Happy's not really sure what happened the time Morgan said she wished she had siblings.
She'd just come home from a playdate, cheeks flushed with happiness, and Happy was grinning while he made her the customary PB&J.
"You know, Layla has a big brother," he hears her say at the table. she's drawing a picture of herself and her friend, more rambling than anything else while she works. "He's nice. He even plays with us sometimes. he's really good at Uno."
Happy grunts while he cuts the sandwich diagonally. "He does?
"Yeah." Morgan continues on distractedly. "I wish I had a brother, like her."
Something jumped involuntarily in the back of Happy's throat, reminding him somewhat of that feeling when someone asks a question and you want to yell out the answer you know with absolute certainty. But nothing comes out, and his mind draws a blank for what he was even going to say. That's probably something to ask your mom? Brothers are annoying? You don't need a brother, you've got---me? No, that didn't make sense. He was more of an uncle than anything.
"Layla says her brother is annoying, but I think he's fun," Morgan continued on, unaware of Happy's momentary tongue tie.
Maybe it was Harley, Happy thinks as he hands the plate to the kid. Tony always did act kinda the same for him and Morgan. Dad-like, before he would've tolerated that word in the same sentence as his own name.
(Happy could've sworn, though, that there was something he was forgetting. Some time Tony hadn't quite minded the assumption of fatherhood, the teasing Happy had laid on him, the responsibility.)
(Maybe his old age was getting to him. Tony Stark, dad to anyone but Morgan? Not likely.)












