Cookies. That's what Morgan had in mind.
"Chocolate peanut butter are Peter's favorite," she said, licking some of the rich brown batter off her fingers.
"Really?" Tony asked, closing the oven door and tossing the oven mitts to the side. "And what are your favorite cookies?"
Morgan hesitated and suddenly began avoiding eye contact. "Well, I am also particular to chocolate peanut butter, but I hardly see how that matters."
Tony barked a laugh, gathering up all the dirty measuring tools into the largest bowl to place in the dishwasher. "Uh huh. That's what I thought."
"Oh whatever, old man," Morgan teased, grabbing the broom and sweeping up some flour Tony had spilled on the floor.
"Woah, hold on now," Tony said, snatching the dustpan and holding it out of reach so that she couldn't use it to finish sweeping. "Who're you calling old?" Morgan laughed, and a weight on Tony's shoulders lifted. He hadn't heard her laugh so genuinely in a long time.
She pointed the broom at him, holding it like a sword. "You. You're old. You know, synonymous with ancient, you spell it O-L-D, you--"
"Okay, that's enough out of you, little lady," Tony said, knocking the broom aside and lifting Morgan off the floor and over his shoulder. She screamed in delight as he bounced into the newly refurbished living room and dumped her on the couch.
Tony felt his heart warm as she laid there, laughing and defeated. Sometimes it was easy to forget she was still really young. Too young to have gone through what she had.
The same went for Peter.
Once the laughter had died down a little, Morgan followed Tony back into the kitchen so they could finish cleaning up. He loaded the dishes haphazardly in the dishwasher and then watched as Morgan, with an exaggerated huff and roll of her eyes, reorganized the entire load so that everything would actually get cleaned.
"Boss," FRIDAY said as Morgan shut the dishwasher and set it to start, "you forgot to set a timer for your cookies."
"Who needs a timer when we've got you, FRI?" Tony said, trying to play it off as an intentional decision.
"Well sir, they're about to burn."
Tony had never moved so fast in his life.
Before he knew it, the oven mitts were back on, the two overloaded trays of cookies were out, and the door was closed again.
"At least they didn't burn?" Morgan said, raising an eyebrow at Tony as he put the oven mitts back in their little drawer.
"Having them in the oven a little longer than usual makes them extra chewy later on. It's a trade secret."
Shaking her head, Morgan pulled three glasses from the cupboard above the dishwasher and then got the milk from the fridge, pouring it into each one. While she worked, Tony carefully transferred the cookies to a cooling rack.
"I'm gonna take some to Peter," Morgan said, sliding some of the cookies onto a little plate and grabbing one of the glasses of milk. "Be right back!"
Tony watched her go with a little smile on his face, and then loaded some of the cooler cookies into a plastic bag so they could be specifically reserved for Pepper.
Pepper. Tony smiled just thinking about her. They were the light in his life, Pepper and Peter and Morgan.
He would do anything for them.
He just hoped they all knew that.
~~~
"Hey, so, um, I don't really know why I'm calling, but I got sent to voicemail so I thought I would just let you know I miss you? Sorry... gosh, that sounded weird. I just, I've missed a lot of your texts and stuff, so like, when you get this I was hoping you would maybe call me back? Or text?"
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Peter Parker... Stark?
FanfictionWhen Richard and Mary Parker became world-renowned geneticists, they never expected that they would be targeted for their work and forced to leave their only son, 14 year old Peter, behind with his Aunt May. In their rush to abandon everything, one...