Chapter Text
When Peter was asked if he could babysit Morgan for a few days, he happily agreed. She was, after all, his baby sister. Besides, he has spent the better part of the last two years since the blip hanging out with Morgan and Pepper, so doing so again was hardly out of the ordinary for him. And if it gave him a much-needed break from Spider-manning, and let him mess around in Tony’s lab?
Well, that’s his prerogative. He doesn’t get many opportunities to work on his personal projects back in Queens, so he might as well put in the work when he can.
“Hey, Pete?”
He’s jolted out of the reports Friday sent to his tablet and looks towards the 7-year-old. “What’s up Mo? Bored?”
She nods while trying to make her eyes look as big as possible. “Can we go down to the lab? I can help you work!”
“You’re not allowed in the lab on your own, Mongoose. You know that.”
“That’s why I’m asking you! Come one, please? I learn so much whenever you let me help out in the lab. How could you sabotage your sister’s education like that?”
Letting out a snort, he reluctantly gets up to lead her down to the labs, all while understanding why Tony complained that Peter was giving him grey hair. The lab at the lake house was one of Peter’s favourites. It’s the lab Morgan knows and grew up around, and watching her innocent excitement never failed to bring a smile to his face. Not to mention that this was the lab in which Tony invented time travel so that he could save him. It is also, unfortunately, a lab Peter wasn’t as familiar with, compared to the ones at the tower or over at the compound. So he feels that it is in no way his fault, when Morgan ran ahead of him, found some weird machine partially covered by a tarp-cloth thing, and started poking around on it.
“Peter what’s this?”
Even before she was finished asking her question, Peter ran towards her and pulled her away, lifted her and sat her on the table opposite the weird machine. Now that he gets a better look at it, it's obviously a prototype. It doesn’t have any casing covering it in its entirety, showing a large number of its inner parts that are usually easily damaged. Turning his attention to Morgan, he starts his lecture while trying his best to imitate the I’m-not-mad-I’m-just-disappointed look Uncle Ben used to give him when he was younger.
“Morgan Stark, you know better than to mess around with a prototype device that you don’t even know the intended function of. What on Earth possessed you to do that young lady?”
Looking down, she whispers “I’m sorry. It wasn’t there the last time we came to the lab and I was curious.”
Peter let out a sigh. He shouldn’t be upset at Morgan for this. It was his fault for not keeping an eye on a kid in a lab with potentially harmful devices. “It’s alright Maguna. Try not to do that again alright? We don’t want your mom to ground both of us.” Leaning in, Peter stage whispers “And between the two of us, she’s a bit scary when she’s upset.”
Morgan starts giggling, and nods her head, though whether in agreement to keep between them or in agreement to Pepper being scary, Peter didn’t know. Smiling he says, “You know how your dad had a lot of cool stuff in the garage?” At her nod, Peter continues, “Well, a few of those were moved down to the lab because your mom wanted to clean up the garage. She wants to put cars in there or something, but that’s not as interesting is it?”
Morgan, thankfully, seems less upset about being given a talking-to, so that’s a plus.
“Now, what do you say we get to work, hmm? I can start teaching you how to make a simple robot. Or maybe a-“
Part-way through speaking, he realized that Morgan wasn’t paying attention to what he was saying and was instead looking behind him with a mix of curiosity and concern. When he looks behind to see what was so interesting, he stops speaking, grabs Morgan, and starts making a run for the exit, because the prototype machine Morgan was messing with is now glowing. Though sadly, he wasn’t fast enough. Just his luck.
Suddenly there’s a bright flash of blue light, far too bright for a baseline human, let alone his enhanced senses, and he loses track of all his senses.
When the light’s gone, and his eyes can see again, he notices that they’re no longer in the lab, but on a large open lawn in front of an expensive-looking building. Or would it be considered a Mansion?
He is startled out of his observations when a throat clears behind him. When he turns around, making sure that Morgan is firmly behind him, his breath catches in his throat at what he sees. Because standing there in a sleeveless top, is Tony Fucking Stark, looking far younger than he remembers.
Before Peter or Not-Tony-Stark could do or say anything, Morgan starts trying to go toward the Not-Tony-Stark and gets out “Dad?”. Peter sees Not-Tony-Stark flinch slightly at the title, before smoothing over his expression, and saying “How old are you, kid?”
While Peter is still trying to figure out what exactly is happening, Morgan chirps out “I’m Seven Years Old!”
Not-Tony-Stark seems to take this in, then turns towards Peter. “And what about you?”
“I’m 18 years old Mr Stark”
“I would’ve been in my early twenties then. Not unreasonable. Not to mention you have my hair and my mother’s eyes. Alright pipsqueaks, why don’t we head on inside and down to the lab, and we can do a DNA test to verify things? Capiche?”
Nodding, Peter lifts Morgan and settles her on his hip, and starts following I-Think-It-Might-Actually-Be-Tony-Stark. “Yes sir. Although, you are taking finding out you have a kid better than I would have expected.”
Turning his head back a bit, Maybe-Tony replies “Eh, I’m fully aware of what can happen because of my lifestyle. This isn’t the first pregnancy scare I’ve had either. Though this is the first time my supposed kids show up on my doorstep, so there’s that.”
Peter nods. That makes a lot of sense. Besides, he’s pretty sure Tony is just compartmentalizing so he doesn’t panic in front of virtual strangers.
Tilting his head towards Morgan, he starts whispering instructions to her.
“Maguna, I’m gonna need you to be quiet and listen to me until I say otherwise. Can you do that for me?” He feels her nod into his shoulder, and releases and small breath of relief. Without Morgan's interference in this situation, he can work on assessing the situation and damage control.
He diligently follows Tony through the house and into the lab, where Tony starts gathering cheek swabs and a syringe. “Alright you two, come over here and we’ll get started with this.”
Peter walks forward and sets Morgan down on the stool. “Mr Stark’s just going to take some blood, alright? It’ll barely hurt. We can even have ice cream when this is all over.”
Morgan nods then turns towards Tony and stretches her arm out. Not wasting any time, Tony gets to work. As soon as Tony’s done, Peter picks Morgan up and sits down in her place. He knows that the paternity test for him will come back in the negative but complying and then feigning ignorance or confusion is much easier than trying to make up some excuse right this minute. So Peter sits down and complies with Tony’s instructions. Once Tony has both Peter’s and Morgan’s blood and the cheek swabs in the machine running paternity tests, Peter gets up and speaks up.
“Excuse me Mr Stark, but is it possible to take Morgan upstairs and let her watch the TV or something?”
When he receives a distracted nod as a response, Peter takes Morgan out of the lab and into the living room and turns on the TV. “I don’t want you to wander anywhere Mongoose. Sit here and watch tv for a while. I’m just going to speak with Mr Stark, and then I’ll be up. We can watch Bugs Life then.”