Tony Stark (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} cutsthewire) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} timerift_log,@ 2022-04-03 15:22:00 |
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WHO: Tony Stark and Morgan Stark
WHAT: A wish is granted. Sort of.
WHERE: Tony's flat + Rift Headquarters
WHEN: March 31, late afternoon
A loud crack! preceded a frantic knock on the door to the flat that had once housed half of the original Avengers team, plus a reformed assassin who mostly kept himself scarce. Only Tony remained, and if he was honest about it, he quite preferred it that way. He did eventually swing by the Avengers Compound, but only to collect some things–a lot of things, actually. But he did not stay, the sight of the old place leaving him feeling even more hollow inside.
At the knock, he looked up from the remnants of the magical radio Natasha had convinced one of the wizards to bring over not long after they first arrived. He was trying to work out the reason this particular form of technology worked in the presence of magic, while the computer he had brought back from the Compound consistently crapped out. Tony threw down his screwdriver–a proper one, not whatever it was the Doctors were always whipping out–and got up from the kitchen counter to open the door.
The ginger wizard who always looked like he was in over his head stood on the other side of the door, wand in hand, his brow furrowed together in a serious expression that looked out of place on his freckled face. Tony swallowed down the smart ass comment that had immediately come to mind and instead reached for the housing unit for his armor that sat beside the catchall tray on the table by the door. “What now?” he asked with a voice that sounded tired rather than anxious.
“Mr. Stark, do you have a daughter?”
Tony’s hands fumbled around the housing unit, and it slipped through his fingers and scattered onto the floor. “What?” His eyes narrowed as he took a step forward.
“A little girl?” the wizard added cautiously.
Tony’s mouth was suddenly bone dry, but he managed a nod.
The wizard’s face softened a little. “Grab my arm. I’ll take you to her.”
In his eagerness, Tony did not stop to think through exactly what that meant, and on the other side of the apparation, he may have momentarily had regrets while he very nearly lost his lunch. But then there she was, sitting in chair next to Peter. No, not Peter. Harry.
When she saw him, Morgan didn’t move. Her little face turned up in confusion. It was not the first time she had seen his ghost. But this one appeared to be flesh and bone, not a trick of lights and technology. She got up slowly from the chair, and when Tony started to walk toward her, she took off into a run until she was close enough for him to snatch her up into his arms. Morgan threw her arms around his neck and held on as if he might disappear again if she didn’t.
“I missed you,” she whispered into his ear, and Tony nearly lost his balance. He tightened his grip on her as his face grew damp with tears.
“I’m sorry I left,” he choked out. And he was. The longer he was here, the more uncertain he was that he had made the right decision, until he had convinced himself that his actions had been a failure entirely. That the only thing he succeeded in doing was perpetuating the Stark cycle of shame.
“Mommy said you had to.”
Tony closed his eyes, and that dull ache in his chest that he always carried with him throbbed a little. Those second hand words from his wife, innocently delivered by their daughter, the thing he most needed to hear. “She’s right.” His lips twitched into the faintest of smiles. “She’s always right.”
Questions would follow, and Tony did his best to explain where they were and why Pepper was not. He was careful not to get either of their hopes up about the permanence of their reunion. The last thing he wanted was for her to feel like he had left her again.
But for the moment, as he walked with Morgan’s hand in his through the shopping arcade beneath the Enclave, filled with magical items that made her eyes grow wide, Tony let himself feel something he had denied himself for months.
Hope.