~Broken Family~

Rocket Man

A few days later

Gwen yawned, stretching across her kicked-around sheets to try and reach her toes. It'd been a long night---more nightmares had made sleep rather difficult to achieve.

Early-morning sunlight flickered in through her shades, which she threw up with a sigh. The view across the river looked the same, but without seeing Morgan's pool toys scattered all over the shore, it might as well have been a totally different river.

She tugged a sweatshirt over her pajamas and yanked socks on before heading downstairs for breakfast. Pepper was down there already, cooking up a storm. Tony was downstairs, too, but he was dozing in one of the chairs in the corner, drool dripping into his goatee.

Grover yapped from behind his puppy pen until Gwen went over to give him some cuddles. He was growing really quickly, his head already up to her knee. She scooped him up in her arms and carried him over to the barstools, wherer she climbed up and started giving him an intense ear-scratching session.

"Good morning, sleepy head!" Pepper called, pouring some juice in a glass and handing it to her. "How'd you sleep?"

"Eh." Gwen shrugged, taking a sip. "It was okay."

"More nightmares?" Pepper's face morphed into concern, and she immediately felt bad.

"No! I--I mean, it wasn't that bad."

Pepper gave her a skeptical look and went back to sticking waffles in the toaster. Gwen smiled to herself as she remembered sitting like this many mornings last year, Peter and Morgan always bright and happy no matter how early it was. Harley was usually the night owl, resulting in grumpy mornings. She thought of Morgan asking Gwen to cut her pancakes because her way of cutting them was apparently "fancy," and pouring her syrup off to the side.

"You miss cooking breakfast for them?" Gwen asked. Pepper nodded, looking wistful as she handed Gwen a plate of eggs and waffles.

"Yeah. Breakfast is one of the only categories of cooking I'm actually good at."

"That's not true! You make really good---"

There were a few crashes and a pained yell. Tony snorted awake, shouting something about snow cones, and Gwen and Pepper bolted over to the stairway where the yell had originated from. Gwen had to double back to set Grover back down in his pen.

Harley had tripped, which wasn't unusual for him going down steps, and landed in a mangled heap at the bottom.

"Careful!" Gwen scolded, helping him to his feet. He groaned tiredly and rubbed at his forehead, where a bump was quickly rising. Leaning heavily against her shoulder, he hopped on one foot over to the counter. Once he was seated, Gwen ran back to grab his crutch.

"Harley, Tony told you to take your time going downstairs." Pepper wrung out a cool washcloth and handed it to him, which he pressed against the bump. He blinked his half-open eyes, rubbing a finger across them.

"I did," he slurred. "My foot jus' twisted 'n I tripped."

Pepper's brow creased. "Were you just tired, or was it one of the 'getting worse' things you were telling me about?" Harley shrugged sleepily, but Tony looked like he'd been electrocuted out of his chair.

"What do you mean, 'getting worse?'" he demanded. With one look at the half-asleep kid, Pepper waved her hand. Not now. Tony grunted in distaste, but didn't push it.

"Well, what are you kids gonna do today?" Pepper asked brightly in an attempt to change the subject.

"I don't know," Gwen nibbled on her second waffle. "What were you thinking, Harl?"