Eva bounced nervously on the balls of her feet as she waited for the door to open, the roof of the porch casting cool shadows across the balmy New York morning, and tapped the present against her chin. It was, almost certainly, a terrible present. She wasn't good at presents to begin with, and she had definitely panicked with this one. And if that wasn't enough, she still wasn't sure where she stood with them. Yeah, they had moved next door, like he had said they might. Yeah, there had been a couple dinner invites. But when it came to Tony Stark, and especially when it was Eva Kresk coming to him, anything could happen -

The door swung open to reveal Tony himself, who was glaring at her. "I told you not to ring the doorbell," he snapped. "What if she had been sleeping?"

"There's puke on your shirt," Eva replied.

"I am aware," said Tony, without batting an eyelid. He looked tired, but… happy, underneath the tired. A peaceful, contented kind of happy, a delightful serenity that reminded her oh-so-much of –

Don't think about him now.

"I suppose you've got to come in, then," he said, stepping aside. In one hand he was carrying a pink fluffy rabbit; in the other, a blowtorch.

"Your sheer existence makes me wanna call CPS already," she told him. "Where's Pepper?"

"Through to the lounge. Follow the gurgles."

Eva did, and found Pepper cross-legged on the couch, cooing at a pile of blankets. She looked up as Eva approached and waved. "Hey," she said softly. "You wanna come say hello?"

Eva nodded, awkwardly silent, and approached the couch. In the middle of the blankets a tiny, perfect human wriggled, eyes closed, miniature fingers waving at the world.

"She's so… small," Eva said, for lack of anything better to say. In her peripheral vision, she saw Tony roll his eyes. "Hello, small Potts."

"Potts-Stark," said Tony. "We're very progressive."

Panicking properly now, Eva waved the present around. "I didn't know what to get you," she said, "so this is a, uh, book on composting. I thought you could read it while it – she – naps. I've got some hats Alvie crocheted for the baby, too. Do babies wear hats? Oh, God. They don't, do they?"

"They wear hats," Pepper reassured her. "Thank you so much, Eva. It means a lot that you thought of us."

"I've spent pretty much all of my twenties thinking about you lot whether I wanted to or not," she said weakly, as Pepper set down the parcel and scooped up the baby. "Wh – what are you doing?"

"Do you want to hold her?" Pepper asked. "She's very relaxed, there's nothing to worry about."

"I don't think that's a good idea," Eva and Tony said in unison.

"Don't be ridiculous. Just support the head, and… there you go."

All of a sudden, Eva was holding a baby. It was small, hot and oddly heavy, like a very big burrito. And, for some reason, she found herself smiling at it. Her. Whatever. The eyes opened, big and shiny, and blinked sleepily at her. "Hello," she whispered. "Aren't you lovely, little baby? Aren't you the loveliest thing?"

"Her name's Morgan," said Tony. "After Pep's uncle. Here's hoping she takes after that side of the family."

A lump rose in Eva's throat. She was holding a baby. Tony freakin' Stark's baby. One little hand reached up and curled, almost painfully tight, around a few strands of Eva's hair. The world was weird, and terrible, but here was this baby, small and wonderful. So… maybe, just maybe, it wasn't all bad.

%

She stayed for coffee, and the horrifying birth story (at home, in an inflatable pool, with a midwife that had very big hands and the rare power to shut even Tony Stark up), and when Pepper went to put Morgan down for a nap in the cot Tony had made for her, he and Eva went outside with fresh cups of tea (English breakfast, one sugar each) to sit and look out at the lake.

"I can't believe you had a kid," said Eva, after a minute or two of silence. "I can't believe you had a kid and you're letting me anywhere near her."

"You've proven yourself a few times over," Tony muttered, looking down into his drink instead of at her. After many years, now, they had learnt that they were best at talking to each other when they couldn't look one another in the eye. "You know you have."

Eva balanced her cup on her knees, tapping her fingernails against the rim. "What does it feel like?" she asked. "Being a dad, I mean. Apart from the sleep deprivation and the constant smell of vomit."

She heard him laugh. "Like a second chance," he said, hesitating before answering. "Like… like hope."

She nodded. "Makes sense."

"I kinda figured it would, though. I had prior. Back in '15, when it felt like we'd lost everything with the Ultron thing. And then…"

"Yeah."

"You get given someone who's so perfect you can't believe they have anything to do with you. And all you can think is… crap. Now I've gotta do something good, y'know? Make them proud."

"I know," said Eva. She took a sip of tea.

"I used to think, sometimes, that Vision was the one good thing I did. Everything, everyone else I touched seemed to corrupt, but – hey," he said, as Eva dropped her tea and pressed her hands to her face. "Don't you dare. Come here." He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulled her close. "There's no such thing as one good thing. You think you're broke, and then a miracle happens, and then you lose that, and then another one comes along. Life keeps happening, for better or worse."

"Sorry," Eva said, her voice wobbling on the vibrato of someone trying very hard not to cry. "Damn it!"

"I know. Hey. Y'know, when the midwife handed Morgan to me in her cavernous grasp, I cried for five hours. Non-stop. I felt like a prune at the end of it."

Eva took a deep, steadying breath. "That's gross," she said. "You're so gross."

"Yep." He squeezed her arm. "He'd be proud of us, I reckon. Just for not killing each other, if nothing else."

"Yet."

"Yet," Tony agreed. "Hey – did you get the letter he left for you?"

She stared at him. "Y – you know about that?"

"He asked me something about it. Whether it was the right thing to do. I said he was asking the wrong person, but… you got it, right? The envelope with the letter and the – with everything inside it?"

"I haven't opened it yet."

"Well, you should. I had to do some leg work for it, too." He pulled away from her, standing up and grabbing the knocked-over mug as Eva's abandoned tea dripped through the woodwork.

"Why?" Eva asked, rising as well. "What's in it?"

"Spoilers. Now pull yourself together and get off my land, Kresk."

"You're such an ass," she muttered, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. "Can – can I see Morgan again?"

"Sure. We're relying on you for babysitting duties," he said with a wink.

"Whatever. And, uh, Tony –"

"Coffee girl?"

"You're right," she said. "He would be proud of us. For everything. But especially for Morgan."

"I should hope so," he said. "See you around, neighbor."

A/N well, wasn't that nice? I hope it made sense, I was a little bit drunk when I wrote it because I straight-up cannot access emotions while SOBER anymore.

ANYWAY - the news I alluded to in my update. First of all, I'm not pregnant. I'm so not pregnant that the suggestion I'm pregnant made me laugh for a good five minutes. My news - I got an offer for an MA screenwriting course for one of the big New York universities. Did I scream? Yes. Did I cry? A little bit? Did I accept it? No, as unfortunately the world is on fire right now. But I can reapply (along with applications to a couple UK courses, because holy cow USA your tuition fees are INSANE) and, maybe, end up living it large like the one and only Eva Kresk. Talk about coming full circle, right?

This isn't a brag (okay maybe a little bit) but a thank you, really, because the reason my writing is even remotely good is because of this fic, the support/love it has received, and the impact it's had on me. Like, I mentioned it in my interview. And if they let me back in next year, and I can afford those INSANE fees, and I find myself in the city I wrote a dumb little five-chapter fanfic about years ago that spiralled into something massive because I had people like YOU (yes you specifically, nobody else, just you reading this right now) telling me "hey! this is pretty weird, but pretty good." And without that, I might have given up a long time ago. Now, I'm going to write films for a living. Try and stop me.

(I'm also aiming for minimum-monthly updates from now until this fic is finished, so yay!)