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Peter blamed Morgan entirely for putting the idea in his head.
Not that he was mad at her or anything. He didn’t think he could ever manage to be truly angry with her. She was the one unequivocally bright thing to have emerged from the entire mess of the blip, the missing five years, and the battle against Thanos.
Although he had to admit that he’d felt a complicated mix of emotions when Pepper informed him of Morgan’s existence in the hospital after the battle.
You’ve been replaced, his mind had whispered traitorously. Whatever bond you and Tony shared in the past as mentor and protege won’t matter anymore now that he has his own kid.
He’d felt terrible for the thought — for being jealous of a four-year-old who’d done nothing wrong except exist.
And then he’d met Morgan, and he’d felt even worse for his initial wariness. Because Morgan had bounded right up to him like he was an old friend, hugged him tightly, and started introducing him to all her stuffed animals.
Now he couldn’t imagine life without her. And Tony had woken up a few weeks later and made it abundantly clear that his feelings toward Peter hadn’t changed over the past five years — in fact, if anything, Tony was even more eager than ever before to include Peter in his life. He’d left Peter’s old room at the Tower intact for five years and built him a new room at the cabin. He practically demanded that Peter come over and spend weekends with the Starks as often as possible. And on the days that Peter stayed with May in Queens, he called or texted without fail to check in.
So Peter’s predicament in general wasn’t Morgan’s fault. But this particular slip-up was.
Morgan was only four, and the concept of family was complicated to her. The network of relationships that the Starks had built between their family, May, Peter, Colonel Rhodes, and Happy was intricate. It made sense that Morgan used the simplest terms to describe everyone’s role in her life — she called Rhodey and Happy “Uncle,” and she called May “Aunt May.”
She called Peter her brother, and she seemed bewildered when Peter referred to Tony as “Mr. Stark,” or “Tony” in conversation with her.
“But why don’t you call him Daddy too?” She asked, her brow wrinkled adorably as they shared a bowl of popcorn on the front porch one afternoon.
“Because he’s not really my dad, Mo. My parents were named Richard and Mary, but they died when I was little. Then Aunt May and my Uncle Ben became like my parents, but Uncle Ben died too.”
“And now Daddy is like your parent, right?”
Peter flushed, shooting a look back at the house and hoping that Tony and Pepper weren’t listening in on their conversation.
He supposed that it had been…implied that Tony thought of Peter as his kid. He’d called Morgan Peter’s sister a few times, and he often mentioned the two of them as a unit — “the kids” — when talking to Rhodey or Happy. He seamlessly included Peter in all of the Stark family’s plans, as though it was a given that Peter should be there.
“I guess so,” Peter agreed reluctantly.
But he still hoped Tony and Pepper hadn’t overheard him say that — just in case he was misreading everything.
“Then he’s your dad,” Morgan told him, as though it were that simple.
***
After that conversation, he did his best to at least refer to Tony as “your dad” when he spoke to Morgan so that she wouldn’t bring it up again — or worse yet, bring it up in front of Tony himself.
“Mo, can you tell To — I mean, your dad, that dinner is ready?”
“Mr. Stark — I mean — your dad is waiting for us outside.”
“Did your dad say you could have that much syrup on your pancakes?”
It became natural after a few weeks — and so that was why Peter blamed Morgan for his first mistake.
It was a cool fall evening — perfect weather for a bonfire and s’mores, according to Tony. They’d eaten dinner, and Peter had been entrusted with starting the fire while Pepper and Tony cleaned up from dinner and gathered the supplies for s’mores.
“Just watch your sister near the flames,” Tony warned as they left the house, Morgan bouncing excitedly at his side.
“Of course,” Peter promised. He didn’t take the responsibility of looking after Morgan lightly, and he tasked her with finding sticks they could burn as he set up the kindling in the fire pit and began fanning the flames into a proper blaze.
“I think it’s ready! Can you call Daddy?” Morgan asked eagerly, dancing in place.
Peter nodded. “Dad!” He yelled over his shoulder.
Only to freeze in place, all the blood draining from his face when he realized what he’d just said.
The scariest part was how easily the word had slipped out — a title that he hadn’t used in more than ten years.
He held his breath, heart pounding in his ears. A minute passed, and then two.
“I don’t think he heard you,” Morgan pointed out, oblivious to his inner turmoil.
Peter had to agree — he could hear Tony and Pepper’s heartbeats in the distance if he concentrated hard enough, and neither of them seemed to have noticed that he’d called Tony at all, let alone that he’d mistakenly used the word “Dad.”
He cleared his throat. “TONY!” He called, raising his voice a little louder.
He heard distant footsteps heading their way, indicating that Tony had heard him this time. He hoped any lingering redness on his cheeks could be explained away by the heat of the fire.
***
“I think you’re overthinking it, dude,” Ned told him when Peter recounted the story a few days later at the lunch table.
“But why did I say it?” Peter asked for the third time, absently twirling spaghetti around his fork.
“I don’t know. Because you love him and trust him and view him as a father figure?” Ned suggested in a slightly exasperated tone. He’d finished his lunch a few minutes earlier and was working on a lab report.
“No, no — it’s Morgan’s fault, I’m telling you. I built an association between Tony and that word in my mind because I’m trying to make things less confusing for her.”
“Don’t you think your brain would’ve refused to form the association if you didn’t agree with it on some level?” Ned asked, raising one eyebrow.
Peter wordlessly pushed his extra slice of garlic bread toward Ned, hoping that his friend would start eating it and stop saying such reasonable and thought provoking things.
“You know, Peter,” MJ chimed in, looking up from her drawing. “I hear the gymnastics team is holding tryouts next week.”
Peter blinked at her, nonplussed by the change of subject. “Okay? But I can’t join the gymnastics team; it wouldn’t be fair because of…y’know, the other guy.” He mimed shooting a web.
Ned snorted. “I think she’s making fun of all the mental gymnastics you’re doing to avoid being honest with yourself, dude.”
“Precisely,” MJ nodded approvingly. “Ned gets it. Now, can you just turn slightly toward me while you angst over this? I really want to get a good angle of this crisis for my sketchbook.”
***
The next time it happened, Peter felt like it didn’t count since he was half-delirious with pain and couldn’t be held liable for the words leaving his mouth.
Lights flashed above his head. He was moving somewhere quickly, but he wasn’t running or swinging — he was rolling.
Someone was letting out a horrible keening noise, and it took him a long moment to recognize that it was him — he was on a gurney, being wheeled through the Tower’s medical wing, moaning and thrashing in pain from —
A bullet.
It was like white-hot lava was boiling in his side. The rolling stopped after an eternity, and then there were loud voices shouting all around him and hands on him periodically — an immense pressure on the wound, someone pricking him with a needle, another person fitting an oxygen mask on him —
Peter wanted to float away and disappear for a while — to go curl up on his bed at home and wait a few days to re-inhabit his body again.
He wanted —
May’s face popped into his mind, but he didn’t want her here to see him like this, because he knew how she’d worry, and that would just make him feel guilty, not comforted. No, he wanted — he needed —
“Tony,” he tried to say. It came out as a pathetic croak. “Tony —”
“Stark!” Someone barked. “He’s calling for you.”
Peter managed to crack his eyes open, and he saw Tony standing next to him, his face ashen and his expression oddly frozen as he looked at Peter. Peter almost jolted with concern when he saw the bright smear of red on Tony’s shirt and jeans, wondering if Tony had been shot too — but then he recalled that Tony had been the first one on the scene after Karen alerted him, and he’d been the one to carry Peter to Stark Tower with an Iron Man suit, despite the fact that he was still in recovery from wielding the gauntlet.
“Dad,” Peter whispered. It came out as a whimper, and the tears that filled his eyes spilled over, much to his embarrassment. “Dad, please, it hurts.”
Tony seemed to unfreeze in an instant, and he hurried forward, reaching out to grasp one of Peter’s hands in his own. The grip felt like a life raft in the immense storm surrounding him.
“I’m here, Roo. It’s going to be okay, you hear me? I got you.” His voice sounded strange to Peter’s ears — tight and lacking its usual authority — and the hand that reached up to brush Peter’s tears away seemed to be shaking.
He turned toward the doctors and nurses. “Get him more pain meds, now,” he commanded.
Peter began to lose track of things after that, as whatever drugs they’d given him pulled him under. The last thing he felt before he slipped into blissful unconsciousness was a warm hand in his own.
***
When he woke up in a recovery room the next morning, he had a vague sense that he should be embarrassed about his behavior the night before. He thought he even remembered calling Tony Dad.
But that couldn’t be right, because Tony was acting like things were completely normal between them. Well, normal for this new version of Tony, anyway. He remained planted by Peter’s bedside for the entire day, fussing over how much pain he was in and whether the lights were too bright.
Happy dropped Morgan off for a brief visit in the afternoon, and she promptly clambered onto the bed, nestling into his good side.
“Petey,” Morgan asked. “Can we watch 101 Dalmatians? That movie always makes me feel better when I’m hurt or sick.”
Peter smiled down at her, grateful for her uncomplicated presence in his life.
“Great movie choice, Mo. But why don’t we ask your dad if that’s okay before we put it on? I’m not sure what time Uncle Happy was planning to come get you.”
He was careful to say “your dad” instead of just “Dad.” Across the room, something flickered in Tony’s gaze, but to Peter’s disappointment, Tony kept his expression neutral, so it was hard to know what he was thinking.
The old version of Tony from before the blip would’ve been incredibly uncomfortable if Peter accidentally called him “Dad” or anything remotely close to it. He probably would’ve told Peter that they “weren’t there yet,” and he would’ve been distant for a few days while he worked through his discomfort. Their interactions after that would’ve been a little stilted until they got immersed in something scientific in the lab and both forgot to feel awkward.
This version of Tony turned on 101 Dalmatians and sat down on Peter’s other side to watch with them. When Peter tugged his blanket up higher, Tony correctly deduced that he was cold and wordlessly retrieved another blanket for him, settling it carefully over the tubes and wires. When Morgan fell asleep curled up by his side near the end of the movie, Tony smiled a smile at them that made his eyes crinkle in the corners, his gaze soft and private — something that the press would never get to see.
A particular smile that seemed to be reserved just for Morgan and Peter.
It was nice, but confusing.
***
“Hi, Ben,” he said softly, taking a seat in front of his uncle’s headstone in the cemetery.
He’d been meaning to come here ever since the battle against Thanos almost six months earlier, but it hadn’t happened yet. The last time he’d visited, it had been a few weeks before the blip, and it was strange to return now. Only a few months had passed for him, but for half the world, it had been over five years, and so much had changed. The Peter Parker who sat here now was a different Peter from the one who’d visited last time.
He’d felt bad for not coming by sooner, but now he thought he knew why he’d been waiting. He’d been trying to resolve things in his head before coming to visit his uncle. But the issue that was worrying him wasn’t an easy one to resolve, and Ben had always given amazing advice.
“Sorry I haven’t been here in so long,” he said, feeling his throat tighten with emotion as he pictured his uncle sitting next to him. “You wouldn’t believe what’s happened. I still don’t understand it all myself.”
He let out a wry laugh, swiping at his eyes.
“I’ll come back and fill you in some other time. I probably can’t stay long before May and Tony start freaking out. May used to despise Tony, but he’s turned into such a helicopter parent that even she can’t find reasons to complain anymore.”
He hadn’t told anyone where he was going after school, and eventually, May or Tony would check his suit log and realize he wasn’t patrolling like he usually did on Wednesdays. It wasn’t like he needed their permission to come here, of course, but he hadn’t wanted to tell them about it for some reason.
Maybe because they would’ve offered to come with him, and this felt like something he needed to do on his own.
“Speaking of helicopter parents, I guess that’s one of the reasons why I came by.”
He left a bit of silence between each thought, even though his uncle wasn’t here to reply. It made him feel more like he was having a conversation.
He picked idly at a blade of grass, gathering his thoughts.
“I called Tony Dad by accident. Twice now. And I guess — I just never thought I would call someone that again, you know?”
Ben had always been careful to distinguish himself as Peter’s uncle, out of respect for his late brother. Peter’s memories of his dad were fuzzy, but he dimly recalled the peaceful feeling of sitting on his lap and hearing him sing a lullaby at night. Thereafter, Ben had been Peter’s dad in all but name, packing his lunches, teaching him to play catch, and talking him through how to deal with bullies.
For so long, he’d been afraid to acknowledge the bond growing between him and Tony — to drag it into the light of day and put a name to it. It felt like he was betraying the two men who’d raised him, to move on and build that kind of relationship with someone new. Hell, he might’ve been more scared of defining their relationship than Tony himself used to be before the blip.
“Tony is different from you in a lot of ways,” Peter said slowly, thinking back on the rocky start they’d had during the Homecoming incident. Then he recalled all the moments where they’d grown closer over the subsequent year and a half before the blip — all the late nights in Tony’s lab, eating takeout in the penthouse, Tony sneaking into his decathlon meet to cheer him on and sitting next to his bed in the med bay.
“But…he makes me feel safe. And loved. The same things that you made me feel.”
Not to mention, Tony had invented time travel — literally re-writing history and tearing apart the fabric of space and time — to bring Peter back to life.
He’d told Peter as much himself in the hospital after the battle when he finally woke up. He’d gotten a second chance at a peaceful and fulfilling life with Morgan’s birth, but he still hadn’t been able to rest while Peter was dead.
It was an incredible gift, but Peter still didn’t like to think about it — the idea that his memory had been the catalyst for half the world coming back to life.
The fact that Tony had almost died to make sure Peter lived.
The realization hit him like a freight train all of a sudden, his breath catching in his throat.
He could’ve been sitting in front of Tony’s grave right now.
After all, Tony had come within a hair’s breadth of death after wielding the gauntlet. He had lost an arm and was still recovering six months later. Peter had heard his heart stop on the battlefield for a horrifying minute until the medical team showed up and immediately evacuated him to Wakanda for treatment.
For twelve excruciating hours, he’d feared the worst, sitting silently in the hospital next to Pepper and waiting tensely for the doctors to come out of surgery, terrified that their eyes would be regretful and downcast as they broke the bad news.
He pictured himself sitting in front of a headstone that bore the words Tony Stark, and the dread he felt at the idea was like being punched in the stomach. He felt so nauseous that he had to close his eyes and breathe deeply for a minute.
He’s fine — he’s at the Tower doing physical therapy this afternoon. You’ll see him tonight. He’s fine. He’s okay. He’s alive.
Still feeling a bit shaky, he opened his eyes, fixing his gaze on Ben’s name in front of him.
It was an utter miracle that he and Tony were both alive — wouldn’t it be a shame to waste that?
And he didn’t really think Ben would’ve had a problem with him seeking comfort from Tony. When May admitted that she was dating Happy last month and anxiously asked Peter if he was okay with that, Peter had been able to honestly reply that he was happy for her, and he thought Ben would be happy for her too.
He’d seen the way her shoulders slumped with relief at his approval, and he knew that if he told her that he’d called Tony Dad, she would tell him something similar.
“I guess I just needed to visit and to say that…I’ll always love you, and I could never, ever replace you or my dad,” he concluded.
Of course, there was no response, but Peter imagined his uncle reaching over to ruffle his hair and offering his signature warm smile. Something in his chest eased now that he’d gotten the words out.
As if on cue, his phone dinged with a text alert. Grabbing it from his pocket, he swiped on his home screen to read the message.
Hey, bud — you coming by the Tower for dinner tonight? It’s pizza night and your sister is threatening to put pineapple on your pizza, so you better get here stat. I’m trying to hold her off, but I’m only one man.
Peter snorted. He could read between the lines — Tony was wondering where he was, and he was trying to lightly probe him instead of asking outright.
“Well, guess I’d better get going before Iron Man shows up in a panic,” Peter said, standing and brushing grass and dirt off his jeans. “Or I end up with a disgusting pizza.”
He shot a quick text back to Tony — Be there in 30 to back you up. Tell her that Spider-Man is going to add webs to her pizza if she puts pineapple on mine.
“Bye, Ben,” he said with a small smile. “I’ll come visit again soon.”
For the first time since Ben’s death, Peter left the cemetery without any guilt weighing him down.
***
Peter felt the word on the tip of his tongue several times over the next few weeks. It was like once his brain made the connection, he couldn’t stop it.
“Da — I mean, did you see that Bruce published a new paper about gamma radiation?” Peter asked at the dinner table one night. He’d been trying to ask Tony to pass the salad, but he’d panicked and blurted out the first thing he could think of when he caught himself starting the question with Dad.
They’d been discussing Morgan’s upcoming fall dance recital, and Tony and Pepper both looked bewildered by the abrupt change in subject. But Tony gamely asked what he’d thought of Bruce’s interpretation of the data in section two of the article and gave no indication if he noticed something was amiss.
***
At Thanksgiving dinner a few weeks later, Tony made them all go around the table and say what they were thankful for. May ribbed him for being such a sap, but she got misty eyed as she said how grateful she was for Peter to be alive and safe, and for Happy’s new role in her life.
When it was Peter’s turn, he wasn’t even sure where to begin. “I guess I’m just grateful for all of you,” he said, looking around the table at the Starks, May, Happy, Rhodey, and Bruce. “Especially May and D-Tony.”
He cut himself off there, ducking his head and hoping his cheeks weren’t pink with embarrassment. He still wasn’t sure how Tony felt about Peter calling him Dad, and he certainly didn’t want to find out with such a public audience.
The near-miss made him even more determined to get it over with, though, and a few days later, he took a deep breath, braced himself, and finally went for it.
***
They were in the lab, working on Peter’s suit.
“And I was thinking, we could install a thruster into the suit that activates a flight mechanism in case your webshooters malfunction or you run out of web fluid in mid-air — ” Tony was saying as Peter opened the suit to expose the wiring.
He looked over at Tony, who was passionately explaining how this improvement would keep Peter safe, and a wave of reassuring certainty rolled over him, giving him courage for what he was about to say next.
“Can you pass me the blue screwdriver, Dad?”
“— and it would override the webshooter code and — ”
Tony’s voice faltered mid-sentence, and he jolted as though he’d been shocked by a live wire, his head snapping up to look at Peter.
For several long, terrible seconds, Peter was certain he’d made a horrible misstep.
“What…” Tony asked hoarsely, his eyes wide. “What was that again, Pete?”
Peter cleared his throat, fighting the urge to deflect or take it back.
“I said, um, ‘Can you pass me the blue screwdriver, Dad?’”
Tony gaped at him for a few seconds and then seemed to give himself a little shake, his expression dazed. “Of-of course, bud.” He got the sense that Tony was trying his best to sound casual, but Peter’s enhanced ears could hear the way his heart had sped up.
“In fact,” Tony continued, his voice earnest and his eyes suddenly looking a bit watery. “It would be my honor to pass you the blue screwdriver, Pete.”
The deeper meaning behind the words was clear, and Peter beamed with a mixture of relief and happiness as the screwdriver in question was passed over.
“Thanks — oh!” Peter suddenly found himself engulfed in a tight hug.
“This is, uh, just for doing such a great job on the wiring there.” Tony sniffed, his hand coming up to cup the back of Peter’s neck.
Peter wasn’t, in fact, doing a good job on the wiring — he hadn’t even started yet. But he was happy to go along with the ruse if he got a hug out of it.
***
Morgan appeared in his room the next morning, still dressed in her pajamas and clutching her stuffed walrus, her current favorite toy.
“Hey, Petey,” she said, a thoughtful glint in her eye that reminded him of Pepper, “you know how you called Daddy ‘Dad’ last night at dinner?”
Peter nodded, looking up from his texts with Ned and smiling fondly at the recollection. It felt nice to have it out in the open, and to not have to second-guess every word that left his mouth in front of Tony anymore in case he slipped up.
“Well, he let us have two juice pops after that, even though normally he would only let us have one.”
“Yeah,” Peter agreed, not sure why this was an important detail.
“So…I bet if you call him ‘Dad’ again this morning, he’ll make us pancakes for breakfast!”
Peter could only blink at his younger sister. She was frighteningly perceptive for a five year old, and he was more and more certain every day that she would be an absolute force of nature to be reckoned with as an adult.
“Uh…I’m not really sure those two things are related, Mo.”
“Well, then there’s no harm in testing it out, right?”
Peter shrugged uncertainly, which Morgan interpreted as a resounding yes. She grabbed his hand and dragged him down to the kitchen, where Tony was sipping a cup of coffee and reading on his StarkPad.
“Stewart is very hungry, Daddy,” Morgan announced, waving her walrus toy in the air.
Tony looked up from his tablet, smiling at both of them over the rims of his reading glasses. “Is that so? Well, let’s see, what could we have for breakfast that Stewart would like — clams and snails?”
Morgan wrinkled her nose. “No, gross! He’s not like other walruses; he likes human food!”
She nudged Peter, her expression expectant.
Peter cleared his throat. “Uh, Dad, can we have pancakes for breakfast?”
Tony’s smile grew. “Sure thing, bud. Pancakes coming right up.”
Morgan let out a cheer of excitement and immediately followed Tony over to the stove, turning around to give Peter a look that said, See? I told you so.
Peter could only stare, astonished that Morgan’s plan had actually worked. Tony had been cooking very simple breakfasts ever since the battle against Thanos and the loss of his arm, and the few times Peter had eaten pancakes at the lake house, Pepper had been the one making them.
Until now.
Tony seemed to be in an especially good mood, whistling cheerfully while he worked. As the two of them ate breakfast, Morgan nudged him, pointing subtly at an ad in the paper for an ice rink that had opened in the small town near the lakehouse.
Peter gave her a look and shook his head, but she pointed at it again even more insistently, and he caved. He supposed it couldn’t hurt to test Morgan’s hypothesis more than once — that would be the scientific thing to do, after all.
“Dad, can we go ice skating at the new rink in town?”
“Yes, of course —” Tony immediately started to say. He had been flipping some extra pancakes for Pepper at the stove, and his eyes narrowed as comprehension dawned. “Hang on a second, are you using Dad as the equivalent of puppy dog eyes to get what you want?”
Morgan let out a giggle, and Tony swung his gaze to her, pointing the spatula in her direction accusingly. “This has you written all over it, Little Miss. I can’t believe my own children are conspiring against me! This is emotional warfare!”
He clutched his chest and staggered dramatically like he’d been shot, and it was hard to reconcile the present image of Tony goofing around in the kitchen, his goatee overgrown and his apron stained, with the aloof superhero Peter had met when he was fourteen.
Peter grinned. “Dad, can we get a puppy?” He asked innocently.
Tony snorted. “How about we start with ice skating for today, okay? Is that sufficient to satisfy your demands, your royal highnesses?”
Morgan nodded happily, looking pleased by the results of her little experiment.
“Yes, Daddy,” she said.
Tony was watching them with that look again — like a genie had just fulfilled his three wishes, and he had been granted everything a man could ever want or dream of.
Peter let it wash over him like the warmth of stepping through the front door after a long, cold day away from home.
“Yes, Dad,” he said.