Morgan's memory of her dad is a bit blurry—it stops somewhere in her childhood and she has no recollection of anything about him after she was no longer five years old.
Sure, there are a couple of instances where she feels like she remembers how his perfume smelled like. How he threatened to sell her toys and refused to tell her bedtime stories all the time. How he would relent on some occasions and how he would tell her stories about the amazing women around him like his Godmother Peggy, his agent friend Natasha, his blue alien friend Nebula, and most importantly his wife, her mom, Pepper, in hopes that she can grow up to be as fierce and strong as them. How warm his hugs were. How the last thing that she remembered of him being alive was the light press of his lips on her forehead before she fell asleep that night.
Morgan would be lying if she said that she doesn't miss her dad at all.
Sometimes she thinks about how it would be if he is still alive. Maybe he would be able to attend the parents meetings at school. Maybe she could show him off to her friends because according to mom's friends (who were also dad's friends) he was a famous person who was also the nicest, most selfless person to ever walk on Earth. Maybe she could witness his kindness first hand, instead of learning about it from the stories everyone tells her all the time. Maybe she could watch him tinker in his lab with her own eyes instead of watching the recordings that Friday saved into her system. Maybe she could take a ride on his back while he's wearing his Iron Man suit. Maybe she could see him bickering with Peter and Harley while she and mom watch in the background, rolling their eyes at the boys' childishness.
It took her quite a while to realize that he's truly gone. That he's never going to come back. That he's never going to be able to tell her bedtime stories and kiss her forehead again.
When it first dawned on her, she cried. So, so hard, mom started crying as well and she scooped her into a hug and they spent the entire night crying and missing dad. The tears didn't stop flowing until there was no more left as they flipped through the collection of pictures that mom kept throughout the years. The waterfall certainly fell harder while mom tried her best to recount the stories, the anecdotes of the sassy, brilliant man that her father once was.
They met Peter in the cemetery the next day, the boy was also visiting dad's tomb with a nice bouquet of flowers that all meant gratitude and love. His smile was a bit wobbly, dried tears matted his cheeks, but there was this twinkle in his eyes when he relayed his day with his best casual tone.
"You know, Morgan," he had said, when they were standing in the entrance, about to part ways, "I know you'll miss Mr. Sta—Tony—a lot, and I do miss him a lot too, but there's this nice quote from a film that came out years ago called Mary Poppins Returns—it's the newer film, not the one that's waaaay older—and it kinda helped me a lot."
"It's something along the lines of 'nothing is truly gone forever, maybe they're just in a place where the lost things go', so like… imagine that Tony's not gone forever, he's just waiting for us in the place where the lost things go. He's watching us grow, and I know he's really proud of us."
Since then, she holds his words close to her heart. Friday helped her look up the song, and she plays it whenever Morgan misses dad. She would sit in the terrace—sometimes with mom, or with either or both of her two 'brothers', or alone—looking out at the lake, at the sky, at the stars, and she knows that maybe, somewhere far away, somewhere in that place, her dad is smiling back at her.
Just like in the song, gone but not forgotten is the perfect phrase to describe her dad. She sees him in the pictures that they kept around the house, she sees him in the warmth of her blanket at night, she sees him in the Iron Man suits that mom kept in the displays, she sees him in the never-ending flow of stories that people seem to always have about him, she sees him in the way Peter coddles her and showers her with affection, she sees him in the way Harley tinker with stuff in dad's lab, she sees him in the way DUM-E happily rolls up to her when she goes to the lab, she sees him in the closeness of his ragtag group of friends who visit her and mom from time to time, she sees him in the way mom smiles when she tells her about him, and as she grows older, she begins to see him in her.
Many people say it's her wit and humor. Mom's friends say it's her smile. Mom and her brothers say it's her eyes.
Either way, Morgan is happy about that. She loves the fact that she carries a bit of dad in her, and even though he's not here, there's always a part of him that is alive through her, coursing through her veins.
Morgan Stark is so, so proud to be Tony Stark's daughter, and she will always love her dad to the moon and beyond.