Chapter Text
Waking was- surprising. He woke up slowly, like drifting through mist or sirup or- something. He was kind of confused, if he is being perfectly honest. Confused about his own metaphor, a bit, but mainly confused by the fact that he was, well, waking up. That was not something he’d expected to do, after all. After Thanos, after the battle, after the gauntlet. It worked, it must have worked, because he didn’t know what he’d do if it didn’t. But if it did work, then he should be dead. So, why was he waking up?
He was pretty sure there was someone sitting next to him. He had no idea where that was, where he was, although if he had to guess, the first guess would be hospital. That is, if he was actually still alive and not, you know, waking up in heaven or something like that. Not that he believed in that, but he had met, fought and befriended aliens, so he was not really sure in what to believe anyhow. It seemed like everything might be possible, these days. Maybe even wielding a gauntlet made for gods.
Tony opened his eyes. Or at least, he tried to. It was surprisingly hard, a lot harder than he expected. He managed to peel one eye open after a moment and discovered that it was Rhodey sitting next to him. And-
“Morgan,” he said, or tried to. It didn’t really sound like anything, but it was enough to get Rhodey’s attention, who moved and thus woke Morgan.
“Daddy,” she cried and almost launched herself onto him, only stopped by Rhodey’s tight grip on her.
“Careful, Morgan, your daddy’s only just woke up.” Then he looked at Tony, eyes bright and shiny. “Hey Tones. How do you feel?”
That- was a good question, that he had not so far considered. How did he feel? Still surprised about being alive, but other than that… He was sore and tired, but nothing hurt.
“Fine,” he managed. His voice was rusty and slurred and he was grateful for the ice chips that Rhodey slid into his mouth. “What happened?” he asked, as soon as he felt like he had enough energy to get the words out.
“You did it,” Rhodey said, smiling. It was a nice smile, all big and relieved and honest. “We made it.” He laughed, as if he couldn’t really believe it. “We actually made it.”
“We-“ That sounded too good to be true. Maybe he was dead after all, and maybe there was such a thing like heaven. “Everyone?” he asked, because if this was heaven, then he had no reason to be afraid of the answer. But Rhodey nodded, still smiling.
“Wakanda lost warriors and we’ve got a couple of nasty injuries, but yeah, everyone made it. You stopped them before they could do too much damages, before they could really hurt us.”
That must have been all of the adult talk that Morgan could stand, because she began to squirm in Rhodey’s arms, reaching out towards Tony. Who wanted nothing more than to reach back, but no matter how not-dead he felt, he was still too weak for that. But Rhodey must have realized what he wanted, because he helped Morgan get up on the bed, where she immediately curled up against Tony, tiny little hands clasped tight around his shirt.
“She hasn’t really left your side, these last couple of days. It took a while to make sure that you’d make it and we’re really glad for Dr. Cho’s help, but as soon as they let her, she was right here, at your side. Not even Pepper could get her to budge, so in the end we decided to just sit with her, with both of you. She’s real stubborn, that kid of yours.”
“Yeah,” Tony said, throat closing up. “Yeah, she is. Love you, pumpkin.”
“Love you 3000, daddy,” she said and yep, Tony was dad enough to admit that this made him cry. A little bit. Rhodey smiled at him and pulled the blanket tighter around both of them.
“Get some rest, Tones.”