Chapter 3
THE STARK FAMILY
“First, we’ll make snow angels for two hours, then we’ll go ice skating, then we’ll eat a whole roll of Tollhouse cookie-dough as fast as we can, and then we’ll snuggle.”
— Buddy the elf, Elf
“Well…” Pepper Stark laughed dryly as she and her husband talked quietly on the way from the elevator to their penthouse apartment. “I can’t say that I wasn’t expecting this to happen eventually, babe. Have you forgotten the 90’s? The 2000’s? Literally every time between ’91 and ’08? It’s honestly surprising that it’s taken this long for a kid of yours to show up.”
“No, no Pep, you —” Tony sighed. “You don’t get it, hon, he — he thinks that he’s an elf. He thinks he’s from the North Pole and that he knows Santa, and — yeah. He thinks that he’s an elf.”
Pepper laughed, as she pushed open the door to their house, which Tony had left unlocked when we went down to SI to pick her up — and tell her about the kid. “I’m sure it’s not as bad as you’re making it out to be, Tony. You’re exagger—” She trailed off at the sight of her house, cut out snowflakes and tinsel and all sorts of christmassy things hanging everywhere.
“I’m not exaggerating.” Tony said bluntly.
“Uh, yeah.” His wife rolled her eyes. “I can see that. Where’s Morgan? Have you told her yet?”
He nodded. “Yeah, told her when I picked her up from Melanie’s place — she thinks that it’s awesome.”
Pepper took a long breath. “Okay.” She smiled, walking further into the penthouse. “Morgan, P — it’s Peter, right?” Tony nodded. “Okay. Morgan, Peter! We’re home!”
“Mommmyyyyyyy!” Morgan ran toward Tony and Pepper, throwing her arms around Peppers waist when she got close to them. “Mommy, guess what?” The five year old whispered as she hugged her mom.
“What?” Pepper whispered back, shooting a look at her husband, saying ‘be nice to your damn son, I don’t care if he thinks that he’s a shitting elf’. Tony rolled his eyes, and went further into the penthouse, glaring around all of the over the top Christmas decorating.
Morgan released Pepper, and jumped up and down in front of her in excitement. “Daddy brought me a big brother!”
She grinned, shooting a pointed look in Tonys direction. “Did he? That’s so cool! Can I meet him?”
“Yeah!” Morgan grabbed her hand, dragging Pepper through the entrance, and to the lounge room, where a teenage boy — no more than fifteen — sat, wearing a full on elf costume.
Peppers smile faltered slightly as she took in the kid.
He was cute. Looked sweet. And she could easily see the resemblance between the kid and Tony — the brown curls, just like Tonys own hair, in the college photos that Rhodey had shown her, and the eyes, the eyes. Peters eyes looked exactly the same as his fathers. The same bark and yet bright brown, that Pepper could see the intelligence in, clear as day. Peters eyes were even more similar to Tonys than Morgans, and hers were already strikingly similar.
Pepper could see immediately that this kid, this weird little elf kid, was he husbands son. There was nothing more to it — she could see it, plain as day.
She smiled, and sat next to Peter on the couch. “Hi, Peter… I’m Pepper. I’m Morgans mom — Tony’s wife.”
“Hi!” Peter exclaimed. He was smiling at the woman. “I’m Peter — you already knew that — uh, I’m — I’m Tonys son — he’s my dad… yeah!”
“Where have you been for the last fifteen years?” She asked.
Peter shrugged. “My mom put me up for adoption, and I ended up in the North Pole accidentally, and then my Uncle Ben and Aunt May adopted me — and then Uncle Ben died, and I found out that I had a dad in New York — and then I went through the seven levels of the candy cane forest, past the sea of twirly-whirly gum drops, and then through the Lincoln Tunnel — and now, I’m here!”
Pepper blinked, a bit taken aback. The kid looked exactly like Tony, but personality-wise, he already seemed like Tonys polar opposite.
Peter smiled at her. “If you’re my dad’s wife, and my half-sisters mom, that makes you my step-mom, right miss Pepper?”
“Yes, honey.” She smiled. “It makes me your step-mom — so you can just call me Pepper. No need for the miss.”
Peter grinned.
Peter found dinner to be a very awkward affair.
His younger half-sister (well, that was what his father introduced her as, but Peter preferred to think of Morgan as his baby sister, not just half-sister), seemed to like him well enough. She’d been excited when he told her stories about Santa and the elves and the North Pole and the workshop.
His step-mom had seemed okay enough with everything he said to her, but she seemed overly sympathetic — which Peter didn’t want her to be. She acted like his being raised by Ben and May was somehow something to be sad about and Peter… wasn’t really sure how he felt about her having that mindset.
Sure, maybe things would be less complicated if he was raised a human, but… well, he hadn’t been, and he didn’t really want to think about the what-ifs.
Peters dad was a whole other story — he basically just outright avoided him. Didn’t seem to want to talk to Peter.
And all of that came into play during dinner — with his eating habits.
Pepper made pasta, which was a Peters dads moms recipe — his grandmas recipe. He’d always been intrigued by salty and savoury foods, something that the elves he was raised around didn’t have, but when he ate the pasta — as good and tasty and salty (which he decided he was definitely a fan of) it was — it made him feel kind of unwell. And it made him feel like he needed much more energy.
He needed a sugar hit. Peter smiled at Pepper, where she was sitting across from him. “Do you have any syrup?”
She stared back at him blankly. “… syrup?”
“Y’know — syrup. Like maple syrup sorta thing.”
“Uh…” Pepper paused. “Not here — I can get you some, but we don’t usually —”
“No, no, don’t worry about it — I’m sure I have some.” Peter reached around up his sleeve, until he found a bottle of syrup. “Here, I’ve got one. Thanks anyway, though!”
Pepper chuckled awkwardly.
Peter poured the syrup over his pasta, and Morgan stared at him in disgust. “You’re eating syrup on pasta? Thats so grosss!”
“Morgan, be nice.” Pepper offered him a smile, after reprimanding her daughter. “So you, uh… you like sugar a lot, huh?”
“I mean there’s sugar in syrup, so yeah.” Peter nodded. “Yeah, we elves — well, elves, like the ones I was raised by, not like me. I’m a person. A human person… Anyway, elves like to stick to the four main food groups; candy, candy canes, candy corns, and syrup.”
“… huh.” Peters step-mom said softly. His dad groaned.
Peter ignored it. “I mean, I don’t love it as much as everyone always told me I should — like, all the sugary stuff is a lot, and like — well, I would rather eat just plain salty stuff, but I haven’t every really eaten stuff that’s savoury, so I don’t think my body is really jazzed about me trying to change foods that I eat. My friend Ned gave me some corn chips today, and I almost threw up from how not-sweet they were, even though they tasted amazing.”
“I’m guessing Ned was the way that you blended in at Midtown today?” His dad asked, sounding somehow tense and bored at the same time.
“Yeah!” Peter exclaimed. “He’s super nice! He let me hand out with him all day, and helped me lend in in all his classes — it was great! I like school.”
After that, nobody really spoke. They ate the rest of their pasta, then his dad disappeared downstairs — Pepper said that he was going to his lab — and Morgan seemed very annoyed that he did that.
He didn’t see his dad after that. Pepper tucked him in, when he told her that he couldn’t sleep without being tucked in — especially since Ben died. He was certain that she only obliged out of pity, but at least he got tucked in.
“Tony!” Pepper said, exasperated, when the man came up to their bedroom from the lab the next morning. “You slept in the lab again — you promised that you would stop doing that!”
“I’m sorry, Pep, I just —“ He followed her as she ventured out to the kitchen. “— I’m just really stressed, hon. With Ross being all onto me with the next phone, and this whole ‘Peter’ thing —”
Peter looked up and grinned when his father and his step-mom walked out of their room. “Hey! How are you guys? I made breakfast!” He held up one of the plates of omelettes that he was taking across to the table. “And I made everyone lunches, and I made that rocking horse.” He pointed to the corner of the room, where, sure enough, there was a handmade wooden rocking horse.
“Wow…” Pepper breathed, looking at the wooden horse. “Did you get any sleep?”
“Yeah!” Peter grinned, as he sat down at one of the chairs, as he poured a very sparse amount of sprinkles onto his omelette — he was trying to slowly get rid of his sugar dependance. “I got a whole forty minutes — and you guys have coffee here, so I had some of that. There was never any coffee in the North Pole, and I kept asking Santa if he could being me coffee back after Christmases, because — well, I dunno why, but I’ve always just like, longed for it, if you know what I man — but he never did, so that was my first time drinking it, and it was amazing!”
“Hey, just like you, honey.” Pepper elbowed her husband, laughing. “No sleep and caffeine. Basically the most Tony Stark thing to do in the world.”
“Yeah.” Tony frowned. “Where’d you get all the wood from?”
“Oh, there was a desk in my room that I didn’t need, so I used that.”
“Righto.” Tony sighed as he ate his omelette. “This is actually alright, kid. Remind me to bring cheeseburgers home after work.”
“I thought you were working late tonight?” Pepper asked. “You’ve been complaining about it heaps!”
“Yeah, I am — but I’ll want cheeseburgers, and Morgan likes cheeseburgers, and the kid needs to try a cheeseburger, so…” He shrugged.
Peter got up and left the room, and Tony sighed. “I — oh, god, Pep, I — I don’t know what I’m meant to do here, he — he’d crazy!”
‘Tony!” Pepper hissed. “Don’t say that!”
“He thinks that he’s and elf!”
“So he’s got some issues,” His wife rolled her eyes. “So do you, so does everyone. He’s clearly got some stuff to work through; his uncle just died, he found out that you are his dad, he’s staying with complete strangers… and, all that aside, he’s exactly like you, Tony! You should hear him talk about things he’s interested — he is insanely smart, and he sounds just like you, and — he’s your son, Tony. He’s your son. You need to care for him.”
Tony rubbed his forehead. “I know I do, Pep, and — he is a nice kid, but I just… this isn’t how I imagined I’d have a son, y’know? I would’ve wanted to have him with you, or — or even if he was from my… before the accident in ’08, I would’ve wanted him to not think that he was raised by mythical creatures.”
Pepper rolled her eyes. “Well, that’s not what the universe has given you. Peter is your son, and you need to step up — for your son.” She stood up, and left him alone at the table. “I’ll take the kids to school. See you tonight.” She said, sounding cold.
Peter picked Morgan up from her pre-school. Pepper had given him an emergency phone on the way to school that morning, and so he got her to call them so they would let Peter pick Morgan up.
He was… going okay, in human society. Nobody was really questioning his presence at school, and Ned was cool. Ned was really, really cool.
Ned was also a hacker. Which had helped them a lot. Peters friends skills really helped them at lunch, when Ned hacked into the school system at put Peter in it, so that he was sort of legally getting an education. Ned was also able to make Peters dads money be going toward his education, which was also cool. Because he wasn’t stealing his education.
As they walked away from Morgans pre-school, through a park, a snowball came flying there way.
Morgan ducked down, clumsily pulling him down with her. “Petey,” She whispered loudly. “You’ve gotta help me! It’s the big kids, from the middle school across the street!”
Peter smirked. “We need to fight back?”
Mogan nodded.
“Okay.” He breathed. “Okay, start making snowballs.” Peter made a huge pile of snowballs as fast as he could — only pausing to give Morgan a grin as she stared at them in amazement — and then started ditching them at the kids.
“Wait, wait, wait, Petey!” Morgan exclaimed, once he’d got all but one down. “We only have one left! You’re not gonna get him!”
“I’ll get him.” Peter concentrated, aimed, and then threw the snowball.
It hit the kid, and the kid fell straight over into the snow.
“Yeah!” He and Morgan both yelled, high five-ing in celebration of their victory.
Peter loved his sister.
They laughed, and started walking back to the penthouse. “D’ya think that dad will actually bring burgers?” He asked.
“He will.” Morgan said sincerely. “He never forgets cheeseburgers.”
“He’s the best dad!”
Morgan shrugged. “He’s okay. He’s just always busy, and working, and in the lab building stuff.” They started to get closer to where they lived.
Daddy tries his best, but his best isn’t always the best. Mommy said that he’s got some ‘serious issues’” she air-quoted the last two words.
Peter laughed, and picked Morgan up, sitting her on his shoulders. “That’s a lot of wisdom, little miss. My oh so wise little baby sister.”
“I’m not wise.” His sister rolled her eyes. “I’m not a genius, like mommy told me you and daddy are when we were driving — I just listen,” she wrapped her arms around his neck, and leant her cheek on his head. “I’m always listening. To everything.”
Peter snorted. “Alrighty. That wasn’t creepy at all. Completely normal.”
Morgan cackled evilly.