"Pops!"
"Yes Evie?" Steve could hear the tattle in her voice. He knew that the calm household had been too good to be trueand therefore wouldn't last. Peter had gone back to school earlier that week, the girls had stayed out of trouble, the family was having dinner with Evie's boyfriend Saturday evening, he and the team were meeting with Fury to discuss Spiderman this afternoon, everything was good, everything had been too calm.
"Morgan won't get out of bed."
He had sent her to wake her siblings for school as he whipped up some breakfast.
"She says she's sick." Evie rolled her eyes.
"Oh?" Steve sighed, the one real benefit of super serum enhanced children was that they rarely got sick.
"Well she's lying obviously."
"I'll go talk to Morgan." Steve shook his head with a smile as he set breakfast on the table. "Make sure no one eats your sister breakfast?"
"No promises."
He headed down the hall to Morgan's bedroom and knocked softly on the door.
"Word is you're not feeling your best?" He sat down on her bed beside her.
"I have a fever."
"Oh?" He placed the back of his hand on her forehead. Morgan did not have a fever. "Are you sure?"
"Mhm." Morgan nodded, pushing out her bottom lip to form a classic Morgan style pout. "Its just so hot you can't feel it Papa."
"Oh." Steve nodded. "Guess I should get the thermometer then."
"No. So hot it'll break the thermometer."
"Then we better take you to the doctor. They'll have to use their special equipment there."
Steve moved to pick up Morgan as she nodded solemnly.
"Wait! Papa." Morgan suddenly pushed his arms off of her.
"Yes love?"
"Will there be needles?"
"Probably. I would think if the fever is so hot it breaks the thermometer, that they will probably have to give you some shots." He picked her up.
"I'm not sick!" She squirmed out of his arms and back into the bed.
"Really?" Steve feigned disbelief. "Why would you pretend to be sick?"
"Evie got to stay home from school last week and Peter got to stay home this week. I want a turn!" Morgan crossed her arms with a scowl.
"Now Morgan, you know they weren't home having fun. They both got in trouble."
"I want to get in trouble then."
"Really?" Steve raised his eyebrows, this was a first.
"No- but I want to get a turn to stay home. It's not fair!"
"Oh lovebug." Steve ran his hand through Morgan's curls. "Unfortunately life isn't always going to be fair."
"That's for grownups. I'm nine. Life is fair for nine year olds."
"Oh? Now who said that?"
"Me. Just now." Morgan sat cross legged on her bed and hugged a stuffed cat to her chest. "I'm not going to school. I want to spend the day with you and Daddy."
"Is something happening at school today? Something you don't want to do?" Steve tried to think of a reason why his brilliant young daughter wouldn't want to go to school.
"No." Morgan shrugged. "Today is the fourth and fifth grade Olympics. Seemed like something I could miss."
"And you don't want to participate?"
"No. Spend all day with a bunch of dummies taking forever to do challenges so that my team loses, ick." She wrinkled her nose. "Besides, I can miss that. It's not class."
"Hm. Get dressed. I'm going to talk to Daddy. But whatever decision we make is the decision- no arguments." Steve stood up and headed out the door.
...
Tony listened to Steve explain Morgan's qualm while he drank his coffee.
"She'd only miss the Olympic thing? Seems fine, besides shes been awesome lately, let's encourage that."
"Is this what we're doing? Rewarding not getting suspended?" Steve shook his head with a sigh.
"Seems like."
"How come Morgan doesn't have to go to school?" Peter asked as his parents walked back into the kitchen.
"She's faking being sick." Evie scoffed.
"Morgan is getting the day off as a reward." Tony said, cursing Peter's hypersensitive ears.
"Not fair." Peter said with a mouthful of toast.
"Your sister is being rewarded for not getting suspended this month." Steve sighed. "Finish chewing before you talk please."
"Come on!" Evie's head shot up. "That's crap! Peter did a way worse thing than me- hell I did something good."
"Language."
"Way to throw me under the bus jerk." Peter kicked his sister under the table.
"Anytime." She kicked him back and watched in wide eyed horror as she managed to kick his seat over with Peter on top. On his short fall to the ground Peter grabbed Evie dragging her down with him by the hair.
"Hey!" Steve barked, he had pulled out the drill sergeant voice and watched as both children suddenly stopped fighting and looked up at him.
Evie scrambled off from on top of Peter and Peter let go of Evie's arms as their father stood above them, furious.
"I don't know what is going on with you two but it ends now. There will be no more fighting, no more cursing, and no more attitude. You will go to school, you will do what is expected of you,and you will go beyond that. If you see a problem you will get an adult. If I hear from your school it had better be to tell me that you are model citizens." Steve tugged both children to their feet and leaned down to look them in the eye. "If I hear that there have been issues, we will have a problem. Do you understand me?"
"Yes sir." Evie spoke softly.
"Yes sir." Peter nodded quickly.
"Apologize to each other and get cleaned up. Now."
"Seriously guys, your principal- you know the guy with the bad toupee who is no longer afraid of us, is thinking we're having some issues at home. You need to keep your noses clean." Tony said in his own variant of stern.
"Go get cleaned up for school." Steve sighed shooing the children out of the room.
