1987 – SHIELD headquarter

A young teenage boy with semi-long brown hair and brown eyes walks around in a big office with lots of desks. He hears a little girl giggle from under one of the tables and he starts smiling. He walks over to the table and sits down to look under it. under the table is a little girl sitting with a book.

"What are you doing in here?" The boy asks. The little girl giggles and the boy crawls under the table also. He can barely sit up straight without bunking his head against the table but he sits down next to the little girl and she leans her head against him. He leans an arm around her should and takes her book and starts reading for her. The little girl seems so comfortable leaning against the much older boy. It almost seems like they are siblings. A big brother taking care of his younger sister.

Present time - Tony Stark lake house

Tony is sitting on the couch watching an old grainy movie on a white screen he has put up. It is an old movie from the original SHIELD. Tony hears footsteps coming down the stairs and he pauses the movie. In the frame he pauses on is two kids. A young girl who seems to be about 6 years old and a boy who seems to be in his mid-teens. Pepper comes into the Livingroom and sits down next to him. she leans against him and he wraps his arm around her and holds her hand.

"What are you watching?" Pepper asks.

"just some old footage I found in a box in the garage. Some of my dad's stuff."

"is that you?" Pepper asks and takes a closer look at the young teenage boy on the screen. He has the same big smile and sparkling brown eyes as her beloved husband.

"yeah… I don't know what happened to my hair back then." It makes pepper chuckle. The young Tony Stark in the video has a lot longer hair almost down to the color of his shirt.

"you look really cute," Pepper says and kisses her husband on the cheek.

"who is the girl?" Pepper asks.

"she was my friend. Her father worked with my father. She was 9 years younger than me. I used to always hang out at SHIELD after school and this little girl she was like a younger sister to me. until one day she disappeared." Pepper sits up and looks at Tony. He almost sounds sad when he talks about her.

"disappeared? What do you mean by that?"

Tony shrugs. "One day she was there. The next day she wasn't."

"How could she just vanish?" Pepper asks confused.

"Apparently her father and my father… the great Howard Stark… had a fallout. Another person my father couldn't get along with. So that cost me, my best friend."

Tony says like that is no surprise that Howard Stark couldn't get along with someone he worked with.

"So her father quit his job at SHIELD and moved away."

"What about the girl? Did you ever see her again?" Pepper asks feeling a bit sad about Tony losing his childhood friend.

"Yeah, last week." Tony says and stands up and walks to the kitchen to get a glass of water. "what do you mean you saw her last week? Where?" Pepper calls after Tony. He knows she doesn't like being left with a cliffhanger like that. Tony comes back into the Livingroom. He is standing in the doorway to the kitchen. "at the Avengers compound." Tony says and takes a sip of his water.

"she is an Avenger now?" Pepper asks in disbelief looking up at the little girl on the screen with long brown her and brown eyes. In the frame teenage, Tony is sitting with his arm around the girl who seems to be around 9 years old. They appear to be sitting under a table or in some sort of closet space. The little girl is resting her head against Tony's chest and he has an arm around her shoulder. The picture reminds Pepper of whenever Peter Parker stops by the house and he and Morgan are sitting in Morgan's room and Peter is telling Morgan more or less real Spiderman adventure stories.

"what's her name?" Pepper asks.

"Hope," Tony says and takes another sip of his glass of water.

"hope van Dyne… the Wasp?" pepper asks in disbelieve. Tony nods.

"yeah. She probably doesn't even remember anything from back then. She was 9 years old when her father left SHIELD and they moved away. She probably doesn't even remember she and I knew each other back then." Tony sits down again. Pepper can see that these memories bring something back for Tony.

"Tony. You said she was like a sister to you."

"well yeah. I didn't have any siblings and my parents always worked and so did hers. So, I would see her at SHIELD often and one day I helped her with a small thing helping her reach something and after that, we spend every day together. Kinda like Peter and Morgan."

"is Peter her?" an all too familiar voice is coming from the stairs. Tony look back over the couch to see if he really did hear his daughter, who were supposed to be asleep in her bed. Pepper suddenly get a really tired look on her face. that amuses Tony.

"What are you doing up this late, little miss?" Tony asks and comes over and picks Morgan up.

"I heard you talking about Peter," Morgan says as Tony sits down next to Pepper with Morgan on his lap.

"Peter is not her and you should be asleep." Tony says. "why are you not asleep?"

Morgan is more focused on the 2 kids on the screen than she is answering her father's questions.

"who is that?" Morgan asks almost twisting her head 180 degrees to look at the screen instead of her dad.

"that is my friend and you should be asleep."

"can I play with her?" Morgan asks.

"no. you can go to sleep." Tony says and stands up with Morgan in his arms.

"no, but daddy. Someday can I play with her you said she was at the avenger's house."

"yes, she is. Let's put you to sleep now. Say goodnight to mommy."

"Night mommy. I love you." Morgan waves as Tony carries her up the stairs to her bedroom.

10 minutes later Tony comes into their bedroom where Peper is laying on her said of the bed with a book.

"why are you the only one who can get her to sleep?" Pepper asks. "what is your secret?"

"sleeping pills. I slip some in her glass of water. When she brushed her teeth." Tony answers and starts to get ready for bed.

"very funny. She is just such a daddy's girl. She loves you and adores you most. That is why." Tony gets into bed and moves closer to Pepper and slips under her cover.

"no she doesn't love me more then she loves you. She loves you. you are her mommy." Tony says and kisses Pepper.

"keep telling yourself that," Pepper says and turns to her side and turns of the light."

"Maybe if we had another one it would be different," Tony says as he lays down on his own side and turns of his bedlight. Immediately Pepper sits up and turns on her light. "Another one? As in another child? Tony are you out of your mind?" Tony just look up at her with a big smile. They have had this conversation more times then he can count since Morgan was born.

"I am just saying you grow up with siblings, I didn't. I just think Morgan should have that."

"Oh, so it is solely for Morgan?"

"yeah… I mean I didn't have anyone to play with when I was a kid. I think Morgan should have that." Pepper realizes form the sound of Tony's voice he is actually sincere about this.

"Tony she has you to play with and she has Peter. She always plays with Peter." Pepper says and moves closer to snuggle against Tony.

"yeah maybe." Pepper can hear the pain in Tony's voice. He clearly still remember the pain of losing the closest thing he ever had to a sibling.