How am I gonna be an optimist about this? (If you close your eyes, it’s like nothing’s changed at all)

Summary:

The universe is crumbling… so Morgan Stark decides to do something about it.

This is a prelude to a few different stories, including Snap Back to the Past AKA the Infinity Stones Decide to Adopt Tony Stark and it’s a little bit out there, but just trust the process. If you’re reading this alongside Snap Back to the Past this works best to read either just before or just after Chapter Ten: Pompeii

I was left to my own devices
Many days fell away, with nothing to show
And the walls kept tumbling down, in the city that we love
Gray clouds roll over the hills, bringing darkness from above

CWs: Death by car accident, irreversible snap-related deaths, mourning, memory erasure, failed relationships, suicide, end of the universe, this is really sad but it gets better at the end.

How am I gonna be an optimist about this? (If you close your eyes, it’s like nothing’s changed at all)

Morgan Stark loved her family. That was never in question. She especially loved her father. Many thought that she hardly knew him because she was so young when he died. He never had the time to raise her the way he would have in a world where he had not given his life to protect the universe from Thanos. But she knew her father much better than people ever would have thought.

When Howard and Maria Stark were killed, they left her father an orphan at only seventeen. She knew that her father feared that he would leave her behind at a young age as well, because he told her. Since the day that her mother had told him she was pregnant, her father had sat down once or twice a week to record a video for her. She had nearly 300 recordings from him, some of them only two dimensional videos on her screen, but many of them holographic recordings in the style of his last message to her family, recorded the night before the battle with Thanos and his death. There he had been anxious, but performing confidence.

What am I even trippin’ for? Everything’s gonna work out exactly the way it’s supposed to. 

I love you 3000.

It was a final gift from her father, and a lasting one. While he did not get to watch her grow up, she had nevertheless grown up with him. Getting to know him this way, she wondered if the world would have been able to handle what came for it next.

—

Peter Parker knew that no one remembered him. That was… well it was not fine, but he had gotten used to it. He had even re-established a kind of friendship with Dr. Strange, who no longer thought it was weird for Peter to call him Stephen, because by the time that they met again, Peter was an adult and a superhero in his own right. Back when he was first forgotten, Peter did not know who to go to for help. Strange had told him that people knowing who he was would break the universe, but Peter had not even graduated high school— he would undoubtedly be in need of help from someone . So he turned to the only person who would conceivably be able to help someone who had nothing but a social security card and a birth certificate to prove he existed, and went to Matt Murdoch. The lawyer had been essential to him in the wake of the reveal about Spider-Man, and he knew the man was hiding more than he let on.

Peter, who had lost three fathers and two mothers before the age of 18, was unsure about letting Matt into his life, but the man became almost a father to Peter anyway. Furthermore, it led to team ups between Spider-Man and Daredevil that completed the 2025 bingo cards of the very few people who had thought to come up with that potential superhero combination.

And that was fine, truly it was. Peter had not expected anything after he had lost everything and everyone, but somehow he had found a family among Matt and his friends. He even got a slightly reluctant older sister in the form of Jessica Jones. With their help he was able to get his GED and take enough community college classes to eventually get a degree at Columbia. He knew Mr. Stark would have hated the idea of him not going to MIT, but at that point Peter had very little, and all of it was in New York. Peter even started working towards his PhD, which he did not manage to get as young as Mr. Stark got his, but still acquired by 25. 

Despite the fact that Peter missed his old life, his Ned and his MJ, he was able to move on and make new friends. And though it all, he was still the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, protecting the people of New York. He even had something of a dating life, though those tended to end in more disasters than not. He was still friendly with Harry and Gwen, thankfully, but in retrospect dating someone who’s nickname was also ‘MJ’ had been a mistake. He hoped that Mary Jane did not hate him as much as he assumed she did, but that was likely naive. 

Part of the problem was that people always expected him to be his full self, but even Peter was not sure who that was anymore. He could not exactly share much about his life with anyone, and so he stuck to teaching and to Spider-Manning and wrote off romantic relationships. He did start having a friends with benefits relationship with one of the other professors in his department, but they rarely talked about anything having to do with their personal lives or histories, and Peter liked it that way.

So Peter was not as lonely as he could have been. It was still a shock when Harley Keener ended up showing up on his doorstep on Christmas Eve and told him that the world was ending.

—

Harley Keener loved his little sister. Which is why, when he came back from dust and found her dead in a way that could not be reversed with a snap of the Hulk’s fingers, he was more than slightly devastated. His sister had not been dusted, which would have been kinder, as well as reversible given what the Avengers accomplished five years later. Instead, she had died in a car accident when his mother was taken away by the snap. His mother, too, died in a car accident, as she returned to life in the middle of a highway, no longer protected by a car. Harley had been at home when it happened, and returned to life in a house that now belonged to someone else. 

Then he found out that Tony Stark was dead and he was invited to the funeral, and his world was truly shattered. 

Pepper, when she found out that he was back and his family was not, invited him to not just the funeral but to live with her and Morgan until he was able to find more stability. He was only sixteen, and had no other family, so he said yes.

Part of Harley wanted to stay closed off, but with how generous Pepper had been, and how much he knew Tony had loved both her and Morgan, he could not possibly turn away their hospitality and the love they gave him. He frequently had to remind himself that Pepper was not his mama, and Morgan was not Abby. He could never replace the hole that his sister and mother left in his heart when they died. And part of him rebelled at the idea of letting anyone else get that close. Nevertheless, with their shared grief, Pepper, Morgan, and Harley clung to each other. And Harley had another little sister, who he grew to love just as much.

Which was why he was so stressed to find that Morgan was making her own Iron Man suit at age fourteen. By this point, he had been to MIT and back, and was working as a lecturer at a local college. He often brought work for Morgan to complete, as he knew that she was already at a college level, but Pepper refused to let her enroll anywhere other than the local private school, citing that Morgan needed to have a normal experience for her age group. Morgan would never be normal, not as the daughter of the man who sacrificed his life for the universe. But Pepper tried her best, and that was all she could do, so Harley tried to also do his part to pick up the pieces left behind. They were all shattered in different ways, but this…

“Morgs, just what are you doing?” Harley did his best to sound unimpressed, which was difficult because Morgan appeared to be assembling an arc reactor at the heart of a suit that looked suspiciously like the one that her mother wore, only in a dark green. And it was working.  

“I’m building a suit,” the girl said distractedly as she continued to manipulate the material.

“Yeah, uh, I can see that. Why are you building a suit is the better question. Doesn’t all Tony’s tech operate with nanobots now? And why do you need a suit anyway?”

Morgan sighed before turning to Harley and rubbing her forehead in a way that did not look natural on a fourteen-year-old.

“I need to make sure I know exactly how it works, so that I can make repairs from scratch if the nanotech fails.”

“Uh-huh. I see.”

Harley did not see.

“Why exactly do you need to do this?”

“Because I’ve seen what happens if I don’t. And I cannot let it happen again.”

“Let what happen again?” Harley was seriously concerned at this point, as he had never seen Morgan this erratic. 

“It’s too late for this universe, the sacred timeline is gone, we have to get ready!” Morgan sounded frantic and started pacing.

“Whoa, wait, what are you talking about?” Harley pulled Morgan into a hug and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. She wrapped her arms around him in turn before suddenly pulling away. He let her go easily, about to say something else before she spoke.

“I saw my dad.” 

“He left you recordings, right?”

“No, I saw him. The real him. He knew me, and he knew everything that had happened. I was older. Everything was orange, the ground felt slightly wet. He said that he was worried that he made a mistake, but if I was happy he was happy except I’m not happy. He disappeared, or I disappeared, and I was stuck in that orange world. Then I heard a voice, it was speaking to me in every direction. It said we were running out of time, that the universe was running out of time.” Morgan was sounding more and more frantic with every word.

“Whoa, Morgan, hold on. I don’t understand, the universe is running out of time? Out of time for what?” Harley was more receptive than many others might have been, but then again he was a protegee of Tony Stark, a young Avenger in his own right, and more than anyone she trusted him to take anything she said seriously. 

“This universe is fracturing. I talked to America Chavez earlier today. She said that she felt it as well. This universe is coming apart. She has been going between universes for years, looking for her mothers. She more than anyone knows what it is like to travel between worlds.”

“And she thinks this universe is dying.” Harley’s face filled with dismay. “Is there anything we can do?” Harley asked urgently.

“America said that part of the reason the world is dying is because it does not have its infinity stones. Ours has none. The best we can do is travel to a world that has not yet died and save them from our fate.”

“Wait, like how the Avengers went back in time? But what good would that do us?” 

“Harley can’t you see? It’s too late for us. The best we can do is make our home in another reality, and save the versions of us that are there from what has happened to this universe.”

“And what then? We can’t travel back here.” Harley rubbed his forehead. 

“No, we can’t. We have to go alone, and stay there.” Morgan replied firmly. “The only way to make things right is to have us go back and save others from our fate.”

“And how are we going to do that, exactly? If we all go back, there will be duplicate versions of us wherever we go.” Harley’s confusion was apparent.

“I know,” Morgan took a deep breath. “That’s why we have to split up.”

“What? Morgan you are fourteen. You cannot do this alone.”

“Of course I’m not going alone. We should go in teams. Maybe three each? Listen, I need your help to explain this to everyone. America doesn’t think there is much time before this reality crumbles. And the voice I heard, it was quite urgent in its insistence. I obviously will need an adult wherever it is that I go. But with multiple teams, at least some of us should succeed.”

Harley let out a long breath. “OK, so what teams are you thinking? You’ve obviously thought about who you want to go back with. Who have you decided?”

“Well, I was thinking you and I could go back together.” Morgan paused. “With Spider-Man.”

“Spider-Man?” Harley’s confusion was apparent as he continued. “I didn’t think you knew Spider-Man.”

“I don’t, exactly. But I know who he is. Who he really is.”

“What is that supposed to mean? How do you know him?”

“I don’t know him exactly. But my dad knew him. He was in some of the recordings he left behind. And you know him too. That’s why I think we should bring him back with us.”

“I— what? I don’t know Spider-Man!” Harley spluttered.

“You do.” Morgan replied calmly. “You just don’t know that he’s Spider-Man.”

“Someone I know is— who? And how did Tony know him and never mention it to anyone?”

“I don’t think I should tell you. From what I understand, the reason no one knows who he is, it’s because everyone knew who he was.”

“Right because that makes a whole bunch of sense.”

“According to FRIDAY, who is linked with Spider-Man’s AI, and was immune to the spell, the universe almost broke before. Someone had unmasked him, everyone knew who he was. I am fuzzy on the details, but something happened because of that which caused not just the universe but the multiverse to crack open, and the only way for it to close was for everyone to forget Spider-Man’s identity. That fracture weakened our already tenuous grasp on reality.”

Harley watched her for a moment, stunned at the recent overload of information. Slowly, he began to speak. “So I knew Spider-Man before, and forgot him?”

“Not exactly. You probably knew of him. He was really close with dad, and he probably would have mentioned to you that he was close with Spider-Man. He might have even told him your name. But I doubt Spider-Man knew you.” Morgan hesitated before continuing. “If he did know you, then the way he interacts with you now would probably be different.”

“Who—” Harley paused, racing through everyone that he interacted with on a regular basis who might fit the description of someone close to him who fit Spider-Man’s description, who would not have the same dynamic with him if he had known Harley before. Who he knew that did not have a robust background, who might have lost his whole life. Suddenly a face came to mind, and Harley stepped back “Peter Parker!?”

“I didn’t want to tell you, but I also kind of did? Mostly because I want to see him again. I mean, I don’t really know him at all except what you and dad have told me. And you both have very different perspectives.” Morgan looked at her feet, feeling guilty for having thrown so much at Harley at one time, and also sick with anxiety over what had happened. 

“I don’t, I, okay, shit, that’s a lot, but also it’s a moot point if we don’t know how to travel back.”

“But we do know. Dad and the other Avengers traveled back once before. We can do it again, except make it a permanent trip.” 

“OK, and you think everyone is just going to be okay with us doing this? With being separated from each other? Lost in the timelines?” 

“I didn’t say it was a perfect plan.” Morgan hissed. “But it is a plan. We should at least consider it.”

“Fine! But you’re the one who gets to explain all of this to Pepper.”

—

“I’m sorry, you want to do what?” It took all of Pepper’s self control to restrict herself from shouting. It was a good thing that she had self-control, being married to Tony Stark, and with Morgan Stark as her daughter. 

“Go back in time and save the universe?” Morgan’s response was somewhat timid, yet still had the kind of steely resolve that Pepper has instilled in her daughter. 

Pepper was silent for a while, before sighing and slumping back in her chair uncharacteristically. “I should have known something like this would happen. You’re so much like your father.” 

Morgan hesitated. “Is that a bad thing? Being like dad?” Pepper sat up abruptly, taking Morgan’s hand. 

“Oh no, sweetie, you know I loved your dad. And I love you. I see him in you every day, and I see how you have grown into the young woman we always hoped you would be. That is not a bad thing, and it never will be. You father… he was easy to love. That was the hard part, knowing that I loved him so much, and knowing that part of him would always be driven by chasing the greater universe.”

Morgan made it as if to speak, but Pepper continued, still gripping Morgan’s hand firmly, but looking at something only she could see. 

“Part of me wants to go with you, and yet another part of me feels that I cannot.”

“Mom?” There were so many questions in that single word. 

“I love you, remember that? I will never not love you. If you want me to come with you I will drop everything. I am your mother, and I swore I would always protect you. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, Morgan. And it kills me to think of you doing this, even with Harley and Peter at your side.” Pepper still didn’t remember Peter, but she saw footage from FRIDAY that demonstrated that they had known each other, and known each other well. And there was a faint spark of recognition there, nothing substantial, simply a feeling of trust. 

“I feel like there is a ‘but’ coming on the heels of this statement.”

“Not a but.” Pepper replied firmly. “An and. All of what I have said is true, and I also recognize that living in a past where I already exist would not be a good thing for me to do. To myself, to your father, and to my past self as well. The plan you’ve come up with is a good one, and at the same time a difficult one, because it requires having two of one person in the timeline. That will be very difficult for many of the people you are considering asking.”

“But why? Wouldn’t you want to change things?” Morgan demanded. 

“I do want to! Changing things for a better world is wonderful. At the same time, what you are asking us to do is in a way terrible. When we go back, we won’t exist. Our entire lives belong to someone else, living a life we can no longer have.”

“Mom…” Morgan’s voice broke slightly.

“I’m sorry baby. I’m so sorry. When you go back, find me, and give me this necklace.” Pepper unclasped a necklace from her neck. “It was my mothers. I think you know my father and I well enough that you will be able to prove yourself to us. Do you know when you will go back, yet?”

“Based on all of your stories, and dad’s, we were thinking of going back to just before Dad met Vanko, and help set things on a better trajectory for Dad’s involvement with Vanko. We want to make a lot of things better mom, not just with Thanos. Also if I’m fourteen when we go back and you and dad are both 36—”

“That means we can still claim you as our daughter. I think I like that plan. I want to make it clear, though, that you are to listen to everything that Peter and Harley tell you, and to me and your dad when you go back. I’ll always be your mom, Morgan. And it devastates me that you are doing this without me. I’m just glad you won’t be alone.” Pepper took a deep breath. “For tonight, though, it’ll be just us. You and me, Christmas movie night.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Morgan beamed.

—

Peter was startled when he heard the knock on his door. It was late, already 10pm on Christmas Eve, and he had plans to see Matt the next day. Cautiously, he checked his door camera, monitored by Karen, and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw who was on the other side.

“Harley! You’re stopping by late. Everything going alright with you?” Peter was concerned, Harley looked more than slightly frazzled. 

“Uh, it’s a long story, and I confess that I don’t know all of it. There’s, there’s a lot going on right now, and I’m going to need your help to fill in some of thee pieces.” Harley sounded nervous, and if there was one thing that Peter knew about Harley Keener was that he was never nervous. 

“What’s going on man? You look shaken up.” Peter gestured for Harley to join him in sitting on the couch, and Harley looked around uneasily before sitting.

“Well, I guess it starts with my sister.”

“Is she okay?”

“Well yes, in a manner of speaking. She, um, told me a few things. About you, and about, uh, some problems that are cropping up.”

“About me? But I’ve never met your sister.” Peter’s brow furrowed.

“Um, about that. You actually have.” Peter only looked more confused, and Harley pushed on. “My sister is Morgan Stark. And she told me that you are Spider-Man.”

Peter stared blankly ahead for a moment before his brain caught up. “Wait, are you the potato boy Mr. Stark was always talking about?” 

“Tony did call me that, yeah.” Harley laughed, breathing starting to even out. “He talked about me?”

“Yeah but never by name… wait, how does Morgan know about me? Why are you, the spell was supposed to make people forget! If anyone knew who I was the universe would break apart!” Peter became frantic.

“About that… the universe is breaking apart.” Peter’s blank stare prompted Harley to continue. “Morgan had a vision. The universe is breaking apart. The only hope is to travel back to a different time, to when the universe was healthier, to stop the destruction of the infinity stones.”

Peter’s mind was moving at a mile a minute. “You intend to use the time travel machine that the Avengers created. You want to go back. But there will be two of us?”

“Yes, there will, which is why we want all of the people going back to be in teams. We’re thinking teams of three would be for the best. Our team would be you, me, and Morgan.”

“This is… wow this is so much, I’m not sure I’m fully getting all of this. What I know, though, is that I am going to need to talk to Dr. Strange.”

—

“Well, it’s certainly an idea that has merit.” Bruce hummed as he spoke with Pepper and Morgan on a video call in the morning . “We just need to optimize teams. It will be… hard for a lot of us. Do you have suggestions for others that might work?” Bruce asked inquisitively.

“We need to send back teams of people who will have resources when they travel back in time. I’ll be able to rely on my mom and dad— once dad runs a DNA check, he’ll believe me. Other teams we send back will need to have at least one person who has a tie like that, and who will have doubles that won’t protest to being duplicated.”

“I think then at that point we need to be considering pairing the Young Avengers with other ones. Specifically ones who have similar coloring.” Bruce suggested.

“Oh, I see.” Pepper nodded. “That’s smart.”

“Mom?” Morgan asked, confused.

“He’s suggesting that we send back people who can pose as families.”

“Oh, I see. Well, let’s call everyone in and see if we can work everything out as best as possible. Maybe wait until after the holiday is over though, before we tell everyone the world is ending.”

—

“Oh it will work.” Stephen hummed, giving Peter and Harley measuring glances. “But I’m unsure how Stark of 2010 will react to seeing his daughter.”

“Do you think that he will reject her?” Harley asked. “I’m not sure I could imagine him doing that.”

“No, that’s not it. You’re right that as soon as he does a DNA test he will be able to tell that she is his. But… there might be another way.” Stephen drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair.

“What other way? This universe is collapsing.” Peter interjected.

“Well yes, but this wasn’t the only way. There are some universes that can take the strain of no infinity stones. Ours is uniquely fractured because of what the stones did.” At Peter and Harley’s confused looks, Stephen pressed on. “When Tony Stark snapped, my consciousness split.” 

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Harley asked. 

Stephen sighed. “I am still me, I still have all my memories, but part of my consciousness broke off in the snap. I felt it leave on an astral level. I’ve been trying to figure out where it went for a while, I examined the stones before the captain took them back. And I talked to the older captain when he returned. He lived out an entire life to old age in a different universe. According to him, in that universe he posed as his own twin and saved Bucky from becoming the winter soldier, lived out his life with Peggy, completely reshaped the civil rights movement by teaming up with Black super soldiers, to hear him tell it, that universe is much better off. But also it’s not as though he wasn’t biased.” Stephen was completely nonchalant as he was dropping metaphorical bombs on their understanding of the multiverse. “But I digress. I believe that the part of my consciousness that left was sent by the infinity stones to another universe. Most definitely into the past, at any rate.” 

“And this matters because…?” Peter asked. “We’re attempting to do an entirely different kind of time travel.”

“It matters because I also talked to Carol Danvers, and she similarly felt a pull. And it happened when Stark snapped. Which means that it’s entirely possible that the three of us were sent back together.”

“Oh,” Peter breathed out. “Do you think—”

“It might be possible, yes.”

“What might be possible.” Harley was impatient. “I think I am missing something here.”

“We might be able to send ourselves and Morgan back back in time into the universe where their consciousnesses traveled, instead of directly back along the path of our universe.” Peter said excitedly. “Which means bringing Morgan back to a time when her father knows her!”

“That… that might just be a good plan.”

“I try my best.” Stephen nodded. 

---

End Note: I know it might seem unrealistic to have Pepper be letting her 14 year old travel back in time without her, but Pepper is tired okay? She’s tired, and she wants rest, and more than anything she wants Morgan to be safe, and she fully believes in Peter and Harley’s ability to take care of Morgan and to bring her to Pepper’s past self, who she knows will protect Morgan fully once she knows she has a daughter. She also does not think that she can face going back to a Tony who isn’t her Tony. Especially when that Tony has his own Pepper.

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