#shoutout to that hozier lyric generator for giving me a fic title lmao

[anne-wentworth]

Emptiness to Melody

Peter doesn't really sleep anymore. Sometimes Morgan can't either. They find solace in each other.

Read on ao3

After everything, Peter found himself spending weekends at the lake house. It was reminiscent of a time when he would spend all of his free moments at the compound, eagerly modifying his suit with Tony, bouncing around ideas or quietly doing his homework while the older man worked on a project of his own, or simply sprawled out eating takeout when Pepper had to work late.

That was five years ago.

God.

He still couldn’t believe it sometimes. All of those seconds, minutes, hours lost. Days and weeks and months and during which, Mr. Stark had built the house by the lake. Had built a family.

And had left it all behind to save the universe.

The grief would come in waves, but it was easier for Peter to deal with in the home that Tony had put so much care into. Surrounded by the people who loved him most.

May would come up to the house with him whenever she was able to get time off. She had looked at Morgan for the first time at the funeral and Peter saw the same expression she wore the day she took him in.

I’m sorry he’d overheard her softly saying to Pepper as she quickly wiped away tears before her daughter could see. I know what it’s like to lose someone you love.

So, they were a ragtag bunch, with Happy and Rhodey dropping by whenever they could, all holding each other together. All keeping the others from completely falling apart.

Tonight though, the sadness was threatening to drown him. Sleep had deserted him ever since he came back, leaving him at the mercy of his thoughts which were sometimes as bad as his nightmares. After staring at the ceiling for hours, Peter ended up venturing down to Tony’s lab. He sat in his chair, merely looking at everything, almost afraid to touch anything lest something shatter.

The world felt fragile.

Peter felt as if he had been walking on ice ever since he returned. Part of him kept waiting to disappear again. A reckless part of him wanted to.

But he shoved those feelings aside, wrapping them up in a box never to be opened because Tony sacrificed his damn self so that he could have a shot at life. Instead he stared at the work station, a space Tony had undoubtedly spent hours at. His ghost lingered everywhere.

Peter let the aching weave its threads around his heart as he wished for a person who didn’t exist anymore. As he longed for more time.

Time.

It was always time.

Too little. Too much. Not enough. Gone.

Suddenly, he rose because he couldn’t stay here any longer he couldn’t…he just couldn’t.

Peter turned to leave but before he could get very far, a small figure sitting at the bottom of the stairs startled the hell out of him.

“Shit!” he exclaimed, clutching his chest.

The corner of Morgan’s mouth instantly quirked up.

“What are you doing up?” he asked, making his way over to her.

“What are you doing up?” she countered, in true Stark fashion.

“Can’t sleep,” Peter responded as he sat down beside her.

“Me too.”

Morgan stared off into the direction of Tony’s desk and chair, eyes distant. Peter watched, that familiar wonder rising within him whenever he so much as glanced at her.

Tony’s child.

It was still so strange.

“Me and daddy used to eat juice pops when we couldn’t sleep,” Morgan said abruptly, breaking Peter out of his thoughts.

Her voice was so tiny as she kept staring at the space she must have watched her father work countless times before. Almost as if she stared hard enough, she would be able to conjure him up.

If only it worked that way.

“How about we have some juice pops?” Peter asked, ready to steal the stars from the sky for this little girl just to see her smile.

She was quiet for a moment, weighing the offer in her mind.

“Okay,” she finally answered.

Peter stood up, holding out his hand. She clasped hers in his and together they headed to the kitchen, where Peter grabbed two juice pops from the freezer before they settled in the living room.

Silence blanketed them as they ate, the occasional crinkle of the wrappers the only sound to be heard. Peter remembered being a kid and losing his parents and then later on losing Ben. He remembered that there wasn’t a thing anyone could have said to make him feel better. The only reprieve from the constant weight on his chest was May’s arms around him, holding him when he couldn’t keep the tears at bay any longer.

So, Peter put his arm around Morgan, pulling her closer against him.

He wiped her mouth with the edge of his sleeve and she looked at him with the same sadness that lived in his own eyes now too.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, hating himself for such a stupid question but he didn’t know what else to say.

Morgan merely shrugged in response.

“I miss him too,” he confessed softly into the night air.

“Is that why you were downstairs?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s why I was there too,” Morgan admitted. “Sometimes I forget. That he’s…gone.”

Every one of Peter’s heartstrings snapped in two as he thought of Morgan unable to sleep, running down to her dad’s lab to look for him only to find someone else instead. Someone she still barely even knew.

“I forget too,” he told her. “All the time.”

She got quiet again for a moment and Peter wished with everything in him that there was something he could do to help.

“He used to miss you too,” she said after a while.

“What?” Peter asked confusedly.

“While you were…before you came back. Daddy missed you. He had a picture of the two of you that he used to look at all the time when he thought no one was looking.”

“Really?” he managed to get out, all of the breath stolen from his lungs as his throat threatened to close up.

“Yeah,” Morgan nodded seriously. “But I notice everything.”

“I’m sure you do.”

Your dad never missed a thing either he wanted to say but the words got stuck on his tongue as he struggled to hold himself together. He didn’t need to have another breakdown in front of Morgan.

“He used to tell me stories about you too. At bedtime.”

And that was all it took for the tears to start streaming down his face.

“Sorry,” he mumbled as he quickly tried to wipe them away.

“It’s okay,” she said softly. “Mommy said it’s okay to cry.”

“Well your mommy’s very smart.”

“Daddy says she’s the smartest person-” Morgan began but suddenly she faltered. “I mean he used to say…she’s the smartest person in the world…”

She trailed off and Peter broke, every inch of him in pieces.

“Tell me about your favourite story,” he said, grasping at anything he could get his hands on, desperate for any form of distraction to ease the sorrow that surrounded her. “A bedtime story. Anything.”

“Um,” she paused to think for a minute but then her eyes became full of quiet mischief. “I like the one where daddy had to save your ass at the ferry.”

“Okay he did not have to save my-” he broke off. “Hey wait. You’re not allowed to say that word.”

“Why not?” she inquired indignantly. “You say it, mommy says it, Uncle Happy and Uncle Rhodey say it. Even Aunt May says it.”

Peter resisted the urge to tell her that his aunt said a lot of words that were much worse than ass.

“That’s because we’re grown-ups so we can say all the bad words we want.”

“You’re not a grown up!” she argued. “You’re still in high school.”

Peter almost laughed because technically he was twenty-two. According to his birth certificate and ID and everything else because he still hadn’t collected his new documents that indicated he was one of the people who had been dusted.

But if he pulled on that thread he would unravel so he buried that thought too.

“Well I’m almost a grown-up,” was what he said instead. “So, it counts.”

“So, when I’m your age I’ll be allowed to say ass too?” Morgan asked innocently.

Peter narrowed his eyes at her in a mock glare. Then, without warning, he grabbed one of the throw pillows from the couch and gently hit her with it.

“Hey!” she exclaimed before stealing it out of his hands and not so gently flinging it in his face.

Peter sputtered, and Morgan laughed, and the sound nearly made him weep with joy.

“Oh, you just made a big mistake,” he warned.

In seconds he was off the couch with another pillow in his arms, chasing the five year old around the room. She shrieked, getting in some good blows of her own and Peter had to admit, she was damn strong for someone so small. They tripped over themselves in their haste to dodge each other’s hits, collecting more cushions to use as shields and to throw across the room. They almost knocked over a vase four times.

Morgan’s laughter mixed with her screams and Peter half heartedly tried to shush her but truthfully, he never wanted her to stop. Besides, he didn’t think anyone else would mind being awoken by such noises. It was almost like music.

Their battle finally ended with Peter lying on the ground and Morgan leaning over him with a pillow poised over his head.

“Surrender or die!” she threatened.

“Okay! Okay I surrender,” he complied, holding his arms out in a gesture of truce.

With a smile, she eased her weapon down on the floor beside him.

Peter took in her dishevelled state and bit back a laugh.

“I think its time for you to go to bed,” he said, reaching out to move some of the hair from out of her face.

Surprisingly, she didn’t protest, silently moving off of Peter so that he could get up. That was how he knew she had really worn herself out.

After he stood, he picked her up to take her to her room. She rested her head on his shoulder, wrapping her little arms around his neck as she yawned.

Upon reaching her bedroom, Peter gently lowered her on to the bed, tugging the blankets over her already half-sleeping form. He watched her for a moment, unable to keep himself from wishing that Tony was here to tuck her into bed too.

There was no point in wishing.

He had learned long ago that they didn’t come true.

He turned to exit the room, absently wondering if the night would bring sleep for him as well.

“Pete?” Morgan’s voice called out quietly just before he could leave.

“Yeah,” he replied, spinning on his heel.

“Can you stay?”

His chest cracked open at the request, his heart laid bare for all the world to see.

“Of course.”

And so, he climbed into bed next to her, gathering her in his arms as she snuggled against him. For the first time since he returned, a feeling resembling sunshine swam through his veins, warming his entire being. Flowers could have bloomed in his stomach and he wouldn’t have been surprised.

“Goodnight Morgan,” he whispered. “I love you.”

“Love you too Petey,” she mumbled drowsily.

Petey.

He smiled at the new nickname, letting those two syllables wash over him.

There was a lot Peter had lost in his life. But there was so much he’d gained too. And Morgan Stark…she was the latest to build a home in his heart.

Peter remembered tentatively asking Pepper about the old arc reactor a few days after the funeral.

Proof that Tony Stark has a heart.

A small smile had graced her features as she told him the story of the gift she gave Tony another lifetime ago. Peter remembered thinking that she was wrong. The proof of Tony’s heart back then had been her.

Her and Rhodey and Happy.

Then came the Avengers.

Then him.

And now Morgan.

In each of them, Tony lived on.

Peter didn’t think he would ever stop missing him. But as his eyes fell shut, he took comfort in the fact that he would never truly be gone. Everyone under this roof carried a piece of Tony Stark with them. They always would.

At that moment, Peter’s grief ebbed, the waves receding if only for a little while. But it was enough.

That night, he slept.