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“Petey, go higher! I can’t reach!”
Peter sighs, standing on his tip-toes so that Morgan can reach into the very back of the freezer where the Stark’s arsenal of juice pops have been meticulously hidden.
“Thank you!” She says, because Pepper’s really been pushing manners with her recently.
“You’re welcome,” he replies dutifully. Being a good influence, and all that.
Morgan huffs as she rifles around, Peter keeping his hands on her ankles so she doesn’t go tumbling off his shoulders. She seems to have the same idea, because she gets a tight grip on his hair for leverage. He holds back a wince - six-year-olds can be quite violent, he’s quickly discovering, and she yanks hard.
“There we go!” She cheers, pulling out a handful of their precious treasure (three juice pops, because her hands are tiny).
Peter shushes her gently. “M, we gotta be quiet, remember?” He squeezes her ankles gently. “Dad’s just upstairs.”
That part’s new; calling Tony ‘dad’. He’s only ever done it in front of Morgan, and he’d like to keep it that way. His mentor doesn’t need to know about that - about Peter selfishly claiming something that isn’t his to have.
“Right!” She exclaims, looking genuinely shaken to her core. Peter bites back a laugh. “Sorry!”
“Don’t worry,” he reassures, reaching up to grab underneath her arms and pull her off his shoulders, setting her down gently on the kitchen tiles. “He’s got old man hearing, anyway.”
Morgan giggles, slapping a hand over her mouth. “Mommy says that’s just ‘cause he chooses not to listen.”
Peter snorts. “She definitely has a point there.” He reaches out to her, her sticky hand finding his instantly. “C’mon, let’s go enjoy the fruits of our labour.”
Morgan frowns in confusion. “It’s not fruit, silly. It’s juice pops.” Her tone suggests that Peter is the stupidest person on the planet. It’s the best thing ever.
“It’s just a saying, Morguna,” he says through quiet laughter. She raises her eyebrows at him in a move that is so very Tony it makes him squeeze her hand just that tiny bit tighter.
She lets him lead her into the living room, no matter how ridiculous she clearly thinks he’s being, and once he’s sitting on the couch she’s already clambering into his lap.
“I grabbed you a green one,” she explains as she moves, paying no mind to the various elbows and knees that collide harshly with Peter’s stomach, “because I know you like those ones. The pink one and the blue one are for me.” She finally gets comfortably seated on his legs, her back pressed against his chest.
He leans his head over her shoulder so that their cheeks are pressed together, ever the eager listener. “And why do you get two, missy?”
She giggles. “Be-cause, I did the h- the high-”
“The heist?”
“Yes!” She grins as if she’s figured out the word all by herself. “The heist! I did the heist. You were just standing there.”
He gapes, overdramatized and playful. “Oh, I see. So just because you did the work, that means you get more than me?”
She nods, matter-of-fact. “Duh.” It’s been her favourite word for the past few weeks.
He squints at her, as if deliberating this very logical reasoning, before slumping over in defeat. “Yeah, alright. I guess that makes sense.”
She smiles victoriously. He reaches over to tweak her nose between his fingers.
“Alright then, boss lady,” he continues, wrapping his arms around her in a tight hug and squeezing. The motion only causes their cheeks to become more smooshed together, making his next words come out a little garbled. “May I please have my juice pop?”
“Good manners, Petey,” she says genuinely. It’s sickeningly cute - Morgan likes it when others comment on her using her manners, so she naturally does it in return.
“Why, thank you.”
She unwraps it for him, just starting to enter the ‘must do everything myself’ phase, and Peter lets her, slow as it may be. Her fingers are clumsy, but she gets it unwrapped eventually without any help.
“Nice job!” He takes the offered juice pop from her hands, and she smiles so wide that her eyes scrunch up, a tiny reflection of Pepper. “Thank you very much.”
She nods before turning to her own juice pop, pulling at the plastic wrapping with rocket science levels of concentration. Peter watches with a small smile, popping his own into his mouth.
It’s not very good, to be honest. Peter’s not a big popsicle guy, much preferring to carve his way through an entire carton of ice cream - but Morgan likes popsicles, which means popsicles are the only sweets he will ever eat for the rest of time (she doesn’t need to know about his secret pint of Stark Raving Hazelnut that’s tucked away in Tony’s lab).
By the time Morgan gets hers unwrapped, Peter has nearly finished his. He forces himself to slow down, not wanting her to feel like she has to rush.
“This was a good idea, Petey,” she comments, not bothering to take the frozen treat out of her mouth as she says it. “You’re very smart.”
Peter’s heart does something funny in his chest. “Well, you did all of the work.” He pushes some messy hair off her face as it begins to dip dangerously close to sticking to her mouth. “I just thought of it.”
It’s summer, and Peter has noticed the way Morgan has started practically climbing the walls as the days go on. She misses school, having declared kindergarten as the best time of her life, and it’s clear how excited she is for the new school year to start. She misses her friends, and her teachers, and there’s only so many times somebody can go swimming in the lake with Happy or play hide-and-seek with Peter before going crazy.
Plus, some of Peter’s fondest memories as a little kid were doing things that seemed ‘reckless.’ It’s a little funny now, considering he’s never done so much as steal a dime off the street; but when he was little, doing things like hiding Ben’s glasses - which often resulted in him being chased around the house, Ben’s chuckles as he ran after him betraying his amusement - or drawing on Ned’s face during sleepovers felt like the riskiest, most badass things he could possibly do.
He never had siblings, though. Now, he has- well, he kind of does have one, doesn’t he? Isn’t it his job as a big brother to pass on his wisdom?
If Tony wants to get mad at him for teaching Morgan how to be sneaky, then so be it. He’s only fulfilling his duties, after all.
Morgan hums, licking clumsily until the entire bottom half of her face is covered in sugary pink. “One day, I’ll be able to reach that high,” she muses, voice taking on a dreamy-quality that Peter hasn’t heard from another human being in a long, long time. “And then you won’t even have to help me.”
Peter tilts his head. “That’s true.” He cuffs her chin lightly. “I’ll always help you, though. Whenever you need it. You know that, right?”
She rolls her eyes - definitely another thing picked up from Tony. “Duh.”
It’s sweet, the undying faith in Peter - in everyone, really - that she always has. Peter wonders if it’s just a Morgan thing, or if every little kid feels that way about their family (the kids with good families, anyway).
He wonders if he ever had that much faith in his parents. He certainly remembers thinking that Ben could do anything, like he himself was a superhero. He remembers believing that May was perfect at everything, even cooking; because back then, his taste buds thrived on bland, simple - and sometimes burnt - meals.
Other than that, though, he can’t remember much else. He has no idea if his parents were ever worth believing in.
“Can you open this, please?” She asks, snapping Peter back into reality. She’s holding up her second juice pop, the blue one, and he feels his face soften at her meek request. She must be getting comfortable and sleepy, if she isn’t even bothering to try opening it herself.
“You got it.” He takes it from her, taking a moment to pinch her cheek before tearing into it. She watches in awe.
“I wish I had super strength,” she muses, as if the flimsy plastic wrapper could only be conquered by Spider-Man.
“Nah, you don’t need it. Besides,” he holds it out to her, and she grabs it eagerly, “it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, anyway.”
God, Peter remembers being absolutely terrified the first time he met Morgan - she wanted to be hugged and held so badly, climbing him like a jungle gym from the moment they met, but all he could think about was accidentally hurting her.
It turned out to be a completely unnecessary worry, but he still would’ve liked to have gone without it.
“What’s not all it’s cracked up to be?”
Peter freezes, Morgan going completely still in his lap a second later, juice pop halfway to her mouth.
“Um.” He turns his head slowly, looking behind him without dislodging Morgan from her spot. “Nothing.” He reaches out blindly to find Morgan’s hand, pulling it down to hide the evidence of their crime from the man standing in the doorway.
“Oh, is that so?” Tony asks, eyes twinkling with mirth. He leans against the doorframe, arms crossed casually. Peter can see some oil smeared on his forearm from working in the lab. “What have you got there, then?”
“Where?” Morgan questions, faux innocence sounding believable to absolutely no one.
Tony’s face morphs into what Peter secretly calls ‘the dad smile.’ “In your hand, little miss.”
Her eyes widen comically. “Nothing,” she parrots. She grabs Peter’s hand with her free one, intertwining their fingers and holding up their joined hands like some kind of trophy. “Just Petey.”
Morgan may be a terrible liar, but she sure knows how to deflect and distract, because Tony absolutely melts.
Peter turns back to her, seizing the small moment they have while Tony’s internally musing poetically about his child. “Alright, M, when I say, you gotta run up to your room, okay?” He talks through a blinding grin, and he can tell from the glowing in her cheeks that she’s having the most fun she’s had in weeks. “Leave me here.”
He presses a dramatic hand to his forehead, playing up the damsel-role - because they are in the midst of a heist here, and Morgan is obviously the hero, god dammit. She giggles like he’s told the funniest joke in the entire world.
“Okay, okay,” she whispers ridiculously loudly through her laughter. Peter can feel Tony watching it all, probably with a goofy smile on his face. “But you have to follow me.”
Peter nods dutifully. “I will. I’ll escape as soon as I can, I promise. And I won’t reveal anything about our evil plan.” Ah, yes, their very evil plan of stealing even more popsicles tomorrow.
Morgan grabs his cheeks - hitting him in the face with her popsicle, while also exposing it in plain sight - and gets so close to him that their noses press together. “Be safe, Petey.”
It makes his chest ache a little, because usually when Morgan picks up certain sayings and actions from people, it’s adorable. This, though, is something that she only knows to say because it’s what Tony says to him every time he leaves in the spider suit.
‘Be safe, kiddo.’
‘You come back to me, alright?’
‘Don’t do anything stupid.’
Peter has heard all of these and more over the years; variations of the same plea from Tony’s lips, begging him to just stay alive.
Hearing words that feel so serious in Peter’s memories being spoken by a six-year-old who has a bright smile on her face is… sobering, to say the least.
But he manages to school his expression, because he’s a big brother first, everything else second. “You too, M.” He sneaks a playful glance over his shoulder, where Tony is staring at them with an unreadable look in his eyes (but of course, still smiling). “Ready?”
She nods frantically.
“Okay.” He presses a chaste kiss to her nose. “In 3, 2-”
“Wait, wait!” She interrupts, voice urgent and expression concerned.
Peter stops instantly. “Yeah? What’s up, what’s wrong?”
“You have to come to my tea party,” she whines, talking like they’re discussing the most important matter in the world. “You promised.”
“Of course I will,” he assures, holding back his laughter at such a reaction for such a small thing. “I just gotta-” he motions his head to where Tony is, “eliminate the threat. Then I’ll be right up.”
The creases in her face even out until she’s smiling again, quieting something in Peter’s mind that never truly went quiet until he had her. “Okay. Good.”
“Okay,” he continues, snapping back into their silly game, “Now go!”
She’s up in a blur, tumbling off Peter’s lap and scrambling towards the stairs.
“Go, go, run!” Peter calls after her through delighted laughter, and if he’s right about knowing anything about the man behind him, in approximately three seconds he’s going to-
“I’ve got you, Parker!” Just as he’d suspected, Tony pounces on him, pinching his sides until Peter squirms away. “You’ll never get away!”
Morgan’s laughter spurs both of them on, because they hadn’t earned the titles of her ‘favourite play-buddies’ for nothing, after all. “No! Morgan, run! Save yourself!”
She listens, running up the stairs. Just as Peter hears her door beginning to close, she shouts down the stairs excitedly, “you’re invited to the tea party, too, Daddy! Five minutes!”
With that, she closes her door. Peter breathes out deeply, small laughter still shaking his frame. Tony’s arms go slack - both the real one and the prosthetic one - and he jumps over the back of the couch to sit by Peter’s side.
“‘Five minutes’ in Morgan-time means we actually have either two or thirty, so,” he wraps his flesh arm around Peter’s shoulder to pull him against his side. “Let’s enjoy whatever time we get.”
He looks down at Peter with a soft grin on his face, one that Peter only became familiar with after the events of homecoming, when Tony started becoming less of a mentor and more of a… protector.
“The time we get to eat more juice pops, you mean?” Peter teases, tossing his bare popsicle stick onto the coffee table that Tony’s feet are propped against.
The man frowns disapprovingly, but it lands softly in Peter’s chest. “No, and I very much don’t approve of that, by the way.”
Peter just shrugs. “A little sugar high never hurt anyone.”
“No it does,” Tony protests, but his tone is so sweet it almost hurts Peter’s teeth more than the popsicle did, “it hurts me, when she’s up all night because you let her rummage around in the freezer.”
“Tony, what do you take me for?” He throws his head back in exasperation. “We’re gonna hang out in the hammock after dinner, obviously.”
Tony’s face immediately lights up with recognition. “Okay, I take back everything I said. Nice work, kid.”
Peter smirks. ‘Hammock time,’ which consists of Morgan and usually Peter snuggling in the outdoor hammock, rocking back and forth, only ever ends one way - with her conking out against Peter’s chest, drooling on his t-shirt, and him carrying her to bed before the sun has even set.
He’s the fun older brother, sure, and he’ll promote trouble-maker behaviour to her until the day he dies; but he’s not a complete imbecile.
“I try my best.” He turns his head into the fabric of Tony’s shirt, breathing in the familiar smell and letting it out with a heavy sigh.
“You tired, kiddo?” Tony asks, running a hand through Peter’s hair - as if that’ll help instead of just making Peter even drowsier, which the man very well knows. “I can take over Morgan-duty, it’s okay. I know you two have fun, but you don’t have to tire yourself out. The lakehouse is for relaxing,” Tony pokes his cheek lightly, “especially for a ridiculously high-strung city kid like yourself.”
Peter rolls his eyes. “I’m not high strung.”
“Uh huh,” Tony hums, not even trying to hide his disbelief.
“Shut up,” Peter grumbles lightly. “I’m not tired,” he starts, but one look from Tony has him amending that statement very quickly, “I’m not that tired.”
“Pete.”
“I’m telling the truth, Tony,” Peter protests, because he is. Nobody ever claimed that six-year-olds aren’t draining at times, but that doesn’t mean he’s too tired to hang out with her. He wants to hang out with her, especially now that it’s summer and he actually has the time to spend weeks at a time with the Starks.
Tony seems to understand this. “Alright. But the second you need a break, you tell me.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Peter waves him off. Tony snorts.
“So,” he continues, teasing, “Spider-Man turning to crime, huh?” He glances at the popsicle stick left abandoned on the table. “You going darkside on me?”
“Oh, you know it. It’s a slippery slope, Tony.” He begins counting on his fingers as he talks, “first, it’s stealing. Next, I’m thinking of dabbling in some casual arson, and after that?” He throws his hands in the air, shrugging. “Who knows?”
Tony shakes his head, a fond smile carving dimples into his cheeks. “What was it that you called it?” He pauses for a moment to think. “A heist?”
Peter sits up in alarm. “You heard that?” He narrows his eyes. “Just how long were you eavesdropping, exactly?”
Tony lifts his hand to squeeze the nape of his neck, brushing through the curls that Peter has never been able to tame. “Long enough.”
Peter feels his cheeks go hot, knowing that both of them are recalling the sappy conversation from earlier. Tony’s using the same tone of voice he uses when he thinks Peter’s done something really incredible - which could be anything between getting into MIT, giving Morgan a piggyback ride, or something as simple as just waking up in the morning.
May is the only other person who looks at him like that anymore.
(It’s gross. Peter loves it.)
“Damn. So you've figured out my plans to corrupt your daughter into a life of crime, then.” He says, instead of voicing all of that. “Iron-Man will have to come out of retirement, just to put a stop to our evil reign.”
Tony chuckles. “Nah. Something tells me Iron-Man would back his kids up.”
Peter tries not to look into that, because everything they’re saying is nothing but jokes, but still, he hears the truth hidden in Tony’s words clear as day: 'I will always back you up.'
Tony has referred to Peter as his kid an endless amount of times now, the circumstances becoming less and less accidental as time goes on, but Peter’s heart rate still picks up a little every time he hears it.
“Now, c’mon,” Tony says, patting Peter’s chest. “If we’re late to this tea party, I have a feeling the hostess will not be very pleased.”
As if on cue, a light, bubbly voice comes echoing down the stairs: “Daddy! Petey! Your tea is getting cold!”
“Oh, well, we wouldn’t want that, would we,” Peter mumbles under his breath, imagining the very empty pink cups being laid out on Morgan’s little table, with fancy saucers underneath and everything.
Tony snorts, standing up and pulling Peter with him. It’s a drastic role reversal, Peter being led along instead of him doing the leading, and it’s one that he finds himself slipping into just as naturally as he slipped into his role of protector when he first met Morgan.
“You ready, kiddo?” Tony confirms, a weighted look in his eyes. Again, checking if Peter’s alright, if he really is too tired and needs to check out.
Peter shoots him a soft, genuine smile. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
And so they do, Tony going up the stairs first with Peter in tow.
Hours later, when Peter’s got Morgan asleep in his arms, the quiet rock of the hammock and twittering of the birds soothing him until he’s half-asleep, they’ve already committed three other ‘crimes’ in that time.
His favourite, though, was hiding Tony’s glasses. No matter who the glasses belong to, or which version of Peter he is; that one never gets old.