4"Where are the rest of the boys?" Pepper asked, dropping down onto her towel to dry herself off. She was soaking wet, but nobody could prove Tony was staring, because Rhodey wasn't there to make fun of him. Morgan, who was laying beside him – only half of her actually on the towel – rolled over and covered him in dry sand. Tony couldn't tell whether it was a deliberate attempt to get him to cut out the ogling. Either way, he picked her up and unceremoniously dropped her back on the sand.
"They went for a run," he said. Morgan rolled back over onto his towel. Tony studiously attempted to become annoyed instead of amused, but failed, and kissed her sand-covered hair instead. "Peter started laughing when Harley said there must be people capable of keeping up with him, and you know how competitive Rhodey gets."
Pepper shifted, and the sun drew a golden stripe of skin from her hip to her ankle, every droplet glinting among her freckles. Tony became distracted all over again. "I do not, actually. I've heard all of your stories, but you seem to be uniquely equipped to bring out that side of him."
Tony grinned. "That I am."
The glare was making her squint, but that didn't stop Pepper from staring for a second. The expression on her face shifted as it clicked. "You provoked them into leaving you alone?"
"Hey, if I wanna spend unencumbered time with my girls, I will stop at nothing to achieve it," Tony declared passionately, throwing his arms around both her and Morgan.
Morgan happily burrowed into the hug, but Pepper swatted him for it, and then said, "I'd believe that if I'd been born yesterday. What's going on?"
"You are so pretty. Do you have a boyfriend? Can I take you out to dinner? I have a ton of money, my wife's a bigshot CEO."
She ignored that, though he couldn't really fault her. "You were the one who wanted them to come. Either you're keeping something from them or you want them to keep something from me."
Tony pulled a face and conceded. "I wanted to talk to you and the house is crowded these days."
"Nighttime doesn't work for you?"
"I have other activities scheduled then."
Pepper swatted him again, gesturing pointedly toward their daughter, who did not fail to take notice. Morgan never failed to take notice of the things her parents did not want her to notice. "If you guys are going to kiss, I don't want to be here," she warned.
"You're right," Tony agreed. "Close your eyes and ears and don't move an inch, in case you accidentally fall into the sky."
Morgan immediately looked upwards. The look on her face was, naturally, excited rather than scared. "But I want to fly."
"Of course you do," he said, hitting his own forehead in slapstick realization. "Never mind then, just close your eyes and start running – don't stop no matter what or who you hit. I'm pretty sure I'm legally not suable anyway. Think of the happiest thought, I'll get the fairy dust."
Pepper reached out and grabbed Morgan as soon as she stood, pulling her into her lap. Then she gave Tony the look that was code for 'your charm has morphed into obnoxiousness', and meant that he needed to shut up and maturely grovel until she had the chance to work off her irritation. Usually, working off her irritation meant getting rid of another misogynist on the board of directors for embezzling money or sexual harassment (sometimes, it really felt like that board was self-replenishing in that respect), or receiving another glowing note from Morgan's pre-school about how clever, spirited and well-behaved Tony's abrasively rebellious daughter was. Although, in fairness to the obsequious school administration, she was very clever and spirited.
(The problem, as far as he was concerned, was Morgan having to go to pre-school in the first place. Tony was a stay-at-home dad with a lot of free time. But Pepper thought Morgan needed socializing with kids of her own age, because if she just spent all day with Tony at the lake house, 'she might turn into another kid of Tony's age', which he eventually understood to be a bad thing.)
Tony watched Pepper rummage around their bag for a second before he held up the sand mill he knew she was looking for, wearing his best winning smile, which Pepper always claimed to be immune to. Tony knew better. Pepper's lips curled briefly, and he made a one-sided ruling that all charges brought against himself were now dropped.
Morgan snatched the toy from his hands and waddled off to an appropriately dry patch of sand where she could play. Tony watched her for a little while, his train of thought slightly waylaid by the sight of the living embodiment of everything good he'd ever done. Sometimes he accidentally spent too long thinking about Morgan, and frequently became overwhelmed by what a breathing, walking, back-talking reward she was, disproportionately given for things he wasn't even sure he should be rewarded for.
Pepper stifled a very obvious giggle, and Tony's attention stumbled away from Morgan's construction of a self-sustaining sand mill to find his wife laughing at him with her eyes. This was the whole reason Pepper had trouble staying mad at him, which suited Tony just fine. "All she needs to do is smile at you and you'd buy her a castle."
Tony waved her off. "I have way too much money. What's a castle? Now, if you'd said she could convince me to sit through a board meeting-"
"She could."
"Totally beside the point."
Pepper rolled over on her back and Tony almost made a leering remark involving an offer of applying sunscreen to the freckles she couldn't reach. But she spoke first, cracking open an eye to look up at him inquisitively. "What did you want to talk about? Tell me while Morgan is entertained."
Tony dropped down to lay on his own towel with a sigh. It was so difficult to check out his wife when she was so concerned with his well-being and the things that troubled him. "You know how there's this bunch of children flocking to hero-worship their wildly over-extolled idea of me?" Pepper nodded noncommittally. "They- currently, they might- I think they need me to act closer to said idea than I usually do."
Pepper did not express any particularly notable reaction to that, merely tilted her head. "The phone thing?"
"…Am I crazy?"
"For worrying? If I thought your worrying made you crazy, I'd have had you committed years ago. I don't know if you've noticed, but it's kind of your defining character trait."
"I thought it was yours."
Pepper threw sand on his towel, making him yelp and throw sand on her back in retaliation. Somehow, the way she glowered at him made him feel like he'd lost that dispute anyway. "I got it from you. It's probably contagious, like an STD," she replied, shaking herself off. "Did you ask them about it?"
It took him a bit to realize she was still talking about Peter and Harley. "I asked Harley. He says there's nothing to worry about."
"Well, that always means there's something to worry about."
"Right?! I got that far, but the next step is finding a solution, and that's the part where I always stumble."
Pepper had laid down again, and considered him thoughtfully while running a hand through her wet hair. She was supporting herself on her elbow to talk with him, which is how Tony knew he had her full attention. Whenever she indulged him while not taking him seriously, she tended to find something more important to do in the meantime, like picking a new color for her nails or watching paint dry. This wasn't that. "You'd think Morgan would have given you some practice."
"What, am I supposed to do some parenting?" Tony cracked, then scoffed.
Pepper squinted at him, which immediately gave him pause. That was that look she got whenever Tony needed to remember he was the dumb one. "Is this a trick question?"
"Harley joked that's what I was doing yesterday," he said slowly. "Peter's done it too. I'm starting to take it seriously."
"Starting to?"
Tony stared at her. "What am I missing here?"
"A brain?" Pepper suggested, eyeing him like he was making fun of her, which he really wasn't at the moment. "Which is weird, because you keep bragging about how big it is. I thought you cared about those boys."
Tony almost felt offended, and not about the implication regarding the size of any personal assets of his. "Of course I care about them, but that's different from having- responsibilities."
"What about Spider-Man?"
Tony waved her off. "I mentor the kid, that's Avenger stuff. I mean personal responsibilities."
"You keep comparing yourself to your father whenever you talk about the kids."
"Well – yes, because- I'm obviously acting as-" Tony stuttered to a stop but still refused to admit he'd lost this debate. "I just don't think, whatever my role is, it should be compared to the responsibilities their actual full-time parent has, that's all."
Pepper's face contorted in some sort of disbelieving, amused expression, but she seemed to decide to spare him any further stating of the obvious. "Right. Let me put it this way for you then – they're both minors whose guardians entrusted them to your responsibility for the duration of this vacation."
"…Shit. I'm supposed to do some parenting."
"No kidding," Pepper said, dropping back down on her towel and closing her eyes. "Now please lean back, honey, you're blocking the sun."
Tony was a little lost in thought, but not enough to stop his mouth from running away from him. "I thought I wasyour sun."
Pepper didn't even try to hide her amusement, but she still retorted. "Not the kind that can give me a tan."
"So I have my shortcomings," Tony sighed dramatically, stretching up to lean over her and more effectively block the light. His back protested a little, but he could deal with that later when he wasn't flirting with a pretty girl. Pepper gave him a look, but Tony knew that one, so he just bent down further to peck her cheek. "You still married me. That's on you."
"Apparently, I have my shortcomings too," she agreed with a grin. "Blind spots, if you will."
"I can see you kissing," Morgan yelled from a dozen feet away, right as Pepper was encouraging him by dropping an arm around his neck. She didn't usually allow public displays of affection, so Tony felt truly disappointed to be shoved away this time, even if the whole thing made Pepper laugh.
He narrowed his eyes in the direction of his daughter, and jumped to his feet with some difficulty. Morgan obviously sensed an opportunity for rowdiness, because she screeched and took off running. Hers and Pepper's laughter was getting more similar by the day, Tony thought with relish and affection, and chased after her as soon as he was done shaking sand out of his hair.
Rhodey, Harley and Peter returned shortly after, to find that Tony had somehow lost his race so badly that he was sitting on coarse sand and his legs were now six inches under, courtesy of Morgan. Harley was dragging his feet and limping his way back (possibly to avoid crawling instead), Rhodey was drenched in sweat that couldn't be any healthier than saltwater if it got into his braces, and Peter was fairly cheerful. Tony extrapolated the results of their race using his impressive deductive reasoning.
"Wow, so it was a dead tie, huh?" he said sympathetically, trying to provoke all of them at once, in the name of fairness.
"Yeah," Peter crowed, "between which one of them I Ieft in the dust first."
"I've not once heard this kid brag about himself before," Tony said, amazed. He eyed Rhodey accusingly. Rhodey gave him a royal wave in return, but the effect was somewhat ruined by the fact that he was still panting. "What have you done to my Spider-Man?"
Even as he collapsed on his own towel upon return, Harley cracked one eye open and fixed Tony with a defiant stare. "The new kid is way too competitive."
"Yeah, this is Peter's fault. Are your bones still currently inside your body?" Tony replied, amused, and shook himself free, because Morgan had become bored of burying him as soon as the other three arrived. Peter squawked indignantly in agreement, making Morgan giggle from where she was precariously balanced on his shoulders. "He did warn you, you know."
Harley grumbled, and turned his face away. Somewhere behind him, Rhodey also grumbled – Tony had spent a lot of time making sure his legs were beach-safe, but still, he hadn't counted on Rhodey's inclination to go sprint alongside Spider-Man. He made a mental note to check on the braces later. Peter grumbled third, but it turned out it was because he was hungry. Tony was sure the kid had taken it easy for Rhodey and Harley's sake, too, which made him think he really needed to up his expectations in regards to Peter's caloric intake needs.
"Alright," he said, loudly, "who wants to pay for lunch? No takers, I see. Why is everybody looking at me?"
Harley and Rhodey's jog recovery period lasted through lunch, during which there was lively conversation involving everyone except Peter and Harley, who were making up for time wasted without their phones while at the beach. Peter excused himself to the bathroom three times, and Harley was looking down at his lap more often than a kid cheating during an exam.
Eventually, the topic turned to something Tony tended to sour over, but which brought Peter and Harley back to the here and now. Tony wasn't sure distraction was the right way to solve this, but if it got them to put their phones down for even a moment, he could fake polite interest in discussing the five years during which they were both legally dead. Especially given that he was all out of fresh ideas anyway.
"I can't believe I missed Tony's wedding, though."
"You didn't miss much," Rhodey dismissed. Harley looked like he believed him. "Tony's vows included the line 'I always thought I'd be the hot one in the unlikely event I ever got married', and that's pretty much as sappy as it got."
"No one's as upset over having missed it as Happy is, by the way," Peter said.
"You have no idea," Tony muttered despite himself. "He gave me the silent treatment for a week after he got over me being not-dead. No one had ever given me the silent treatment before. The fact that we thought he was dead wasn't a good enough excuse."
At this point, a prim-looking server approached their table with a very personable demeanor and told them the bill was taken care of. Tony would have felt even moderately self-conscious about this if it was a new occurrence, but for over a year now, he'd had practice dealing with it. He left a tip to match twice the amount he knew must have been on the bill and hurried everyone out the door before he could hear someone protest about it.
"What was that?" Harley asked, confused, looking back at the restaurant where they'd technically eaten for free. Pepper was fastening Morgan's coat, having returned to the table as they were leaving.
Morgan, who had asked similar a similar question when first confronted with this situation, knew the answer, so she replied, "Gratitude." Tony grimaced but didn't contradict her.
Tony and Natasha's deaths had been publicized before Steve had realized he liked them both better alive, courtesy of the Avengers jumping the gun in holding a hasty press conference to explain why the world population had pretty much doubled overnight. Which amounted to it being public knowledge that they'd died in self-sacrificial circumstances. Afterwards, 'dead' had become 'presumed dead' and then finally 'not dead', and stingy on the details, which Pepper promised select press outlets would be 'forthcoming', until everyone forgot to keep asking for them. Pepper was a marvel.
It turned out, generally, the public liked well-publicized, self-sacrificing heroics. Tony had known that one for a while now, but it was an entirely new experience for Natasha. The part where everyone was inclined to bend over backwards for them, in particular, had become a source of endless entertainment.
Tony's current text chain with Nat was just a continuously updated list of all the free shit they were offered, even if they didn't accept it, for competitive purposes. She was the current defending champion, having been offered the Brooklyn bridge by a con artist who didn't quite seem to know what he was doing. Tony had argued that the person making the offer required actual ownership of the object in order for it to count, but Natasha argued back that nowhere was that in the pre-established rules, which it wasn't. Tony was fairly certain it was implied somewhere in the definition of the word 'offer', but Clint – their third party for dispute resolution in these matters – was still deliberating on that one, so the score stood for the time being. Tony also didn't peg Clint for a fair and unbiased judge, but Natasha won that battle by being scarier than he was.
Pepper said it was really disturbing to make a morbid wager on the empathetic effects that sacrifice of the deadly kind had on a capitalist economy. Tony argued back that he had been born a billionaire, however, so, in the grand scheme of things, he figured capitalism took home the gold either way. Pepper hadn't seemed to think that was remotely the point, though.
On the other hand, Rhodey wasn't nearly as fond of this development, and made no secret of it.
"You do know he's a billionaire?" he pointed out to the sixth barista that sold Tony his coffee 'on the house'.
Harley was scandalized, eyeing Rhodey the way suburban moms eyed people whose hair was dyed any color brighter than their own artificial blonde. "What is the matter with you? Who tries to turn down free stuff?" Rhodey narrowed his eyes at him in the same way that he used to narrow his eyes at Tony when he'd been an MIT teenage graduate, and Tony got a little jealous.
He threw an arm around his best friend's shoulders and said, "Rhodey's got too many ethics and principles."
"I've noticed," Harley complained. "How do you keep it from impeding your work?"
"Secrets and lies. And one War Machine suit."
"Oh, okay. Bribery always works. So, can we go see what else we can get for free? Really push the boundaries of this thing. Is there an auto stand nearby?"
"I'm just gonna put an end to this conversation with an inane comment about our immediate surroundings," Peter said, before Rhodey did anything to compromise those ethics and principles. "Look at that building over there! So many perpendicular lines-"
"I have to pee," Morgan announced just in time.
"That works too."
Pepper took Morgan's hand and the pink bag from Tony's shoulder. "I'll take her to the bathroom. While we're gone, Rhodey, can you do a head-count to make sure Tony didn't pick up another problem child for his collection?" she requested, which was much better retaliation on Rhodey's behalf than anything Rhodey could get for himself.
"Are you kidding me?" Tony protested. "Like I'd make that mistake a third time."
"You're getting cranky in your old age," Harley warned him, but Tony was too busy ignoring Peter's offended look to retort.
It took five minutes after Pepper left for them to get into trouble.
The street around them was pretty crowded, but even so, the noise couldn't drown out the distant shout of alarm that made Peter whip his head back down the street they were walking. At first, Tony thought about Pepper and Morgan and had a brief moment of panic, but Peter didn't tell him anything worrisome or start running. He just narrowed his eyes, stood still like he was waiting for something, and before Tony had to open his mouth, a commotion ahead drew his attention – someone struggling to get through the mass of bodies.
Peter disappeared. A man came running past them, but the kid suddenly materialized himself into his path and – lightening fast – stuck out a foot. It was a very crude, effective strategy, and the thief tripped and dove into the ground head-first.
"My mother always taught me never to run with scissors or other people's purses," Peter told him severely, bending down to pick up said purse. He lobbed it at Tony, who caught it with an eye-roll. "Well, my aunt did, but she's basically my mother. I'm sure mom would have said the same thing if she was still alive, anyway."
"In the future, you think you could control your sense of humor around impressionable minds?" Rhodey commented, giving Tony serious side-eye while he helped the man up and kept a firm grip on him.
Tony took issue with that. "Don't look at me. Kid was like this when I found him."
Peter wasn't paying attention. He was stretching on the tips of his toes, trying to look over the sea of heads all around them in search of something. "Do you think we can find whoever this belongs to?" he asked, pointing at the purse in Tony's hands.
Harley groaned, probably anticipating having to waste time on a manhunt. "Just hand it off to the police, let them deal with it."
A true twenty-first century New Yorker, Peter immediately returned that with, "But we don't have to involve the police if we just handle this now-"
Harley groaned louder. "Why are you so nice to everyone? You know people generally suck, right?"
"They do not."
"My theory is that he accidentally yelled at a puppy once and is planning to spend his entire life trying to atone for it," Tony interjected.
Harley pulled a face at him too, however. "Yeah, you can't talk either. You were all ready to carry the crucifix for the rest of us sinners."
"Not sure how I feel about the religious analogy, but I do like the martyr card."
While Harley prepared what was sure to be a very witty response, Tony finally took note of the crowd that was beginning to gather around them. It was bad enough that Peter had practically flipped a guy upside down with his foot, but if Iron Man was found at the scene, they'd never manage to get away. He wasn't even wearing a cap and sunglasses.
"Right, I should really take off before this becomes even more of a circus," Tony said, throwing the purse back into Peter's hands. "You two will handle the cops and whoever the stolen property was stolen from, won't you? I'll find somewhere for all six of us to meet back up."
He grabbed Harley's arm and tugged him away, melting into the sea of people before he could hear Rhodey and Peter's responses. Not at all certain of the direction he was taking, Tony kept up a brisk pace and stopped only when they'd escaped the main throng of the crowd and the people became rarified. Finding himself alone with Harley hadn't been part of his long-term plan to magically fix the kids' lives, but now that he had, Tony took the opportunity. He'd been mulling over this long enough by now.
Tony rounded on him and asked a question which, it had occurred to him that morning, Harley might know the answer to.
"Do you know what's up with Peter?"
Harley blinked up at the abrupt question. "What's up with Peter?"
"That's my question."
"Well, I can't answer it."
Tony sighed in frustration. "You two have been talking."
"Yes," Harley agreed cautiously. "About stuff. Not that kind of stuff, though. What makes you think he'd open up to me before opening up to you?"
"Mostly because- I haven't tried to get him to open up."
"Why?"
"Because."
"Okay." The kid sounded wary. Tony couldn't blame him. "What do you think is up with him?"
"No idea. He doesn't have a sister to be upset with."
Realization dawned upon Harley. "Oh, yeah, he's been kinda glued to his phone too, hasn't he?"
"Kid."
"Why're you having this conversation with me, anyway?"
"Because."
Harley snorted. Tony scowled at him. "This is great. Do I need to tell you to use your words?"
"Is that what you want to hear?"
"What?"
Tony wrinkled his nose. It was probably a bad idea to let Harley know how very unsteady his fumbling footing was, navigating this conversation and its subject. "I just- do you know what's up with Peter's texting or not?"
"Not. Kinda busy with my own stuff. I just met him, we haven't reached the part where we pour our hearts out to each other." Tony frowned. Harley contemplated him silently. "You're way closer with him than I am," he insisted. "Why haven't you asked him? Are you afraid of Spider-Man? I promise I'll put in a good word for you, he's an affable fellow."
Tony was opening his mouth to give him a perfectly flippant and extremely cool response when a shrill voice put a stop to any such train of thought.
"You know Spider-Man? Like, as a person?"
Harley spun around to find a nosy man staring eagerly at him, obviously having been passing by. When he took in Tony standing beside the kid, his eyes widened further, probably solidifying his assumption. Iron Man was – had been – known to hang around Spider-Man.
"Yeah," Harley replied without missing a beat. "He's my best friend and we hang out all the time. My other best friends George Clooney and Matt Damon introduced me."
The man frowned. "Excuse me?"
"It was at this big party," Harley carried on. "Meryl Streep invited me. We're really close, we've taken a ton of those one-armed hug photos, you know the ones, where we're pointing at each other and giving the camera stunned looks. You were there too, weren't you, Mr. Stark?" he prompted, turning to Tony, who finally got with the program. He was always forgetting how much fun Harley was.
"For the last time, kid," he scowled, injecting irritation into his voice, "I do not know who you are, I will not go 'say hi' to your buddies, and I need you to leave me alone before I call the police."
Harley shrugged and let out an extremely exaggerated sigh. "Worth a shot," he said. It was a good thing Harley was now facing Tony and not the other guy, because his lips were twitching violently in laughter.
"You're a terrible liar," the man accused, sounding disappointed.
"What can I say, I'm seventeen and own a shady moral compass," Harley said.
Tony discretely slipped away before the guy could latch onto him instead, and only felt a little bad about leaving the kid alone with him. In his defense, he was pretty sure Harley was enjoying it.
"Joke's on you if you don't believe me," he was saying. "I kidnapped War Machine one time, did you know that?"
'I think your kid is bored,' said a text from Happy. It was sitting on Tony's phone, making a mockery of his screen.
Offended, Tony texted back immediately. I think you have the wrong number. I'm actually the most interesting person he knows
so how come hes texting May all day?
May is who Peters been texting?
I figured you had to notice
What's he texting about?
What flavor ice cream you all ate yesterday, how many foreign objects Harley pelted him with, a cloud shaped like a bunny. I don't know, he's bored
Have I fired you this week yet?
No, pepper promoted me to asset manager
Which asset was that again?
spiderman, which pretty much gives me tenure
Tony grinned and typed back, because he was feeling benevolent, 'I'll find out what he's up to'. Happy sent back a thumbs up emoji that only loaded because Peter communicated somewhat exclusively in emoji, most of the time, and Tony had had to adjust.
If Tony wasn't mistaken, teenagers obsessively texted their friends, not their mothers. So, clearly, Peter's texting was about as worrisome as Harley's obsessive phone-checking. He considered Happy's boredom theory and then promptly dismissed it. Tony had caught Peter tapping away feverishly the last time they'd been down in the lab, while Tony presented him and Harley with an opportunity to shoot one of Clint's old bows. Even if Tony thought the kid might be bored by archery, the prospect of outshining Harley's aim would have been too enticing for him to be disinterested. Also, Peter was too polite to ever get bored, in general.
Which meant, according to Pepper, Tony kind of had to talk to Peter. He didn't want to do that. Peter was much better at talking than Harley was, and definitely better than Tony himself. The last time they'd had a heart-to-heart, Peter had called out his lack of communication skills, and it wasn't like those had gotten any better. It was hard for Tony to help someone who was better at helping than Tony was. So, instead of suffering the kid running evasive circles around him, he chose a different strategy.
Rhodey and Pepper refused to be entertained by spending hours in Tony's lab, which worked out nicely, since they could keep each other company while Tony spent a few hours being horrible company. As soon as the two of them found a vacation activity they could do that didn't involve children (it was probably not taxes, Tony was fairly sure, but he wasn't paying a lot of attention), Tony dragged all three of his charges downstairs, gave Peter and Harley free reign of their own workstation, and set Morgan on his desk while he busied himself with something complicated. Distraction. The most used tool in Tony's arsenal. The tool of a tool. He'd come up with something to do about Peter eventually. Or about Harley. He was smart, how hard could parenting teenagers be?
Morgan wasn't content with his attention not being on her, however. Tony could put money on her becoming problem number three next, but according to Steve and the rest of his stuck-up friends, he wasn't supposed to bet on his children. It took Morgan a couple minutes, but eventually, she got bored of watching Tony squint at a computer screen while chewing on a packet of gummies he had unearthed from a random drawer. Swinging her legs back and forth, she said, "Can I have a gummy bear?"
Tony's response was automatic. "You've already had six, you can't have more."
"Why not?
"'Cause you'll turn into a rainbow. These gummies come in neon, every single one."
"But you've eaten a ton and your hair's still grey."
Tony finally looked up to narrow his eyes at her. Morgan was grinning. "Okay, so first of all, we're putting some fresh limits on your Peter-and-Harley-time; secondly, I'm the chosen one, I can handle all the gummy bear colors because of plot armor."
This response did not seem to satisfy her. She reached down and Tony plucked the packet of gummies out of her hands just in time. Morgan wouldn't eat her meals, but she was perfectly willing to sniff out and beg for everything Tony told her not to eat or drink. Pepper said it was his genetics. Rhodey said it was cosmic retribution. Tony was pretty sure they were both right.
"You keep doing that, I'm gonna let you tinker around with Uncle Steve's bike," he warned her.
Hearing that, Harley looked up from the other side of the room and eyed Tony in confusion. "Are you sure you understand the way threats work?"
"No, I've already forgotten what we were talking about. I just want her to mess with him again."
Harley instantly demanded to know the story behind the 'again'. While Morgan happily told a very embellished version of it, Tony's eyes wandered over to the door, through which Peter had disappeared with his phone ten minutes ago, for the fourth time that afternoon. It was no good. These questions rattling around his head had been bothering him for a little too long. The new piece of the puzzle – that it was May that Peter was texting – wasn't helping either. If it wasn't a friend (Ned or scary Michelle), boredom, or a serious problem, he couldn't figure out what Peter's goal was. The kid could ramble, Tony had hours' worth of 'mission report' recordings to prove it, but back then he'd been doing it to impress him. To prove he could be an Avenger, or at least to make sure Tony didn't forget how much he wanted to be one. Unfortunately, Tony was pretty sure May wasn't running any superhero team that Peter was locked out of.
If he opened up about this to Pepper, she'd tell him to get a hobby, a job, a normal-people thing to occupy his very obviously restless brain. She would also tell him to ask Peter what the problem was point-blank, and if he couldn't fix it, to get over it. Pepper was usually right about these things, but Tony had a long history of not following good advice.
Out of nowhere, Morgan tried to snap her fingers in front of his face, something she'd undoubtedly learned from Tony, like the rest of her bad habits. It was a very clumsy, failed attempt, but having a pudgy little toddler hand shoved in his face caught Tony's attention effectively, so she got her results either way.
"Are you worried Peter's going to show up and yell 'boo'?" Morgan asked when his focus returned to her, crossing her eyes in a way that Tony supposed was meant to be frightening.
Unwilling to be inexpertly teased by his own daughter, Tony poked her forehead indignantly and huffed. "Really, I'm just being careful. The last time Peter popped in for an unexpected visit, you came running into the room asking if we could keep a pet spider."
"And I got to keep him, didn't I?"
Tony played along. "Only because I literally haven't found a way to successfully avoid saying an automatic 'yes' to your every request."
Morgan seemed to ponder over that thoughtfully. "Can I get a baby sister?"
Tony choked on thin air and dropped three gummy bears in her mouth, which she instantly began chewing, looking very pleased with herself. Naturally, that's when Peter walked in.
"I thought you weren't supposed to give her more sugar today?" the kid asked, looking between Morgan, who obviously had something in her mouth, and Tony's hand, where the incriminating packet of gummies was still held.
"We've been over this," Tony retorted without missing a beat, before Peter could get the idea to tell on him. "Obviously, I'm distracting her before she tries to learn how all this equipment works." He gestured toward the soldering iron to add to his point. Morgan followed his gesturing with a frown on her face, definitely insulted by the implications. "It's the responsible thing to do. Maguna, you touch any of that, and I'm selling Gerald to Uncle Clint."
"You said he lives in a circus."
"Exactly."
Morgan sighed. Usually, a sighing toddler was a hilarious visual, but on her, it was somehow foreboding. "No, we need to keep Gerald. At least until I'm twelve years old. Then I can take over the cooking from you and mommy."
Tony paused and squinted at her. "I beg your pardon?"
"I can't survive nineteen years of your food, daddy. As soon as I am able, I'm banning you both from the kitchen."
"I see," he nodded, struggling to keep his face impassive. "Twelve, got it, I will make sure your birthday present that year is a Bimbi. Purely out of curiosity, just how far ahead do you have your life planned out?"
"Twenty-five years, give or take," Morgan replied cheerfully. "Why?"
"No reason, sweetheart." Tony patted her head, then craned his neck in order to yell up the stairs in the general direction of Pepper's last known location. "Honey, do you want to know the exact date and time our daughter is planning to take over the world? Seems like the sort of day we should free up on the calendar."
"Probably only after she graduates MIT, we can talk about it then," Pepper yelled back without missing a beat. Rhodey was probably really engaging her attention in their chess match that he was definitely going to lose, that was why Pepper was so dismissive. It couldn't be because she was no longer fazed by Tony and Morgan's eccentricities.
"On my seventeenth birthday, then," Morgan said right on cue, nodding her head brightly.
"It's a date," Tony agreed, equally as brightly, and extended a hand for his daughter to shake. "I'll bring the nukes. How much nepotism will you be working with, on a scale of murdering me as a power play to making me your Secretary of Shadow Government?"
Morgan wrinkled her nose. "I don't know what most of those words mean," she admitted, accepting his handshake nonetheless. "But you can do whatever you want as long as you keep bringing me popsicles. You know, how it always is with us."
"Deal. Hostile takeover of the ice cream industry it is," Tony nodded. "Good thing you're so amenable to bribery, I mean lobbying. I'm curious, though, why such an early graduation? I mean, I was done with MIT at seventeen and look how that turned out."
"I want to upstage you, but not too much," Morgan explained, clearly having given this an amount of thought Tony was both mesmerized and frightened by. "Everybody likes me, I won't have trouble making friends. Plus, it has to be before my wedding."
At this point, Tony really did choke. "Your path to world domination includes getting married?"
"Yes. I've seen how it works around here. Someone has to do the laundry, and someone has to do the dishes, and also to listen to me complain about the board of directors, while I go to work. Like you do for mommy, daddy."
It was getting harder to keep a straight face by the minute, but Tony persevered. "Well, I think it's very democratic of you to have a board of directors. So, have you picked out your intended, or is this the one thing you're leaving to fate?"
Morgan was notably offended. "Of course not. I decided who it was on the first day of school."
Well, this had taken a turn for the interesting, Tony decided. He immediately came up with a series of questions to rattle off. "Really, now? Let us gossip, then, at once. Who is he? And what do his parents do for a living? Does he have any tattoos, and if so, which Teletubby is it? Assuming he has not yet begun to lose his baby teeth, is he a smoker? And most importantly, how old was he when he was weaned off his binky?"
Morgan scoffed, incredulous. "He?"
Tony gave up and broke down laughing. It was really awesome of Morgan to keep reminding him how incredibly good he had it, generally speaking, in life. "Right, you win. You'll let us know when you decide it's time for your mom and I to retire, won't you?"
"Yes. You need time to plan a dramatic exit."
"That's my girl," he agreed, sure that feeling in his chest had to be his heart growing three times bigger. "I don't know what I'd do without you. I want a hug now." Morgan clambered up into Tony's outstretched arms and complied promptly. He took the opportunity to smack a kiss to the top of her head. "Ha. I lied. I wanted a kiss too."
"It's like a textbook example of how genetics work," Harley said, somewhere from outside Tony's bubble. He looked over Morgan's head at the two boys, who were grinning at him, and probably had been for a while.
"Are you saying I take after her?" Tony questioned. "Because that's a compliment, I'll have you know."
"I know," Harley said, at the same time Peter said, "She knows."
Tony grabbed Morgan's arm in a dramatized show of fright. "Never grow up," he pleaded with her. "Teenagers are monsters." Peter and Harley made complaining noises in response.
"I'm gonna," Morgan said apologetically. "They don't let people my age on the Space Mountain. I would stay six-years-old if I could go on the Space Mountain."
"Okay, kiddo, reminder." Tony cleared his throat and attempted to sound stern. "Fun's fun, but I'm not bribing anyone to let you into Space Mountain. That's still not happening. Just so we're very straight with each other." Morgan produced a very persuasive frown, but Tony was only moderately-to-highly impressed. "You get that from your mother," he accused.
"Yeah, I saw Ms. Potts pout, just the once," Harley piped up. "She was making fun of what your face looked like, Tony."
"Why is Tony Tony and Ms. Potts is Ms. Potts?" Peter asked Harley, before Tony could put an end to the escalating abuse he'd been suffering at those boys' hands all week. "Are you scared of her?"
"You don't get it," Harley argued, shoving a hologram in his direction. It looked to be, from Tony's point of view, a very creative vandalism of the design of Captain America's current energy shield. If Tony were asked any questions about it, though, he was sure he couldn't be sure of what he was seeing. "You're the good kid. Or at least you pretend to be. You have a presumption of politeness and automatic adult approval. The rest of us have to scavenge for her goodwill."
Peter nodded at the design, looking satisfied, and feigned deaf ears to Harley's comment. "We can definitely add this as a new feature. What do you think, Tony?"
Tony deliberately turned his back on them and on the hologram. In front of him, Morgan was taking a different approach and looking it over interestedly. "I think I wasn't here, didn't see anything, couldn't have stopped you. Wilson's gonna forbid you from touching his gear in the future, Parker, just an observation." At least they seemed to have forgotten about their phones for a hot minute.
"Nah," Harley disagreed, "I told you. Peter's the good kid. Everyone's just gonna blame you for it."
Peter was obviously not going to say anything to that, so Tony opened his mouth to retort. Morgan – who had managed to unearth the pack of gummies she wanted – threw a gummy bear in it, and he closed it again, feeling strangely like that had lost him the argument already.
Once Pepper showed up in the lab with Rhodey, immediately retrieving Morgan for some quality mother-daughter time – during which Morgan would dramatically reduce her sugar intake as well as her exposure to uncouth influences – Tony easily became absorbed in his work again. Pepper warned him he – and Peter and Harley – were expected for dinner in an hour. Tony was counting on Harley to keep track of that, from the intimidated look on his face, which was now a permanent fixture whenever Pepper was around.
In the meantime, though, Tony turned his sights and AI workbench to the Falcon suit, which, according to its owner, was having technical issues. Wilson had said that every time he took off with the wings, he drifted slightly to the right. Analysis of the video evidence told Tony nothing; neither his naked eye nor more sophisticated pathfinding algorithms seemed to find anything wrong with the flight trajectory.
"Maybe you should find a ruler and slap it on the screen," FRIDAY commented snidely after the tenth time Tony refused her assertion that there was nothing wrong with the suit. "Compare straight lines. Good old-fashioned manual labor."
"If I thought sass would get Wilson off my back, I would have sicced Pete on him already," Tony admonished her. From the other side of the room, Peter threw him a thumbs up behind his back. "You usually gotta trust the user on these things, so indulge me. Just don't tell Cap 2.0 I said that."
She did not offer him a reply, which meant he'd probably offended her with the implication that a human being could do a better job than her at anything at all. FRIDAY was plainly in agreement with him on there being nothing wrong, and becoming increasingly snotty at the continued testing to boot. Given her video analysis capabilities, Tony was sympathetic, but Captain America insisted, so here he was running diagnostics on a glorified jet pack.
"You are on vacation."
The voice broke through Tony's concentration jarringly, and made him knock over the nearest coffee cup on his desk. It took him a second to process whether it belonged to Rhodey or Pepper. He didn't look up to reply, but did start listening more closely.
"I'm always on vacation. I don't have a job," Tony said. FRIDAY started running basic tests, booting up the wings' mechanics – they began emitting a whirring sound, which Tony, who refused to even drive anything that dogs could hear, found embarrassing on Wilson's behalf. He made a mental note to fix it when he'd figured out what the hell the primary problem was. "Hey, between that and the self-sacrificial martyrdom, why the hell do I still pay taxes?"
"'Cause you're filthy rich to an almost immoral degree."
"Oh, that's right."
Rhodey clicked his fingers right in front of Tony's face, which made Tony jerk back and glare at him. Rhodey looked unrepentant, probably because he knew all Tony really needed to do at the moment was wait for FRIDAY's report – still a rude dismissal of Tony's instinctual need to multitask.
"Why is Harley throwing bolts at Peter's head?"
"He's also throwing hex nuts," Tony informed him helpfully, only half-paying attention; FRIDAY had announced her findings. The energy yield on Wilson's right wing was one point three per cent off compared to his left wing, which validated his complaints. Tony was never gonna hear the end of it. It was amazing the guy even noticed this; he'd have to go at least two point seven kilometers in a straight line for any deviation to register with FRIDAY, and FRIDAY was very good at noticing deviations. According to her disgruntled report, this either meant one of the rotors was getting old and in need of replacement – something Tony didn't usually allow to happen – or Scott had been rooting around unplugging cables again.
Rhodey waved the holograms away, startling Tony, who had become convinced his friend had walked out to get him coffee, for some reason. "Just skipped right over the 'why' part of that sentence, huh?"
Tony had to concentrate to remember what it was they were talking about. "Harley wants to test Peter's reflexes."
"Oh, so it's a scientific experiment?"
"Yeah. You know how lax my safety protocols are. Anyway, I'm sure they're wearing goggles, or gloves, or whatever."
"They are not. Don't know how those would help, either."
Tony tried to get the holograms back up and running. Rhodey wasn't having it. "Listen, it counts as Avenger hazing. I tried to do the same thing to Bruce, but Natasha got there first."
Rhodey stared at him. "You provoked Bruce into hulking out?"
"No, weren't you listening? Nat got there first."
"It's a miracle how he puts up with you. Either of you."
Tony clicked his tongue and wiggled his brows at Rhodey, momentarily distracted from work by his own smugness. "And yet, somehow, we're his favorites."
"Thor is Bruce's favorite."
Tony waved him off. "We were his favorites first."
Now that he wasn't buried in his computers anymore, Tony did, in fact, notice that what had been a series of sneaky attempts by Harley to (once again) hit Peter with the least predictable objects imaginable had turned into a full-on competition between the two, which Harley was losing by a painful margin. It probably wasn't fair that Peter could jump onto the ceiling whenever he wanted. Harley was doing his best, but so far, he'd managed to hit everything in Tony's workshop except Spider-Man.
Peter dodged Harley's newest projectile so well that he landed primly next to Tony with a smile, while nearby Rhodey was hit with a screw in his chest.
"Alright," Tony said loudly, in the hopes that it would sound responsible to Rhodey, "that's clearly enough lab time for you two."
"You introduced them, and they immediately tripled each other's natural chaos," Rhodey muttered, straightening his shirt like a proper military man. "Never again."
"C'mon, Rhodey. Be honest. Before you met me, you were boring too," Tony pointed out.
Rhodey offered him a glare in response, pointing up the stairs with a very authoritative finger. Tony chose to pick his battles, and specifically not this one, so he left FRIDAY to it and marched up for dinner with Peter and Harley in tow, thinking about how he'd had a very productive day of avoiding his problems.
Rhodey apparently read his mind, or at least followed his preoccupied gaze, because while Harley and Peter jumped at the chance to help Pepper with the table, he asked, "What? Something up with the wonder twins? Did they do something unspeakable to Sam's gear?"
"Yes, but it's not like I care. It probably won't cause him any bodily harm."
"I'll make sure to tell him that verbatim when I hand it back to him," Rhodey groused. "What is it, then?"
Tony shook his head, then suddenly remembered Rhodey had been his main source of advice for a solid twenty years of mostly depraved living. Sometimes he'd even been a good one. A brilliant idea occurred to him in the follow-up of that sentiment. "Ask me again after dinner. I've got a toddler to wrestle into nourishment first."
In the aftermath of a particularly difficult battle, Pepper always took pity on Tony. Usually, that meant tending to his every whim while he lazed around the house and showed off every bump and bruise if she happened to walk in the room. Sometimes that meant coddling him in an argument, which he appreciated less, because her ability to effortlessly hand his ass over to him was one of the hottest aspects of their relationship, right after that thing she did with her hands while they made out.
So, after dinner, Pepper took a good look at him and his entire outfit, and her gaze softened. She took Morgan out of his hands and said, "I'll put her to bed."
You're so brave and handsome, she also added with a sigh, though that might have just been in Tony's imagination.
"Should I go change my shirt or am I at that point of fatherhood where I stop caring what I look like?" Tony wondered out loud, doing a spin for her.
Pepper pecked his cheek and said, "Nobody cares." Morgan, dangling from her mother's arms, swiped a greasy finger on his other cheek. Tony grabbed her wrist and pretended to take a bite out of it, which, from Morgan's reaction, was the absolute funniest thing in the universe. He could see how she was going to take over the world one day.
Rhodey, who had relieved Harley and Peter from cleaning-up duties, threw a towel over the nearest counter and pulled his sleeves back down. "You're covered in tomato sauce," he told Tony, very unnecessarily, in his opinion. "If you don't go change, someone might mistake it for blood and call the cops. Probably me, it'd be really funny."
"Then I won't change," Tony decided, and Pepper rolled her eyes.
"You should feed Morgan every time, actually," Rhodey mused, hands gripping the chair he was leaning over. Tony absently developed a sudden thought spiral about how he could trick his best friend into sitting instead, to get weight off his braces without tipping Rhodey off to the fact that he was being fawned over. "This is the fastest I've ever seen her eat an entire meal."
"Tony gets Morgan to eat her food three times faster than anyone, me included," Pepper said in response to his inquisitive face. "He won't tell me how."
"Natural charm and ability," Tony informed her, because he didn't really know how either.
Rhodey wrinkled his nose. "I thought we agreed never to feed his ego in public."
Tony sniffed, unbearably smug and not hiding it. "Pepper's just trying to get into my pants."
"True," Pepper shrugged, pinching his backside, which made Tony jump and stare at her delightedly. "Then again, I've never had to try very hard."
"I love you. I'm gonna serve you with divorce papers so we can get married all over again."
"You do that and I'll put the coffee on a high shelf," Pepper threatened without even looking up from Morgan, who was now putting her sticky fingers on the back of her mother's neck, much to her chagrin.
Tony was outraged. "Coffee is the most important meal of the day."
"Your relationship is the leading cause of my migraines," Rhodey told them, opening the fridge and pulling out two condensation-covered beverages. "C'mon, we've got things to talk about, mano-a-mano."
"You gotta stop hitting on me when my wife's right here, I mean it, Rhodey," Tony called to his back, taking a moment to be pierced with Pepper's deadpan glare before blowing a kiss at her and following him out of the room.
Rhodey was already sprawled on the couch with an open can in his hand by the time Tony reached him, so Tony stole it outright. Rhodey didn't bother complaining and just reached for the other one. Tony assumed he'd be paying for that later in some subtle way, so he thought he'd go all out anyway. He dropped down on the couch and dumped his legs on Rhodey's lap. Rhodey promptly shoved him off.
"Don't chug it," he advised, watching Tony crack his beer open. "Your fridge is low on alcohol and we're too old to be getting drunk off beer."
"Then it's a good thing we're not getting drunk, 'cause Pepper wants us up and at 'em bright and early tomorrow," Rhodey grinned. Tony took issue. "And what's that look now?"
"Nothing. It's cute. Mr. Family Man."
"First of all, that's offensive. Second, I've been 'Mr. Family Man' for six years and counting."
"Yeah, but I get more exposure now."
Tony felt very wise all of a sudden, as well as fond and affectionate like he'd been all week, so he scratched his chin and wagged an annoying finger at his best friend. "You never realize how much fuller your life gets, when kids extort their way into it. Not until they die for five years, come back, and run you off a go-kart racetrack."
Rhodey snorted. "Was it Peter or Harley?"
"They've been coordinating their efforts."
"That's either very embarrassing for you, or a bad excuse for your lack of driving skills. Still embarrassing, I guess."
Tony thought about getting up to fetch his sunglasses, so he could arrogantly peer over them at Rhodey. "My driving skills? Seriously? Please. The only thing I do better than operating heavy machinery is designing and building heavy machinery."
"Your ego is taller than you will ever be." Rhodey deliberately patted Tony's head to emphasize their height difference. With some effort, Tony did not grin. He resolved to drag his best friend out to the lake house much more often than he currently was. It was not cool to be feeling this deprived of Rhodey.
"So, to get to the heart of the matter," Tony said, running a hand through his hair to make Rhodey think he felt the need to fix it, "I have a question for you. Who do you usually text and how often do you text this person?"
Rhodey took it in stride that usual. "Depends. I'm in two different group chats to keep tabs on you. The one with Happy and Pepper gets pretty active at least once a week."
That gave Tony an unusually long pause while he processed which question to ask first. "What's the other group chat?"
"It's got the same purpose, but it's for all the people Pepper can't really stand prolonged contact with."
"You're spying on me for the Avengers? Unbelievable. Steve hasn't even figured out group chats yet."
"Yeah, he never replies," Rhodey agreed. "You're annoyed by someone's texting habits?"
"Annoyed isn't the right word," Tony said thoughtfully. Rhodey visibly started paying proper attention. "Peter keeps texting May and Harley keeps checking his phone every five minutes."
"So? They're teenagers. They text."
"I don't think so. Harley's already admitted to- some stuff. Conclusive evidence that Peter's up to something, by association."
"Some stuff," Rhodey echoed.
"I'm trying to respect their privacy," Tony explained. "Cut me some slack, it's a new concept for me too."
A look of revelation came down on Rhodey's face. "You're worried."
"I thought that was already established as the starting point to this whole thing."
"Give me a minute, you're hard to keep up with." Rhodey leaned back, thinking it over. "Why are you worried, exactly?"
"What do you mean, why am I worried? They're- uh-" Tony struggled to finish the sentence for a minute and then gave up on it. A grin briefly flashed on Rhodey's face, so Tony settled on, "I'm always worried."
"Kids these days aren't like we were," Rhodey pointed out. "They're way too responsible for their age. Yours are smart, too. You think they can't handle whatever it is that's setting off your helicopter parenting?"
Tony fiddled with the can's lid and broke it. "…Maybe they can."
"Wrong answer. If you really thought they could handle it, you wouldn't be worried."
"You're the worst at giving advice. I can't believe I let you flirt with me."
Rhodey burped loudly, probably for aesthetic reasons, and placed his empty beer can on the coffee table in front of the couch. "Do you remember several years ago, when you took your last PTSD-free plane ride, and I told you-"
"I only remember being very drunk and watching you ignore scantily-clad women, just to head this conversation off early-"
"How do you spell 'women'?" Rhodey asked, pulling out his phone. "I'm asking you not because I can't spell 'women', but because I want you to know I'm texting Pepper about our current conversation topic."
"Yeah, worked that one out all by myself, thanks, Rhodey," Tony said. "What's your point?"
Rhodey put his phone away. "I think you need them to tell you why you should be worried."
"I- uh, what?"
"Have you tried talking to them about what's going on?"
"…Harley."
"And did you push, or did you let him deflect?"
"Huh. Hmm."
"Yeah." Rhodey became insistent on eye contact like he did when he was about to get too real for Tony's tastes. "Take it from me, man; as someone who had to deal with you since way too early in life, I've learned sometimes you gotta push. Yeah, it won't always turn out great," he admitted. "Sometimes I pushed too far, or in the wrong direction, or I only found out later you were keeping things to yourself that might have made me think twice about pushing. That's part of it, making mistakes, you're gonna do it too. But you're better off learning from a mistake than doing nothing at all. That's what I did. Now I know you well enough to smell it if you're keeping something from me."
Tony mulled that over quietly for a moment. When he focused back on Rhodey, he was in a deflective mood himself. "Are you trying to tell me you parented me?"
"Someone had to. But hell no, if I'd been in any way responsible for you, we'd both be serving life sentences. I just- tried to be your friend, best I could. I think that's what those kids need right now."
Tony pulled a face. "Pepper says 'parent them', you say 'be their friend'. How am I supposed to give them advice when you two can't even coordinate yours? Do I strike you as more responsible than either of you?"
"Tony, you know them and what they need best," Rhodey said impatiently. "I get it, you've got control issues, you think shopping around for help will leave you better prepared. Ease up, and maybe you'll find out you already know what to do. I also don't think Pepper's advice and my advice are mutually exclusive."
Tony snapped his fingers for lack of a better skillset in emotional intelligence. "Got it, get drunk and talk to them."
Rhodey made the face Tony recognized from all the times he was about to make a brutally honest point so as to get Tony to fall in line. "Are you planning an honest conversation about your kids' problems, or your Friday night pregaming?"
"What is it with everyone knocking down my plans?" Tony complained, so that Rhodey would realize he was conceding the argument. "I'm a superb strategist."
A new voice, glaringly out of place, spoke from the general direction of the stairway, and made Rhodey jump. Tony, who was far more used to this, did no such thing, and took his daughter's sudden appearance fully in stride. "Uncle Steve says the only plan you can do right is how to never be more than thirty feet away from coffee for more than thirty minutes."
Tony twisted around to narrow his eyes at her, but she only grinned back and jumped off the stairwell steps. He reminded himself yet again he needed to do something about her tendency to eavesdrop. Morgan then climbed up the couch's armrest to curl up against him, so he naturally forgot all about it again. "You're becoming outrageously literate. That's way too many words."
"He says it a lot."
Tony ruffled her hair and said, amused, "Uncle Steve also says 'golly gee' and probably calls you ma'am, old people say the darnedest things."
Morgan blinked in surprise. "He does call me ma'am sometimes."
"Bless him," Tony said fondly. He stood up and stretched. "Alright, that's enough truancy for the evening. Back to bed, Ms. Stark. Say your goodnights."
"Goodnight, Uncle Rhodey," she chirped dutifully, letting herself be hauled up and over Tony's shoulder.
"Night, kiddo," Rhodey replied. Tony could hear the smile in his voice, probably from watching Morgan practically dangle off Tony's back. He jostled her a little more, which made her giggle all the way up to her room.
When he settled her on her bed, Morgan burrowed into the sheets without much protest. Tony tucked her in and dumped her pillow on her face. She huffed in high-pitched protest. "Oops, wrong way around." He fixed the pillow and dragged her ankles up, so that her feet were resting on it, while her head was where her feet would normally go. Then he pulled up the comforter at the end of the bed and dumped it on top of her. "There we go, much better."
Under the covers, he could see that Morgan was, at that point, shaking with silent laughter that would not remain silent for much longer. Either his daughter was his biggest fan, or toddlers were the absolute best audience in the world. However, Tony figured he probably should stop stoking her energy levels when she was supposed to be falling asleep.
Grinning, he dragged her back up and smacked a loud kiss on her forehead, smoothing the sheets over her shoulders, this time the right way around. Morgan grinned back, and just then, once she had him wrapped firmly around her little fingers, threw him a curveball. "What were you and Uncle Rhodey talking about?"
"Taxes," Tony replied. "Do you want me to tell you about it? Should help you fall asleep."
She yawned, which was a good sign. "You were talking about Peter and Harley."
"Yes, they do their own taxes. You know, you're only supposed to ask questions you already know the answer to after you graduate law school."
"That's not part of the plan. Why are you worried about them?"
"It's below your level of expertise, I wouldn't worry about it."
"But you are," she pointed out. Tony refrained from saying 'touché' in response with a lot of difficulty.
"That's because I've been pretending to be a grown-up a lot longer than you have," he said, wiping a hand over her eyes as if to forcefully close them. "Nap time, now. No more impertinent questions that I'm not smart enough to side-step."
"Okay," she said, producing a smile that turned into another yawn. "Uncle Steve told me that worrying too much is bad for you, though."
Tony paused in the act of reaching for the light switch, and felt a large grin grow on his face. "He's not wrong. You should follow his advice." Somehow, suddenly, even after Pepper and Rhodey's very sound advice, it was Morgan who finally seemed to have cleared the cobwebs out of Tony's brain. He'd always been better at winging things.
"What about you?" Morgan's voice came out groggy with sleep.
"I'll- find another way to worry. Usually do. Lights out, Maguna, I mean that. I love you."
"Love you, daddy," came the disembodied mumble, and Tony clicked the door shut behind him as quietly as he could, a fresh perspective in mind.
