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“Petey! Petey!” A distinctive voice called. Peter looked up from where he was talking to his shop’s employees and smiled. Every two weeks he took a trip down to where the shop was located to check on how it was running and to see if the employees had any problems.
He bent down as Morgan took off running towards him. “Hey Morg-Ooomph!” He replied, as she barreled into his chest, knocking him down onto his butt. Morgan hugged him tightly, burying her head into his neck. “Why are you visiting me today, little one?”
Morgan pulled back, vibrating with excitement. “I have a birthday party to go to, and Daddy says that we could ask you for a dress!”
“Is that so?”
“Mmm hmm!” she nodded.
Peter stood up, brushing dust off of his butt. “I see. Well my lady, what sort of dress are you looking for?”
“A blue one! She responded. “It has to be blue.”
Tony cut in, correcting her. “It has to be space themed.”
Morgan rolled her eyes. “Space is blue, daddy!”
Peter chuckled, picking her up and placing her on his hip. “Space themed and obviously blue. That’s a good start. What about Sparkles?”
“Uh, obviously! I thought you was clever, Petey.”
They walked to the back where swatches of fabric were kept, each one pinned onto a board for when Peter had to design a custom order for a client. “Have a look and tell me what fabrics you like. Daddy can help you take them off of the board. I’m going to finish what I was doing before you came, and then we talk about your dress, okay?” Morgan nodded, so Peter left.
Peter finished off talking to the employees. They had no problems, but one of them told him that she was pregnant and asked how much maternity leave she would get. Peter told her that he would have to do some calculations, but he could probably give her more than six month, which she was ecstatic about.
He had taken most of his business cues from Tony and tried to make his brand as welcoming and eco-friendly as possible. That included putting his employees above his profit margin. He didn’t profit much from his business, but as long as he and his employers had a healthy salary that was above the abysmal minimum wage, he was more than content.
“What fabrics have we picked out then?” He asked Morgan upon re-entering the room. Enthusiastically, she displayed her choices. Peter sat down, pulling out his sketchpad to design the dress, and afterwards taking Morgan’s measurements to make sure she hadn’t grown. (She had, so he was glad he did.) She had chosen a navy blue fabric with stars on it which Peter had decided to use for the skirt, and Peter had also suggested that he embroider a planet onto the bodice of the dress which would be the same navy color as the skirt. Morgan was very happy with the design and also requested it to be extra poofy.
“Can Peter come with us to get ice-cream and buy a birthday present?” Morgan asked Tony after they had finished.
Tony shrugged. “Peter may be busy, kiddo. You’ll have to ask him.”
Turning her attention to Peter, she asked, “Are you busy? Do you want to get ice-cream with us?”
Peter shook his head. “I’m just finishing up,” He replied. “I would love to get ice-cream with you.”
So Peter went with them to the ice-cream parlor and got a banana split whilst Morgan had an hot fudge sundae and Mr. Stark had some strange mint and coffee abomination to ensure that none of his ice-cream got stolen from Peter, who couldn’t have the mint or Morgan, who didn’t like coffee ice-cream, because that’s just the sort of person Mr. Stark was. Regardless, Morgan still took some of his mint and Peter still took some of his coffee and he didn’t even notice.
Tony made sure that Morgan’s face was clear of ice-cream and her hands weren’t sticky, and then they went to try and find a birthday present for the little girl whose party it was. Peter had no doubt that they would end up with a bunch of other bits and pieces as well, because unlike Pepper, Tony could be corralled and exploited into spoiling his kids very easily, something which Morgan especially took advantage of.
Word had clearly gotten out that Tony Stark was inside the ice-cream parlor, because the outside was surrounded by paps with microphones and flashing cameras. “Shit,” Tony murmured upon seeing them through the windows, making sure the sentiment was too quite for little ears. “We should have brought Happy. Pete, put your hood up and keep your head down.” He reminded him, but Peter already knew the drill. He’d dealt with paparazzi before- knowing a bunch of avengers and other important people didn’t exactly help with anonymity, but luckily he wasn’t often recognized on his own.
Tony checked on Morgan, who was chewing on her thumb anxiously. “You okay kiddo? Don’t worry, daddy’s got you.” He pulled out Morgan’s scrunchie from her hair, and arranged it so it was obscuring her face from view. He pulled up her hood as well. Bending down, Tony picked Morgan up. She buried her face inside Tony’s suit jacket, and clutched at his lapel.
Morgan hated the paparazzi. She hated the attention, and Tony hated that they tried to take pictures of her. He tried to keep her life as private and away from the public eye as possible, because his father hadn’t done that for him, and all he wished for as a kid was a normal life. Morgan didn’t ask to be the kid of two of the most revered people in American business, nor did she ask to be iron-man’s kid. (though it was significantly cooler.) So, Tony had decided that he was going to protect her from all of that.
He didn’t use Morgan for promotional photos or advertisements, and didn’t make her go to any events or charity galas that she didn’t want to attend and he didn’t capitalize on the fact that she was the heir of SI. Protecting her from the Paparazzi was a part of that.
They stepped out, Peter first as they knew from experience he’d be less hounded. He was still hounded, regardless.
“Mr. Parker, can you tell us about the future of your clothing line?”
“Parker! What avenger is your favourite?”
“Mr. Parker what can you say about the rumors that Stark is secretly still creating weapons for the military?”
Peter ignored the question and pushed his way out, not even muttering a ‘no comment’ as he shouldered through, holding his hood up to stop people from trying to pull it down. As soon as Tony stepped out, the paparazzi pretty much all stopped hounding him and turned their questions on Tony. As always they were invasive and uncomfortable and Tony replied to them with the same blasé attitude as he usually did.
“Stark! What can you say about the accusations that you and Black Widow are having an affair?”
“You ever heard of an open relationship?”
“Tony! When do you plan on going back to weapons manufacturing!”
“I'll Figure out time travel and then you can find out.”
“Stark, what you have to say about the conditions of your factories in third world countries?”
“My employees are all happy and earn a live-able wage much higher than the average of the country they live in.” Well, that wasn’t actually blasé, but some things needed to be put straight.
“Stark, are you babysitting your daughter today?”
At this question, Tony almost paused in his walk to evade the paparazzi. When he replied, his answer was less blasé and he meant every word of it. “I’m not babysitting my daughter. In no world does that sentence ever make sense. I am her parent, so I am parenting my daughter today, as is my responsibility to do so. If you have a problem with it, you can go fudge yourself.” He pushed out of the crowd, slightly angry.
The resounding sounds from the rest of the paparazzi seemed to be praising him for parenting and being a good father. Clenching his jaw, Tony transferred Morgan into Peter’s arms and turned to address the paparazzi. “I don’t need praise for parenting my kid. I am literally doing the bare minimum that every parent should do. I don’t deserve to be praised for it just because I'm a man. Reevaluate your standards of what a good parent is, and then we can talk.” They walked away.
Peter knew that Tony had a lot of feelings about parenting because he had grown up absent from his mother and father pretty much his whole life. It was the reason that JARVIS was not named after his mother or his father, and it was the reason he had vowed to take as much care and interest in his daughter's life as he had wanted from his own parents. So, he changed diapers and played with dolls and took her to and from school.
Morgan was Tony’s entire world, but he couldn’t accept praise for being a ‘good dad’ when society’s idea of that was taking the kid out every now and then ‘to give mom a break.’ Pepper was a busy woman as CEO of Stark Industries, but even if she wasn’t, Tony would never want her to have to shoulder the burden of having to work a full time job and provide for all of Morgan’s needs.
It was his responsibility to look after her and it didn’t make him a better parent than Pepper. Not when she wouldn’t be praised for looking after Morgan as well. Had they been praising him for being an extremely busy man and still having the time to treat his kid with trips to her favourite ice-cream parlor, it would be different, but Tony was only praised because he was a man and looking after Morgan wasn’t something that society expected from him. If he was a woman, his above average parenting would be nothing but a mundane average .
Regardless of how angry Tony had been when talking to the paparazzi and how much he felt he needed to set them straight, Peter knew that Miss Potts would be pissed at tomorrow's headlines because some things never changed, and Tony Stark being a PR nightmare was one of them.
In the morning, the headlines read: ‘ORGY-VENGERS? STARK REVEALS WHAT REALLY GOES ON BEHIND CLOSED DOORS.’ and other variations, because apparently sex scandals were more important than Tony’s views on time travel, his treatment of his employees or how he parented his kid. Well, that and the fact that the media wanted to cash in on any and every bit of information they could find about how Natasha Romanov used her body when off-mission. It wasn’t fair, but really some things never changed no matter how much they were influenced.
As expected, Pepper was pissed at the news and spent her morning frantically issuing a statement that explained that The Avengers weren’t all sex-crazed party animals and could infact, do their jobs.
Tony had however, made it into a mom magazine where he was praised- not for his good parenting- but for talking about the wildly differing expectations of fathers and mothers in regards to child care. It wasn’t much, but it was something. He took Morgan and Peter to get cheesecake in celebration. Neither of the kids realised that it was supposed to be a celebration, but that was okay. He didn’t really need a reason to spoil his kids, but he would take whatever one was handed to him. That also was something that would never change.