrificed. The world moved on, and she knew that’s what he would want, but she felt hollow.
How could he do that to her? After everything, she should be used to it. The last time he said ‘no more surprises,’ he got himself into a flying donut and ended up in space for almost a month. But no, she thought this time would be surprise-free; they were married and had an amazing daughter. He had to go and invent fucking time travel.
She often reprimanded herself for this line of thought; it was selfish. But if she couldn't be selfish inside her own mind, well, that would be just not fair.
When she finally thought they were… not okay, she still cried herself to sleep, but better, Morgan came up with Peter. Pepper honestly didn't know what to do, so she indulged her daughter without asking too many questions and searched for the best child therapist that money could buy in New York.
That’s how she found herself in front of Dr. Walker while Morgan was in the other room playing with some toys.
“Mrs. Stark, I'll be honest with you,” the woman started to say in a soft tone that made Pepper more nervous than anything. “With any other child, I would say that's a grief coping mechanism, that Morgan would grow out of it.”
“But Morgan is not like the other children,” Pepper guessed.
“In general? Yes, she is,” Dr. Walker assured her. “But Morgan is the daughter of one of the brightest minds ever to have lived. She's the daughter of the universe's savior.”
Pepper winced a little. She hated when people talked about Tony like this. Yes, he was the universe's savior, but he was so much more to her.
“What exactly are you trying to say?”
“Peter could be a fruit of her imagination, yes, but I don’t think that's the case.”
“But I have no idea who Peter is,” she sighed.
“Some years ago, if I told you that half of humanity would be erased by an alien, what would you say?”
“That you're crazy.”
“Exactly.” She smiled gently. “Morgan's story is ludicrous and unbelievable, but given the kind of environment she’s in, I think it would be worth trying to find more.”
Pepper sighed. “She's just very creative, like her father.”
“I understand,” Dr. Walker nodded. “Morgan is extremely intelligent and perceptive for her age, but… what did she tell you about Peter?”
“That he’s alone and we have to find him.”
“Well, Morgan told me years’ worth of stories about him.”
“That’s impossible, I would’ve noticed someone named Peter around my daughter,” Pepper retorted.
“Only that he wasn’t there,” Dr. Walker explained. “To Morgan, Peter is the brother she never met, but her dad told her all about. The one whom her dad went to get back and never returned.”
Pepper shook her head, feeling choked. “Tony didn’t have a son, I think I would know.” She hated that her tone was so defensive, but it was way worse hearing the doctor say that Tony had a son she knew nothing about than it was when Morgan screamed she had a brother.
“Morgan believes you know him, but that you're angry about him telling everyone a secret.”
Spider-Man. That was the secret Morgan said she was angry about, but no one ever knew who he was.
Pepper pursed her lips. “So you’re saying Tony had a son that no one remembers, but Morgan.”
“No.” The doctor shook her head slightly. “I'm saying maybe we should explore what she's saying. Morgan, in her childish way, feels guilty about Peter. She was angry because she thought her dad chose him over her, but now she's just sad and thinks he's alone because of her. She knows her dad wouldn't want that.” She paused and looked at Pepper seriously. “This isn't just the default story for imaginary friends. It's complex and emotionally loaded.”
—
The therapist's words stayed in Pepper’s mind for the rest of the day. Was it possible for her to forget someone so important?
Later that night, she went to Tony's lab for the first time since he died. The cleaning bots made sure everything was clean, at least.
“FRIDAY?”
“Yes, Lady Boss?”
“Do you have something on your server about someone named Peter?”
There was a pause. “I have a lot of data on different Peters on my servers. Could you be more specific?”
“Tony's son,” she said, hesitantly.
“Boss’ only child is Morgan Hope Stark.”
“Right.” She sighed in relief. It would be awful to find out her husband was hiding a son from her. “What about Spider-Man? What do you have on him?”
There was a pause, and then hundreds of holograms appeared all over the lab, showing all kinds of protection protocols, safety features, and suit designs. Some of them had more precautions than her own and Rhodey's suits. It was like Tony was trying to wrap Spider-Man in a bubble; there was even a nanotechnology suit.
“FRIDAY, who's Spider-Man?”
“Spider-Man's identity was never revealed, Boss Lady.”
“And Tony made all this, spent millions of dollars, for a guy he didn't even meet?”
Tony would never give his technology to someone he didn't know, not even the harmless ones. But this? He must have spent months of work on every one of these suits. There was even something called the ‘training wheels protocol’. For goodness' sake, there was a heater in all the suits.
“FRIDAY, can you track his suit?”
“I'm sorry, Lady Boss, Spider-Man's suit has been inactive for months.”
Pepper frowned. “I saw him on the news last week.”
“It would appear that he has a new suit.”
“But what about the ones he's not using?” she squinted at the holograms. “It’s saying here that he has his own AI. Can you contact it?”
God, who was this guy? An exclusive AI?
“You ordered his AI to be banished from Stark Industries' network around the same time he stopped using his nanotechnology suit.”
“I did what now?” She had no idea what FRIDAY was talking about. “Why would I do this?”
A long pause. “I'm not sure, Lady Boss.”
Well, Morgan’s right, she was angry at Spider-Man/Peter. Pepper would never forget something like this, sounds like a big thing and if Tony gave this guy access, it would take a big mess-up on his part for her to just cut him off. She's not unreasonable.
“All right, Fri, map every Spider-Man appearance in the last six months and… make me a file with every time his suit was in use at the same time Tony's was, every time he entered S.I. or any other of Tony’s property, like a timeline.”
It took FRIDAY a minute to organize everything. One folder contained all of the latest appearances of the vigilante, and the other had all the times that Tony and Spider-Man were together.
The first time they fought together was in Germany. Pepper doesn’t know much about what happened, but apparently, the Civil War was what brought Tony and the vigilante together. After that, it took months without contact until Tony sent a suit to rescue Spider-Man from a lake; he remotely controlled it while he was in India. After that, there's a ferry incident that she found news reports about and a period of time when Spider-Man's suit was disabled. There aren’t many fights where they're together, but there were a lot of entries in Tony's personal lab, like Spider-Man spent a lot of time there over a two-year period. The vigilante went with Tony to space, even though her husband ordered FRIDAY to bring him back to Earth, but he never came back. Tony worked on his suits during the five years of the Blip nonetheless, always improving things for a hero who was lost to the world.
The Iron Spider suit was close when Tony died; the readings suggested that he was right beside Pepper, and she… she remembers. If she closes her eyes, she can almost hear a young, broken voice speaking to Tony, telling him that they won, but there's only a mask with wide, robotic eyes behind that voice, nothing more.
Pepper cries. She thought about watching the footage, but she can't… She can't watch her husband die again.
The news about Spider-Man in the last six months was chaotic, random, erratic. Where once he stuck a lot more to Queens and at a scheduled time, now he acts all over the place at all kinds of hours. His new suit seems awfully like cloth, and, if what the media say is to be believed, he gets shot at least twice a month. Pepper can’t get around the fact that he would just dump a million-dollar suit with bulletproof technology; even without access to the network, it would still be useful.
By the end of the night, she is exhausted with so much information. Spider-Man was there before the press conference where Tony proposed because it was supposed to be his announcement as an Avenger. Spider-Man visited Tony's lab far more than any of them and was listed with more clearance than Rhodey for certain things, but she can’t remember seeing him there once. Spider-Man cried at Tony's death like it was killing him a little, too.
Who the hell was Spider-Man?
Pepper decided to ask Morgan more about Peter in the following days. It was clear that she didn't have a lot of memories of her own with the boy, but the ones Tony told her were more than enough to cover everything. It hurt to hear her baby girl pause in the middle of a story, thinking that she drove away the chance of meeting the boy better.
“Mommy, do you think Peter still wants to be my brother?” she asked, voice wobbly.
Pepper hugged her. “I'm sure he does, honey.”
Morgan talked about Peter like he was a kid and it didn't sit right with Pepper that Tony would let his son go around fighting bad guys, but it would make all his precautions more reasonable.
There was a lot that didn't seem right, starting with the fact only Morgan remembered Peter. After her night searching for information about Spider-Man, she completely ruled out the possibility of the whole thing being made-up, but it was still so hard to believe. She talked to Happy and Rhodey, and both of them said that they didn't know who the vigilante was, but Morgan told her about Happy and Peter knowing each other.
She thought about reaching Dr. Strange, but it wasn't like she had his number and she didn't know how to proceed with everything that was happening.
Using the methods she could use, Pepper tracked Spider-Man down. Sure, it was a little bit stalk-ish, and she shouldn't use FRIDAY to hack the city's CCTV network to hunt down the vigilante's apartment, but well… Why wouldn't she when she has an A.I. that can do it?
The building was… bad. God, she couldn't remember entering a place so insalubrious of her own will. There was no front desk, so she just made her way through the creepy stairs, her gauntlet watch ready, to the 4th floor in search of Peter's apartment. According to FRIDAY, two Peters lived in the building and one of them was 58, so she was confident apt 402 was the right one.
She knocked at the door and waited, anxiety eating her alive.
She heard footsteps and a voice coming from the apartment. “Ms. Kinney I told you…” As soon as the door opened and the boy saw her, he froze. So did she.
Despite his tired look, the boy couldn't be older than eighteen. He was thin, his cheeks sunken, much like his eyes; his brown curls were messy, like he hadn't cared for them in a long time, hiding his eyes a little, but she still could see the haunted look in those brown eyes.
He looks like him.
She shook her head, pushing away the thought. “Hello, Peter.”
Immediately his eyes were glistening and she could see the way his throat worked, his hands shaking. “Ms. Potts.” It sounded like he hasn't been using his voice much lately. These days, no one really called her Potts anymore, but it sounded right the way he said it. “What– uh, Can I– Do you need something?”
Pepper tried to smile. “Can we talk?”
Peter glanced back at the apartment and winced a little but nodded. He made room for her to walk in and as soon as he shut the door he started to throw things to the corners, trying to clean the space.
It was a small apartment with little furniture and infiltration all around the walls. There wasn’t much to indicate the boy's personality. She felt sad.
Peter offered her a plastic chair and she readily accepted, not wanting to make the boy more self-aware of his own house.
He looked at her expectantly after she took her seat while he was still standing. She wanted him to say something first, so maybe she could gather information from there and develop the rest, but no dice.
She sighed. “Do you know why I'm here?”
He looked wearily at her. “Not really.”
“Do you know who I am?” He wasn't making it easy for her.
“Uh, you're Mr. Stark's wife, Virginia Stark.” It sounded like he was reading.
“You called me Ms. Potts,” she raised an eyebrow.
He fidgeted a little. “Uh, you're– It's your maiden name, right?”
She sighed. “And you are Peter Fitzpatrick?” That's the name FRIDAY came up with when they found the building. The documentation was shady though, but it was easier to get away with this kind of thing after the reverse of the Blip and billions of people coming back.
“Yes,” he said, a little too quickly.
She studied him. He looked tired and like he was on the verge of tears, so she decided to be forward with it. “Peter, I'm not going to pretend that I know what's happening, but I know you were important to Tony.”
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
“I know you're Spider-Man,” she looked around. “I bet I could find your suit somewhere here.”
All the color from his face vanished, his hands tightening by his sides.
“How?” he whispered.
“You have a really compelling fan club.” At Peter’s frown, she added, “Morgan misses you.”
That seemed to catch him off guard. “She– she does?” Pepper nodded. “But I– I thought she didn't like me,” he muttered. It was clear he didn't mean to say it out loud, so she just gave him some time while he gathered himself. “She remembers me?”
“She does,” she was itching to ask why no one else did. “I took her to a therapist, I thought you were an imaginary friend or something.”
“How did you find me?”
“She knew you were Spider-Man, so I got FRIDAY to stalk you,” she said sheepishly. “Sorry.”
They were silent for some minutes until she couldn't hold back. “Are you Tony's son?”
Peter looked at her with wide eyes. “What? No! Why would you think that?”
“Morgan says you're her brother,” she explained. “ Tony told her you're her brother.”
She didn't mean to make him cry, but as soon as the words left her mouth, the boy started to sob. She automatically got up and reached for him, hugging his trembling form while he broke down in her arms. He was so thin that it scared her. How can he go around protecting people while he's on the verge of malnutrition? Did she let Tony's kid starve?
She held him like this for minutes, tears of her own running down her face while she rubbed her hand down his back in a soothing manner.
Eventually, he stepped back, eyes puffy and red from all the crying. He looked so young.
“I'm sorry, Ms. Pepper.” His voice was still wobbly. “I didn't know… I didn't think he saw me that way,” he whispered.
“Hey, look at me.” He did. “We're going to figure it out, okay?” Peter nodded faintly. “But first, I need to take you out of here.”
That got his alert back on. “What? No, you don't need to do this, Ms. Pepper, I'm fine.”
“Pete, I'm not letting you stay here.” The nickname slipped with ease.
“I don't have anywhere to go,” he confided.
Pepper knew this. It was clear as day that the boy was struggling with money. Fortunately, she had plenty of it to ensure that he was well-assisted while they cleared up everything.
“I have an apartment close to where Stark Tower used to be.” She wasn't going to take a stranger home just yet, she's not irresponsible, but she can't let Peter stay here; her mind wouldn't stop worrying. What if he runs away? “I can have FRIDAY get everything ready while we drive there.”
“You don't need to do this,” he mumbled again.
Pepper sent him a look, one of those that always used to work on Tony when he was being idiotic. “Grab what you need to spend a night,” she ordered.
“Yes, ma'am.”
—-
They decided to wait until he was all settled before telling Morgan.
Peter was quiet and cautious most of the time, like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. She left him at her apartment after making sure he had everything he needed.
She practically didn't sleep the whole night, excited to finally tell Morgan she found her brother.
“Where are we going, Mommy?” Morgan asked for the twelfth time on their way to the apartment.
“It's a surprise, darling.”
The little girl huffed but finally stopped asking.
When they reached the apartment door and Peter opened it for them, Morgan’s eyes widened comically, and she yelled, “PETEY!”
The little girl threw herself into the boy's arms, making him stumble a little but hold her in his arms like his life depended on it, tears already running down his face when he closed his eyes and sighed in contentment.
Once inside, Morgan didn't let go of Peter for a second. She babbled about school, about her skating classes, about all the places Happy and Rhodey took her to try new burgers, and just about everything she could think of.
Peter listened attentively, asking questions at all the right times and indulging every new topic the girl chose. His eyes turned sad every time she mentioned Happy, but she was so excited that she didn't notice.
Eventually, she asked, “Why did you leave? Happy said Aunt May went to heaven with Daddy, weren't you alone?”
Peter paled.
May Parker was a kind woman that Happy used to date. She died almost a year ago, and Morgan was convinced she was Peter's aunt, but Pepper found no record of it and hadn't discussed it with the boy yet.
He looked at her, like he was asking for permission, for what she wasn't sure, so she just nodded.
“There were bad people after me, Muchkin,” he said softly.
“And they were the ones who told everyone you are Spider-Man?”
Peter winced a little. “That was another bad man, and once he told everyone who I was, bad people started to come for me.”
Morgan gasped, but then nodded seriously for him to go on.
Pepper knew she was sure that everyone knew Peter was Spider-Man, even though she still acted like it was a secret—except when it was just the two of them around. The thing is: no one even knows Peter exists.
“They took May from me.” Tears ran down his face, and Morgan gently wiped them away. “And there were a lot of them still coming for me, so I had to ask Dr. Strange to make everyone forget me.”
Morgan tilted her head. “The wizard?”
Peter chuckled. “Yeah.”
Then she frowned. “But I remember you.”
An ugly sob made its way through Peter's throat, and Morgan looked at her mom, alarmed, but before Pepper could do something, the little girl latched onto her brother's neck. While Peter cried, she mumbled apologies, telling him she wasn't angry at him and that he could have all of her toys if he wanted.
Pepper cried watching the scene. She still needed a detailed explanation, but her heart was telling her that Peter was her family and he needed her. That's what Tony would’ve wanted.