Intergalactic

They hadn’t meant to drive off and not come back, really, they hadn’t, but it’s how it had happened in the end. A week after the news about the stones, Tony took off for the woods, half out of his mind with grief over what had happened. Steve found him near the other side of the lake just staring out at the water, his eyes devoid of anything, the dark circles around his eyes had been more profound in the afternoon sun. The first thing that Steve had done after getting the genius back to the compound was pack a bag for each of them, and then explain to Natasha that they were going to take a little break. She understood, mostly because she had seen Tony breakdown as something far worse than everyone else’s. Shuri and the rest of the Wakandans had gone back home, all despondent, but Shuri was determined to be a great Queen for her people. With the relays intact, the Zandarians were taken home by Rocket and Nebula, who had helped them load all kinds of things that would help in their own recovery efforts. Nebula staying on Zandar for a little longer to get to know Duranna better, Rocket stayed because of Groot even though he wasn’t the Guardian’s Groot. 

Thor went off looking for some land for his people, settling in a sleepy Northeastern area, Bruce went with them, the small group sad but hopeful with their King there for them. Leaving Natasha behind with Tony and Steve, who were now on their way out as well. 

“I’ll run the Avengers,” she said looking at Tony’s vacant stare. “Just take care of him, Rhodes and I can run this place, plus we have new friends. We’ll be fine.” 

Steve knew that she wasn’t fine, but she still had Clint and his kids to keep her company, as well as the new team that had somehow formed, even though they had gone off towards other planets. So, Steve put them in Tony’s Audi and drove off, their first stop on their journey to find somewhere to settle ended up being a few hours north of the compound. Steve in his search to find a place for them had found an old abandoned property nestled deep in the woods, a huge lake next to the house. He had contacted the real estate company handling the sale and brought it dirt cheap, it had been abandoned for over ten years, mostly because people complained that it was too far away from any kind of civilization for them to live in it long term. People in the town south of the lake had called it a cursed location, but in reality, it just hadn’t had the right owner. 

Tony had been quiet the whole drive up, his eyes still vacant of anything remotely resembling the man Steve had once known. He knew the guilt was eating him up inside, it wasn’t any different then what Steve was feeling himself, but Steve needed to be the stronger one for once and not let everything fall onto Tony’s shoulders. When he pulled up to the house, he noticed just how run down it was, but it was something that they could work on together. 

Getting out of the car and walking over to where Tony was seated, Steve could only hope that this whole thing was a good idea, he opened the door and just kneeled down next to the man’s still form. 

“Hey Tony,” he said his voice quiet so that he wouldn’t startle him. “We’re here.” 

Steve waited to see if Tony would acknowledge him, he was surprised when Tony looked over at him and gave him a small smile. “Kidnapped me did you?” 

“Not entirely,” he smiled back. “I just figured that maybe we needed some time away, do something that didn’t involve being Captain America and Iron Man, to find our way after losing so much.” 

Tony nodded at him and looked out at the trees. “This place is different, how did you find it?” 

“I wasn’t really looking,” he said which was the truth, he had been looking for something more up to Tony’s standards and ended up finding the fixer upper instead. “I guess we just needed something to do for a little while.” 

“Well you’re right about the fixer upper, but it’ll do for now… as long as you don’t mind me putting my own touch to the place.” 

“I don’t mind at all Tony,” Steve said before pulling Tony out of the car and holding onto him. “Nope not at all.” 

It was a distraction if they ever needed one, the both of them needed something else to work towards outside of being the leaders of a group of superheroes. Tony poured all of his energy into upgrading the building, adding FRIDAY to the inside, while Steve worked on the outside, fixing the flooring, making sure that everything would be inhabitable. They called in plumbers, wearing disguises whenever workers were on the property, mainly because they just wanted to be like any other regular couple trying to find solace after so much devastation. No one questioned why the two of them were there, the people did their work and were paid above premium thanks to Tony. It took them nearly six months before the place was ready, their bedroom had been finished the first week, but everything else took time. They picked out every single thing with great detail, even making sure that they had extra bedrooms in case the others visited. No one ever came in that first year, leaving the two of them alone to work out their grief by working on the house, on the property, on whatever it was that Tony did in the garage. The basement was a gym for Steve, the workshop was in the garage, which was on the side of the house.  

It was strange that they had found a rhythm to their lives, going on dates, learning to talk everything out, even going to therapy. Steve started a small survivor’s group in the city, and would drive down every single Monday at speeds that Tony had said were outright illegal, even though he drove just as fast as Steve did. It had become their new normal, so of course after a year of being together Steve had decided on proposing to Tony. Life was too short for them to question anything in their lives, so Steve took Tony to Cambridge, to his alma mater, because Tony had heard about some projects that the students were doing as a part of the September foundation. One of the students, a young girl who was just starting, was helping Steve with his proposal, they had met the first time by accident, Steve had been trying to find a way to propose and ended up driving in the wrong direction ending up in Massachusetts instead of upstate New York, because he had been thinking too hard. It had given him the chance to get to know a place that had shaped Tony’s life for so long, but he was still wandering around a city he didn’t know and had run into a young teenage girl who just so happen to be one of the school’s youngest students. 

“You know, the day it happened we were visiting this school, I had just gotten the acceptance letter,” she said to him when they were sitting on a bench. Her name was Riri Williams, and she had been accepted into the school the day her family vanished in front of her eyes. Instead of staying home, she took the chance to go to the school, because she hoped that she would make her parents proud of her, but also, she wanted to have a crack at trying to find a way to bring them back. 

“We all lost someone, some more than most,” he told her reminded of the Battle of Wakanda, the look on Shuri’s face when she was told that her brother hadn’t made it. She had lost her mother who had gone to help her after one of Thanos’ children had broken in to get to Vision. He still sees the broken look in Tony’s eyes when he looks at the picture of him and Peter that sits in the kitchen of their still unfinished house. 

Steve bonded with her that day, both of them finding comfort in just talking about their families and their lives since the snap, he kept in contact with her and then called her when he had starting thinking about proposing to Tony. It was late Spring when they had made it to the now sleepy area, Tony had rushed around looking at all the projects with a gleeful stare, talking to each and every student individually about what they were working on. None of them asked why the Avengers hadn’t fixed what had happened, they must have known that somethings couldn’t be fixed, they were scientists after all.  

When he had gotten to Riri’s project he was astonished at what she had accomplished, Steve knew that the two would hit it off, considering how much they had in common, but it amazed him even more when she started talking about replusor technology and how Tony’s reactor could help the world around them. Eventually leading him towards where she had helped Steve set up the proposal, in a small classroom nearby, under the guise of asking for help with the rest of her project.  

If there was one thing about the proposal that Steve would never forget, it would be the look on Tony’s face when he walked into that room, it was full of flowers that Steve had picked, and lighting made by Riri which only illuminated everything so that it would have an ethereal glow. He had watched as Tony looked around the room, surprised at what was happening before his eyes had settled on Steve, kneeling down at the center.  

“I know that we’ve been through a lot over the years,” Steve said with a smile. “We almost never agree on a lot of things, but honestly its one of the greatest things about our relationship. You never looked at me as someone who needed to be pitied because of the situation I was in, you’ve always challenged me, you’ve helped me become a better person.” 

“If you’re proposing, the answer is yes,” Tony said to him with a huge smile. 

They had gotten married the next day, Riri as their only witness, after he told Tony about how they had met, and how they had bonded, Steve feeling like an overprotective Uncle. The judge had to sign an NDA considering who he was marrying, but it would become public record, that Captain America and Iron Man got married one year after the snap. As for Riri, they had asked her if she would like to live with them on the months she wasn’t in school. Steve didn’t want her to be alone, and she said yes, happy that she could learn from Tony, they brought her back to the lake house, they became her foster parents weeks later after she had told Tony about what had happened to her parents. Because for Tony, who had lost Peter, he didn’t want her to be alone in the world, he didn’t want anyone to be alone. That was when their little family started to grow, and Steve wouldn’t have traded any of it for the world. 

Tony didn’t remember much from the first few months after the team had returned from wherever it was that Thanos had run off to. He doesn’t remember the drive to the lake house, only the moment that Steve had kneeled down next to him and talked to him. He worked on the house with Steve, but there had been days when he would find himself just sitting there doing nothing because he remembered how Peter would send him message after message about what he had been doing around Queens as Spiderman. Steve constantly pulling him out of his head whenever he got too deep into the memories. 

Steve didn’t pressure him to go back to the Avengers facility, he didn’t pressure Tony to be Iron Man, all Steve did was work through his own pain and his own guilt, while also making sure that Tony was alright after a panic attack or on days where Tony was too far into his own head that he needed to get out. So, as the first year went on and they got closer, they had also found a way to work together on their little project, not that fixing a house was a little project, not with Tony involved. They did other things, Tony learned to cook while Steve learned to bake, everything was fifty/fifty, they talked and watched movies, but most of all they learned to move forward together.  

The first time Tony truly felt like they had moved forward in their relationship, farther than he would have thought, was when Steve took him on a picnic and for the first time look like he had come to terms with what had happened. Steve talked to him about everything that he had been doing, how he had accidentally drove all the way to Massachusetts because he hadn’t been paying too much attention. 

“I guess that I had some kind of epiphany that day,” Steve told him with a small smile on his face. “We may never move on from what happened, but I’m almost certain that they would be angry with us if we didn’t at least try.” 

Hearing those words from Steve, who had stuck to his man out of time shtick for so long, say that he wanted to try to move forward was a lot for Tony to take in. But he also took them to heart, working with Stark Industries and Pepper, to help with recovery, working on projects while in the garage of the lake house. He wanted to try, just like Steve was trying, but he still couldn’t bring himself to go to NAF and see everyone, that took a lot more time then he was ready for. He still talked to them, on video calls mostly, Rhodey came over to check on him a lot before going on a mission. But mostly, they left him to work on his guilt through the one thing he knew best, and that was building. 

Everything changed after they got married, after they brought Riri into their lives, somehow, they both had a purpose, they had someone who depended on them. They were a family, extended from their Avengers family, Clint’s kids came over sometimes, while Clint was off doing god knows what, making Steve and Tony unofficial babysitters.  

When Tony started traveling for work again, never too far because he needed to get back to the lake house, it was home, and sometimes being too far made him panic because he was afraid Steve would vanish, so the business trips were confined to the tri-state area. It was on one of these trips, to Jersey of all places, where Tony found himself helping a young girl who was crying on the side of the road near a pile of dead flowers. Someone else who had lost everything because they hadn’t done enough. Though she told him constantly that it wasn’t his fault, the first person outside of the Avengers to do so, he noticed that she looked a little malnourished.  

“I’ve been trying to survive for a while,” she had told him. Of course, Tony had an instinct to help, it’s one of the reasons why he was constantly upgrading Peter’s armor even though he wasn’t there anymore, or upgrading things for the Avengers, he needed the hope that they would find a way to help after all of the devastation.  

“If you don’t mind accompanying me, we can go over to Burger King and eat some food,” he said smiling at her. “My treat.” 

Tony had been sure that he was the first to have offered her anything like that, a lot of people were struggling but some more than others. Kids, teenagers mostly, were suffering from losing their families, some were too old to be put into foster care so they stayed in their family homes and tried to make ends meet, often failing. Tony watched her as she ate through four burgers, only stopping to talk about superheroes, or how hard school was, or even how she had lost her family. She became more animated as she went and it reminded him of Peter in a way, he wondered how she would be with Riri, or even Shuri who need more friends her age. 

That was the day that Tony brought a tired Kamala Khan back to the lake house, and fed her enough of Steve’s cookies that she passed out on the table smiling. Even after eating so many burgers she had happily ate more, almost like she was afraid that she wouldn’t eat again afterwards. When she was comfortable being there with them, she realized that she had the chance for a home once again, and that made Tony very proud. 

“You know,” Steve said to him as they got ready for bed that night. “I never thought that I would be a father, I thought I had given that up a long time ago, especially when I started coming to terms with being 70 years in the future, but we’re not too bad at this.” 

“Trust me, I always thought I would have been a horrible father, until I became Iron Man, the thought that maybe one day I could have a kid was there, I had thought it would have been with Pepper, but this,” he said looking at Steve with all of his heart. “what we’re doing with them, how we are together, I couldn’t have asked for anything better.” 

“So,” Steve put his arms around him, while kissing him on his temple. “How many kids do you think that we’re going to end up with?” 

“I never thought that far, but I wouldn’t mind another one,” he turned his head and kissed Steve on the lips. “I wouldn’t mind having our own little family here, plus I’m sure that the Avengers are going to start popping in more often, and Clint’s going to want to live nearby.” 

The mention of Clint made Steve tense and Tony knew it was because Clint out of all of them was having an even harder time moving forward. “I wish there was more we could do for him,” Steve said as he rested his head against Tony’s. “It’s not fair that we can have all of this and he’s still struggling.” 

“I know Steve, but he needs to grieve, we’ll help him, hell he could live in the guest house with the kids if it makes him feel better... well when the guest house is finished.” 

“It’ll be done by the end of the summer, I promise, and maybe the girls would like having Lila, Cooper and Nate around, more kids for them to hang around with.” 

“Maybe that’s just what we all really need,” Tony hadn’t realized that healing themselves involved becoming a real family. “We all need a family, though it’ll be hard some days, I still don’t think I’m completely ready to be Iron Man again.” 

“I’m not ready to be Captain America either, but I’m okay with us just being Steve and Tony for now.” 

They did just that, they were just going to focus on themselves and keeping their little family safe. Riri and Kamala became fast friends, which was something that they both needed, someone to be there for them. With Steve and Tony as their foster dads, life at the lake house had become strangely fascinating for the four of them. Their family growing, everyone had lost someone close to them, they were all finding their way to move forward. Tony smiled when he would hear the girls laughing in their room, it felt nice to give someone hope again, to give them the chance to be happy again. 

So, it wasn’t a surprise that the one day that Tony had gone with Steve to one of his meetings, that the two of them would end up coming back with another kid. Though finding him was something that was evitable in so many ways. He was the youngest kid in Steve’s therapy group, but for the whole meeting he had stayed quiet, until Steve started talking about being from Brooklyn and what it felt like to see how much it had changed since his deep freeze. 

The kid’s name, Miles Morales, and he hit it off with Steve, both of them from Brooklyn, both of them had a love for art, and honestly both of them were troublemakers, who had started a war against the girls, all the while Tony watched and made sure that they didn’t hurt themselves too badly. Miles, was like Peter in many ways, including the powers, which threw Tony for a loop, because how could there be two kids with the same powers in such a short amount of time, and how had these infected spiders gotten out. Tony just filed it away as another coincidence, and just watched the kids as they got along with one another. 

“You’re good with them,” Steve had told him, after the war had ended in all five of them covered in paint and DUM-E spraying them with the fire extinguisher. “You gave them all a family, you became my family.” 

“I never knew that I would end up having a home for lost wayward kids, but they’re ours now and forever,” Tony smiled feeling like he was finally moving forward.  

Riri, shared Tony’s love for technology and had secretly, well she thought it had been a secret, began to build Iron Heart. It was her own armor and while Tony was scared of her using it, he wasn’t going to stop her from creating it, but he was going to make sure that it was safe for her to use. Kamala, had been a surprise, she had developed powers and no one understood why it had happened, neither did she, but they worked on making sure that she was alright, Bruce stopped by to check on them and collected samples from her and Miles to make sure that nothing was going to be detrimental to their futures. So, since Riri had her armor, Tony worked on stuff for Miles and Kamala as well, because Tony wanted them all to be safe. Miles and Steve giving him designs for Miles’ suit, and then having Miles paint on the material before. Tony put KAREN into the suit, so that she would have someone to talk to. He wanted someone to have Peter’s legacy with them, and she was a part of Peter as much as FRIDAY and JARVIS had been a part of his. 

Somehow without him realizing, he almost always attracted people with special powers, or potential beyond anything he could imagine, and it scared him. Not because he was always surrounded by people with special skills, but because the world around him was evolving to match the threats that they would possibly face in the future. So, on days when he thought too much about everything, mostly on days when Steve was at his group meetings with Miles, Kamala joining them on weekdays when Riri was at MIT, Tony found himself headed over to one of the orphanages that had cropped up after the decimation. He knew that if he could help those kids too, he could also heal himself a little more. He didn’t have to think too hard with the kids, he could have fun, and do silly things for a few hours.  

There was one orphanage near the tip of Manhattan that he hadn’t visited until one rainy September afternoon, he had been on his way home when he saw it, the building falling apart on the outside, but it was warm on the inside. Kids running around, laughing, playing, it felt like the lake house when all of the kids were there, Tony automatically wanted to offer his services. He ended up sitting in a room with a fussy toddler, the people working there were having a hard time with her. 

“Sorry Mr. Stark,” the woman said as the little girl cried in a corner, she was just over a year old, but she looked sad to be there. “She’s usually quiet but lately she’s been a little sick, I’m at my wits end.” 

“It’s okay,” he said waving the woman off before walking over to the little girl and sitting with her, her crying became hiccups before she settled into his lap. 

“She’s never done that before, most of the time we can’t hold her for long.” 

“Do you know why? Or do you think that she’s just particular about the people she’s with?” 

“We don’t know, she’s usually a quiet child, until she gets sick, lately she’s gotten a few colds, but she never got to the point where she wouldn’t let anyone near her, but she seems to like you,” she told him as the little girl settled into his arms. 

“What’s her name?” 

“Morgan, that’s the name that was on her bracelet when she was found, she’s lucky to be alive after what had happened to her parents.” 

He knew what she meant, and from the size and age of little Morgan, it meant that she had been born on the day of the devastation, and it hurt to think of it that way. The nurse told him his worse fears, the little girl had been born on a cab on the way to the hospital, when the driver, and her parents were lost. The bag had said the parents last name but no first name, so the hospital called her little girl Morgan. Tony stayed with her the rest of the day, before taking her to a doctor to find out that she had an ear infection and that’s why she was crying so much. When he went back to the building he asked if he could take her with him, and the caretaker only nodded, noting that she was comfortable with him. 

“As long as there’s someone to love and care for her, I won’t deny it to her, or any of these kids,” she said, they had all lost something, so even one kid gaining a family was something that they cherished. “I’ll get the paperwork.” 

Tony called Steve the moment he had gotten the papers in front of him, with two excited teenagers in tow, the Stark family had been complete. The house was big enough for all of them, after a year of work, Clint and family were going to move in the next week as well. Tony knew that if Natasha, or any of the other Avengers were going to show up he would find a way to build them homes as well. This was the best way for them to rebuild their lives, but finding each other and becoming a family. 

Steve usually took morning duty on the weekdays, making breakfast after his run, waking the kids up for school, and driving them there before going to work on another project, usually painting or heading over to NAF to talk to Natasha about their progress, before heading back and picking the kids up on his way home. Tony was on night duty, cooking dinner, helping with homework, as well as Morgan duty, who was a happy toddler now that she had people around her to care for her. He knew that the orphanage tried their best, but with so many kids it was a lot harder than anyone would imagine. 

Steve’s paintings went up for auction once a year for the next four years, they funded recovery projects, but mostly they funded orphanages like the one Morgan had come from. The reason was that Morgan was the one that had finally pulled Tony away from his guilt over the decimation, and it was something that he was grateful for every day. To the kids, Steve was Pops who helped them with training if they asked, self-defense, or in Miles’ case, just being an ear for art projects that he was interested in. Tony was Dad, he cooked everyone’s favorite meals, made them gagets, and was homework monitor.  

“My kids are not going to fall behind in school,” he would say as he gave them rewards for each good report card.  

If anything, Steve was in awe with how good Tony was with the kids, always encouraging them, both academically, and artistically. Tony who had told Steve early on in their relationship that he was afraid that he was going to be a terrible father, that he didn’t know why he had gone ahead and adopted four kids. But Steve told him, every day since Morgan came home with them, that if it wasn’t for Tony those kids wouldn’t have made it as far as they had in the last couple of years. 

Clint’s kids lived on the land, Clint oftentimes taking missions to work off his anger, leaving the kids with Steve and Tony, which they were okay with. Their weekends filled with sleepovers, and friends stopping by. Shuri joining them, which Steve knew was the best thing for her, because she needed moments where the weight of an entire country was not riding on her shoulders. Nebula oftentimes came with Duranna who saw Tony as an Uncle who gave her interesting things, Nebula always looked at peace when she was around Tony and the kids, like she had found her place after everything. 

Avengers were the norm for popping up left and right, Kamala attaching herself to Carol who was almost always with Rhodey, and Steve thought it was interesting but let them be. Kamala proudly proclaiming herself as Ms. Marvel, after Tony had left the kids with Carol and Rhodey so that they would have an anniversary weekend.  

So, Tony declared them Kamala’s godparents, “If anything happens to her, I’m blaming them,” he said to Steve that night. After Carol had shown Kamala a particularly dangerous maneuver, that had Tony practically pulling out his own hair.  

Steve only smiled and said, “Okay Tony,” before taking his husband to bed. 

Miles gained a godmother, in May Parker, who had come over several times after losing Peter, sharing her grief with Tony. She saw Miles’ heart, and how he wanted to help, in him she saw some parts of Peter, but she embraced him as his own person, often working with Miles and Steve on gallery openings, or a mural that she wanted them to paint somewhere in the city.  

Riri’s godmother, was Natasha, who taught her combat skills that she could use as self-defense. Natasha knew that Riri was away a lot for school, and she didn’t want anything to happen to the girl that had brought Steve and Tony closer together. Steve wondered if Riri’s godfather would have been Bucky if he had survived. He knew more than anything that Natasha was struggling to keep the Avengers together, trying to find a way to help everyone to the point where it was consuming her. 

“I just wish that we had the time to fix what Hydra had done to him, for him to remember me, for none of this to have happened, we all lost so much but I gained a family when we became the Avengers,” she told him and while he knew that she was trying, Riri had given her something more to hope for. 

Morgan’s godparents, ended up being Pepper and Happy, who had gotten married a year after Steve and Tony had, they dotted on the little girl as much as they could. When Pepper wasn’t off running the company or doing a million charity functions, or Happy wasn’t freaking out over people not having their badges, the two spent time at the lake house with them. Pepper, or Aunnie Pepa and Unca Hape, as Morgan would call her, often used the time to wind down, the little girl telling her all kinds of stories about her siblings.  

The lake house had somehow turned into a place where people would come and go, Thor came with Bruce and Valkyrie, most of the time when Nebula was there, the four of them having a weird bond that Tony didn’t want to speculate about, but it worked. Each one of them housed a mountain of issues, either from family or the tragedy of their lives, but they were close. Nebula would bring them things that she found while traveling with Rocket, who because of Thor was Rabbit to Morgan. It was their own weird little family, one that Steve never thought he would have, even with the missing people in their lives, he knew that he had hope for their future. 

“They’re our kids,” Steve said smiling as the family played around the yard, Kamala and Miles both getting ready for college. “You’ve done good with them.” 

“Now they’re leaving me,” Tony said his voice sad, it had been nearly five years since the snap, five years of them all growing and getting to know each other.  

“They’ll come home,” Steve said hugging his husband. “They always do, plus I taught them to drive.” 

“Yeah like maniacs,” Tony said looking at him. “I had to put FRIDAY in their cars so that she could slow them down, do you know how hard it was to watch them drive, nearly gave me a heart attack.” 

“They’ll be fine, and you’ll be fine as long as you don’t fake any more heart attacks, plus they can come home on weekends, and we still have Morgan here.” 

“My little Morguna,” Tony picked up the little girl and held her closer to them as they watched Miles and Kamala drive away to school. “Yeah they’ll be back.” 

It was the first time, since they brought Riri home, that they were alone, just the two of them and Morgan. Clint had taken the kids to the old farm house, Cooper wanted to get somethings before he himself went off to college, but Steve had known that it was because he wanted some closure as well. They had survived, and while the Barton kids had lost their mother, they were still desperately trying to keep their father. The three of them had devised a plan to get their dad to let go of the past before he got himself killed, because out of all of them, Clint was the only one who had trouble letting go. It scared the kids, and it scared Tony, Steve tried his best to keep everyone together but somedays it was a little hard when one of them wouldn’t let go of what they had lost. 

“So, what now?” Tony asked him as he climbed up the stairs to the house. 

“We bake cookies and send it to them I guess,” Steve said smiling at his husband. 

“They’ve been gone less than five minutes and now you bring up cookies,” Tony held Morgan close, shrugging his shoulders. “Yeah sure why not. Morguna what kind of cookies do you want to make with your dad and your pops?” 

“Chocolate,” she said her hand in her mouth, she still hadn’t outgrown sticking her fingers in her mouth, but they weren’t going to stop her. “Iron Man.”  

"Chocolate Iron Man... interesting choice.” 

“She’s been sneaking into the garage, last week I caught her grabbing one of your prototypes,” Steve said as they walked into the kitchen. “Maybe we should lock the workshop when we’re sleeping.” 

“Yeah I know, I don’t want her activating something, but FRIDAY keeps the protocols to stop her from activating the suits by accident,” Tony said as he put Morgan in her chair at the table as Steve went over to the fridge to get the ingredients.  

“Have you told Pepper about the suit?” 

“No, maybe I will one day but right now, I guess it’s just another project,” Tony was always trying to protect them, even when he decided on not being Iron Man. He made suits for the kids, even installing KAREN into them so that they kids were all connected to one another even when they were miles apart. FRIDAY, was connected to Steve’s phone and his car, as well as the Avengers Facility and wherever it was that Thor, Bruce and Valkyrie were. He even upgraded it on the Benatar, so that Rocket could talk to Natasha, and Nebula could talk with them all.  

“You’ll get it done,” Steve said before taking out the cookie cutters of the Avengers and all the bowls. “Now let's make some cookies.” 

Morgan squealed out a Yay from her seat as they settled into putting the ingredients together, Steve knew that this was what home felt like, warmth and the people he loved. So of course, the moment that they were at their happiest was when everything changed.