She's hated Steve Rogers longer than she's known him. If knowing and knowing can be quantified. She knows their stories, has heard the tales. She's listened and learned and been forced to see good people put down in the face of their narrative. But she knows the truth and she knows without a doubt that there should have been another way. Why did he get a happy ending and why didn't her father?
There has to have been another way. No one is born to be a martyr. No one is born to spend a lifetime suffering.
Of course, that may just be the privilege talking. Excess amounts of money, fairer complexion, born in a first world nation- all of these things could just be clouding her judgment. So he lived a hard life, does that really make him a martyr? But in this moment? She doesn't care.
She remembers him in the soft moments before awareness takes her, the moments between asleep and awake. She remembers soft lullabies and warm calloused hands. There's grease on her hands, on her knees and feet and nose and- and- and- I love you three thousand.
He was made to love, and she deserved longer with him. She was meant to have more. He would have given her anything she wanted, and she has been ripped from the one thing she craves.
He left her one of, if not the, best technological empire of the United States. She has weighed the livelihoods of men and women against cost profit analysis for years, and she's good at it. She knows how much a soul weighs, how much a life costs and she's always in the black. Her legacy.
Her least favorite compliment given without thought- You're very good at firing people. Nothing like a bit of gallows humor-
She owns her flaws and her strengths, weaknesses and advantages, pushes and pushes. Just like her father, with the resolute will of her mother.
This may be a fools bet though and she knows it. She'll lose everything, even though she'll gain so much more. But is it worth it, one man for the universe?
Do you believe in the nobility of suicide?
The stones disintegrate and deteriorate the body so much that there is no body for a funeral, there is not enough ashes for an urn, there is no place to mourn. Empty grave- fingerprint engraved on a necklace- an arc reactor floating out- a warriors rites. Funeral, wake, gone.
Time is relative. He was her whole world and then he wasn't. There was a moment where she knew him her entire life and at this moment he is but a footnote. Time is a construct that numbers are applied to, by sunrises, by moon cycles, the waves and shores, winds howling through mountains, seasons and cycles of life and death.
Time is meaningless unless given meaning. All at once everyone in the universe is both alive and dead, she is alone and therefore cannot check the validity of continued life. At this moment there are multiple cycles going through different stages. On one planet fire reigns from the heavens and on another air rises from the depths. Everything is and isn't.
Schrödinger's universe. No one right now is breathing in time with her. Because time means nothing to her.
The plant is lush as she exits the rustbucket she's been macguyvering across the universe, but all at once as her feet cause the first motes of dust and dirt to be displaced- the planet starts to die. Nothing can survive sentient life. Humans in particular she's noticed- survivors at their core, they bring germs and death and disease with them wherever they go. Now that she is here the planet will die.
It will start small, something falls from her person, carried by water or bug, eaten by something else, it morphs, it mutates and it's stronger than the local population, whether plant or animal or people, can handle. None of this matters though, She can already see what she's come for. A brilliant beacon of light ahead of her, blinking, blinking, running.
It cannot escape her grasp.
All good things, to those who wait.
They tell her that her father is a hero. They tell her he is a good man, a great father, the world is a darker place because he no longer walks among them. Platitudes to a child grieving that which it doesn't understand it has lost.
She doesn't care about the universe but she knows how to weigh a soul. But never was she given an opportunity to weigh his. If he is such a great man, if he is such a dearly loved hero, if he has privatized world peace and saved us all from certain death then why.
...Why?
The first time she looks him up she sees a series of titles and while it never starts with anything other than Iron Man it ends with Merchant.
What does he purchase? She looks, and researches and subscribes to conspiracies long past- There was a time when the people feared he would attempt world domination. Even as he held their heads above the waves they used what precious breath they had to scorn.
Merchant. Merchant. Merchant.
What does he purchase? What does he purchase?
He is known by the greater universe by this moniker, never Iron Man, or Mechanic, or genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist- Always Merchant. Because money moves more than just their world and her father was a businessman first. He could have taken over the world within the first year of Iron Mans release, he could have destroyed his enemies at the first sign of betrayal. As barely a legal adult he could have asked his first artificial intelligence to take the reigns for him. Iron Man would give you his lungs if you needed to breath and that loyalty translated always to his creations. There would have been no question- He could have purchased the world. He'd have paid pennies for it.
There are few ways to a womans heart. Once, a titan bid to give Lady Death half the universe as a gift, then she would have to take his hand- But Merchants strike better deals than lovesick fools.
Merchant. What does he purchase? Death.
With death, comes rebirth.
She walks, there is no rush here. There is no escape here. The universe spit out into the void six stones of power. Upon birth and death these things coexist completely. Once, a man boasted them destroyed, his need for them gone.
But certain things cannot be destroyed without destroying the fabric of the universe, the tapestry of woven souls- so these things are reborn.
She has five. She has hunted the sixth for some time and her quarry waits, cowering. Always these poor unfortunate beings are used for destruction.
She sheds skins like a snake, not a shark that can be caught dead in the water but a snake who can shed her defunct skins. She is on a mission, she is on a mission, she will not be stopped.
Many have tried, and many more will fail. But they cannot hope to stop her now. She is powerful and she is favored.
“My darling Morgan.” The wraith whispers next to her, a tall skeleton, feet leaving imprints longer than she is tall whispers, surprisingly silent for a walking skeleton. “You are so daring. Not even your father could have hoped to strike a deal like this.” As she walks the wraith becomes smaller until she walks side by side with Morgan-
Stark, Iron Heart, Made of Gold, Billionaire, Creator, Genius, Leader, Ruler- Merchant.
“All for you and much better than what Thanos thought he could offer.”
She laughs then, Lady Death, a skeletal hand reaching out to squeeze Morgans shoulder. “It's amazing what a little creativity can give birth to. You and your father both are so loved.”
The light blinks, blinks, blinks ahead, growing steadily brighter.
It cannot escape her, and she claims her prize.
Six stones of unequal power, each one nothing but a fragment of a possibility before it is eclipsed by the next.
There is no golden gauntlet, no gaudy overpriced accessory. Morgan Stark at the end of her life looks into the fathomless depths of Death and strikes her deal.
One snap is all it takes- and she can have anything she wants. The cost is great, the cost is always great. The infinity stones nothing more than a sirens call, a genies curse, the risks outweigh the benefit.
Unless. Unless. Unless.
Merchant, Merchant, Merchant.
She knows how this goes.
But Morgan will not suffer the cost- the universe will. One whole universe for one whole man.
She remembers his kindness, his softness, gentle hands through her hair and carrying her past the time when she should be carried.
He has a heart condition- too old- put her down- could hurt yourself-
Happiness is a simple concept but it is complex in initiation. Ones mans trash is anothers treasure and one mans happiness is anothers sorrow.
The universe in its entirety will pay for her happiness, for her fathers, for her mothers and they will be together. She will start at their births and give them happy long lives, which she will join them in. They will be together.
That is where the universe will start because time is relative. It both is and isn't until someone assigns meaning to it.
One snap is all it takes and death has a new universe of people slowly marching towards death multiplying her legion, her playground.
Why seduce her with half of what she is already owed instead of doubling her bounty?
One snap is all it will take. She becomes the Merchant of Death, not out of necessity but out of selfishness.
The universe begins with the big bang, some cosmic force creating the entire tapestry of fate and from this moment six stones of power are scattered like seed to find rest where they may.
Morgan Stark opens her eyes and stares into the loving gaze of her father, she's in a moment, a million and only this one all at once. Across the universe, the multiverse, the creation of thousands of new lives, each and every Morgan hears at the same time-
“I love you three thousand.”