Hello!

First of all, can I just say how freaking awesome you guys are? I was blown away by the response the first part got, and reading your guys' comments made my week! Because of popular demand, I've decided to turn this into a three part fic, so that way you guys can get the full story—past and present. I really hope these next two parts live up to your expectations.

Also, I feel like I need to mention that this was written pre-endgame, so there are no spoilers in this fic. That being said, if you haven't seen it, go see it, because it's honestly a cinematic masterpiece.

I hope you enjoy part two, and part three will be up as soon as possible :)

Two weeks after getting rescued, Peter was about to lose his ever-loving mind.

He was in his room at Aunt May's apartment, seated at his desk. The only light in the room was coming from the tiny lamp sat on the corner of his desk, washing over the papers that were stacked in front of him, and bleeding onto the nearby floor and walls. The artificial glow spread just far enough to illuminate a sea of crumpled up pieces of paper surrounding him, littered on the floor as the wastebasket had become full a long time ago, overflowing with leads and ideas that had gotten him absolutely nowhere.

Currently, he was pouring over a file that Natasha had given him yesterday, scouring the contents for something, anything that would help him in his quest to find the man in charge of Project X. Natasha had promised to give him everything she and Clint found, and so far she'd kept her word.

The file didn't have much, but it had a name, so Peter sets the file aside and typed the name Frederick Smith into the Google search bar. The first few items that came up were for the guy who owned FedEx, so he scrolled past all of that, but he came across a website that had to do with neurosurgery and the brain.

His heart started to race because finally, he'd found something. He looked further into the guy who owned the website… only to find that the man in question had died three years ago.

Whatever hope he had been feeling plummeted. He felt a wave of anger come over him, and in his rage, he threw the file he had just been looking through, accidentally knocking over the desk lamp in the process. The lamp clattered to the floor, but the lightbulb managed to stay intact, so then all but Peter's feet were submerged into the shadows of his room.

His door opened, and his Aunt May came into his room, taking a moment to look at her nephew, who had shifted so that he was sitting with his elbows on his thighs and his head in his hands.

"Peter, baby…" May whispered, moving deeper into his room to stand next to him. She tried to place a hand on his shoulder, but Peter just flinched away.

"I keep on running into dead ends, May," Peter said, his voice shaking with anger and desperation. He lifted his head to look at May. His aunt's eyes were filled with sadness and worry, dark bags hanging underneath, and Peter regretted waking her up. If anyone needed sleep, it was his Aunt May. "I just… how did he disappear like that?"

"I know," May leaned down and picked up the lamp, placing it back onto the table. "Baby, do you know what time it is?"

Peter glanced at his window, but there was really no way to tell the time because Queens was always hustling and bustling no matter the time.

New York never sleeps, so why should Peter?

"Uh, midnight?" Peter guessed, but the look on May's face made it clear that he was wrong.

"Peter, it's three thirty in the morning," May took out her phone and showed him the screen for proof. He'd have to wake up for school in three and a half hours. All of a sudden, he could feel how tired he was: his eyes were drooping, his body was screaming at him to go to bed.

Peter refused to give in—not until he found the man who had torn one of the most important people in his life away from him.

"Peter, you can't keep on doing this to yourself," May said, and it occurred to him that while he lost Tony, his aunt was slowing losing Peter. He hated what he was doing to her because she'd already lost so much, but he couldn't stop. Not now, not until there was nowhere else to look.

Not that there was an extensive list of places or people that Peter could look into. So far, all he had was nothing.

"I miss him," Peter's drew in a shaky breath, trying to contain the tears that were threatening to spill. May wrapped her arms around him, his cheek pressed to her stomach.

"Oh, honey, I know you do."

"And the worst part is that he's right in front of me all the time, but at the same time he's not," Peter continued, closing his eyes as May rubbed his back, his aunt making circular patterns with her fingers. A few tears slipped down his face, and he reached up clumsily to wipe them away.

May just stood there, hushing him while continuing to rub his back.

"Peter…" May sighed, and he recognized her tone. She was about to say something that she knew he wasn't going to like. "Maybe it would be a good idea to stop going to the compound as much. That way you won't—"

That way you won't seem him as much anymore.

The words were unspoken but clear as day. Peter shook his head, pulling away from May's touch.

"I can't just—I can't just walk away," Peter protested. "That would be letting the bad guys win, and I can't let that happen. May, I can't—I can't do this without him, I can't…"

"Yes, you can," May asserted, taking Peter's face in her hands. "Peter, you are so strong, stronger than you even know—you will make it through this. You did it for your parents, and you did it for Ben. Now you'll do it for Tony. Understood?"

"I don't want to lose anyone else," the dam broke, and suddenly Peter was a sobbing, blubbering mess. May instantly pulled him back into her arms, murmuring words of comfort into his ear. He'd been working so hard to find a way to bring Tony's memories back that he'd forgotten the possibility that all of his efforts might be for nothing.

(Or maybe he hadn't forgotten, but was actually electing to ignore that possibility, shoving the thought far away until it wasn't a threat anymore.)

"How about you call it a night?" May suggested as his crying started to slow down. She led him over to his bunk bed where he collapsed, his body immediately letting go of the tension that he hadn't been aware he'd been holding. "Get some sleep, okay, baby?"

Peter just nodded his head, his eyes already starting to close.

"May?"

"Yeah, Peter?"

"I love you."

May, who had been approaching his bedroom door, turned around, and Peter wasn't too tired to notice that his aunt's eyes were shining with tears.

"I love you too, Peter. So much."

May left his room, and for that night, Peter slept soundly. But the next night, and the night after that, he was in the exact position he was usually in, hunched over his desk trying to make sense of file after file he was given. It was a cycle: night after night, week after week.

But no matter how hard he searched and scoured, Peter found nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

There's a little coffee shop taking up a sliver of real estate in upper Manhattan, sitting on the corner of 86th and First Avenue. Unfortunately, it's not known for having great tasting goods, with the majority of reviewers complaining about how the coffee is too bitter and gross tasting, along with the baked goods always being slightly stale, but not stale enough to alert the attention of the FDA. This, in turn, results in the shop always being pretty much empty, but Peter finds that it meets their requirements.

Peter sits at a small round table towards the back of the shop, drumming his fingers against the surface. A small travel coffee cup is residing next to where his fingers are—Peter has gone ahead and bought a coffee to be polite because he doesn't feel right about sitting here and not buying anything. After eyeing the coffee, Peter gives a shrug and takes a drink, only to choke on the taste.

Damn, this really is the worst coffee on the planet. Actually, probably in the realm. Asgard probably has better coffee—Peter makes a note to ask Thor about this the next time he sees him.

The chair opposite from him is pulled out, and Morgan Stark sits down in it, setting her purple backpack down onto the ground. She looks different than when Peter first met her—for starters, she's completely dry. She seems to be carrying herself in a more confident manner, and her entire frame is radiating pure excitement. She folds her arms on the table, looking straight at Peter with a look that Peter can't read because she has a huge pair of sunglasses on, covering half of her face.

"You're now inside the coffee shop, Morgan," Peter chuckles. "You can lose the sunglasses."

"Hush," Morgan hisses, looking around to see if anyone heard him. "I can't let the paparazzi find me here." Peter rolls his eyes.

"Kid, there's literally no one in here. There's not even anyone manning the counter. I could go right up and take a piece of coffee cake if I wanted to," he says. Man, this place is a dump. "Why did you pick this place? It's pure crap."

"I needed somewhere lowkey," Morgan explains. "I can't have anyone see me, or else the paps will find me and take pictures of me. Then, Friday will be alerted that there's a picture of me in the news and she'll tell my mom."

"What's so bad about that?"

"I'm still grounded."

"Oh." That's a pretty fair reason, so Peter decides to let go of the fact that he's sixty percent sure he saw a rat in the corner upon entering ten minutes ago. Seriously, Peter's about to call the police on this place. "How long are you grounded for?"

"Two more weeks," Morgan sighs, shaking her head. "I've been out of my mind with boredom this last week."

Peter gets the feeling that Morgan hasn't exactly learned her lesson. Oh well, he thinks, she'll get it eventually. Hopefully.

"So. I want to thank you for agreeing to meet me here," Morgan starts, trying to sound as grown up as possible. Peter has to suppress a laugh.

"Well it was hard to decline since you sent me thirteen emails in the span of five days," Peter points out. Morgan's cheeks turn a little pink, but she's able to maintain her dignity.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures, Peter," Morgan defends herself. "I did what had to be done."

"Whatever you say," Peter says with a shake of his head. He takes a sip of his coffee subconsciously, forgetting the first time he'd done it, and gags. "That stuff is gross. How the hell—sorry—heck are these people still in business?"

"They have enough idiots like you buying their coffee," Morgan shrugs.

"Okay, we're getting off track here," Peter quickly redirects, feeling slightly insulted. "What do you need to tell me that's so important it couldn't be said over email?"

Morgan pauses, eyeing him from behind her sunglasses.

"I get the feeling you already know what I'm going to say," she predicts, and yeah, the kid is right—Peter knows exactly why they're sitting in this shit coffee shop right now. He knew the moment she had sent him the first email five days ago.

"I do," Peter confirms, leaning forward. He's well aware that the kid is on a mission to get her father's memories of Peter back. Morgan studies him, trying to get a read on what he's thinking, but he knows that there's no way in hell she's successful. Maybe he used to be an open book when he was younger, but he's changed since he was a teenager. He's more closed off—after all, that's how you survive this kind of world.

"So you'll do it?"

"Morgan…" Peter sighs, looking at the bare coffee shop walls. "I'm just not sure it's a good idea."

Morgan nods, looking down at her lap, and Peter almost feels guilty enough to change his mind. Almost. She looks back up, taking her sunglasses off of her face, and Peter can't help but be startled by the raw emotion in her eyes.

"You know, my dad knows that he's missing something," Morgan says quietly. "He doesn't know what it is, but I can tell that he's aware that something important in his life isn't there anymore."

Peter says nothing, biting the inside of his lip.

"I never noticed it until I found out you existed, but looking back, he's been that way for as long as I can remember. It's subtle, sure, but it's still there," Morgan continues. "You can't get rid of a hole in your heart, even if you manage to forget who used to fill it."

Peter can't help but notice how damn insightful she is for an eleven-year-old. He guesses it has to do with her parentage. He presses his lips together, looking out the window to avoid her gaze.

He wants to say no. He really does, mostly because he's afraid of what the outcome might be. What if it doesn't work? It could very well open old wounds for Peter, wounds that had taken a long time to heal.

What if it did work? What happens then?

It gives Tony and his family a sense of peace, a voice from the back of Peter's brain says.

Peter knows that Tony would never forgive him for what he did—walking out of that compound, never looking back. He doesn't deserve Tony's forgiveness. Peter has nightmares from time to time about this exact situation: Tony finally getting his memories of Peter back and hunting him down, and Peter worries that if he says yes, these nightmares have a chance of becoming reality.

Peter sighs, and is just about to say "no" when he sees Morgan's pleading expression staring him down.

Maybe today is the day Peter stops being a coward and faces his demons.

"Fine. Yeah, okay," Peter says.

"So you'll do it? You'll help me get my dad to remember you?" Morgan's looks like she's about to explode with happiness.

"I'll do my best, kid," Peter tells her, "but I don't want you to get your hopes up. This won't be easy."

"I know that," Morgan quickly nods, and Peter believes her. He wonders for a second how much time the girl had spent thinking this whole thing over. "So," she slaps her hands down onto the surface of the table and the sound startles him a little. "Where do we start?"

Peter just stares. Well, that answers his question.

"What do you mean, where do we start? I thought you had a plan?"

"I never said I had a plan," Morgan shakes her head. "Honestly, I didn't even think you'd end up saying yes at all." Peter groans—what has he gotten himself into? Morgan must realize that she's about to lose him again because she's clearly trying to scramble to quickly come up with their next order of action. "Okay, okay, okay. Maybe we should try to figure out what we're dealing with. Didn't you say the other day that you and Dr. Banner did research on the brain, like, a long time ago?"

"Yeah, we did," Peter answers. "I have it all back at my place. Do you wanna go take a look at them? There might be some useful stuff."

Morgan raises an eyebrow but whatever she's thinking she doesn't vocalize. Instead, she stands and grabs her backpack, swinging it over her shoulder.

"What?" Peter prompts her, and Morgan just shrugs.

"It's just… for someone who was dead set on leaving everything in the past forever, it's interesting that you saved a bunch of stuff."

"I don't like throwing stuff like that away," Peter says, getting up out of his chair and walking towards the door. "You could call me a sentimental type."

"Yeah," Morgan shoves her sunglasses back onto her face, following Peter out of the dark coffee shop and into the New York sunlight. "I'm sure that's the reason."

"You think too much," Peter tells her. He makes his way to his car and climbs into the driver's side, putting the key into the ignition and feeling the engine roar to life. Morgan gets into the passenger seat.

"There's a lot to think about, Peter," she protests.

Peter just shakes his head, starting the drive back to Queens wondering if maybe the kid is right—maybe it is telling that he had held on to everything from Bruce and his investigation. He just hadn't been able to bear throwing anything away.

Thirty minutes later, Peter pulls up to the house. Morgan follows him as he unlocks the door, peering around him as he once again struggles with the lock.

"Have you considered labeling your keys?" Morgan suggests quietly, the corner of her mouth ticked upwards. Peter gives her a harmless glare, but the smirk on her face doesn't go away.
Finally, he manages to open the door.

"MJ?" Peter calls. Silence. "I'm pretty sure she's at work. You want anything to drink before we crack open that research?"

"Maybe just water," Morgan says. Peter nods, reaching into the fridge and grabbing a water bottle for Morgan, and a Coke for himself. He tosses the water to the girl and she catches it with ease.

"Alright, let's go downstairs," Peter crosses the kitchen and pulls open the door that leads to the basement. The room is dark, and while Peter is able to descend the stairs fairly quickly, Morgan takes longer, carefully watching her feet to make sure she doesn't misstep. At the bottom of the stairs, they come to another door, and when Peter punches in a code, the door swings open.
Peter can't help but grin when he hears Morgan gasp.

The artificial lights flicker on, revealing Peter's very own lab. There are multiple workstations and computers set up throughout the room, along with countless scientific tools such as microscopes and beakers. Peter knows that it's not much and that Tony's lab at the compound had been significantly larger—at least twice the size. However, Peter finds himself in his lab almost every day of the week tinkering on his suits or testing out different chemistry formulas. In fact, it's down here that he gets all his ideas for Parker Industries—the business that he had started a few years ago.

"Welcome back, Peter," Karen greets him as he walks farther into the lab. "How are you doing today?"

"I'm doing great, Karen, thanks for asking. Did anything happen while I was away?"

"My records report that the lab has been quite uneventful since you were last here, which was yesterday evening."

"Perfect," Peter moves towards a desk located in the very back of the lab but stops when he realizes Morgan isn't following him. He turns and finds her gaping at the glass cases along the wall that held his Spider-man suits. She turns back to him, her eyes as big as dinner plates, and Peter assumes at first that she's simply awed by the suits themselves. Until—

"Wait, you know Spider-man?"

Peter blinks. Does she not know that he's Spider-man?

"Morgan… I am Spider-man," Peter says slowly, feeling quite perplexed at the moment. "Did you not pick that up from all of the stories I've told you about my life so far?"

"You didn't exactly come outright and say: "I am Spider-man". When you were talking about your—webs and stuff, I just assumed they were really advanced tech gadgets," realization is slowly hitting Morgan in the face—the pieces of the puzzle are coming together.

"Well, technically, they are advanced tech gadgets," Peter shrugs, turning around and making his way to a small desk sitting in the back corner of the room.

"Oh. Wow. My older brother is Spider-man. That's crazy!" Morgan exclaims, and Peter whips around the moment he realizes that Morgan's not being cool about this at all. Maybe it's too much to expect out of an eleven-year-old, even Tony Stark's eleven-year-old.

(He chooses to ignore the jump his heart does when Morgan labels him as her older brother. He has more important things to deal with at the current moment. Right?)

"Okay, kid, you can't tell anyone that I'm Spider-man," Peter warns her, pointing at her with a pen that happens to be in his hand. "I keep my identity a secret for one reason: to keep my family safe."

"I swear I won't tell anyone ever," Morgan promises. "cross my heart and hope to die." She demonstrates her point by tracing out an 'x' shape across her chest with her pointer finger.

"Thanks," Peter says. He gives her a smile, and she mirrors it with a huge grin. Yeah, it's safe to say that he's grown rather fond of her. For a moment, he wants to wonder what it would have been like with her being his little sister, but he stops himself before he can allow himself to fall into that hole.

He won't allow himself to imagine the things that would never be possible in his future.

He goes to the desk in the back, motioning for Morgan to follow him. He bends down and pulls the bottom drawer of the desk open, lifting out a cardboard box and setting it on top of the desk with a thud. The box is sealed shut with packing tape, so Peter reaches over for a pair of scissors and rips it open. The box is filled to the brim with different kinds of folders and papers.

"Well," Peter says, his eyes trained on the box. Morgan peers into it, her face scrunching up. "This is everything. We'd better dig in."

"Let's do this," Morgan says confidently, and she reaches for the file resting on top. Before she can, Peter finds himself blocking her hand from succeeding at this.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Peter asks her. Morgan's expression morphs into one of confusion, and she retracts her hand slowly. "Because you know… this could take a lot of effort for absolutely no reward."

"Or, we could make my dad remember you and then we'll all be a happy fa—," Morgan cuts her sentence off, and Peter knows she was going to say the word family. "We'll be happy." Then, she sighs. "Peter, are you sure you want to do this? Look, I know I've been pretty persistent with this, but if you're not comfortable…"

"No. No, I… I am," Peter says. "You're right, we need to look at the positives. C'mon, we have a lot of reading ahead of us."

Morgan grabs the file she had been originally going for and opens it. Peter bites his lip, worrying that she's thinking of outcomes that are too positive, and he would hate to see her get hurt when things don't turn out the way she's expecting. The only outcome is closure for Tony and his family. That's it. Then, Peter will go home and continue to live his life, possibly—hopefully—with less guilt than he used to harbor.

He's not apart of the family—he doesn't deserve to be. He gave up that chance the minute he walked out of the Avengers compound.

Peter shakes his head, pulling himself out of his thoughts. He pulls out a file, smiling to himself when he sees Bruce's neat scribbled handwriting.

It's time to finish what they started.

It's time to fix the unfixable.

"Peter, you're not thinking clearly."

The day after Peter walked out of the compound, he came back to gather the last of his belongings from his room. His room was at the end of the hall—and out of Tony's sight meant out of Tony's mind. His room was now bare; his closet was cleaned out of all clothes, his desk drawers were empty, the Star Wars posters that had been hung up on the walls had were now taken down and in the trash. There was now no indication that anyone had lived there, much less a teenage boy.

Bruce was standing in the doorway, watching him from under the glasses that rested on his nose. Peter elected to ignore the good doctor's words because he was too thinking clearly—as clear as day. Peter continued to fill his brown cardboard box with all of the random items in his room, such as bobble-head figures, picture frames, mugs, and the lightsaber that Tony had gotten signed by Mark Hamill himself. He kept moving because the minute he stopped, he knew he might regret the choice he was making.

"Peter, you don't have to do this," Dr. Banner continued with a sigh. "Pete, what happened? You used to be so dead set on not giving up on everything, and now you're just… leaving?"

"I can't do it, Bruce," Peter said, pausing to look at his mentor. (That wasn't his actual mentor, though. Although Banner was now a good friend of his, he was his fake mentor, a cover-up. His real mentor was gone, though, so Peter would have to simply settle for the things he had.) "We've been looking for so long, but no one can find anything. It's just like nothing ever happened."

"There's an obvious solution, Peter," Bruce reminded him. "Why don't you just spend time with him? Try to jog his memories?"

Peter looked down at the ground, chewing on his lip.

"He's not the same person," Peter told the scientist, his voice small. "I—I had a conversation with him the other day, and his whole persona was different. Bruce, you remember the research—when a person loses their memories, they change. It's like, he sees me, but he doesn't care about me. To him, I'm just another snot-nosed kid taking up space in his labs."

"You just need to try and get that version of Tony back. That version is there, he just needs help finding it."

Peter shook his head. He went back to packing, going through his desk drawers and pulling out folders, papers, and all sorts of knick-knacks that he had wanted to save.

When he had been eight years old, his mother and father dropped him off at his aunt and uncle's house, promising to be back before Peter even noticed they were gone. For days, he would stare out the windows, watching for their familiar car to pull up into the driveway, ready to take him back home. Weeks passed, though, and they never did. His uncle and aunt had explained to him that his mom and dad had died in a car accident and that they weren't coming back to get him.

Peter stopped looking out that window.

Flash forward a few years, after a radioactive spider bit him and gave him powers, he had raced out of his apartment in anger, only for his Uncle Ben to get shot by a random robber after following him out into the cold New York night. Every day when Peter came home, he'd forget that Ben wasn't there to ask him how school was, or to talk to him about the latest Star Wars movie that they'd watched. Every time he walked into that empty apartment, he felt nothing but disappointment because just like his parents, his uncle wasn't coming back.

It took Peter a long time to stop hoping, to stop watching outside those windows for the people who said they'd be there forever and then... weren't.

Peter didn't want to do that again, not with Tony. He couldn't.

He wouldn't.

"We said that we'd stop looking for solutions when it didn't make sense to do so anymore," Peter said, continuing to go through the desk drawers. "Well, it's stopped making sense to me."
Bruce gave him a long, sad look.

"I won't force you to stay, Pete," he said, "I think you should, but I want you to be happy, and I know that Tony would want you to be too."

Bruce disappeared. Peter opened the bottom drawer of his desk, finding a picture frame lying face down. He picked it up, turning it over and recognizing it immediately. It was a picture of him and Tony after the latter had given the former an actual internship for Stark Industries. Tony had paid him and everything. After Tony gave Peter the certificate, Pepper had insisted on taking a picture of them together. It was a very informal photograph, with the certificate flipped upside down, Peter grinning wide and giving his mentor bunny ears. Tony had his usual professional expression on his face, but the fact that he was holding up his own set of bunny ears behind Peter's head gave Tony's cool persona right away.

Peter's heart tugged as he studied it. He missed that. He missed Tony, his mentor, his father figure. He set it down into a cardboard box, back into its face-down position so that he doesn't have to look at it anymore. Bruce came back into his room, now with a stack of papers and files in his hands.

"This is all of our research that we did," Bruce said. "I want you to keep it, so if you ever decide to come back you can have somewhere to start."

The doctor looked tired, and older than he had been before everything in Peter's life went to shit. Peter couldn't help but feel guilty, because the man had dedicated so much of his time to helping Peter bring Tony's memories back. So he took the papers from Bruce, setting them down into the cardboard box on top of the picture frame.

"Thanks for all of your help," Peter said as he closed up the box. "I really appreciate it."

"You can thank me by keeping in touch, okay?" Bruce queried. "I know I'm no Tony Stark, but I can help you get into a fair share of colleges. You're a smart kid, Peter. Keep yourself going in the right direction."

"I will," Peter promised. He taped up the box, grabbing the other one and preparing to carry them all out to Happy's car. Then, he sticks out his hand, and Bruce takes it, giving it a firm polite shake. "Bye, Dr. Banner."

Peter kept that promise. Peter came by Bruce's lab monthly to catch up with the doctor and get advice on his latest projects. True to his word, Bruce helped Peter get into MIT, and later, he gave his input on Peter's new and upcoming business, Parker Industries. Then, on the day Peter married the most important woman in his life besides his aunt, Bruce was there, giving him words of encouragement along the way.

Sure, he wasn't Tony. But he sure came pretty close in Peter's book.

And Peter was grateful for that.

It takes them four hours to get through the entire box.

Morgan is sitting on the floor, cross-legged, surrounded by papers with a notepad in her lap. Her elbow is resting on one of her knees, cheek in her palm, as she finishes reading her last paper. The desk where Peter is currently working at is covered in research and documents, and when he finishes reading the packet in his hands he sets it down, taking all of the papers and putting them all into a neat pile. He sighs, leaning back in his chair.

Morgan sets down her paper. She glances into the cardboard box that is resting on the floor next to her.

"It's empty," Morgan announces. Then, she frowns. "Wait, there's something else." She reaches into the box and pulls out a dusty picture frame, flipping it around so that she can see the picture inside. "It's a picture of you and my dad. Wow, you both look a lot younger."

Peter looks up at her and she turns the picture around to show him. With a pang, he realizes it's the Stark Internship photo from so long ago.

"That was taken…" Peter counts in his head, internally cringing when the number of years gets higher and higher. "Thirteen years ago. I'm pretty sure."

"You looked happy," Morgan comments, turning the picture so that she can look at it some more.

"They were pretty good times," Peter says wistfully, then proceeding to turn away from her and mindlessly looking back through the research papers.

(Don't think about it, he tells himself. Don't think about the better times—it'll just hurt even more.)

"Yeah, looks like it," Morgan says, and if she has any other thoughts on the matter, she doesn't voice them. She simply sets the picture frame to the side, faced up so that Peter can still see the photo out of the corner of his eye. "So, from what I picked up from the research, Project X basically created a blockage in his memories, right? It forced them back so that it's almost impossible for my dad to recall them."

"Right," Peter confirms, straightening up in his chair. "And it doesn't help that it's been a long time since those memories were blocked, so it'll take a lot of stimuli to extract them, such as objects that have significance to his memories of me."

Morgan looks around the lab, her face scrunched up in concentration. Then, Peter watches as her gaze falls onto the wall of Spider-man suits.

"My dad is obsessed with Spider-man," Morgan says somewhat quietly. "When he retired, he decided to put away his Iron Man suits so that he wouldn't have the temptation to work on them and possibly disrupt the peace. So, instead, as a hobby, he likes to make Spider-man suits and other stuff for him, even though he's never met him."

"So…" Peter coaxes, curious to what she's getting at.

"Well, your entire relationship was based around Spider-man, right?"

"Yeah, for the most part," Peter says, starting to understand where this was going.

"Well, you can use Spider-man to extract the memories, because that's what the majority of his memories of you are based on, " Morgan explains. Peter nods slowly, taking in her words. Morgan smiles, tossing her pencil in the air and catching it in her fist triumphantly. She stands up, letting the notepad and papers fall out of her lap and onto the ground. "I mean, that sounds like the beginning of a plan to me."

"Yeah, it does," Peter agrees, but he finds himself unable to match her excitement. She's practically beaming with joy, and Peter realizes just how much of a chance she has of getting hurt. They haven't brought it up, but included in the research was the fact that the more time that passes, the less likely memories will be able to be recalled.

But maybe that's not exactly why Peter isn't exactly thrilled to be jumping straight into this. Perhaps it's the fear that it will work, and that he's going to have to face one of the biggest mistakes he's ever made in his life. He already promised Morgan that he'll at least help her try to reverse the effects of Project X, so he's not going to back out now—he can't bear to crush her fiery spirits like that—but in the back of his head his Spidey sense is telling him that there's certainly nothing good in store for him.

Footsteps come from the stairs, and the door to the lab is opened, revealing MJ clad in jeans and a long sleeved t-shirt. One of the things Peter loves about her is how she retains her style from when she was younger—she never let anything change who she was, not if she didn't want to change. Sure, she's mellowed out from having kids, and Peter likes to tease her about how she's becoming a soccer mom, but she's still the same MJ who has no fears of putting someone in their place.

"Peter, dinner's ready," MJ tells him. Her gaze pans over to Morgan and a look of surprise flickers across her face at seeing the young girl. MJ gives Peter a questioning look, but Peter just shakes his head, giving his wife a silent promise to give her a full explanation later. With a nod, MJ looks back at Morgan and says, "Uh, Morgan, honey, you're free to join us if you'd like."

"Oh, are you sure? I mean, I can just head home, you don't have to…" For the first time in the short while that Peter's known Morgan Stark, she seems unsure of her welcome. Peter rolls his eyes at the notion of her not knowing that she's always welcome in the Parker residence, but he can also recall himself being in the exact situation many years ago when Tony and Pepper first invited him to stay for supper.

"C'mon kid, stay for dinner," Peter encourages her. "You've been here for four hours now searching through boring research, the least I can do is feed you a meal."

Though she's still hesitant, she nods her head. MJ heads upstairs first, and Peter waits for Morgan to catch up to him before following his wife.

"Your wife seems really nice," Morgan comments, keeping her voice low so Peter's the only one who can hear. "She is your wife, right? I'm not like, imagining the wedding bands or anything?"

"She's my wife. I'm still not really sure how it happened," Peter laughs as they continue to ascend the staircase. "And yeah, she is pretty awesome, isn't she?"

They make it upstairs just in time for them to hear MJ's frustrated voice coming from the kitchen.

"Benjamin Anthony Parker, quit throwing peas at your sister or so help me God…" MJ is standing next to Ben, who's currently sitting at the table, her hands on her hips. Ben's hands are frozen in the air, wrapped around a spoon with a single pea sitting in it, ready to launch itself onto Anna's plate, who is currently giggling at the scene from her high chair. Their son slowly lowers his spoon, letting the pea fall back down onto his own plate. MJ sighs, sitting down in the chair between the two. Peter sits next to Ben, gesturing for Morgan to sit down next to him.

"It's not much, unfortunately, only hot dogs and Mac and Cheese. I didn't have a lot of time after work to cook, and usually Peter is the one who cooks, but apparently he was preoccupied with something else," MJ says. Morgan shakes her head, a smile donned on her face.

"It looks perfect, Mrs. Parker," Morgan praises.

"Please, just MJ, hun," MJ corrects, not unkindly. "So, Morgan, where do you go to school?"

The small talk continues, and Peter notices how much Morgan's presence fits in with their family. Morgan seems to relax more and more as the meal progresses until she's joining MJ in teasing Peter and making faces at Anna from across the table when she thinks Peter and MJ aren't looking. The dynamic works, and it feels bittersweet for Peter to see how it could have been if he hadn't given up on the other part of his family.

"Daddy, can I show Morgan my birthday presents?" Ben asks Peter as dinner comes to a close. Peter can't help but roll his eyes at the fact that Ben has learned that in order to get what he wants, he has to ask Dad, not Mom.

"Only if she wants to stay for longer," Peter answers his son, and Ben turns to Morgan, an expectant look in his eyes.

"Yeah, I can stay for longer," Morgan says, "My parents aren't home, they're at a charity thing until tomorrow, and Happy usually doesn't make me come home until ten o'clock."

"Great," Ben cheers. "I'll bring them to the living room." He moves to slide out of his chair, but Peter stops him, grabbing a napkin and wiping the gross Mac and Cheese residue that somehow made it onto his forehead. Ben's hair is brown like Peter's, but he has Mary's eyes and MJ's face shape. He's a perfect mix—he's proof of the Parker family history.

Peter lets him go, and Ben takes off towards his room to get his toys. While waiting for Ben, Peter and Morgan do the dishes, MJ taking Anna to the living room.

"I really like your family," Morgan says quietly as she dries a plate. "It's so… normal."

"Your family is normal too, isn't it?" Peter frowns, and Morgan quickly nods.

"Yeah, of course… or at least they try to be normal," Morgan explains. "But it's really hard to be a normal family when your parents are Tony and Pepper Stark, you know?"

"Yeah, I bet," Peter says, and he finds himself really sympathizing with her because he's been there first hand to see how busy her parents are—and that was back when Tony was still Iron Man. Not only that, but Peter thinks the girl is enjoying spending time with Ben and Anna; he recalls the conversation they had last week where she said she'd always wanted siblings.

They finish up in the kitchen, and Morgan follows Peter into the living room where Anna's playing with her toys and MJ is sitting on the couch flipping through a magazine. Peter sits next to his wife, putting an arm around her shoulders, and watches as Ben shows Morgan each and every birthday present he'd received the other day. Anna crawls over to where Morgan's sitting on the floor, climbing into the latter's lap, babbling happily as Morgan bounces her playfully. It's a great sight, and Peter catches MJ smiling from behind her magazine.

Peter knows that come tomorrow, he and Morgan's plan to get Tony's memories back will begin, reopening the past and all of the pain that's been residing there for so long. But for right now, he decides to push that to the back of his mind, opting instead to focus on the present.

This part was mainly build up, but the next part will have Peter interacting with Tony a lot. Yay!

Feel free to leave a comment—I love reading what y'all think!