Steve had been through a lot since waking up from the ice, and after the giant purple alien destroyed his life, he pretty much was immune to most of the weirdness. Odd shit happened all the time, he would just filter it as the new normal and go on with his life. But a small brunette child perched atop the kitchen counter, head deep inside the snack cupboard, completely unsupervised in the very secure, Avengers old base was certainly a weird thing.
"What are you doing up there?" he found himself asking, and credit to the child, not showing an ounce of being startled as she turned, and looked him over, as if judging him, eyes carefully dragging over him, purely unimpressed. "Where are your parents?"
"My mom said I'm not to talk to strangers." She seemed to judge him one more time before turning back around and digging back into various boxes and bags that clogged the cupboard shelves as if looking for something specific.
"That's valid." Steve said mostly to himself, mentally checking he wasn't still sleeping. He slowly moved further into the kitchen, glancing around for someone, anyone else to notice this small child on the counter, but he was alone. This had to be some kind of joke, or prank, who would let a child loose in the base. "Your mom sounds smart. Who is your mom?"
The girl turned and looked over her shoulder, this time her eyebrows knitted together, a look so familiar Steve could have sworn he had seen it before. "If you don't already know that means you really are a stranger." She focused back on the snack shelf for only a second as she pulled out a bag of barbecue chips, tearing them open before folding herself back down onto the kitchen counter. "Do you have any soda?" She asked before stuffing a large chip into her tiny mouth, letting the crumbs fly.
This had to be a joke, some sort of set up, Steve glanced over his shoulder, just making sure there wasn't someone standing there feeding this young child these lines. "Uh, probably." He answered honestly glancing towards the refrigerator. "Are you even allowed to have soda?"
The girls heels kicked into the counter cupboards in an uneven pattern as she swung her legs, her tiny hands reaching back into the bag for another chip, while one of her small shoulders raised up into a half shrug. "Probably."
Steve raised an eyebrow, and couldn't help himself from doing another sweep of the kitchen just to make sure he wasn't being watched. "Uh, that sounds like a lie. Maybe we should go ask your parents." it was worth another shot.
The little girl sighed and rolled her eyes, and Steve definitely knew he had seen that look before, he could feel the sense of deja vu wash over him. "You're no fun." She said plainly, and the deja vu hit him twice.
"I've been told that before." Steve said, narrowing his eyes at her, trying so hard to place her tiny face. "If you wont tell me who your parents are, will you tell me who told you that you could eat my snacks?"
The girl grinned then, crunching into another chip. "Auntie Tasha always says I can have whatever I want when I come over, but -"she looked down at the bag in her hands thoughtfully. "She didn't say they were yours."
This was starting to make less and less sense. "Auntie Tasha?" he repeated the words carefully, so Natasha was in on this in some way shape or form - and always says? Jesus how out of it has Steve been the past few months. A small brunette child was calling Natasha, Auntie Tasha, and eating his snacks. "How come I haven't seen you around here before?"
At that the little girl shrugged again, wiping her chip dusted hand on to her jeans. "Whats your name?"
"My name is Steve." A simple statement, but it felt like he was giving an awful lot away to the tiny person he had never met before.
"I'm sorry for eating your snacks, Steve." The little girl put the bag of chips down on the counter next to herself, looking down at her lap as if she was in trouble. "My mom says it's not nice to touch something that isn't yours."
Steve felt guilty, he hadn't meant to make the little girl feel bad, that wasn't his intention, but there he went anyways, and made a small child frown. "Uh, No it's okay-" Steve cringed at his own voice. "I mean it's okay to do that when you're friends, I share - my uh snacks, with my friends."
The little girl, tilted her head, as if debating the offer carefully, Steve could see a familiar fire behind her eyes, the smile returning to her lips as if it all went according to plan, before she gave him a firm nod. "My name is Morgan, and we can be friends I guess."
"Great." Steve shifted on his feet, still lost and entirely uncomfortable and feeling a little bit duped to be perfectly honest. "I'm not sure about the soda request but if you want I can grab us some chocolate milk?"
"I like chocolate milk." The little girl - Morgan said, carefully turning her body and lowering herself gently to the floor, as if she had done it a hundred times already in her life span. "Do you have any straws?"
Steve moved around the kitchen, grabbing two glasses from the counter, before taking out the carton of chocolate milk and placing it all on to the kitchen table. "We might actually." Steve hummed, dipping into a drawer, where he found a few paper straws from the last time the Avengers threw a party. " You know I think I might also have some chocolate chip cookies if you're interested."
"Yes, yes yes." Morgan chanted with glee as she pulled back one of the kitchen chairs and climbed on top of it, waiting patiently for Steve to join her, sitting in the chair across from her.
He poured two glasses of chocolate milk, sliding the less full one over to Morgan, and placing a straw in both cups. "So Morgan." he started, opening up the cookies and sliding out the tray to sit in the middle of the two of them. "Do you come here a lot?" He mentally hit himself for being so weird, but he hadn't held a conversation with a child, well, ever.
Morgan didn't seem to mind as she grabbed a cookie and broke it in half. "Not really, mom never wanted me to come but Daddy says he can take me where he wants to." She spoke in a tone far beyond her years, and if it wasn't for the fact she had to shift on to her knees in order to dip her cookie into her glass, Steve would have almost forgotten he was speaking to a near infant.
"Who's your mom?" He asked, hoping now that they were friends that he'd get a better answer.
"I don't know" Morgan giggled. "she's just my mom, Steve." She smiled around her straw, before slurping up some of her milk.
Steve nodded in acceptance, because really what did he expect. He picked up a cookie taking a bite before asking. "How old are you?"
"I'm five, but almost six." Morgan was basically climbing on to the table as she reached for another cookie. "and I asked for a kitten for my birthday but mom said she has allergies I can only have one at dad's house, but dad says I'm not ready for a cat."
Steve frowned at the girl, before pushing the cookies closer to her, so it was less of a reach. "Pets are a lot of work." He found himself agreeing, searching his brain for answers, this little girl was so familiar and so smart, and apparently had been around and yet he had never seen her before.
"I think Dad's wrong." Morgan sighed longingly into her chocolate milk.
"Dad's wrong about what?" The familiar voice carried into the kitchen with ease, and Steve could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and the familiar tug of his heart into his guts.
He didn't want to turn around, and face the man who had just entered the kitchen and his life after so long, so instead Steve watched the way Morgan's face lit up, and a smile broke out and she happily exclaimed. "Daddy!"
"What do we have going on here, kiddo?" Tony voice remained chipper, and Steve had to take a deep breath before he could face him.
"I'm having snacks with Steve." Morgan replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, sliding off her chair and running past Steve towards her father.
"I can see that." Tony said, with only a hint of suspicion in his voice.
"Hey, Tony." Steve plastered on his best smile, before forcing his body to turn in his chair to look up at his old friend. "Long time no see." He added for good measure, immediately hating himself for not noticing the similarities quicker - he knew he had seen those looks before. He just didn't realize he had seen them on an older male version of her little face.
"I didn't know you were going to be in the building today." Tony bent down and swooped Morgan up in his arms, carefully balancing her on his hip. "Natasha said you would be out."
It all made sense, Tony only stopping by when he thought Steve wouldn't be around. He couldn't blame Tony, but he couldn't say it didn't sting a little to hear. "Yeah, my bike had a bit of a malfunction so I wasn't able to get too far today, sorry If I knew I could have-" Steve shrugged, he didn't know what he could have done, but it would have been better than this.
"Steve was sharing his cookies." Morgan said immediately filling in the silence. "I tried to get him to give me a soda but he didn't listen." she sighed, resting her head on Tony's shoulder. "Daddy can I have a soda, please?"
"Never." Tony said with a shake of his head. "It will rot your teeth and melt your stomach and you'll waste away with diabetes, do you want diabetes?." he questioned and tickled her, causing her to burst out in giggles. "Mister Rogers here was right to say no to you, you little menace."
"No Stop-" Morgan laughed, trying her best to fend off her dad's hands. "I don't want dyer-beatys"
Steve felt like he was intruding, like he was peering in on some super secret soft moment between a man and his daughter and he needed to be as far away as possible, but he just couldn't help himself from watching, unsure if he was feeling jealousy or envy, or just a general feeling of being left out. Either way he couldn't stop admiring the pair and Tony noticed quickly.
"Hey Morganator" Tony spoke low into her messy brown hair. "Why don't you go run and get Auntie Tasha from the control room for me? Tell her it's a code blue and she owes me dinner."
Morgan nodded eagerly, as Tony set her back down on the ground, before she took off in a full out sprint down the hallway. "Thank you." he said towards Steve once she was out of earshot. "I'm sure it's more fun for her when she has someone to con into giving her chocolate."
"It's no problem." Steve said, and he meant it, as he pushed his chair back away from the table. "I didn't meant to over step, I just..." he pulled himself up and gave Tony a shrug. "Do you know how very unsettling it is to come into the kitchen to a random child."
Tony barked out a short laugh. "I can only imagine so, sorry about that, about all of this." he seemed to trail off for only a moment, absently picking at the sleeve of his jacket. "I was just hoping to avoid all of this, awkwardness, but it appears fate has something else in store for me."
"I miss you too Tony." Steve said with a sly smirk, easily reading between the lines just like he used to do, and the raise of Tony's eyebrows only proved he was correct in his assumption.
"Hey, if you want." Tony straightened up a bit, finally meeting Steve's glance head on. "I could come take a look at your bike before we head out, Morgan doesn't need to be at her mothers until after dinner."
"I'd like that." Steve very quickly admitted. "I would like that very much."