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Should I continue with an Avengers story with Morgan? Let me know and if you have any ideas, please feel free to share.
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The sun had set by the time dad returned to my room. Before he flipped the main light on, the only light in the room had been the soft glow from the heart monitor. I was still in a daze, with this huge silly smile on my face as I thought about Daniels visit earlier. I squinted as the light suddenly flooded the room.

As my eyes adjusted I took in his appearance. He'd obviously showered, changed his clothes and shaved. While he was finally looking a bit more like himself, there was still a weight sitting on his shoulders, dragging him down.

"Hey kiddo," he said with a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"Hey dad." I wondered if he'd avoided my room all day because he knew there was a certain conversation we needed to have.

"How…how are you?" I knew the real question he wanted to ask was 'how are your legs?'. Despite everyone's insistence not to, I'd basically given up all hope that the felling and function of my legs would return. The sooner I accepted it and started dealing with it, the sooner I could move on. The idea of starting at ground zero, learning how to live my life in a wheelchair, scared the crap out of me. Learning all over again how to take care of myself was terrifying. But I couldn't show that in front of dad. Telling him all that would just increase the guilt he was already carrying around. So I just plastered a fake smile on my face and pretended I wasn't scared out of my mind. I had a feeling he was doing the same thing.

"I'm fine. Nothing's changed."

He took the seat beside me and for the first time in a long time he had nothing to say. I listened to the rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor. I counted my own heartbeat to 10 before I took a deep breath and spoke.

"Dad, we need to talk about something."

"I know we do. We need to talk about Natalie." While his face appeared to show he was serious, I could see the sparkle in his eyes, the sparkle that he got whenever he was joking around.

I nodded to his words without comprehending them. "Yes- wait, what?" I looked at him like he was crazy. "Why do we need to talk about Natalie?"

"She was a spy for S.H.I.E.L.D." I could tell Dad was enjoying the fact that he'd distracted me from the original conversation I wanted to have but we were going to talk about it eventually.

"What?!" Although I had suspected something wasn't right about Natalie, it was still a shock to hear that I was right. "She was spying on you for S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

He nodded. "And her name is Natasha, not Natalie."

I resisted the urge to tell him I'd known all along that something was off about her. "So why was S.H.I.E.L.D spying on you?"

"Uh…basically they wanted to see if I'd fit in with their super-secret boyband."

"That Avengers initiative that Fury guy talked to you about?"

He nodded. I briefly remembered Dad telling me about getting a visit from this Nick Fury guy while I had still been in hospital after Obadiah's attack. He'd mentioned the Avengers initiative but nothing had ever really come from it. "So what's the verdict? Are you cool enough for the band?"

"Ah, of course I'm cool enough for their band. But, you know, some stuff was said about narcissism and…self-destructive tendencies. They'll call me though."

I nodded but it was not surprising that they decided dad wasn't the best fit for their team considering his recent behaviour. "Speaking of self-destruction…" I watched the smile drop from his face as he realised where this conversation was heading. "Let's talk about your behaviour over the past few months."

"Morgan I-"

"No. You don't get to interrupt or make excuses. We are going to talk about this and you can't sit there and make jokes about it or pretend it isn't a big deal." As I looked into his eyes, I swallowed the lump in my throat. I wanted to cry and yell at the same time but I was determined to have this conversation without doing either of those things. I knew from the start I wasn't going to be successful. "You were dying Dad. For months you were dying. And for months you lied to me. I asked you over and over again what was wrong and each time you said nothing. I knew something was going on but I trusted that you wouldn't keep anything big from me. I trusted that you would tell me eventually and let me help you. But you didn't." Tear were brimming in my eyes. I wasn't sure if they were from sadness or anger. I blinked them away and dad's face came back into focus. Guilt, sadness and regret were written across his face but he stayed silent. "I'm trying to imagine what was going through your mind when you decided to keep this to yourself. I know you would have been scared and angry but that doesn't change the fact that you should have told me."

Dad was nodding and I saw that tears were shining in his eyes. "I know. I know I should have told you. I'm so sorry. I thought I was protecting you-"

"How? How on Earth did you think that by not telling me that you were dying that you were protecting me? I don't understand that. Were you even going to tell me? By the way you've been acting and what Ivan told me you only had days to live. Were you maybe going to mention that before it happened? Or did you think that me walking down to the garage next week and seeing you dead on the floor was the best way to go? How is that protection? Did you think that Pepper and I were going to sit there thinking 'Oh yeah, he was just protecting us'. No. We would be sitting there thinking that you didn't trust us enough. That you didn't care about us enough to tell us. Is that really how you wanted us to remember you?"

I bit the inside of my cheek, hoping that pain would distract me and stop the tears from falling. "Did you stop and think, while you were racing cars and destroying houses, that those moments would be my last memories of you? Honestly dad, I just….I just wonder what goes through your head sometimes."

"I wonder the same thing. I know sometimes I don't make the best decisions and I wish I could go back and change this. I was going to tell you at first…but when it looked like nothing was going to work…I was scared and I didn't want you to have this weighing you down." He sighed and looked down to his hands. "Ever since you were born and your mother…" He choked up as old memories flooded him. It was obvious that even after all this time her death still hit him hard. "I've been terrified of leaving you alone. My parents died when I was young and for 17 years I've been scared that that would happen to you. I never wanted you to be alone…so when it looked like that was going to happen…I panicked and acted stupidly. I'm sorry."

I could see the raw pain and anguish on his face. I believed every word he'd said but that didn't change the fact that what he'd done was wrong and I was still angry. I was angry that his first instinct when dying was to act like a child. Something I'd always been very insecure about when growing up was the fact that dad was seemed to act like having me got in the way of him living his life. The drinking and the partying and the girls, that was the lifestyle he wanted and having me around always seemed to get in his way. I knew it was a ridiculous thought and dad had convinced me of that many times, but it was still a deep insecurity. So when dad had starting acting like a child again after his brief period of being responsible since Afghanistan, that insecurity flared back up again. I wanted him to act like a parent instead of a child.

I knew he was sorry and I wanted to forgive him but all the anger I had wasn't going to dissipate after one apology. It was going to take time. A lot of it. It felt like he'd destroyed something between us. I didn't know how long it would take to fix it, or even if it was repairable at all. I felt like I couldn't trust him anymore and that absolutely broke my heart. Parents should be the only people on Earth that you can completely rely on and trust. And I couldn't do that anymore.

"Have you explain this to Pepper? And Rhodey?" I asked. I wasn't the only person who deserved an apology from him.

He nodded as he met my gaze again. "I talked to Pepper when you were in surgery. And Rhodey…he's known for a couple of days." I raised my eyebrows in a silent question. Why had he confided in Rhodey, yet not me? It felt like he'd just delivered another blow. "He found me in the garage the other day and helped me change the palladium core. I had to tell him."

I was upset that he'd told Rhodey and not me but I pushed that feeling down. What was done was done and nobody could change it now. "How did you fix the palladium problem anyway?"

"I just discovered a new element to replace it," he said casually.

"You…you discovered a new element? How?"

I listened intently as dad explained everything that had happened since the night of his birthday party and subsequent destruction of our home. How Natasha was revealed to be working for S.H.I.E.L.D and Nick Fury, who gave dad a bunch of his father's things, including the video he was watching the day I'd gone back home. While on an unauthorized trip to Pepper's office he'd unearthed a model of the original expo and discovered that his father had left a diagram of the molecular structure for a new element within the model. Despite being on 'house arrest' he managed to build a particle accelerator and synthesise the new element which was now powering his arc reactor.

"Are you sure it's safe?" I didn't want this new core to create a new set of problems.

"Jarvis ran every test," he reassured me. "It's safe."

"Thank God." It had scared me to the bottom of my soul knowing that the thing that had been keeping my father alive had actually been slowly killing him this whole time. I didn't even want to think about what would have happened in the next few days if he hadn't found that new element to replace the palladium core. "I'm still so angry at you," I said as I clutched his hand. "But I am so freaking happy and proud of you for discovering that element."

"I'm thinking of calling it….badassium."

"Somehow I think you might have a few legal issues with that."

He chuckled. "Yeah, probably. But won't stop me trying."

It felt good to forget everything for a moment and laugh with him again. But that moment passed quickly.

"Morgan…can you tell me what happened with Ivan?" I knew it killed him not knowing everything that had happened after I was kidnapped. But I didn't see how telling him very detail was going to help him. It was just going to make him feel even worse for not rescuing me sooner.

"Are you sure you want to know?" I asked. "I don't see how this could possibly help."

"Please," he insisted. "I need to know."

I sighed. "Fine." I decided to keep it brief. Just rip it off like a band aid. "I was coming back from the zoo when they grabbed me off the street. I tried to fight them but they overpowered me and knocked me out. When I woke up I was tied to a chair in a closet in Hammer's warehouse. I could hear Hammer talking about the suits Ivan was supposed to make for him, and how he'd managed to get his hands on a piece of Stark technology, which I gather Rhodey gave to him?" Dad nodded. "After that he left for the expo and Ivan pulled me out. He started explaining his crazy revenge scheme. Told me how Howard supposedly got his father deported after they worked on the arc reactor together. He called you and I knew that you would find me eventually so I tried to keep him talking. That didn't go so well when he started beating me and breaking my fingers. And then I made it worse my spitting blood in his face." I could see the mixture of anger and pride in my father's features. "That's when he tried to cut off my tongue but thankfully that's when you showed up."

"He what?" You could practically see the anger radiating off of him. His hands were clenched into fists, his knuckles white.

"Can we just let it go? He's dead, I'm fine, kind of. It doesn't matter now what was done in the past."

"It does matter," he retorted angrily. "I should have protected you. What's the point of being Iron Man if I can't protect my own daughter? The person who means the most to me." He sighed and rubbed his forehead. "You were right. You told me months ago that people were going to target you and Pepper to get to me and I was too arrogant to listen. I'm sorry."

"Even if you had listened to me it wouldn't have changed anything. Ivan was hell bent on revenge. He would have found one way or another to get it. Lets just learn from our mistakes and let it go."

"How can I let it go when my mistakes have led to this?" he said as he gestured to my immobile legs.

"I'm dealing with this dad. Maybe you should too." I looked down at my legs. It was finally time to accept they were never going to move again. "Yeah, I'm angry and wishing that we could go back and change this but it's not going to help anyone thinking like that. We just have to get through this one day at a time." I could tell by the look on his face that he was surprised at how quickly I'd come to terms with this. He was probably expecting yelling and tears. Maybe they were still to come. Lying in this bed made it easy to accept my future, but when I go back home into a familiar environment and try to live my life like normal, I think that's when it's going to hit home. "We'll put in ramps at home and you can build me an awesome wheelchair. Maybe put some repulsors in it."

While dad's smile was cracking at the edges, I could see he was trying to keep his brave façade up in front of me. "Of course. Luckily I started construction on the house last week."

I let out bark of laughter at his reference to our half destroyed home. That still had to be dealt with, but right now it felt so good just to laugh with him again.

"We'll get through this dad." I took his hand into mine. "Together we can."

"I know kiddo."


The End


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