Summary:
One morning in November, Tony's honeymoon ends: Morgan hits her "no" phase. And as it turns out, navigating discipline is far more difficult than Tony's audiobooks make it out to be — especially when you have daddy issues a mile wide.
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4
Well after nightfall, Pepper came home — to an unexpected, eerie quiet. There was no Disney movie playing on the television. No music piping through the hidden speakers. No schematics filling the living room with their cool, blue light. If she hadn’t seen Tony’s Audi out front, she might’ve suspected he’d left the cabin on a spontaneous errand.
“FRIDAY?” she queried, shrugging out of her coat and setting the take-out she carried on the kitchen counter..
“Welcome, Miss. The Boss is upstairs in the nursery.”
Grinning, Pepper kicked off her heels and headed up the stairs in her stocking feet, eager to enjoy her little family after an entire day arguing with the stuffed shirts on the board. Of course, after more than a decade, it was no longer particularly stressful to articulate and enforce her and Tony’s vision for Stark International. However, it was still a relief to exchange that sort of wrangling for the easy, gentle kidding that now - for the most part - defined her marriage.
She found Tony slumped in Morgan’s rocker, sweaty, eyes bloodshot, and covered head to toe in alabaster dust. “She got into the baby powder,” he stated simply, his voice rough with — shame? “I don’t know how. I could’ve sworn I left it out of her reach.”
Well, that explained Tony’s appearance — not to mention the smell that permeated the room. Pepper looked down at Morgan, who was currently playing quietly with BFD, and giggled. As much as she pitied her poor husband, she couldn’t help but laugh at the image he’d conjured in her mind.
But Tony’s reaction was swift — and harsh enough to catch Pepper short. “It’s not funny, damn it! Your daughter’s been driving me crazy all day, and I — “ He cut himself off before finishing the sentence, gulped, and rubbed at his face with two powder-caked hands.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry.” Whatever the story was here, Pepper knew she’d have to coax it from Tony eventually. But for now, her chief goal was to get the man to relax. She could see the tension in his muscles from across the room. “Why don’t you take a break downstairs? I’ll take over here and put Morgan to bed.”
Mouth turned down, Tony nodded once and - swaying slightly, his shoulders hunched - disappeared down the hall.
Had he been drinking? Pepper firmly - almost desperately - rejected the idea. Years ago, she’d watched Tony destroy the contents of his liquor cabinet — and since then, not a drop of alcohol had been permitted inside the house beyond a single bottle of cooking wine.
And yet — she checked anyway. Once Morgan was down, she crept into the kitchen and opened the cabinet where they kept the herbs, spices, and extra virgin olive oil. The Marsala was in its rightful place — and thankfully undrained.
Feeling a little guilty for her lapse in trust, Pepper sat down beside Tony and laid her hand on his leg. Tony had wrapped himself in an afghan and had curled up on one end of the couch, one arm over his eyes. He barely stirred at Pepper’s touch.
“I stopped by Agatha’s on the way home.”
Tony grimaced. “Don’t think I can stomach it, hon.”
“Are you coming down with something? You know you don’t have to hide that from me.”
“No, no, I’m fine,” Tony insisted, pushing Pepper’s hand away before she could brush his cheek. “Just got whacked by a migraine a few hours ago. Guess I didn’t take my meds in time.”
“And?”
Tony moved his arm and favored Pepper with a confused - and slightly annoyed - look.
“I can tell there’s something else — something that’s upset you. Your eyes give you away.”
The array of emotions that passed over Tony’s face in that moment were difficult to decipher.
“I lost it. With Morgan. When I saw what she’d done with the powder, I — it was like this red curtain dropped. And I couldn’t stop myself.”
“You didn’t spank her, did you?”
“No. Never. But God help me, I thought about it. Pep, I was two seconds away from hurting our child. If her crying hadn’t snapped me out of it, I don’t know what might’ve happened.”
“Hm. Well, I think the important thing is that you did snap out of it. Right?”
Tony closed his eyes. “While you were pregnant, I made a promise to myself. I swore that I would always keep my cool with her — no matter what. I honestly thought I could best my old man at this fatherhood thing — that I would never yell at my kid just because she was looking for a little attention.” His next words were bitter. “Nope. Tale padre tale figlio.”
“Okay,” Pepper began with a sigh as she started rubbing circles on Tony’s shoulder. “Let’s think for a minute: what would Dr. Nolan tell you if he were here?”
“Fuck if I know.”
“Language, Tony. But also, I think you do know, deep down. ‘Yer over-generalizin’, Stark.’” There! Tony cracked a small smile at Pepper’s poor attempt to approximate Nolan’s accent. “‘One bad afternoon doesn’t make ya a crappy father for life.’”
“Yeah, you’re right. That is something he would say.”
“Exactly. And let’s not forget the extenuating circumstances. You weren’t feeling well — and based on what you told me earlier, Morgan had been difficult all day.”
“True. She even pitched a fit at the market. Gotta say, that wasn’t my finest hour either. Gave her what she wanted instead of sticking to my guns.”
“Because you’re learning. We both are.” And then, in response to Tony’s clear skepticism: “Oh, yes! As much as you like to put me on a pedestal, Tony Stark, there are times Morgan challenges me too.” Pepper carefully pulled Tony into her lap and started massaging his temples. “As a matter of fact, the last time you were in the hospital, Morgan absolutely refused to sleep in her own crib.”
“Really?”
“Yep. She screamed for hours every night — until I gave up and let her sleep with me. Guess she noticed you were gone. She is daddy’s girl after all.”
“You’re not still hurt that she said ‘dada’ first, are you?”
Pepper laughed. “I wasn’t hurt in the first place. Not really.” A beat. “Okay, I was, at worst, only 20% envious. But my main point here? You’re Morgan’s favorite parent. Hands down.”
The shadow returned. “Maybe not after today. Not if I can’t figure out how to deal with it when she does something wrong.”
“You will figure it out, Tony — just like you’ve figured out everything else so far. And Morgan will keep on loving you unconditionally — like she always has.”
The instant Pepper said it, she knew it was true.
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