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After everything that had happened, all the dustings, all the vanishings, all the death, all the whatever you want to call it . . . even after all of that . . . it happened. We won but we lost. We lost some valuable lives.
It was the day of the funeral. We had our big ceremony for Tony. It was really hard on everyone who knew him well. There was a smaller ceremony done for Natasha as well. Only the people close to her who knew her well were in attendance. For the most part it was only the remaining original Avengers. I wasn't invited to that one.
It was hard. This was now the third time I've lost anyone that resembled a father figure to me. Some might say I'd be used to it by now, but no, if anything it's gotten harder.
I didn't get to meet Morgan until the day of the funeral. Even then it was under somber circumstances. She's adorable though. It's easy to see why Tony would sacrifice everything for her to be able to have a good life. We've only just meet and I've already decided the same thing.
She's a quiet little girl. But then again, I can't really blame her after what just happened. After the ceremony I see Morgan walk off. Pepper doesn't try to stop her and she actually walks over to me.
"You know, the stories about Spider-Man were some of her favorites." She tells me.
I look at her in disbelief, "Really?"
Pepper nods. "Tony would tell her stories every night before bed of all of you guys."
It's still weird trying to debunk this timeline. The dusted were supposedly gone for five years but for us it only felt like five seconds. We didn't age mentally or physically. It was a shock for all of us when we found out how much time had passed.
"Go," Pepper tells me, nodding in the direction that Morgan was headed. "You two should get to know each other better." And with that she walks off in the opposite direction.
I decide that I will go after Morgan, I do want to get to know her better. As I walk in the direction she went I eventually see a small tent set up between the trees.
"Hey Morgan?" I call out. The flap in the tent moves to the side to reveal her face, "Hey. Whatcha doing in here?" She opens the tent flap more to reveal action figures of all of the Avengers scattered across the ground. "Aw those are so cool!"
"This is my favorite," She picks up the Iron Man figure and hands it to me. I grab it and sit on the threshold between the dirt and the sheet covering the ground of her tent.
"Yeah," I say, "He was my favorite."
"He coming back though," Morgan says, playing around with the Hulk and Black Widow Figures. At this I snap my head up. She's so young and so naive. It makes me feel that much worse for her and the situation.
"Uh, I don't know if that's going to happen this time Morgan," As soon as the words come out of my mouth my heart hearts for the small girl. This is a tough lesson to learn at age four. I would know.
"Why not?" She asks, putting down her figure and looking at me. "You guys came back."
"Yeah, but," I sigh, trying to figure out how I'm going to explain this to her. "Those were special circumstances. Five years ago this big mean grape looking guy wanted to do some bad things and he managed to do them, which cause me and a lot of other people to go away for a long time. And then a couple of days ago your dad and the rest of the Avengers were able to find a way to bring us back. And then there was a big fight and the way that your dad went away was different from the way it was when the rest of us went away. He went away to a place that's kinda impossible to come back from. But he's watching you. He knows that you're safe and that you have the rest of the Avengers are looking out for you. And yeah he's like to be here with you still but he knows he can't so he's just happy that you're safe and always will be safe." As I was telling her this, my eyes started tearing up.
"So he's not coming back?" Morgan asks with the most innocent of looks on her face.
"No, I'm sorry," I hand her back the Iron Man figure. She looks at it in her hand for a while then She suddenly wraps her arms around me in a hug. I'm shocked at first but then I give in and hug her back.
When we break apart she sits back down and sets the Iron Man figure back with the rest of the Avengers. Then she asks me, "Can you tell me a story?"
"Of course," I respond. "About what?"
"Iron Man."
And so that's what I do. I tell her all the stories I have about her dad. Every time I've been with him and stories that were told to me as a child. At some point I got into using the action figures to act out the scenes.
Some people may say that Morgan was to young to learn about these topics. But if that's the case than so was I when both my parents died. In these cases, death is the main issue, but the way the people around the children approach conversations like this matter too.
