AN: Next update is in two days and will, like today, feature two chapters. I will be posting two chapters per update until I get to the last one of this story, then on the date I post this one's final you will get the first of the last chapter of this series.
"I think the pastor usually likes to say a few words to the kids about the real meaning of Easter before the Easter egg hunt begins," Rhodey said as they continued to drive.
It was the Saturday before Easter, and they were going to the little church where the Rhodes family had always attended when he was a child. He had already warned her that she'd be meeting a few members of his cousins.
Pepper nodded, "That's fine. How long does he usually take with that?"
"Oh, I'd say only about ten maybe fifteen minutes. He knows much longer than that the kids are going to get bored, and not listen anymore."
"Good," she said with another nod, knowing that would certainly apply to the little boy sitting in the backseat of the car.
"And here we are," he said turning off the country road they'd been on into a fair sized parking lot that was mostly full.
"Wow, quite a bit of people here." Pepper remarked.
"Yeah, I think this might be the most popular Easter egg hunt in the area."
They circled the parking lot once before parking on the grass nearby where a few more cars were also parked. Once they were out of the car, and had gotten Morgan out too, Rhodey led the way, "The Easter egg hunt is usually held in the field there across the street."
Hand in hand in hand the three of them crossed the street. Once they were across, they were greeted almost immediately by some of the parents of the children who were playing nearby. Morgan spotted the other kids right away who were busy kicking a soccer ball around.
Pepper looked down at her son, "Would you like to go play with them, sweetheart?"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah!" the little boy exclaimed, pulling on her arm as he tried to free his hand.
"Alright, baby. Be careful and remember to be nice to the other kids. Okay?"
"Okay, Mommy!"
She released his hand, and watched as he ran off towards the other kids.
They watched him for a few seconds when a voice interrupted, "Hey James, is that you man?"
Rhodey slowly turned around, and with a smile Pepper knew wasn't quite one hundred percent genuine said, "Hey, Clarence, how are you?"
The other man put out his hand, and after a little hesitation it was taken, "I'm good, James. It's been a long time though… too long."
"Yeah, I know. Sorry, but I've been kind of, you know, busy."
"I know, I know, the **Air Force** and the **Avengers** keep you too busy to come back home too often to our **small** town but-" Someone called out his name from across the way, interrupting him from whatever he was about to say. He gave gave a tight smile then started towards the person.
To her credit, Pepper acted like she hadn't heard or seen the exchange between them. She would probably tell him that she didn't owe her any explanation for whatever that was about but he didn't see that way.
"Sorry about that little bit of family… issues," he said as he rejoined her.
She nodded, "It's okay."
Rhodey started to explain to her that Clarence had been his favorite cousin when they were kids. They had been the same age so naturally they were best friends in those days, and were all the way through their graduating high school.
Then something changed after Rhodey left for MIT.
Clarence had changed towards him.
He vividly remembered the first time he came home for a visit from school. He'd expected to see his cousin the most next to his own parents but only wound seeing him once during that time, and during the visit Clarence made it clear he'd rather be somewhere else.
He never knew what had changed between them. Was it because he'd made it into since a prestigious school like MIT? But one thing had been made clear, Clarence had a problem. But the root of the problem puzzled him because his cousin never would **really** talk to him about it. Rhodey could only speculate as to what the problem was.
Maybe Clarence was as something simple as being jealous?
He had remained in their hometown, had a good job that maybe he didn't think was too exciting or, maybe not glamorous enough? Clarence worked as a mechanic, which of course didn't require him to travel the world like he would have had to do in the Air Force, but it was still a good paying job that kept his family comfortable.
His family.
That was another thing that threw a wrench in the jealousy theory.
**How** could Clarence be jealous of him when he had a family and he, Rhodey, had pretty much sacrificed ever having a family of his own for the sake of his career?
The only other thing Rhodey could think of as to why Clarence always had acted the way he had was that he was going into the Air Force, and that had somehow hurt Clarence because it meant he wouldn't be coming back home, and was leaving the best friend of his childhood behind.
Whatever it was between them had only become worse when Clarence found out he'd made a new best friend at MIT.
Whatever was his problem, Pepper didn't really need to know th details right now.
**Not until she's family too…
Wait? Where did** that **come from?**
He didn't have time to consider that any further since the church's pastor stepped forward.
"May I have everyone's attention please?" the man of God called out, and then waited.
Many in the crowd quietened down to listen to him, and soon only the kids were the only ones still making noise.
"Kids! Kids! Hey, kids!"
Most of the kids looked over to the pastor's way, and when they did,he gestured for them to come over to him. Slowly the little ones went to him and when they were all over close to him, he said, "Kids, I want to tell you all a story about what happened the very first Easter." There had been blankets spread out on the ground for the kids to sit on, and he told them all to have a seat on them.
"Okay, kids, who here knows what Easter is **really** all about and what great, great, ***GREAT*** event we are celebrating?"
The Easter egg hunt began around fifteen minutes later. There were two different hunts set up, one for the younger kids like those around Morgan's age, and one for the older kids. The older kids were asked to sit out of the first hunt so the younger ones could have a chance to find all the eggs they could. But the second hunt was opened to them too. As long as they had the help of a grown up, the younger ones would be able to take part in the second hunt.
In the little kids' hunt, Morgan was only able to find four of the hidden Easter eggs before the others did. He was obviously a little disappointed, but soon cheered up when the pastor announced there would be an egg hunt for the older kids in five minutes and the little kids could participate if they had a parent accompany them.
"Kids, now choose either your Mommy or Daddy to help you in the big kids hunt, and we'll start in just a few minutes. Okay?"
"Okay!" several little voices echoed back.
"Do you want to take part in the other Easter egg hunt, sweetheart?" Pepper asked.
"Yes, Mommy!"
"Alright, buddy, then you can. You just need to pick either me or Mommy to hunt eggs with you."
Of course she loved doing things with her little boy but at the moment Pepper hoped Morgan would pick Rhodey since the shoes she was wearing weren't exactly appropriate for hunting Easter eggs. She held her breath while he bit his little lip in consideration.
"Daddy!" Morgan finally announced.
"What, honey?" she asked.
"I wan Daddy to hunt eggs wif me, Mommy."
Rhodey looked at her, and after she nodded, he said, "Okay, champ! Daddy is going Easter egg hunting too!"
The pastor called them altogether, and announced the rules for the hunt. They were simple and basically said the kids had to find the eggs themselves. The adults with them could not point out any eggs they saw. They had to let the kids find the eggs themselves. The reason they were asked to accompany the little ones though was to retrieve any of the eggs that maybe out of reach for shorter arms and legs.
The kids all gathered behind a painted pink line on the grass where they all waited for the pastor to start the hunt.
"Ready… set…. GO!"
Pepper watched from the side as hand in hand, Rhodey hurried forward with her son along with all the other kids. She watched as a lot of the older kids seem to spot eggs easily and gobbled them up before the little ones could. Still, she rooted for her little boy to find **some** of the eggs. Still, she had to admit, Morgan was adorable running around on his short little legs with Rhodey trailing along.
"Dere! Dere!" Morgan pointed to an egg **hidden** in a tree branch just out of his reach.
Rhodey plucked the egg from the branch, and handed it to him to put in his, what else, Iron Man Easter basket.
"Let's keep going on, buddy!"
There was a group of rocks nearby where Rhodey could see one of two eggs peeking out. He remembered the rules, in that he couldn't point out to Morgan where the eggs were hiddened. He smiled when suddenly the little boy spotted them and started towards them. He followed, then felt his stomach twist into knots when another kid seemed to appear out of nowhere, and he seemed to be headed straight for Morgan's eggs.
"Whew," he muttered when the kid ran right past them in favor for some higher placed eggs.
All in all, when the hunt was over, Morgan had found ten eggs during the second hunt bringing his grand total number to fifteen for the day.
"So," Pepper began, placing her drink down on the coffee table before looking back up at her companion. It was later in the evening when Morgan was in bed, and Rhodey had come over to have dinner with them, "Father's Day is **this** coming Sunday, and I'm pretty sure one of the things Morgan wants to do to celebrate is make **you** breakfast in bed."
"He does?"
"Yeah, he does."
"Hmmm…" That did present a **small** problem.
Rhodey did not live with them, and unlike Happy, he didn't not live on the property in his own **place** either. Oh he had lived in the house during the first year or so of Morgan's life. In fact, he and Happy had both lived in the house to help Pepper out because they knew she was still grieving over Tony, and taking care of a newborn infant was work enough without the added factor of grief. But both the men had moved out once Morgan got a little older, and they were sure Pepper would be able to handle taking care of him herself during the night.
"Well it shouldn't be a surprise that Morgan wants to do this after what you guys did for me on Mother's Day."
**Yawning with a stretch, Pepper turned over in bed, and immediately noticed the spot where Morgan had been sleeping previously was empty. The little boy had crawled into her bed to sleep with his mother after a bad dream last night had woken him up. She knew it was a phase he was going through, and she knew it'd end at some point. But for now, she didn't mind giving her son a hug in the middle of the night when he was scared… or maybe just wanted to be with his Mommy.
She yawned again, then asked, "FRIDAY, James did come over this morning, right?" He had told her that he planned to come early that morning to help Morgan with making a surprise for her.
"Yes. Mrs. Stark, Colonel Rhodes is here. He arrived a little over an hour ago. He set up the kitchen before fetching Morgan to assist."
Pepper briefly wondered **how** Rhodey woke the little boy up without waking her up too. He must have picked Morgan up and carried him out of the room before he woke him up. She knew him picking up her son wouldn't wake the boy up because the feel of being carried by the man he called Daddy was a very familiar, **comforting**thing to him.
Since she suspected she knew what** kind **of surprise they had planned for her this morning, like a little breakfast in bed, Pepper stayed put in bed. She didn't want to mess up their efforts or make them in vain. So she laid there, just relaxing… to the point she actually began to doze off a little. She became aware again when she heard the clink of dishes in combination with her little boy's voice say something. She couldn't quite make out what he'd said, but whatever it was it had been quickly followed by Rhodey's own voice gently reminding him he needed to be quiet so he wouldn't wake up his Mommy.
She smiled listening to then, then wiped the expression off her face as she realized it would reveal to her** boys **that she was awake.**
Her boys**?
Where-
There was no time to ponder that as they entered the room. Carefully Pepper opened one of her eyes, slightly, to see them walking towards the bed. Rhodey was carrying a tray that she suspected was laden with her little boy's favorite breakfast foods, which was fine with her because she knew the food had been made with love. Morgan, she noted, was carrying a bouquet of her favorite flowers. Again she had to fight her smile because the bouquet was almost bigger than her little boy.
She heard Rhodey whisper, "Okay, buddy, go ahead."
A few seconds went by, and she didn't hear anything, and then she heard a sweet, little, hesitant voice say, in a near whisper no less, "Mommy?"
"You can talk a little louder, buddy. It's okay."
"MOMMY!"
Pepper had to fight to keep from laughing when Morgan yelled her name, and she couldn't help jumping a little. Still, she made an act of opening her eyes slowly, yawning and then acted surprised to see them both there, "What are you guys doing in here?"
Morgan looked up at his** Daddy **, who in turn nodded encouragingly, "Go on. Remember what we talked about in the kitchen this morning?"
His little head bobbed, and he looked at his mother, "Happy Day, Mommy!"
She shared a quick glance with Rhodey then looked back at her son, "Thank you, baby! Are those beautiful flowers for Mommy?"
"Uh huh!" the little boy replied, holding them out towards her.
Pepper took them from him, and smelled them,"Thank you so much,sweetheart! I love them!"
"Wook, Mommy!" Morgan exclaimed, pointing towards his godfather, "We made you bweakfast in bed 'oo!"
"So I see!" she said, laying the flowers on the bed to make room for the tray.
Following his cue, Rhodey set the tray down on the bed, encasing her legs with the tray's own.
"And what do we have here?" she asked even though her eyes could very well see what was on the plate.
"Wench oast sticks, boo berwe ser'up, and rambled eggs!"**
Yes**, she was right! All of her son's favorite breakfast foods were on the plate.
"Well, it looks absolutely delicious, boys! Thank you!"
"You're very welcome, Ginny."
"Welcome, Mommy!"
Pepper picked up the fork, and was about to cut one of the sticks to dig in when she remembered how Morgan** always **ate them, which was with his fingers. With a big smile, she picked up a stick, dipped it in the blueberry syrup, and took a big bite. She then held out the stick towards Morgan, who had been helped up onto the bed by his Daddy.
"He's already-" Rhodey started, stopping suddenly when the little boy took a bite, and turned to with a big blueberry covered grin.**
"No, I guess this shouldn't come as a surprise after Mother's Day," Rhodey was forced to agree, "I can't disappoint the little guy, can I?"
"No, and he would be disappointed too if you are not here on Father's Day. Why don't you spend the night in your old room Saturday, so Morgan can celebrate it with you on Sunday?"
He thought about it for a moment, then nodded, "Yeah, I'll spend the night on Saturday." After all, he could not disappointed **his**... the little boy, could he?
