The girl stared at her computer screen, reading one of the prompts provided by the college over and over again in her head.
“Write about the person who has shaped your life the most.”
‘How the hell am I supposed to write about someone I don’t even know?’ She thought.
When Morgan was younger, her mom would tell her stories of a superhero group call the Avengers. They fought off all of the baddies that would come their way and that daddy was one of them. He would fly around and shoot beams of special light at them and would beat them up.
She always found them fascinating and wanted to be exactly like her dad and his friends.
After he died though, the stories stopped.
Mommy told her that daddy wasn’t going to come back.
That’s the earliest memory she has.
Everything before that was all just— blank.
No Iron Man, no super cool battles, no Tony Stark.
And as Morgan got older, the press grew more and more interested with her.
What schools was she going to? Who were her friends? What classes did she take?
Sometimes, it felt like she couldn’t even leave the house without people taking pictures of her.
Then, when she got to middle school, things got a lot harder. Both press-wise and academics-wise.
It made no sense, why was the daughter of Tony Stark failing almost all of her core classes?
Pepper grew increasingly worried with her daughter grades so she hired her a tutor. Three months of that and her grades still weren’t getting any better. If anything they got worse. After that, she took her to go see a doctor.
Morgan had dyslexia. Specially Irena syndrome. Her letters and numbers would shake uncontrollably, to a point where she can’t even read what’s right in front of her.
She always loved music and art though. The same year she was diagnosed, she joined choir and art class. Both of which she passed with flying colors.
So, instead of gong the predictable route, her becoming a math genius and carrying on the stark legacy, she went down a completely different path.
Her first choir competition was a competed success, their team winning first place and a spot at regionals.
Then, the articles started printing, and everything felt like it was going wrong.
“Morgan Stark? A Failure or a Protege?”
“Why Morgan Stark is going to Ruin Stark Industries.”
Why can’t I just be normal for once. The girl thought.
It felt like a man, who she didn’t even remember and was dead, was dictating what she can and cannot do with her life.
Her competitions were now always full of press agents and photographers. Whenever she got out of rehearsal, there would be at least four people waiting to take pictures and ask questions.
It felt like she was trapped just because her last name was “Stark”.
Then, high school rolled around and she joined that choir.
Being a part of that group was the best four years of her life.
She lead the team to, not one, but two consecutive national championships. She acquired an incredible budget for the team to buy new costumes and new equipment.
She also won a scholarship for being incredibly musically talented.
Some of the press were all over the new generation of Starks. Some were not.
“How did the Stark Name Fall so Hard? Two Words: Morgan Stark.”
“Why Is Morgan Stark Still Considered a Stark?”
“How Morgan Stark Ruined Iron Man for all of Mankind.”
She was never allowed to read the articles, but that never stopped them from being written.
She would receive hundreds of tweets and comments everyday saying that she was a failure and that she shouldn’t be proud of what she’s doing.
For every awful or harsh or cruel comment made about her though, there were hundreds more encouraging ones.
Apparently, growing up in a family with mathematical geniuses and becoming a musical genius was incredibly inspiring to people.
“How Morgan Stark is Taking the Musical World by Storm.”
“Morgan Stark is Making the Stark Family Name Into her Own Hands.”
It took a while to build up enough self esteem to become confident enough to be happy with where she was taking her family name, math and science degrees or not.
So, that’s exactly what she wrote about.
It’ll give me an edge no one else has, She thought. A dead person who i know but don't remember taking over my life and turning it around. I need that if I want to get into my dream school.
The initial goal was to go straight to broadway and never look back, but, plans change. When she heard about New York Academy of the Dramatic Arts, Morgan thought that a) that’s a ridiculously long name and b) this is where she wants, no, needs to go.
This is what she's meant to do.
Not become a face of a company.
Not some math nerd.
Not a superhero.
When she told everyone that this is what she wanted to do, everyone was ecstatic.
Especially Peter.
For the first few years of Morgan’s life, Peter wasn’t there. People told her it’s because he left with the other half of the universe the first time Thanos came. She still wished he was there.
The first memory she has of the man is at her fathers funeral (she remembers it as a wedding). She was sitting in the bench, waiting for her Uncle Happy to get her a cheeseburger when he sat next to her. He told her that he knew her dad and that she was very small. Morgan of course retaliated with blowing a raspberry at him because she doesn’t like when bad things are said about her. The boy just laughed and continued to talk to her.
He never said a single bad thing about her since.
The older they got, the closer they became.
It got to the point where she would regularly visit his apartment and he would visit her house.
She might have lost a father, but she gained a big brother.
And maybe a few more Aunts and Uncles.