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They were really only in this situation, because Tony had to go and get sick the day before Pepper had to leave for the week on a business trip. Morgan had brought home some cold from preschool (preschool that Pepper insisted they send her to two days a week, so she got to interact with other children her age), and while she got over it in two days and it hadn’t affected Pepper at all, it had knocked Tony straight on his ass.
That usually happened with any cold or flu he got thanks to his reduced lung capacity and heart issues, but still, it was almost pathetic how much a simple cold could knock him down.
And with Pepper unable to get out of this work trip and Tony in no state to take care of himself let alone Morgan, Pepper had called Rhodey to come over so there was at least one responsible and fully competent adult in the house. Tony hadn’t been consolidated about this of course (“I know I was sleeping, Pep. But you could’ve woken me up”), just woken up to find Rhodey in his living room watching a movie with Morgan.
He really hadn’t complained that much about it either. Just grumbled that he could’ve taken care of himself and his daughter, before coming down and joining them on the couch.
Rhodey had just chuckled (“of course, Tones”) while Morgan shushed angrily as he accidentally talked over The Princess and the Frog. Only four and already as bossy as her mother Tony swore.
That had been three days ago. Thankfully only four days in and Tony was pretty sure he’d shaken off the worst of the cold. Thank god too, as it usually took much longer for him to feel decently better. He was still under the weather, but at least it wasn’t keeping him in bed any longer. Even though he still got winded going down the stairs and Rhodey had glared at him when he noticed he still had a low grade fever.
“What are you doing down here?” Rhodey asked as Tony pulled away from Rhodey’s hand that had been on his forehead.
“I just wanted to see what you guys were up to. I’m fine, platypus,” Tony protested.
“You have a fever and you're wheezing.”
“A minor fever and I’m not wheezing.”
Rhodey opened his mouth to rebuttal, to tell Tony that he could hear him wheezing from down the hall, when Morgan came running back into the kitchen from the bathroom where Rhodey had sent her to wash her hands.
“Uncle Rhodey, my hands are washed now we can- Daddy!”
Tony barely had time to brace himself before his daughter was throwing her whole weight at his legs.
“Hello there Maguna,” Tony said, smiling as he lifted her up.
“Are you feeling better, Daddy? Mommy and Uncle Rhodey said you’re sick,” Morgan questioned, wiggling in his arms until she was able to look him in the eyes.
“I’m feeling much better now that I’m down here,” he ignored Rhodey’s disbelieving snort at that, “but enough about me, what are you and Uncle Rhodey up to?”
With that Morgan’s face broke into a wide grin. “We’re making cookies! We made them and now we’re going to decorate them!”
“Are you now?” Now that Tony was actually paying attention, he saw a plate of sugar cookies on the dining room table as well as various sprinkles. There were several small bowls of what he assumed was icing, in the kitchen near where Rhodey was standing.
“Yeah!” Tony let Morgan down when she started wiggling again, turning to Rhodey who had grabbed a thing of food dye from the cupboard while they were talking.
“What colors do you want, Morgan?” Rhodey asked then as Morgan had wandered back into the kitchen.
“Uhhh, red, pink, blue, green and purple! Purple is my favorite color,” she said seriously and Rhodey just chuckled.
“I think I can manage that.”
While Rhodey was mixing the icings, Tony led Morgan to the dining room to wait. Partially to get her out of Rhodey’s way, and partially because as much as he hated to admit it, standing was quickly exhausting his minimal energy and he needed to sit down. Morgan came with minimal fuss, opting to tell Tony all her ideas for decorating the cookies, while he tried to steady his breathing before Rhodey sent him back to bed.
Rhodey was back within five minutes and Morgan stopped talking to focus intently on her cookie decorating. Rhodey and Tony had both grabbed a cookie as well, Rhodey slowly decorating his, while Tony had just decided to eat his plain, not having the energy to focus on decorating right now.
“She looks just like you when you guys are focusing on something.”
“Huh?” Tony lifted his head from where it had slumped backwards, okay so maybe he should lie back down for a bit, looking over at Rhodey who was watching Morgan with a soft smile.
“Morgan does the same head tilt that you do when you’re focusing on something. It’s cute,” Rhodey repeated.
Tony hummed, the same smile mirroring on his face. Later he wouldn’t know if it was because of his fever or because his birthday had just passed, that led him to saying the next words out of his mouth. “Yeah. Obie used to tilt his head the same way when he was focusing. I picked it up when I was a kid, didn’t even realize till after I’d gone to MIT and came back for a break.”
Tony froze a second later, not having to look to know Rhodey had as well. Thank god Morgan hadn’t heard as that’s the only thing that would’ve made this situation worse right now.
“Tony-”
“I think I’m going to go lie down,” Tony muttered, pushing himself away from the table and towards the stairs. He heard Rhodey call his name, then Morgan when she realized what was happening.
He didn’t stop, not until he got to his and Pepper’s room. He avoided the bed, slumping on the floor and sitting up with his back against the wall near the bathroom door.
It had been years since he thought about, let alone talked about, Obadiah. Sure he knew Obadiah’s birthday had been last week, the same way he did every year. But he hadn’t let himself think about the man beyond a brief acknowledgment of the day, he never did. It was better that way. Hurt less.
And it was true that Morgan tilted her head when focusing the same way Tony did. And it’s true Tony did that because Obadiah had done it when he was a kid. But that didn’t mean Morgan did it because of Obadiah, she did it because she’d watched Tony do it. Morgan wasn’t like Obadiah.
(Was Tony?)
“Tony?”
Tony didn’t look up when his bedroom door opened, just moved over to give Rhodey room to sit next to him.
“I thought you were going to lie down,” Rhodey said quietly after a moment of silence.
Tony just laughed hollowly. “Is Morgan okay?”
“Yeah. She was a bit confused when you left, but I told her you still weren’t feeling well. She accepted that thankfully, and was decorating you a cookie when I came up here to check on you.”
Tony nodded. “That’s good.”
Rhodey sighed when it became obvious Tony wasn’t planning to say anything else. “Are you alright?”
“You know I walk just like Obadiah did? He was around a lot when I was a kid and I picked up a lot of his habits. Some I’ve stopped but some are so natural that I don’t even think about them. And it was okay, it really was when it was just me doing them. But now my daughter, my beautiful, innocent daughter, is doing the same things the man that tried to kill me did, because of me.”
“She’s doing them because her dad, her dad who she looks up to and loves, does them. She didn’t know Obadiah. She won’t ever know him.” Rhodey had shifted as he spoke, turned towards Tony now with his hands on Tony’s shoulders. Tony, despite himself, leaned into it.
“Am I like him, Rhodey?”
“Not in the ways that matter, never in those ways. You’re a better man than he ever was. You changed yourself in a way Obadiah couldn’t,” he paused, taking a breath before continuing almost hesitantly, “I know you didn’t want to talk about it then-”
“And I still don’t,” Tony cut in. He met Rhodey’s eyes for a long moment before the older man nodded reluctantly.
“Why don’t you have a nap, Tones? I should go check on Morgan anyway, make sure she hasn’t repainted with the icing.”
Tony accepted Rhodey’s hand up (though with Rhodey’s braces, who was really helping who here?), letting his best friend lead him towards his bed. “That’s probably a good idea. Pepper will kill you if that happens.”
Rhodey chuckled. “Don’t I know it,” he softened as he headed towards the door. “I’ll check up on you later, okay?”
“Yeah.” Tony kept a smile on his face until Rhodey left the room. Only then did he let it fall.
He reached into his nightstand drawer, digging through the bottom one until he found a stack of photos he had shoved back there when they moved into the cabin. He grabbed them, taking off the top one. It was a photo of him in his mom’s arms, probably three or four years old. He didn’t know the context of it, didn’t really care. Obadiah was next to them, wearing the smile Tony knew almost as well as his own.
“Damn you Obie,” Tony whispered to the empty room, after several minutes of staring blankly at the photo. He grabbed it off the bed, ripping it in half. He put the half with him and his mom back into the stack, crumpling up the half with Obadiah and shoving it in his pocket.
He sighed, standing up and leaving the room. He shuffled to the stairs, heading back downstairs. Rhodey looked up as soon as he came down, sighing loudly this time, hands going to his hips almost automatically.
“I thought you told me you were going to have a nap. The nap we talked about ten minutes ago,” Rhodey questioned.
Tony just smiled, it felt less forced this time. “I just wanted to see Morgan’s cookies. Then I’ll rest, mom. I promise.”
Rhodey just shook his head, his look fond. “Sure you will.”
Tony grinned again, following Rhodey into the dining room which was now empty except for a plate of very decorated cookies. Morgan was sitting at the table, a cookie in one hand, a barbie in the other and a mouth covered in icing. While the walls seem to have been spared from the cookie decorating, her shirt and hair was not.
“Daddy! Are you feeling better now? You looked sad when you left,” Morgan rambled, mouth full of cookie crumbs as she spotted her dad.
“I’m feeling much better now, Maguna. So much better in fact, that I wanted to see the cookies you decorated. Especially since a little birdy told me you decorated a cookie just for me.”
Morgan instantly grabbed the plate, starting a long winded explanation of each and every cookie and why she decorated them the way she did.
Tony sat down in a chair, Rhodey next to him, and just listened as Morgan eagerly talked. His little girl who was safe, who had two parents that loved her very much and several uncles and aunts that loved her just as much. A safe home and everything she could dream of.
His little girl who tilted her head like he did when focusing, his little girl who made the same face he did when confused, his little girl who loved to help her mom cook, his little girl who talked like Pepper, who could argue like her, his little girl who when she first started walking would walk with a slight limp because she was intimating Rhodey (they had been panicked for a month that something was wrong with her, until they realized she was just mocking her dear uncle). His little girl who was perfect and her own person and like all the people around her who loved her.
Tony was made up of people who once loved him (maybe? maybe not?) who were there once then not there again. Who left him searching for love, trying to find it wherever he could.
But Morgan wouldn’t be like that.
And maybe that was the whole point.
He felt Rhodey grab his hand and squeeze it and he squeezed back, listening to Morgan talk about how “uncle Rhodey had made the wrong shade of purple but it was okay” and he could almost forget about the half of a picture in his pocket.