Soli Deo gloria
DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own the Avengers. Or Ikea. Or LEGOs.
Y'all, we didn't even know we needed a Dad!Tony with his little daughter until the past two movies, and now it is essential.
When Pepper told him with tears in her eyes that she was pregnant, Tony wondered if Stephen Strange foresaw this, too.
He trusted him; he had to. He had to believe that the future before them, the path they had to walk down, was the one path they had to walk down. Down this path they'd bring them back. In the meantime, everything else that happened was destiny. It was meant to be.
That dream he had before all this started (he could never shake it from his mind. He had it the night before Thanos's rotten little brat children invaded New York and brought his worst fears to life) haunted him. It was like a vision of the future. Was it meant to be a comfort to him right before the Avengers' biggest fight, before his biggest fight? Maybe.
All Tony Stark knew was that before the Infinity War, he would've been scared to death of having his own kid. He failed Peter Parker miserably; wasn't it written in his DNA to be a bad dad, just like his before him? Tony wanted to repeat history as much as the next guy, but there was only so much of the past you could avoid when you were literally half your dad.
But that was before. Before he realized his priorities. Before half the world got wiped out by a cosmic figure bigger than anything they'd ever faced before; before he realized that there was a fifty-fifty chance that this would never happen; it was a flip of a coin that kept Pepper from disappearing in a breeze just like P-Peter Parker did.
All Tony wanted was to protect the world so they'd have peace in their time, so they could all go back to their lives and be normal. 'kay, it wasn't normal for Natasha to live life as a warrior when she'd never known what anything else felt like. It wasn't normal for Clint to risk his life on the daily running all over the world shooting bad guys when he had a wife and kids at home. This wasn't normal but they'd made it normal because somebody had to save the world.
Tony was a little tired of saving the world. Then he was sorry he was ever tired of saving the world, when they stopped doing it. When they failed. When Thanos won.
Before this, Tony Stark never went for the domestic play. He always went for the money-guzzling, risk-taking, life-risking play. That was before. Now, all they could do after the Snap was face the after.
It was a dreary after. But it wasn't one Tony could risk anymore. He wanted it now, if he was allowed to do that.
He was grateful, and wracked with guilt as he clutched the metal railing under his tired hands. He had a second chance. Half the planet was dusted, leaving behind walking corpses of survivors and mounted memorials (he paid for all the public memorials for New York. It wasn't enough, though—it could barely even scrape the surface of the price that needed to be paid). He got to survive. He got to marry the love of his life and now, at the ripe old age of 49 (heck, he was even younger than his old man was when he was born), he was gonna be a dad. Would any of the women he enjoyed drunken one-night stands with have ever predicted that the ultimate playboy Tony Stark couldn't be happier with his wife and the news of his kid's existence? It was amazing.
It was sobering. They just got married in a quiet ceremony a couple of months ago, after he recovered from almost dying on Thanos's broken ship. The remnants of the old team were there. Too many missing. Steve sat in the back without a word. He had to come, but Tony couldn't find the heart to forgive him right now. He was still too angry, too grieved.
Happy's other job besides being his main man was checking in on May Parker. Tony didn't have the strength to look her in the eye. He just . . . couldn't.
He recovered from his near demise on the alien spaceship. His hands still shook violently when he was flooded with emotion. His grip on the metal railing tightened. I'm going to be a father.
"Tony. . ." Pepper's hand touched his shoulder. When he met her eyes, he saw worry and sympathy intermingled in them.
"I just never thought I'd see the day, that's all," Tony said, sweeping his hand quickly over his eyes before inhaling deeply and looking out on the ravaged remnants of a broken New York. No one had the heart to build it back up. The entire world was in mourning. Nobody wanted to continue on with life, except maybe him. He looked up at Pepper with a half-hearted smile and tears in his eyes and said, "I want to say that I can't believe it, but the thing is, I'm too excited to even think about doubting it. Pep. . ." The lump in his throat caught and he couldn't speak anymore as he held his wife as tightly as he could. He screwed his eyes shut and ignored the tears and breathed in and out.
It felt nice to have a goal, to have something to look forward to again. Tony ignored all the voicemails and texts Natasha sent him about the team she led from the Avengers' upstate New York facility. She had more than enough manpower—but to do what, exactly? What was there left to fight? No one had any the heart anymore, anyway. What could be more ultimate evil than who they already faced?
Let them try to fix things. They lost together. Tony had already gone over three thousand different theories on how to get everyone back. He stayed up late nights after picking up a weird takeout craving for Pepper torturing his brain for yet another possibility. He cursed the name of Stephen Strange a thousand times. The guy could've given him some sort of clue on how to fix everything. Handing over that Time Stone and creating this timeline where Thanos wins—if that was the only way, what was next? What could he do to bring them back?
Thanks a lot for any kind of helpful foresight, Strange.
Tony drifted from grief to theories to grief again to building cribs and diaper changing stations from Ikea. He needed to keep his hands busy. He massaged Pepper's feet ("Who would've thought it possible that someday Tony Stark would be rubbing his wife's swollen ankles?" Pepper teased him as she laid back on the loveseat) and tested out twenty different baby monitors before making his own. He rewatched the old clips of his dad talking about him during the outtakes of the 1974 Stark Expo and realized he didn't hate him anymore. Maybe he never truly hated him. He just wanted him to be his dad, to be there for him, to not abandon him or shape him the way he wanted.
He wasn't going to abandon his kid. So he hung up his Iron Man suit. Maybe not for good, but for a good long time.
(Seven months in he built Pepper two suits. One maternity, and one regular. Just in case. You never knew when the house would get pumped full of enemy shots and it'd be nice if he and Pepper each had custom-made suits.)
He wouldn't say he full-on panicked when Pepper went into labor; he got just a little excited and anxious and quick and energetic and sure, Pepper, the one going through painful contractions, was the calm-headed one telling him in a restrained voice to calm down and fetch this overnight bag and get that tablet with doctor's notes on it and don't forget her walking sandals, but he got them to the hospital in one piece (well, Friday drove; he figured a little rational AI was a better driver than an anxious father-to-be).
The moment he held his baby daughter in his arms he just felt all the anxiety and nervous energy drain away. The nurses let him hold her as they tended to Pepper, who was red-faced and sweaty but triumphant.
He touched her five little fingers on her left hand with just the tip of his index finger. She had his dark hair and she opened her eyes at him like she wasn't three minutes old to show him that she got Daddy's brown eyes, too.
"She's perfect," Tony said, not even hiding his own tear-stricken eyes. "Down to the last teeny tiny fingernail." He got down on one knee by Pepper's side and squeezed her hand. "You are amazing," he said to his wife, before looking into the gazing eyes of his brand new baby girl and saying, "and you are perfect."
He left the hospital room a total of one time once Pepper was settled, just to pull in the other Avengers who'd hurried over just to sit in the waiting room for hours on end. He might've given up the fight but he couldn't quite give them up. Not yet. Not when they lost so much together. He wanted to show them just what he'd gained—show them one little ray of light and joy in the grief-stricken world they lived in.
"You guys going to come see her or what?" he said, ducking in.
Steve, Natasha, and Bruce rose to their feet. "It's a girl?" Natasha asked.
"Yeah; it was implied when I said 'her'," Tony said.
"You could've been referring to Pepper while you actually had a son, just to pull the rug out from under our feet," Bruce pointed out.
"It amazes me that you even waited to find out," Natasha said. "Who does that nowadays?"
"It's amazing that the technology for that even exists," Steve said. Then, all jokes aside, he nodded. "Congrats, Tony."
Tony was mute; he didn't want to acknowledge Steve. He still hadn't quite forgiven him yet. But he took the hug from Natasha gratefully. "Congratulations, Tony," she whispered. She smiled, tears in her eyes, unashamed. "There's not a whole lot of good news anymore. It's so good to hear this."
Other than introducing his old mates in battle to his offspring, Tony never left the room. Night dawned as Pepper, hooked up to a heart monitor, slept the sleep of the exhausted but satisfied. Tony managed to convince the nurse of a few extra minutes with the baby after she was fed. When Pepper stirred and opened her eyes under the orange light of her lamp, she saw Tony standing by the window with a blanket draped over his arm. They stayed on a top floor in the hospital, so the big window offered nothing but gorgeous sky over New York. Only brief blips of skyscrapers detracted from the view. Ignoring them, one could ignore the mess of New York under their eyes.
"You know what I missed the most, of course, besides your mom and good old Earth, were the stars," Tony said to the little bundle swaddled in the crook of his elbow. "Floating aimlessly through an entirely different solar system for twenty-three days makes you miss the space you actually know. There's so much out there we just don't know about. We should've known about it. I've faced what I didn't know and I'm still scared, kid. 'Cause there's more out there; there's always going to be something else out there. It's the great fear of the unknown, kid. That's what we're all afraid of. Except you." He pushed the blanket a little more out of the way so he could see her soft sleeping face. "You're not afraid of anything, and you'll never have to be. You know why? 'Cause Daddy is always going to be around to protect you."
Her fingers curled around the tip of his index finger.
"I might fail at it. I've definitely failed in the past. Tried and failed. Unfortunately, that's your dad—but, good news, kiddo. Your dad didn't have you last time. Because he has you," Tony said softly, "he won't ever fail again."
"Tony. . ." Pepper said softly.
He looked up and smiled, walking the baby over to her. "How you feelin'?" he said, taking a seat by her bed.
"Exhausted. Drained. Like, the least put-together I've ever felt, ever," Pepper said. He handed the baby over to her and she said, "But happier than I've ever been."
Tony's eyes shone when he looked at them both together, Pepper's eyes crinkling at the corners as she whispered sweet baby talk to their little daughter. "Me too." He watched them a moment before saying, "You know, we should probably name her. They're gonna want a name to put on the birth certificate."
"Oh, we already named her," Pepper informed him.
"Oh, 'we' already did? Where was I during this conversation 'we' had?" Tony said. His eyes kept flickering between his wife and daughter, almost like he could never get enough of either of them.
"Well, you dreamed we had a baby named Morgan, and I agreed," Pepper said.
"When did you agree? I have a very clear memory of not hearing an 'aye' or 'nay' about the name choice, only assurance that what I dreamed was just a dream," Tony pointed out.
"When I saw her. I agreed. The moment I saw her, I thought, 'Hi, Morgan. It's nice to finally get to see you,'" Pepper said.
"So it was a silent agreement in a conversation you just had with yourself, then?" Tony said.
"Morgan Maria Stark," Pepper said quickly, like she'd decided long ago.
"I love you," Tony said, kissing her. Pepper laid back again the pillows tiredly, watching Tony as he sat back in his chair with the slip of pink blanket over his arm. "Hey, Morgan. I love you too; get used to hearing that, since you'll be hearing it a lot from me."
The other Avengers visited the lake house once in a while, but they got the message Tony Stark silently told them by his shielded face, stilted remarks, and unfriendly body language. They could go on trying to save the world. He was just trying to not lose what he had. None of them would've ever thought Tony Stark would willingly taking middle-of-the-night bottle feeding duty just to sit in a rocking chair and hold his daughter in his arms in her pink painted nursery, but then, none of them ever thought they'd really lose the most important fight of their lives. Weird things happen.
Those were the best and worst days of his life. While the world remained a ghost of what it was and its people looked through the eyes of zombies, looking forever for those no longer there, Tony watched his daughter turn over by herself with pride. He considered her first day trying solid foods as more momentous than the unveiling of the Stark Expo. Her first steps meant more to him than the first steps he took in his first Iron Man suit. Her first words ranked high on his top ten of favorite words ever. No tech he ever dreamed up, no vision of his insanely genius mind he brought to fruition by his quick knowledgeable hands, could compare with her. Just like he was to his own father, she was his best creation. His favorite, his most-loved, the one he'd do anything for. How had ever living without Morgan ever been an option? How could he have ever thought he'd never be a dad, never want to be a dad?
He still tinkered, still thought, still theorized. He pushed back the picture of him and Peter and laid on the floor next to Morgan on her stomach and asked her what she was drawing with her crayons. He pushed away the guilt to see what was happening right in front of him. If he let it pass by him, he'd never get it back, and he'd always regret it if he did.
"Stick the worm right on there; c'mon, don't be afraid of it," Tony told Morgan. He held the hook of her fishing line tight while her tiny four-year-old fingers squished the worm on.
"I'm not afraid. It's just super gross," she said, even as she finished sticking it on.
"I know you're not afraid. Good job, kid," Tony said. "Now," he leaned next to her, his hands encompassing her tiny ones on the rod, "we're gonna release this line into the lake. The fish are going to go for the worm and that's when we reel them in. Here, let's get the line in the water. Ready?"
She nodded and together they counted off, "One, two, three!" and the sinker dropped in.
"Nice job, Morgan!" Tony sat on the deck and Morgan, still holding tightly onto the rod, sat comfortably down on his lap. He wrapped his arm snuggly around her waist as she held her fishing rod with both hands. "You know what we do now?"
"What?" she wondered.
"We wait," he said.
"Okay," she said.
"Morgan, you're four-years-old today," Tony said, filling the quiet silence of the outdoors around them. He spent so many years in labs, indoors; it was only now he appreciated the quiet peace of the woods. "And now you know how to fish. I already taught you how to build a LEGO tower, say the ABCs backwards, and play online solitaire. You know what else I'm going to teach you?"
"What, Daddy?" Morgan asked, looking up at him expectantly.
"I'm going to teach you how to ride a bike. How to drive a car. How to reconfigure a computer and operate an Iron Man suit, which you don't need to worry or even think about right now.—But, I'll teach you other important things, too. Like how to know when you're wrong and say you're sorry; your mom can tell you how I'm still working on that. Um, I'll teach you how to question things, how things like computers and engines and electrical systems work. I'll teach you how to protect others, which sometimes means risking your life for them, which is sometimes what needs to happen. I'll teach you to know when to be sarcastic and when to be serious. I'll teach you when to agree and when to fight. I'll teach you a great deal of important things, Morgan. I want to be there to show you them all."
Tony took a deep breath and said, "But that's a lot to put on a four-year-old, and on such an important day, too! Happy birthday, birthday girl!" He hugged her tightly, tickling her, making her laugh and almost drop the line.
"Daddy, there's a fish!" she gasped.
"There's a fish? Where?" and Tony showed her how to land it, how to unhook it, and how to clean it (methodical work like this kept his head sane in the months after). "There. You did it, kid." Morgan looked up at him to see approval on her father's face. "You caught and cleaned a fish right the first time. Not a whole lot of people can say that." He held his hand up for a high-five and received an enthusiastic one. "C'mon," he said, as her five little fingers clutched around his one index finger, "let's go show Mom." When he looked down at his bright-eyed, smart little girl, he saw the little baby his heart claimed the second he laid eyes on her that day four years ago.
When Tony said goodbye to Morgan, he didn't know it'd be the last time. He hoped it wasn't. He hoped they'd save the world and all got to go home. But hope was for a future they wanted, not always for the future they'd get. So, best to take precautions. He regretted the last time he talked to his dad, not knowing that that was the last time. He wanted to go back a thousand times to make sure he said the right thing then. He screwed it up then. He wouldn't screw it up now.
"Morgan, Daddy's going on a business trip," he said, all casual like, like it wasn't a fantastical mission that could go sideways in two seconds and leave not only the past screwed up, but the present as well. He knelt before her, stroking her hair. Her bright brown eyes studied his. "But I want you to know two things." He wasn't going to promise that he'd be back soon, 'cause then if he didn't come back, she'd always be haunted by that last broken promise. He wasn't going to do that to his kid. "Number one is, I love you three thousand. Always will. And two, don't eat any of the juice-pops without me. They're late night snacks for you and me only, you got it?"
Morgan giggled. "Okay, Daddy."
He hugged her fiercely to him, smacking a firm kiss against her cheek while her head laid safely against his shoulder. He didn't want to cry in front of her, didn't want to scare her by showing how scared he was. She knew her daddy was a brave man who faced problems head-on. He might put them off once in a while, but he could never leave them alone, not when he could fix them. Her daddy was a mechanic, and he was hard-wired to fix things.
His hand framed her face and he smiled. He saw in her eyes the night she was born and the day she turned four as they looked expectantly at him now.
He laid it out for Steve pretty clear. He'd figured out how to harness places within time, but on one condition. They would try to get back all they lost (Peter Parker. . .) but not at the expense of what they had gained. Tony Stark wasn't going to lose both of his kids—not if he could help it. He'd save them both from the Big Bad, 'cause that was what fathers do. In the end, they protect.
When Howard Stark abandoned his son, he never let him know how much he really loved him until it was almost too late. Tony was glad the last moments he got with Morgan, he let her know before it was too late. He hadn't known he'd never get the chance again, but that was the one promise he did make that he kept—he let his daughter know constantly, up until his death, just how much he loved her.
Yeah, of all the last lingering regrets Tony Stark left behind when he finally closed his eyes, that wasn't one of them.
So me writing all this is me just literally getting all my feelings out. The last year or so, I haven't really written out of a deep emotion. That was something a younger me did. Younger me got really hung up on character deaths. I thought I got a little desensitized with character deaths as I grew older. They happen. People die. It's life. But . . . Tony Stark's been in MCU films for eleven years. He got me. Hard. And it hurts.
Anyways, thanks for reading, kids. I hope you enjoyed it.