"Peter? Can you come in here please?"
Peter took his earbuds out and hurried into the kitchen. "Yeah mom?"
Tony and Pepper were sitting at the table waiting for him. Pepper gestured at the empty seat behind her and Peter quickly sat down.
"Did I do something wrong?"
"No!" she assured him. "We just... need to talk to you about something."
"Okay," Peter said slowly, looking back and forth from one parent to the other. "What might that something be?"
Tony shifted in his seat and cleared his throat before speaking up. "Well, since school let out last month and we've had the opportunity to spend more time with you, we've been thinking..." He turned and looked at Pepper.
"This is something we talked about before you came along. We were wondering if you would be okay if we adopted someone. If you had a sibling." Tony was squeezing Pepper's hand reassuringly as they both stared at Peter expectantly.
Peter blinked in surprise. "Wait, you want to adopt again? That's great!" he said.
"Really?" Tony asked, leaning closer to Peter, "You're not just saying that to make us happy?"
"No, no," Peter said, "I always wanted a sibling growing up!"
"Okay!" Pepper breathed excitedly. "We just--you live here too, and we wanted to make sure you were okay with it before we started looking."
"So like, how old are you thinking?"
Tony leaned back in his chair with a sigh. "We've talked about it, and we're kind of thinking another teenager around the house wouldn't be a bad thing."
Peter raised his eyebrows. "Usually people don't even consider teenagers."
"Yeah, well, you're a teenager, aren't you?"
"Yeah, but--" Peter stammered, at a loss for words.
"We need more sassy mini-me's running around," Tony said with a smirk.
Pepper smacked his arm lightly with the back of her hand. "That's not the reason, Tony!" He held up his hands in surrender and waited until she'd looked away before winking at Peter.
"We thought you might like someone closer to your age," Pepper continued, rolling her eyes at Tony's antics.
"Yeah, okay," Peter agreed. "So... when did you want to do this, exactly?"
"We were going to start looking tomorrow, if that's alright," Pepper said. "Would you like to come?"
Peter smiled. "Sure! As long as we get ice cream while we're at it."
"You read my mind," Tony said.
~~~
"No, that piece doesn't go there. It goes up here."
"I've got the instructions right in front of me, Peter. I can build Legos, too, jerk."
"Hey! That's just mean!"
"You were asking for it." Morgan said with a grin.
"That's it!" Peter exclaimed, lunging over the piles of Lego and tackling her to the ground. His fingers found her ticklish spot in seconds, and before long she was laughing so hard she could barely breathe.
"Not...fair!" she managed to wheeze.
"You were asking for it!" Peter retorted with a triumphant smile as he let her go.
Morgan sat back up slowly, trying to catch her breath. She and Peter looked at each other briefly before they both burst into giggles again.
"Dinnertime!" Cap called from the other room.
"Coming!" the teens yelled back simultaneously. They raced into the dining room, sliding to a stop in their socks behind the dinner table where everyone was already waiting to eat.
"What did we say about sliding around in our socks?" Pepper asked them with raised eyebrows as they sat down at the table.
"Did we say it was fun?" Peter asked innocently, his eyes wide. Tony almost spit out his water and Morgan snickered.
"Nice try, mister," Pepper said, trying not to join in the laughter. "Now calm down, Steve's about to bring dinner out."
Morgan clasped her hands in her lap, still trying to catch her breath. She looked around at all the faces at the table with her--Peter, Tony and Pepper, the Avengers--if someone had told her a month ago that eating dinner with the Avengers would become a regular part of her life, Morgan would've sent them packing.
She would never forget the day that Tony and Pepper Stark had walked through the door of the orphanage. Peter had shaken her hand and smiled, but she hadn't returned it. In fact, she'd gotten so used to people just looking right past her that she'd treated the Starks coldly at first. Being an orphaned fourteen-year-old wasn't the worst part about her situation--she'd been without a family since she was seven. For some reason, no one had ever really given her a chance, and as the years passed she progressively lost hope in ever finding someone to call her parents. She built up a facade of indifference and learned to hide her emotions, but Peter had seen right through her.
As Tony and Pepper were chatting with Mrs. Bonsai, the gentle-hearted woman running the orphanage, Peter had nudged Morgan's elbow. Ignoring her glare, he'd asked, "Wanna get some air?"
Confused, she'd shrugged before following him out of the orphanage. They'd wandered the streets in silence before finally she stopped.
"What's your deal, man?" she asked.
Peter held his hands up in surrender. "Is it illegal to take a walk through the city?"
"No, but this... is weird. What are Starks doing at an orphanage?"
Peter shrugged. "What do people usually come to orphanages for?"
"I'm not an idiot," Morgan said, unimpressed.
"Good," Peter told her, "because Tony and Pepper happen to be looking to adopt someone with non-idiot qualities."
Morgan froze, desperately trying to stomp out the flame of hope that had blossomed in her chest. "Why's that? You no longer fit that criteria?"
"Ouch, and no," Peter said, feigning offence. "They just want to add to the family."
"Stop." Morgan held up a hand, her eyes closed tight. "I don't want to hear whatever speech you have prepared about family. I don't know if you've noticed, but I happen to be fresh out of those and don't think I'll be getting any new ones anytime soon. So why don't you just wander back to the orphanage, pick out one of the cute little kids there, and leave me in peace?" She was right up in Peter's personal space by then, not caring that he was taller than she was. He looked kinda skinny--surely she could take him if he lashed out. She may be young, but she wasn't helpless, and she certainly wasn't going to soak up his 'kindness' only for him to waltz right back out of her life and forget she ever existed.
"Is this what you call peace?" Peter asked softly. Morgan faltered and finally broke eye contact, trying to hide the tears that were welling up out of nowhere.
"I get it," Peter said gently, "you're tired of being rejected and overlooked. I felt the same way before Tony and Pepper took me in." He paused, as though waiting for her to answer, and then shoved his hands in his pockets.
"Do you want to meet them?" he asked.
Morgan looked up at him, confused. "What?"
"My parents. Do you want to meet them?"
"What happens if I do?" she challenged, though she was less aggressive than before.
Peter smiled. "I guess we'll have to see."
And now she was here, living in Stark Tower, eating spaghetti that Captain Steve Rogers had made mere minutes ago. She had been announced to the world in a manner quite similar to when Peter had been adopted, and shortly after moving in she and Peter had gotten trackers implanted in their arms.
"Just a precaution," Tony had assured them. Ironman. Her new dad.
Her new dad, who was currently scarfing down Cap's spaghetti.
"What, no pink apron today?" Peter asked the super soldier.
"I was wondering the same thing," Nat added with a mischievous smirk.
Cap heaved a sigh. "Will this never end?" he said to the ceiling before meeting Peter's eyes. "It wasn't in the cupboard, so I had to wear this one instead." He smoothed the Ironman fabric with an annoyed expression.
"What's wrong with that one?" Tony asked. Steve only raised an eyebrow at him.
"Wait, but actually, where'd your pink one go?" Peter asked. Clint suddenly became very interested in his plate of spaghetti as slowly all eyes turned to him. Morgan snickered as the archer pretended not to notice the attention.
"That answers that question," Nat muttered under her breath before taking a bite of her spaghetti.
~~~
Morgan was waiting on his bed when Peter got home from patrol that night. He saw her sitting on the mattress and leaned his head against the top of the windowsill in exasperation. "Again? Morgan, you can't wait up for me every night. You need to sleep." He crawled into the room and dropped to the floor, but Morgan could tell from the way he landed that he was hurt.
"What's that?" she asked, pointing at the bloodstain slowly growing on the side of his leg.
"What's what?" Peter asked, feigning ignorance. "Really, Morgan, I'm okay. You need to go to bed."
"You are dumber than you look, which is saying something," Morgan said, climbing off the bed and passing Peter the first aid kit that sat on his dresser. "I thought you would have realized by now that I don't let you tell me what to do."
Peter sighed and took the kit from her. "Fine, but when I come out I sincerely hope that Morgan Stark will be asleep in her own bed."
Morgan rolled her eyes but couldn't keep a smile from spreading across her face. Peter disappeared into his bathroom with some pajamas and the first aid kit in hand, and she made her way to her own bedroom.
Several weeks ago, when she'd woken up to strange noises in the room next door, she'd gone to see if Peter was okay and found him sitting on the floor, bleeding, in a Spider-Man suit. He'd managed to calm her down before she ran for help, and told her everything. He then showed her, at her insistence, that he was able to patch himself up. The next morning, once again at her demand, he'd shown her the wounds, which at that point were barely even noticeable anymore if not already completely healed. But ever since that night, she couldn't sleep until she knew Peter was home safe. It was her way of punishing him for lying to her and scaring her like that, although there had been times she'd woken up in the morning in her own bed with no memory as to how she'd gotten there.
Morgan smiled to herself as she snuggled under the soft sheets in her bed. Eating dinner with the Avengers. Spider-Man's adopted sister. At this point, I may as well meet Thor and Loki and become the Princess of Asgard.
Morgan Stark's had certainly made a change for the better. Now all she had to do was hope it stayed that way.