stark, peter parker

xiv. time travel, woo!

a/n: i would like to address the obvious fact that, with the blip, dakota would be 21 and peter would still be 16. we're going to all just ignore this and pretend that it would still be legal and that dakota somehow didn't age in between this time <3 when i originally wrote this book, i made the blip last only 2 years and had morgan be born before infinity war, but honestly i hated the way that played out, since the timing of morgan's birth is essential to tony's character. so, instead, we're going to work with what i already have and just pretend that dakota hasn't aged <3 thank you besties, i'm sorry for the confusion

dakota hadn't been able to sleep, which wasn't surprising, considering that she and her father had just discovered the secret to time travel. she was over the moon at the thought of seeing her boyfriend once again after being apart from him for so long. beyond that, she would be saving the world, again.

she lay on her back on her bed, looking up at the ceiling. her record player stopped spinning as the track reached its end, leaving her in silence. thankfully, her thoughts were loud enough. she sat up, just in time for her door to open.

in walked tony, pinching the bridge of his nose. "can't sleep either?" he asked.

"you know you're not the only one in this house who can go weeks without sleeping, right?" dakota replied, a soft smile on her lips.

her father nodded his head, knowing full well that his daughter had acquired her lack of sleep from him. "do you want to.. come help me with the.. the thing?"

he didn't know what else to call a time travelling device, it seemed. "yeah," kodie nodded, getting out of bed, "yeah, i'd love to help with the thing."

the two starks spent the rest of the night analyzing their model, and they eventually managed to create a watch of sorts; but one that would help them navigate through time manually. they made multiple copies of it, knowing that the rest of their team would need to be equipped with them as well.

when the sun rose, the duo was still working. pepper walked into the room, shaking her head with a knowing smile. "neither of you slept, did you?"

dakota was the first to look up. "how could we?" she asked, taking her glasses off. "we can't just forget about this, mom. we have to bring him back."

pepper smiled. dakota had never called her "mom" before, in all the years they'd known each other. "i know." the woman nodded. "please promise me you'll be safe."

she nodded in response, giving pepper a hug. "i will. it'll just be a quick trip, right?"

⎊‎⎊‎⎊

after dakota and tony had said goodbye to both pepper and to morgan (and, of course, changed into fancier clothing), they headed off to the avengers compound. kodie hadn't realized how long it had been since she'd been there until they approached the building.

steve was standing in front of the doors with his daughter when their audi r8 sped towards the entrance. the car pulled in front of him, but went a bit too far. it reversed a bit, and once it was parked, tony rolled down his window. "why the long face?" he asked. "let me guess: he turned into a baby."

"among other things, yeah." steve nodded. "what are you doing here?"

tony got out of the car, ignoring his question. "that's the epr paradox. instead of pushing lang through time, you might've wound up pushing time through lang. it's tricky. dangerous. somebody should've cautioned you against it." he said sarcastically.

"you did." steve admitted.

"oh, did i?" he replied, acting as if he hadn't. "thank god i'm here. regardless, i fixed it."