Tony & Morgan WHO: Morgan & Tony Stark WHAT: Blasting trees/flying WHERE: Outside camp WHEN: Backdated to yesterday WARNINGS: Some language and violence against trees.
Tony was heartbroken. Angry too. Really angry. Harley was gone and even if he returned, the boy who called him “Dad” was gone. Sure, he had his other kids, but one never substituted for the other. He wanted them all. Was that really so wrong? Why did the entity give him a family just to keep taking them away? Was he wrong to have a baby in Goodland? What if he or Pepper vanished? Could Ethan vanish? He technically only existed in Goodland.
Needless to say Tony needed to clear his head. Thank God for Bruce staying with Pepper and Ethan. It allowed Tony to deck himself out in Iron Man gear and fly around Goodland for hours. He finally got tired and decided blasting trees was a good move.
Boom! Boom! He relished the explosion.
Anger was running rampant through Morgan’s veins as she walked through the woods. Perhaps sadness would come later, but for now? All she could feel was how angry she was. Her irritation with this place had begun the day she lost Alice and continued to fester with each loss, but this? This was it. This was when she would snap.
Harley was an integral part of her life. He got her in ways no one else did, and while he may not have been her brother by blood? Morgan knew better than anyone that family was chosen.
It didn’t take long for her to hear a familiar boom, and she turned her eyes to the sky just in time to see another beam exploding from his suit. Lowering her eyebrows, she dropped her bag to rummage for the gloves she always had on her person. Less than a minute later, she was in the air beside her father, suit fully deployed and repulsor ready to destroy a nearby tree.
Tony caught the swirl of purple out of the corner of his eye. Morgan. His little girl. Well, not so little, but still. She was enough like him that he didn’t question what she was doing alone in the woods; instead, he lowered his arm and backed up enough so she could get a clear shot. Steve was right in that they couldn’t tear down Goodland, but they could certainly take out some damn trees.
Lifting her arm, Morgan didn’t waste any time before obliterating the tree. She knew it was selfish of her to disappear, but that’s how she coped. Prying her feelings out of her was a difficult feat. Even when she was smaller she kept things inside until they threatened to explode. Blowing things up was just a much better alternative. She could compartmentalize all of her shit with each blast, then when she was done, she could return as if nothing ever happened at all.
She supposed it was something that was hardcoded into her DNA, and as another loud boom filled her ears, she retracted her helmet and glanced over at the man she inherited it from. “Know you wanted to be alone, but thought you wouldn’t mind if I took a couple of shots.”
Tony wore himself out flying and blasting for hours so his daughter’s words no longer held truth. He had wanted to be alone, but now? Well, seeing his family mattered. He just needed that time to get his head on straight. He was still furious, but now sadness was etched in too. “No one else I’d share my trees with,” he told her.
“Better now?” It would never really be better would it? Even if Harley came back it wouldn’t be the same. That was something she often thought of when she reflected on everyone she’d lost. For all this place gave, it sure as hell took away just as much- if not more. They could all go about their lives without them, but it wasn’t ever the same.
He continued hovering over the ground. “No,” he confessed. “But less angry. More...defeated.” He hated admitting that to his daughter, but she was an adult. She’d see through his bull. “It is just a bunch of shit, but you know that.”
Morgan nodded, she’d suspected as much and most definitely wouldn’t have believed him if he said otherwise. “I’m still just as angry,” she said in response- if he wasn’t going to hold back she wouldn’t either. It wasn’t like anyone else was around to hear. “No one expects you to be okay, because it is a bunch of shit. It’s always a bunch of shit.”
Tony didn’t know how to make it better. He couldn’t make his kids feel better, he couldn’t make Pepper or May feel better, and he certainly couldn’t make himself feel better. “C’mon, sweetheart.” He swooped down to the ground and called up, “Hug time!”
Morgan watched as he swooped down and took a deep breath before doing the same, allowing her suit to fully retract into her gloves as soon as her feet planted on the ground. She didn’t give hugs as freely as some people, but Tony and Pepper (and now Ethan) would always be the exception to that rule. Giving him a hint of a smile, she moved over to wrap her arms around him. “I need you to know that I’m not going anywhere if I can help it.” For better or worse, Goodland was her home now and she would fight for it.