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“Alright, what flavor are we getting today?”
Morgan doesn’t answer at first; instead she presses herself so closely to the chilled glass of the ice cream parlor shop that Peter gives a startled, gurgled laugh, which is poorly hidden behind his mouth. She puckers her lips like a fish and presses those to the glass too, and that’s when Peter laughs completely.
“Okay, munchkin, hold on,” Peter wheezes as he props up the four year old on his hip. It makes Tony’s back hurt just looking at it. “Higher vantage point. Better?”
She hums, somewhat content, as Peter struggles to keep her from climbing over the counter and sticking her finger in each tub to taste test them all. After she scans them she looks up at Peter and asks, “Where’s the Spider-Man ice cream?”
Peter laughs again.
“They’re all out,” Peter says, pointing the empty carton at the end of the fridge. The official Spider-Man Spin-A-Web Buns is scraped clean. “You’ll have to pick something else. Ooh! What about Dad’s favorite, huh?” He nods to the annoyingly full carton of Stark Raving Hazelnuts.
Morgan doesn’t exactly grimace, but Tony can tell she’s not crazy about the idea.
Traitor.
But Peter persists. “You love hazelnuts, remember? You’d eat a whole jar of Nutella if I let you.”
“Yeah,” Morgan agrees, folding more closely into Peter, her arms looped around his neck. Their day has been long and in typical fashion, Morgan’s fatigue comes on like unsuspecting tidal wave. “But it’s not cinnamon. I love cinnamon.” A pause. “And Spider-Man.”
“Well, who doesn’t?” Tony throws in, and Peter’s cheeks tinge pink, staring down at the very interesting checkered floors.” He leans forward and presses a kiss to the top of her head. “But we can get it another day, I promise. For today, how about Hunk a Hulk of Burning Fudge?”
“I do like fudge,” Morgan reasons with herself. “Can I get a scoop of that and the rainbow sherbet?”
Peter pulls a face trying to imagine that concoction of flavors together, but Tony doesn’t even blink. He’s seen some shit. Morgan has poured orange soda into her cocoa puffs, so this is really not that big of a deal. Honestly? It’s a downright win, perhaps a step in the right direction for an appropriate palette. Sure, Pepper’s gonna kill him for giving the shortstack this much sugar right before bed but….it’s Morgan. How can he deny his daughter the ice cream flavors of her heart’s desire?
“You get whatever flavors you want, baby,” he says. When he leans forward to give her another kiss, Morgan squirms in Peter’s arms to meet him halfway, smacking him on the corner of his mouth.
The kid behind the counter is all smiles as she gets all their orders. Morgan despises cones of all kinds, so the lady dips hers into a cup, while Peter gets an impressively tall waffle cone filled to the brim with Stark Raving Hazelnuts. Peter, without fail, gets it every time they go out, despite the fact that he doesn’t really like hazelnuts.
Kids do weird things to say I love you. Morgan has drawn on enough kitchen cabinets to prove that to him.
Peter tries to prevent her from accidentally dropping her cup while Tony tosses a fifty on the counter and adjusts his baseball cap, pushing the brim down a little further. From the corner of his eye he sees Morgan take a lick from Peter’s cone, to which he playfully berates her and threatens not to make popcorn for their movie night tomorrow, before he reminds Morgan to use her manners.
“Did you say thank you to the nice lady for your dessert?” Peter asks, wiping some stray ice cream off her chin with the sleeve of his shirt.
Morgan has the decency to look sheepish before she flashes the shop employee a bright smile. “Thank you, ma’am!”
“Aww, you and your dad are very welcome.” she smiles. But she doesn’t gesture to Tony. She gestures to Peter. Which means…
Aw, jeez.
The woman hands over his single scoop vanilla cone and Tony wishes he had super speed to pull out his wallet and flash out his ID before she says:
“Your granddaughter is really cute.”
Peter gives a startled, gurgled wheeze. Tony can only equate the sound to the shooting of a gun named The Shreds of Tony Stark’s Dignity.
Tony doesn’t bother to correct her on account of his soul has momentarily left his body. Peter doesn’t bother to correct her on account of he’s trying not to choke on his own tongue.
Morgan is oblivious, and takes a bit bite from Peter’s ice cream cone.
When he finally manages to finish paying and herd his children to a quiet corner of the shop, Morgan scrambles from Peter’s hold, ice cream in hand, and crawls into Tony’s lap.
“Daddy,” Morgan says, “Why does everyone always think you’re my grandpa?”
It’s happened before, Tony will...admit that. Not out loud, not without a gun to his head, but he can admit to himself the terrible, terrible mistake has been made before. Tony’s a bit on the older side for a first time dad. Peter, as much as Tony tries to deny it, has finally entered his twenties. Peter could pass for a...ugh, he can barely even think it, a young dad. It’s happened before.
Tony is not aware, however, that it’s a everyone always thinks situation.
“Who…” Tony struggles for the right words, sitting Morgan on one of his legs. “Who else calls me Grandpa? How long has this been going on?”
“Since forever,” Morgan laments, digging into her dessert with the wrong end of the spoon. Tony barely fixes it before she makes a mess. “The ice cream lady, Miss Clarke, the old man at the toy store last week, Uncle Rhodey -”
“Uncle Rhodey?”
Peter tries and fails to hide his evil cackle behind a giant bite of ice cream.
“Especially Uncle Rhodey,” Morgan says. “He’s always wrong.” She turns in his lap and presses sticky fingers to his cheeks, squishing them together. “You’re Daddy.”
When her hands start to fall, Tony tilts his head to give her palm a tiny kiss. “That’s right, honey. You tell him. You tell everyone.”
“I do!” She throws both arms out wide and the plastic spoon goes flying. Peter, knowing Morgan a little too well, hands over the plastic spare he picked up from the counter before they sat down. “But Petey says that it’s okay, ‘cuz it’s funny.”
Finally, Tony sees some of the fifteen year old punk in him when Peter shrinks a little in his seat.
But he doesn’t last. The kid straightens up and swipes his finger in his ice cream before he reaches over and paints a mustache of it over Morgan’s upper lip, making her shriek with laughter. “God, is it funny,” Peter agrees, swiping his finger once more and this time, smearing an ice cream mustache over Tony’s already mustached….mustache.
“You’ve been double mustached,” Morgan says with...frightening deadpan. God, his kid is nuts. Why is that so funny to him. She’s so bizarre. He can’t possibly love any other girl more.
Peter nods with her as he basically...dunks his face into his cone. “We’re part of a club now,” he says, tongue all weird and giraffe like when he tries to lick it off his own chin. “The ice cream mustache society of fun times and good vibes.”
Morgan’s eyes blow wide. “I love good vibes,” she announces with such stoic sincerity that Peter gets ice cream up his nose doing some stupid snort laugh.
It’s moments like this that Tony has a hard time accepting that anyone would think Peter Parker is mature enough to be a dad.
(he knows, deep down, he could be. But Tony likes that he has the time and means to still be his big kid with a four-year-old heart of gold)
Morgan finishes the fudge ice cream, but starts dozing off halfway into the sherbet due to all the effort spent on swiping some of his and Peter’s ice cream. Peter, never one to waste food, spoons the rest of it in the stupid plastic purple spoon and shovels it into his mouth.
“Oh, i’s so cold!” he whines, face screwed up comically. He flaps his hands like it’ll warm up his mouth. “I ‘ave brain freeze.”
“Need a brain for it to freeze, Pete.”
“M’st’r Stark.”
Morgan perks back up after Peter’s interpretive dance of frostbite and rushes to the door while Tony tries to unstickify the table. The shop lady waves him off with a limp wave and stifled laughter; Morgan knows the rules, she can’t leave a store without Peter or Tony and she’s got the door jammed open, straddling the threshold and chanting “Go, go, go, go!” over and over again and it’s tickling employees and customers alike pink. It only stops when Peter rushes over, collects her in his arms, and attempts to wipe her face clean again with the napkin.
“My mustache,” she whines.
“Club meeting’s over, Miss Morgan,” Peter teases. “We’ll do it again at the next meeting. We can even do it with Spin-a-Web Buns.”
“YAY!”
Outside, the heat immediately prickles at the back of Tony’s neck. As he slides his sunglasses over his face, he’s thankful for his choice in jeans and a t-shirt. When Peter sets Morgan down she immediately gravitates toward Tony and holds his hand in hers, looking up at him like he hangs the stars in the night sky.
It’s probably the sugar high, but he knows his girl loves him, regardless.
They walk to the nearest crosswalk and wait for the light. Morgan’s singing “Little green man,” over and over under her breath and it’s equal parts creepy and adorable. Tony’s daughter is seriously the coolest kid on this planet.
When the little green man pops up, Tony takes the first step, only to feel Morgan tug heavily and pull him back onto the sidewalk. “What is it?" he asks, pointing to the sign. "The little green man is there, that means we can cross, you know this.”
People almost run her down trying to pass her, but she isn’t bothered. She looks up at Peter and says. “He’s breaking the hand-holding rule. Peter, you have to hold Daddy’s hand if you want to cross the street!”
“Oh no, darling, Peter’s a big kid. We’ve talked about this, yeah? He doesn’t have to -”
Tony stops short when Peter simply reaches out and grabs his free hand.
“You’re absolutely right, Morgan.” Peter nods, giving her a thumbs up. His other hand squeezes Tony’s before he looks up at him and smiles. “Safety first; right, Dad?”
Tony squeezes back.
“Yeah, safety first.”
But then the light turns again and the red hand comes up, prompting Morgan to start singing “big red hand” over and over until it changes. It’s not the longest light in the world, but it certainly isn’t all that short. He completely expects Peter to subtly drop Tony’s hand with hopes that Morgan won’t notice, or at least only grab it again when the light turns again, but he doesn’t. He keeps holding his hand. Peter’s smile as is blinding as his daughter’s as he starts singing back up to the next top Billboard hit, big red hand as he swings his own with Tony’s, back and forth.
The light changes again, Morgan cheers, and they cross the street just fine.
“You know it doesn’t matter, right?” Peter says to him once they reach the other side of the sidewalk. Morgan isn’t paying much attention on account of she’s just spotted what she dubs the fuzziest cat in the whole wide world outside a bodega and is busy trying to name it. “All the people who matter know you’re her dad.”
Peter, still holding Tony’s hand, gives it another squeeze.
“Yeah, kiddo, I know,” Tony sighs. “Just makes me feel old.”
“If it helps, you’re not that old?”
“Don’t say it like it’s a question, just -” he drops Peter’s hand in favor of putting the kid in a one arm headlock, dragging him even closer to his side. “You’re a real pain, you know that?”
“Awww, you love me!” he tries to wiggle away, fix his tousled hair. “Admit it!”
“Of course I love you,” Tony scoffs, “But -” he’s about to go on a rant about grey hair and bad joints and that weird click in his ankle that’s somehow all Peter’s fault and then…
Peter’s eyes glitter, looking up at him like he hangs the stars in the sky.
The argument dies on his tongue.
“....yeah,” he sighs, smiling. “Of course I love you.”
If possible, Peter smiles wider.
“Daddy?” Morgan tugs on the hem of his t-shirt. “I named the cat Crackers.”
How can a four year old be so cool? “That’s an amazing name.”
“Can we take Crackers home?”
“Sorry, baby. Crackers has to stay here and protect the bodegas.”
Morgan pauses, obviously trying another tactic. She’s young, but her bartering skills are top notch. She’s definitely his and Pepper’s child. “If we take Crackers home, I’ll call Uncle Rhodey Grandpa for a whole month.”
“Three months.”
“A year.”
“Oh my god, deal,” Tony says, and Peter nearly pops a lung with his laughter when Tony starts to run across the street to grab the stray cat.
“Daddy!” Morgan yells. He turns around, waiting. She gives him a duh look, and points to Peter’s open hand. “You gotta hold hands to cross the street!”
So they do. Each time. Tony’s sure they’re quite the sight, especially when they have an old calico cat named Crackers the Blind in their arms, but he doesn’t care. He’s waited a long time for his family.
He’ll hold their hands whenever they need it.