A/N: If you have not seen AVENGERS: ENDGAME, read no further. MAJOR SPOILER WARNING. Read at your own risk. Reviews, comments, P/Ms, and constructive criticism are very welcome and appreciated.
Disclaimer: With the exception of my own original characters, no characters belong to me. Marvel owns them all.
I rode my bike to Stacey's. I could have asked my mom or Happy to drive me, but I didn't want to bother them today.
Stacey was waiting for me right inside her door. I didn't even get the chance to knock.
"Hi Morgan!" She said cheerfully as she started pulling me into the house and down to the basement. "I normally work down here," she said shyly, "my brothers have mostly taken it over, but there's still some room for us."
"No, that's fine," I said dismissively, not really caring all that much. "Where would you like to start?" I asked, just wanting to get started quickly so I could go home and bury myself in my blankets.
"Well the code has been rather finicky," she explained. And her code was finicky. So finicky in fact that it took a while to explain it to her and even longer to fix it.
But I enjoyed myself. Stacey was a nice person to be around. Between my explanations and her tinkering, she told me stories of her family, her friends and random experiences she'd had. It was nice. I enjoyed listening to another person's stories which were so unlike my own and so unlike anything I had experienced. They were so normal.
And suddenly, she stopped talking. "What about you?" She asked, likely repeating herself.
"What? Oh, I'm sorry. I guess I just spaced out. What was your question?"
"I asked what you usually do to celebrate the Day of Return," she said, an understanding smile on her face. Wow. She didn't know.
It wasn't like I expected her to know. The world didn't revolve around me, after all. Okay, maybe I did expect her to know. Sometimes I felt like the words "Morgan Stark, daughter of Tony Stark, who sacrificed his life for the entire universe" were stamped on my forehead.
"Uh, actually my family doesn't celebrate the Day of Return."
"Why not? Everyone celebrates the Day of Return!" she replied, a confused smile on her face.
"Uh, my family doesn't," I replied, unsure of what else to say. I didn't feel comfortable with this line of questioning. Everybody in my world were either close friends who knew my dad and didn't ask such questions, or were news reporters who were overly nosey about the issue. Nobody just didn't know. This made explaining myself awkward.
"My dad actually died on the Day of Return, so we don't celebrate it," I told her, my voice wavering a little.
"Oh. I'm so sorry," she said, eyes cast down. "May I ask how he died?" Wow. She really didn't know. Now I was really surprised, and it must have shown in my face, because she quickly said, "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to! That must have been horrible, losing your dad, especially on a holiday!"
"No, no it's okay," I replied quickly, not wanting the conversation to get more awkward than it was already going to be.
"You just don't understand-"
"Yes, I do. I should have been more sensitive to your feelings."
"No, I'm comfortable telling you, I've just never done it before and I need to explain a few things."
"Okay," she said, a confused look on her face.
"What you need to understand is that he didn't just die on the Day of Return, he died on the Day of Return. Like, the original one."
Understanding quickly filled her face. "Was he next to the battle or in an explosion, or something?"
I must have looked surprised, because she looked at her lap and said, "Sorry. Please continue."
"Okay," I said quietly. "No, he wasn't next to the battle, or in an explosion. He was in the heart of the battle. In the end, it came down to just him and Thanos. He beat Thanos in getting to the Infinity Stones, and when he did, he snapped his fingers and erased all the bad guys from existence. My father saved the universe that day. But the snap that saved the universe also killed him. Because my dad was Tony Stark. My dad was Iron Man."