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Seeing their allies arrive, Tony feels the breath knocked out of him—which is saying something because he had just regained consciousness from when Thanos used him as a shield against Mjolnir.
It isn’t just the sight of reinforcements coming through numerous portals or Peter slinging through it like he never once crumbled into ash in Tony’s arms. The flashback makes Tony shut his eyes tight enough that he sees splotches of color on the back of his eyelids. He opens his eyes. Is that a winged horse and an armed duck?
He’s getting sidetracked here.
The point is, it’s not just the reinforcements or the resurrected kid that makes him pause, mouth slightly agape.
It’s also seeing his wife, right there, land with one knee bent and her fist on the ground.
She’s wearing the suit—his suit. No, her suit. She always did look hot dressed in a power suit—which tells him that either Morgan, the little tattletale, pointed Mommy in the direction of the suit or Pepper found it (FRIDAY clearly had something to do with it; he was hopelessly outgendered in that house).
Tony feels like he's been rebooted.
He’s barely aware when he gets up, aching limbs and joints notwithstanding, and makes his way to their allies.
The helmet comes over his face. The reboot is successful. Standing on this side of the battlefield, Tony feels invincible.
Everyone can feel it too—their weapons singing, their blood thrumming, there’s a taste of vengeance in their mouths.
A Chitauri Leviathan growls in the distance and Tony decides he’ll come for that monstrosity first.
Payback for New York, if you will.
“Avengers,” Cap’s voice flits through the comms. “Assemble.”
And then they’re off with resonating battle cries.
Fliers take to the skies, Tony in the lead. He has one eye on the Leviathan he wants to finally take a crack at (“Sir, we will lose power before you penetrate that shell,” JARVIS had said during the Battle of New York. Well, not anymore, J.) and another on Pepper who follows close behind him because he’s half worried she’ll fall and needs a spotter, but also because, let’s face it, she’s very distracting in that suit.
Turns out she doesn’t need the assist. She takes to the suit with deadly efficiency (like she always does with every single thing life throws at her), going up against five Chitauri soldiers in the air at once. Her fighting style relies more on raw power than calculated hits but this is her first time. Besides, it gets the job done.
Tony almost cries with pride, but he spots Lang punch the Leviathan Tony’s been eyeing, and his grin disappears.
“Hey! That one was mine!”
“Seriously? There are a ton of bad guys out here. Besides, I’m picking on somebody my own size. I’m being courteous,” Scott responds and Tony turns his attention instead to a squadron at his eight o’clock.
The ships are easily destroyed by his repulsors.
“Tony, behind you!” comes Pepper’s voice through the comms and he turns just in time to see her deploy the energy displacer arrays from her back to take down a necrocraft behind him.
He has half a mind to say something about how this has always been a fantasy of his but keeps his mouth shut and fights alongside her instead.
They attack back to back for a brief moment, Pepper using both the blasters in her gauntlets and the displacer arrays, while Tony uses his chest RT. They make a formidable team if Tony says so himself. It’s a shame that he has his back to her because Tony would rather stare at Pepper at work.
When they get a reprieve, he comes over, facing her this time and leans the forehead of his helmet against hers, one hand on her armored waist. He feels energized already.
He pulls away and gives her his signature grin knowing she can seem him through her heads-up display. “I like the look.”
“Thanks. It’s an early anniversary gift from my husband,” Pepper replies, flying away. She sounds pleased with the suit but Tony can’t be too sure. Once upon a time, he bought her a giant rabbit and sounded satisfied with it too until he directly asked her if she liked it.
“He has good taste.” He fires a tiny missile from his shoulder while asking, “Do you like it? It isn't too uncomfortable? Not too tight in the gooey bag?”
“It feels amazing.”
Tony turns to look at her. She looks amazing, zooming in the air, all alight with furious glory. Hard to believe this was his best friend, his wife, the mother of his child, the woman who ran his company, the—
“Stop looking at me like that,” Pepper interrupts his train of thought. “We have a battle to win.”
Tony grins sheepishly “Stop looking at you like what? Like you’re glowing?” He spots another Leviathan and goes for it before Lang steals it from him again. “Because you are, by the way. Glowing. More than usual.” The Leviathan roars as it falls to Tony’s assault, and something occurs to him. “You’re not pregnant, are you?”
“That glow’s from the arc reactor,” Pepper says passively.
“No, no. I’m pretty sure you’re glowing. Sort of like an ethereal warrior maiden glow… not unlike when you were pregnant.”
“You’re pregnant?” comes a familiar voice through the comms.
Tony forgot that he was speaking over the common channel, so everyone can hear what they’re saying.
“Rhodes is that you? Yeah, she might be.”
“I’m not pregnant,” Pepper’s voice is clipped. She’s been through this are you pregnant? Can you please be pregnant? phase Tony enters in every couple of months.
“Did I hear that right?” It's Bruce's voice this time. “You’re pregnant? Congrats, Pepper!”
“This is so not the time,” Tony can hear his wife mutter. Loudly, she says, “I’m not pregnant!”
Tony chuckles. “You said that before too. But it’s okay if you’re not. Because we can work on that. Like I say to Morgan, there’s always room for improvement.”
“Is Tony usually this chatty during a battle?” Pepper asks.
Everybody in the comms goes “yes” in unison.
"But you guys like it when I get chatty!" Tony says.
He makes a quick detour to survey the battle, trying to spot Peter and at the same time assess where he can make the most damage without taking out the people on their side. In the process, he calls out patterns and weaknesses care of FRIDAY’s analysis.
“Cap, just because you can wield Thor’s hammer now doesn’t mean that Outrider can’t go for your legs… You know who would have an absolute blast at this party? Romanoff… Have we identified which ship is the Chitauri mothership yet? ‘Cause this is so 2012 and Rocket is going to eat his words if we can't destroy the 'suckiest army in the galaxy.'”
Rocket had criticized the team a couple of nights ago when they told him it took them 2 to 3 hours to defeat the Chitauri in New York. Apparently, they would all just drop dead if you target the mothership.
Tony can practically hear Rocket sneer through their channel. “Working on it, tin can.”
An Outrider jumps on Tony's back, sending him on an unsteady descent. His thrusters compensate for the added weight and Tony improvises, making the nanobots form a weapon on his shoulder blades. When he finally puts two holes on the Outrider, he notices Pepper’s stance.
“Hon, you’re neglecting your left side.”
“Duly noted.” The change in Pepper’s fighting stance is instantaneous. She stops favoring her right and takes a Sakaaran and Chitauri Gorilla by surprise.
“You’re a fast learner,” Tony says impressed. He designed the suit to have a user-friendly AI to teach Pepper the ropes. Clearly, she’s listening to her AI.
“I did take over your company.”
“Oh, now you’re after my superhero gig?”
“I thought you retired.”
“Not 60 yet!”
Tony uses the lasers on his gauntlets to slice through his opponents before he lands on the ground, and blasts through the remaining Outriders in the area one by one.
“Incoming, boss,” comes FRIDAY’s warning.
From his HUD, Tony spots a hostile behind him. Suddenly he’s face first against a boulder, one of Thanos’ children having knocked him over with that giant hammer of his.
“You again,” he says as he racks his brain trying to recall what Nebula said about this nasty brother of hers, aside from the fact that he looks like a dinosaur.
The nanobots convert his gauntlets into repulsor canons and he fires at Barney? BJ? (“Cull Obsidian,” FRIDAY reminds him) until suddenly, the bastard is being pulled back by someone and then is flattened by Lang’s giant foot the minute he’s on the ground.
It all happened so fast, Tony doesn't even have the time to be annoyed that Scott stole his kill again (not that he was keeping count). His helmet retracts and he’s blinking away the double vision care of Cull Obsidian.
It’s only when Peter helps him up that Tony realizes the kid just saved him. And that the kid is here and he’s running his mouth off.
Tony barely registers what Peter is saying. He’s vaguely conscious of the fact that he’s gaping and he’s staring at Peter.
“But Dr. Strange was there right? And he was like ‘It’s been five years! Come on they need us!’”
Tony’s forehead wrinkles in amusement because this kid really won’t stop talking. How he’s missed this!
Tony walks closer to Peter, willing himself not to stumble.
Peter puts two fingers out and does a very good imitation of Strange summoning a portal. “And then he started doing the yellow sparkly thing that he does all the time.”
“He did?” Tony hears himself say before half-collapsing into Peter’s arms. This was long overdue. He should’ve hugged the kid in the car after dropping him off at his apartment post-Berlin.
“What are you doing?” Peter asks, body going stiff before he realizes that Mr. Stark is hugging him and then he softens and returns the hug.
God, for a prodigy this kid was slow.
Tony would rather they weren’t wearing armor at the moment because there’s still nothing like an old-fashioned hug without the nanobots getting in the way. But Tony’ll hug the kid properly when this is all over.
He can hardly believe it. He casts his eyes skyward, thanking whatever deity was responsible for making this happen. He readjusts his grip, trying to fit all of Peter within his grasp.
“Oh, this is nice,” Peter sighs. “You know what would be nicer? If you had an energy bar. I’m starving. I haven’t eaten since MoMA which, come to think of it, was like five years ago.” His eyes widened as he realized he hasn’t eaten for that long.
Tony pulls away with a chuckle. “Unfortunately, I left my emergency snacks in my other battle suit. You could try Thor. I saw him put a Twix in his pocket earlier.”
"I ate the Twix," Thor booms over the comms.
"Better luck next time, kid." Tony's helmet materializes over his face. “Hey, you wanna go for some Shawarma after this? It’s kind of a post-battle Avengers thing. Hold on. We got some aliens dropping eaves.”
Tony turns and fires at the boulder behind him, his HUD having shown two hidden Outriders about to pounce.
After, Tony swings an arm around Peter. “Have you ever had Shawarma?”
“Yeah, it’s okay,” Peter says with a shrug.
Their chat is short lived as a troop of Thanos’ soldiers begin advancing on them.
“Oh, right! You and Miss Potts finally got married!” Peter says casually, while webbing up the aliens and swinging them over for Tony to hit. “I overheard in the comms. I know it’s late but congratulations!”
Tony doesn’t bother to hide a smile behind his helmet. “You know, you were supposed to be the coin bearer. Multi-armed alien behind you!”
Peter jumps up high and Tony takes care of the Outrider. With this area cleared off, Tony searches for the next alien hotspot.
“Come on, let’s go to where the party’s at.” Tony takes off, Peter hanging by a web on his abdomen.
“Sorry I missed the wedding,” Peter says from his spot below Tony, "So, who subbed for me?”
“Wong. He made glowy sparkly coins special just for us.”
“Man, I wanted to see that!” Tony sees Peter pout in the corner of his HUD.
Peter swings away from Tony and onto a passing spaceship. Tony loses sight of him but he can still hear Peter over the comms. “What else did I miss?”
“Pepper gave me a daughter, Mandalorian came out—you’ll love Baby Yoda—there’s Frozen 2, Avengers Campus—"
“Wait, you have a baby?”
“Not me. Mandalorian. Weren’t you listening?”
“You said Pepper gave you a baby.”
“Oh, yeah. Morgan. She’s four. You’re gonna love her.” Tony can’t wait for them to meet. He dives towards a ship, using his unibeam to blast through it. “I just had a great idea! We should throw a party for all the parties you missed. Starting with my wedding. Hey, Pepper, what do you say to getting married again?” Tony leaves the smoldering wreckage of the ship and spots a small fleet a couple of miles away.
“Seriously? Right now?”
“Well, we do have a captain around here to officiate. As in literally, there are a lot of Captains down there.” There was Rogers and Quill, and those people Nebula called Ravagers. There was bound to be someone among them with 'captain' credentials. “Hey, if aliens officiate our second wedding does that make our marriage intergalactically recognized?”
“It’s gonna be like the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie!” Peter exclaims excitedly before Pepper can answer. “You know, At World’s End when Will and Elizabeth kiss in a middle of the battle! You guys can totally do that! I’ll cover for you!”
“Not the second wedding that I had in mind,” Tony says, reconsidering.
“You know you can’t get married to the person you're already married to twice,” Pepper states in a matter-of-fact tone. Tony can see her repulsors glow from across the field.
Man, she really is beautiful.
“I can if I divorce you and marry you again.”
“Or you two can just have a vow renewal,” Rhodey joins in, sounding mildly annoyed that he has to listen to Tony make simple things complicated.
“Yeah, let’s have that. Everybody we wanted to invite but couldn’t come to the wedding is here, anyway. So, no time like the present for love declarations.”
“Or we could just renew our vows on our anniversary?” Pepper suggests and it’s a practical and more realistic option.
“That makes more sense and Morgan can be the flower girl. She’s gonna look so adorable. And you know the great thing about vow renewals is that we can also go on a second honeymoon.”
"Laura and I had our second honeymoon in Aruba," Clint shares, "Coulson let us take the jet."
"Aruba! They've got a flamingo beach, don't they?" Tony asks. "Morgan's gonna love that."
“If your daughter's coming, can I come too?” Peter boldly asks.
“You have five years of school to catch up to.”
“That sucks.”
“But Happy's coming,” Tony adds, “He has to babysit ‘cause we can’t very well create baby number two if baby number one is hanging around.”
“I thought Pepper was already pregnant with baby number two,” Peter says, recalling an earlier overheard conversation.
Pepper groans.
Tony laughs.
He spots another Leviathan and lands behind what looks to be the remains of the compound’s gym wall. He takes a moment to analyze how best to improve on his previous takedown.
Pepper lands beside him. As do Scott and Hope.
“Hey,” Scott nods to Pepper and gives her suit an appreciative once over. “Nice suit!”
“Thanks,” Tony replies, looking at his own suit.
Pepper looks unsurprised while Scott’s eyebrows knit together.
“I actually meant—”
“I really have you to thank,” Tony continues, “If you hadn’t violated me in Berlin all those years ago—”
Scott sighs. “I didn’t violate you—”
“You went inside my suit. I felt very violated. I had to make an uncompromisable suit after that.”
“I also went inside your heart and gave you a cardiac dysrhythmia just a few hours ago. You didn’t feel very violated then.”
“Well, I consented to that.”
“Heads up,” Hope says, clapping her hands to get the two men’s attention. “Big guy’s heading straight for us.” She adjusts the blasters around her wrists, eyes focused on the space whale.
“I’m bigger.” Scott cracks his neck and seems to be mentally preparing himself.
Tony holds out an arm just as Scott is about to hit the button designed to make him grow. “What are you doing? You stole my whale earlier, not to mention my dinosaur. I got this one.”
Hope and Pepper exchange exasperated glances before Hope shrinks and Pepper shoots to the sky.
The two men barely notice.
“First of all, that wasn’t your whale. And I have no idea what dinosaur you're talking about,” Scott retorts hotly. “Second, just because your ego is as big as that thing doesn’t mean that you’re best suited to take it on.”
Tony crosses his arms. “I actually did take one on earlier and this time I want you to watch me do it. Cause seeing is believing.”
“It’s faster if I do it. And I can step on a couple of guys as I go. I mean, kill two birds with one stone. Foot, rather.”
Suddenly the Leviathan Tony and Scott are arguing over freefalls and crashes loudly. Scott and Tony stare as Hope and Pepper land back down in front of its carcass.
Hope’s helmet retracts and she raises a brow. “If you boys are done comparing sizes…"
“Ha ha, very funny, Hope.” Tony says dryly before flying away to find another mark. “But just so we're clear, I am the bigger person, right? As in, I’m actually a couple inches taller than Lang.”
“Tony, you're a dick.” Pepper doesn’t sound annoyed so Tony risks a playful reply.
“But you’re the one who married me, so I really think that that says a lot more about you than it does about me. Being that I’m a DILF. The dick you’d like to fu—”
“Hey, there are minors on this channel,” Steve scolds them through the comms, “And there are plenty of aliens for everyone. First-come, first-served.”
“Actually Mr. Captain America, sir, I’m 21 now. I know what a dick is.”
“No, you’re not,” Tony says, “Biologically, you are still sixteen and not a single nasty word will be coming out of your mouth. The appropriate word is ‘penis.’”
“Are we seriously having this conversation while we’re trying to fight Thanos?” asks Sam, sounding annoyed. “Is this a thing you guys do now? Talk a lot when you’re fighting?”
“Well, it’s better than hearing you guys grunt over the comms.”
Coincidentally, Sam makes a loud cry making Tony turn his eyes on him just in time to see Falcon use his wings to skewer a large, buff, Chitauri gorilla.
Tony whistles, impressed. "Remind me not to get on your bad side, Wilson."
“Incoming call: Happy Hogan,” FRIDAY announces.
It takes Tony completely by surprise, causing him to get knocked on the head by an Outrider. Happy knows what’s happening; the battle would be all over the news. He shouldn’t be calling. Not unless something bad happened.
Tony picks up the call.
It’s not Happy’s face that appears in the HUD. It’s Morgan’s.
“Hi, Daddy!” she says cheerily, all cheeks and messy hair.
“Happy! Is it me or did you shrink and change your face?” Tony turns his lasers on and pivots on one knee eliminating the aliens around him.
Morgan giggles, oblivious to what her father is doing and Tony would like to keep it that way. “It’s me! When are you and mommy coming home?”
“Um, it’s kind of a busy time at the office, sweetie. Daddy has a lot of angry customers to deal with.” Like, really angry customers, he thinks.
Tony uses the thrusters on his boots to burn through the stomach of one alien while he blasts at another with the repulsors on his hands.
“Morgan, what are you doing?” Happy asks off screen. Morgan’s eyes widen and the camera angle is all out of whack until Happy’s face comes on. “Sorry. I turned my back for one minute and she’s making calls on my phone.”
He’s in a pair of pajamas, telling Tony they’re ready for bed. God, he’d love to lay down for a minute. Instead, he uses missiles to target some of the aliens a mile away. It gives him a moment to focus on the call.
“Yeah, kids do that. Do me a favor and keep her distracted and away from the TV. I don’t want her seeing any of this.”
“We’re spending our night in a fort we built in the living room. She’ll be distracted plenty.”
“Thanks, Hap. Put her back on?”
Morgan appears again and she has a juice pop in her mouth. Happy is hovering over her shoulder.
“Morgan, we’ll be home soon, okay? In the meantime, listen to Uncle Happy. He likes to pretend he’s the boss so how about you let him order you around this one time, huh?”
Happy smirks and Morgan sighs “fine” dramatically like it’s such a chore.
“But I want Baskin Robbins for breakfast," she says.
Happy is mouthing ‘no’ behind her.
“That’s blackmail,” Tony tells her but relents. Pepper’s gonna kill him. “Alright. Baskin Robbins as soon as you wake up. Love you, sweetie, love you Hap!”
He flies high, narrowly missing a necrocraft firing at him. He takes it out and then taps into the comms again.
“Change of plans, guys. Post-battle feast will be at Baskin Robbins instead. It’s on me.”
“What?” Pepper asks. “Why?” As usual, his better half always knows when something’s up.
“I sort of maybe told Morgan she could have some when we come home."
"You what?"
"Don't worry, it's for breakfast," Tony assuages her like that was any better.
“Tony!”
“She called me and blackmailed me!”
“You let your daughter blackmail you?” Rocket cackles. "She's like three feet tall!"
“Just for that, you’re not getting any ice cream later.”
Tony reduces his altitude and spies Hawkeye running away from aliens, a giant gauntlet in his hands. It was a sobering sight. If Thanos gets his hands on it again, then the entire time travel—Nat's death included—would be worthless.
“Cap, what do you want me to do with this damn thing?” Clint asks, parkouring all over the place.
“Get those stones as far away as possible!”
The conversation turns serious as they discuss the plan.
Scott and Hope will deal with setting up the time machine in Lang’s ugly van, and their troops on the ground will protect Hawkeye.
While they did that, Tony lands behind Strange. It was time they talked.
“Hey, you said one out of fourteen million we win, yeah? Tell me this is it.”
“If I tell you what happens, it won’t happen.”
Tony feels a vein throb in his temple at Strange's on-brand cryptic, wizard reply, but he nods curtly. “You better be right.” He’s got ice cream to buy and a vow renewal to plan.
He takes to the skies again, telling FRIDAY to keep him updated regarding the gauntlet, while he takes out the enemy before they can even think of going after T’Challa who apparently has the precious football now.
Tony’s never played football in his life but he’s sure that if the other side gets their hands on the gauntlet, it’s over.
There’s fewer talking this time. Instead, there’s a chorus of groans and grunts and what sounded like “I am Groot.”
“Who the hell is trying to make friends right now?” he asks to no one in particular.
Rhodey zooms past Tony with a “Hi” and then a “Bye” in quick succession. Quill is hot on his heels, flying on his back as he fires.
Suddenly, Thanos’ giant ship, which Rocket has deduced to be the mothership and really difficult to blow up, starts raining fire. Tony is hit and he throws up an energy shield to deflect it.
“Pep?” he says over the comms. Please be okay, please be okay, Tony mentally chants.
“I’m fine!” She’s far from the range of fire, high up in the air. “But, uh, is anyone else seeing this?”
Tony sees it, it being a deluge from the Hudson that was a couple of seconds away from sweeping everyone off the field like ants.
Strange sees it too and assigns himself as flood control guy. A real waste of power if you asked Tony, but they didn’t have anyone else at the moment.
“FRI, find a way to stop that deluge so Strange won’t have to.” Tony retracts his shield and starts attracting the aliens that were on the humongous side towards the would-be-flood, so as to help lessen its intensity. Maybe their corpses could act like a flood barrier.
He abandons his efforts, however, when he hears Peter.
“I got this. I got this.” There’s a grunt. “Okay. I don’t got this. Help! Somebody help!”
Tony’s HUD shows Peter being overcome by a horde of aliens and that the stones are with him now.
“Hey, queens, heads up,” says Steve and then he throws Thor’s hammer. Peter uses it to pull himself away from the horde, like it was some kind of Asgardian express plane.
Peter doesn’t shut up even midflight. “IF I’M HANGING ON THOR’S HAMMER DOES THIS MEAN I’M WORTHY—AAH!”
Peter’s web is cut and he falls.
Tony’s cry of “Peter!” is lost as an alien takes this as an opportunity to attack Tony.
“Hang on! I got you, kid,” Tony hears Pepper say and he almost sags in relief.
“Now that’s the collaboration I didn’t know I needed,” Tony manages to say, recovering and returning fire at his opponent.
“Not the time, Stark!” Rocket shouts.
After dealing with his alien, Tony decides that flood control would have to wait. “FRI, give me a way to take down that ship! And don’t tell me it’s impenetrable.”
FRIDAY is uncharacteristically quiet which was an answer in and of itself.
Tony curses. “Anyone have any bigger guns out there we don’t know about?”
Then the firing stops.
The canons on the ship refocus and shoot at the air instead, making everyone pause and look up.
“FRIDAY, what are they firing at?”
It’s clear something’s entered the atmosphere and FRIDAY says so herself. But as to what it is and if it’s on their side remains to be seen.
Please don’t let it be another ship from another timeline, Tony prays.
“It’s Captain Danvers, Boss!”
“Oh, yeah!” Rocket cheers.
“Rhodey, if you’re looking for a sign, this is it.” Tony smirks as Rhodey almost blushes in his HUD. The guy’s been nursing a crush on Carol for a while now.
Rhodey doesn’t reply but he does toss an alien carcass in Tony’s direction. Everyone’s got an ear on the comms and this is not the time for Tony to out him to Carol in front of all their allies.
“Hi, I’m Peter Parker.”
Tony almost chokes at how polite Peter continues to be amidst everything. He wonders if he was the person that Groot was introducing himself to.
The ground seems to shift as Thanos’ forces reassemble to bear down on Danvers.
“I don’t even know how you’re gonna get it through all that,” Tony hears Peter say to Carol.
Tony has a couple of ideas. He opens his mouth to voice them, but Wanda beats him to it.
“Don’t worry,” she says, landing softly behind Pete.
“She’s got help,” says Okoye, brandishing her spear.
Valkyrie and Pegasus land and so do Pepper and Nebula. Hope makes it just in time; the van must be functional by now. Mantis gets into position. Nebula’s sister is alive somehow and Princess Shuri has broken away from the Dora Milaje to join the fight.
As they advance, giving Carol the cover that she needs, Tony can't help but see the Black Widow in each and every one of them. Maybe she did join the party, after all.
And then he watches as one by one, the women lead an assault on Thanos’ army. Tony wishes he has a dozen eyes just to keep track of all of them.
He settles on watching Pepper while he fights off some aliens of his own. He makes an uncharacteristic whoop when she takes on her second Leviathan today.
“THAT’S MY WIFE!” he cries out. “She’s a superhero, by the way! The baddest one!”
“Tony,” Pepper berates him half-heartedly. “Shut up.”
“Right. No talky, more worky.”
Tony tears his eyes away from her and true to his word, gets to work. Pepper’s doing fine without him or his running commentary.
In fact, she was more than fine. She could hold her own and Tony has never been prouder to be the person supporting her through it all.
Tony heads back into the fray with newfound strength.
Thanos was going to lose today.
…
…
…
…
…
Morgan is woken up by Happy.
“Hey, squirt, guess who’s home?” he says softly. He’s crouched under the fort and blocking most of the view so Morgan can’t see who it is.
Morgan turns in her cot, snuggling against her stuffed animal, far too sleepy to entertain guests today.
Happy gently shakes her again. She’s bleary eyed. There’s dried drool on one corner of her mouth.
“Come on, kid.”
Morgan lets Happy pull her out from under the fort. He’s kneeling in front of her as he helps her to her feet. He brushes the hair out of her face. Then, he turns her around to show her who’s there.
Pepper is crouched a couple of steps away, her eyes are a little glassy, and Happy knows she’s fighting tears.
“You’re home!” says Morgan, wide awake now.
“Come here, baby!”
Morgan walks over and her mother gives her a tight hug. "Where's Daddy?” she asks, glancing around.
Pepper sniffles, tears freely running down her cheeks now.
Morgan looks at her and frowns in concern. “Why are you crying?
Pepper exchanges looks with Happy who nods at her encouragingly. Before she can reply, there's a sound of the kitchen door swinging open.
Morgan hears someone step inside.
“What’s a dad to do to get a good morning kiss around here?" the person calls out, "I didn’t lose an arm trying to get to Baskin Robbins for nothing.”