Work Text:
It had been rough. From childhood to adulthood to Iron Man-hood, Tony had taken hit after hit after hit. But he loved it, had learned to love it. The thrill of creating, the thrill of being praised, of flying and fighting and arguing with teammates because he loved them, even if they didn’t love him back. It was rough and it was beautiful and it wore him down like nothing else. Mental illness struck, paranoia struck, the team struck and knew just where to hit.
And then Thanos. Losing Peter and the others. Getting them back. If he thought he’d been tired before, he was bone-dead exhausted now.
Clocks were wound backwards, but Tony remembered. He remembered everything. He knew it was bad, because James Buchanan Barnes-- ex-Winter Soldier and prisoner of war for 70 years-- would sit next to him in silence, always pausing to squeeze his hand before getting up. If someone like Barnes knew your pain like that, you had to know that it was bad.
And then the news. Pepper’s news. Tony was in the kitchen, making dinner for the two of them (he finally had the time, after the wedding, after stepping back from superheroing, even if he kept the suits nearby). Pepper came home, after a doctor’s appointment. His heart got caught in his throat, seeing the tears in her eyes. He couldn’t imagine good news, not after so much bad news. But,
But.
“I came in from the outside, burned out from a joyride/ She likes to roll here in my ashes anyway”
A baby girl: Morgan Maria Potts-Stark. She was beautiful, could play Tony like a fiddle before she could do anything more than cry.
She didn’t care that Tony was The Tony Stark, The Iron Man. She didn’t blame him for a thing, didn’t know about his past, didn’t judge him. Tony was tired, roughed up and worn down, and Morgan-- precious, precious Morgan-- smiled her first smile at him. At him.
He tried to reconnect with his mother’s memory. Howard was shit, there was no debating that. Maria tried her best, in her situation. She was distant at times, but she stole moments, sweet moments, with Tony when she could. She loved Christmas, loved decorating the personal rooms of their home with Tony. She loved jazz and more classic music. Ballads and things that could easily transfer to the piano. Tony learned to play again, played for Morgan, held her and sung her to sleep to his mother’s favorites. All day, taking care of her (such a househusband, a stay-at-home father, Howard would be furious), he played his mother’s old records, and other songs that he thought she could have liked.
“Played from the bedside is ‘Stella by Starlight’/ ‘That Was My Heart,’ the drums that start off ‘Night and Day’”
Tony was almost embarrassed by how well he settled into things. The Avengers visited sometimes-- some more than others. Peter came by as often as he could; Harley, too. There were additions: Shuri, Princess of Wakanda, took to visiting and invading his lab; Peter’s friend Ned, and their girlfriends, Betty and MJ, were somehow adopted into the family; a boy named Miles ended up in a situation like Peter’s, and joined the group; a girl named Riri Williams was a girl genius, and secured herself a lab at Tony’s place. Carol Danvers came back to join the Avengers and enjoyed putting Steve in his place, so she was invited to dinner any and every night she wanted. Momma Rhodes and the rest of the clan adored Morgan and spoiled her rotten-- just in case Tony wasn’t doing that enough.
Morgan loved jazz. Sure, she enjoyed other genres, but Tony woke her up in the morning with jazz (to avoid grumpiness) and put her to sleep with jazz. They danced to jazz, they played to jazz, they sang jazz. It was their Thing.
Time passed to jazz, was measured in the number of times they had to flip the record, the number of records they wore through. Tony could name which song was playing for each of her firsts, could name which lines in particular would remind him of Morgan.
“The same kind of music haunts her bedroom/ I’m almost me again, she’s almost you”
Seeing Morgan grow up left a certain sort of ache in Tony’s chest. It was such a sweet feeling, but the future seemed bittersweet. One day she wouldn’t need him. But for now, she smiled at him like she couldn’t imagine a day where she wouldn’t go with him, whether she needed him or not.
She managed to pick up on which songs were Tony’s favorites. Or she just had similar taste, because Tony could hear them playing from her phone when he left her to her own devices.
The music seemed to be where most of her similarities with Tony ended. Even as he was healing (and god, he couldn’t remember having felt this honestly good this often before; he could even recognize himself in the mirror these days), she took after Pepper. Her no-nonsense attitude, her firm but not-too-fiery temper, her smile, her hair, her eyes, it was all Pepper. Even her love languages matched, but Tony was learning. For Morgan, he was figuring out ways to satisfy both of their expressions of love. There were a lot of fuzzy blankets and pillow forts. It was sweeter than Tony could have ever imagined.
“I wouldn’t know where to start/ ‘Sweet Music’ playing ‘In The Dark’/ Be still, ‘My Foolish Heart’/ Don’t ruin this on me”
He couldn’t take it, sometimes. Morgan would do something-- anything, really-- and Tony’s heart would clench. He loved her so much, he was half convinced that it would be loving her too much that would finally actually kill him for good. And what a way to go.
He struggled a lot. He was always checking himself, not wanting to become his father-- or even his mother, really. He tried his best with her, hated himself when he felt like he’d made a mistake. Morgan would, more often thannot, simply… forgive him. He went to therapy every two weeks, trying to deal with his problems so that Morgan wouldn’t have to.
But trying to explain to her why Daddy was crying, just because she told him that she loved him out of the blue, was hard to do. She allowed it, his random tears, and often tugged him into whatever she was doing.
He hated it, hated crying and worrying Morgan, but she was growing used to it. Even when he felt like he was ruining moments, Morgan didn’t seem particularly bothered.
When she was older, he would explain to her the science behind tears-- good and bad. Probably to some jazz song. He’d have to pick out the right one to remember the moment by.
“Tell me who and I’ll be thanking them/ The numbered lovers of Duke Ellington/ Do I owe each kiss to lip and cheek as soft/ As Chet can sing ‘Let’s Get Lost’/ And ‘Let The Good Times Roll”
Morgan was like a lot of other girls her age: she loved pink, loved fairies and mermaids and princesses, wanted to be an astronaut, wanted to train dinosaurs, wanted to save the world. She was half-convinced that she actually was a princess. After all, her mommy ran the world and her daddy saved the world a lot.
One Halloween, she announced that she was going to be a fairy princess. Tony and Pepper took her out shopping, letting her lead the way as she flitted from one rack of costumes to another. She didn’t find her ideal outfit, so Darcy announced that she would help Morgan make her costume.
On Halloween afternoon, Darcy helped Morgan to prep everything before Pepper and Tony saw the costume. Tony didn’t even see Morgan before he started tearing up, though, when Darcy started Morgan’s “entrance music.” Out of all the songs, it was the one-- the instrumental, for Pete’s sake, and Tony was crying over the first five notes-- that Morgan had first said ‘Dada’ to.
Her dress was red with frilly gold accents, blue wings and a blue triangle in the middle of her chest. She grinned at Tony and Pepper, then announced, “Now I’m like Daddy!”
Tony was sure, for just a second, that he would die in that moment. The first time in recorded history that someone had actually died from love and happiness.
“Let ‘Smoke Rings’ from this ‘Paper, Doll,’/ Blow sweet and thick ‘til every thought of/ ‘It Don’t Mean A Thing’”
People forgot. Somehow, it seemed like everyone had forgotten about Tony’s past. On occasion, Iron Man was mentioned, but the old image of Tony Stark had almost completely disappeared. He became Tony Stark, Pepper Stark’s husband. Tony Stark, dad of the year who does science and beauty videos with his adorable daughter. Tony Stark, the meme. Tony Stark, who will play father-figure to anyone and everyone who needs it.
There were a few articles, here and there, that would bring up his past, but they rarely tore him down for it. He was held up as an inspiration, the troubled young man who became a hero and then settled down and became a good father. The hope for those with mental illnesses, addictions, disabilities, anything.
Morgan became the center of his life. He had his tech, his lab, his suits. But suddenly it became ‘building things for Morgan’ and ‘tech that’s helpful to kids’ and ‘tech that’s helpful for parents’ and ‘messing around in the lab with Morgan’ and ‘teaching science to Morgan’ and ‘building an Ironsuit that’s safe for Morgan to play with’ and ‘building hoverboots so that Morgan can fly like the Ironsuits, only safer than the Ironsuits because Morgan is a child and a troublemaker, nice job, Parker and Keener (and Shuri?).’
Tony couldn’t remember ever being this happy, this at peace. Even the shenanigans of the other kids didn’t rile him up too much, as much as they tried.
“I got some color back, she thinks so, too/ I laugh like me again, she laughs like you”
Healing was… an Experience. Things were rough in the beginning, pushing himself into therapy and then knowing that he-- they-- had a baby on the way. It wasn’t all linear, some days were better than others. But things became so settled, so good.
Morgan was nine and “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen” was playing when she looked up from her homework to look at Tony and said, “You used to be sadder.”
“I what?”
“You used to be sadder,” she repeated. “You would smile at me, but you were sad. You still look sad sometimes, but not so much.” She almost sounded like Pepper.
“... I went through some stuff before you were born. You know that,” Tony said after a pause. “I’ve been going to the doctor to try to make my head get better.”
Morgan nodded. “Good. You should be healthy.”
And that was that.
“I wouldn’t know where to start/ ‘Sweet Music’ playing ‘In The Dark’/ Be still, ‘My Foolish Heart’/ Don’t ruin this on me”