Babysitting a Superhero (Stark's daughter X Peter Parker)

29. Grounded

"Hang on... I'm getting one hundred per cent of the blame for the failure of this mission? Just me? And are we completely forgetting why I had to go on this mission in the first place? Because you were hungover and I had to step up, as usual!"

"Don't go acting like you did me this huge favour! You were dying to go on that mission, hell, you were dying to go on any mission that involved fighting or putting yourself in any kind of danger! You couldn't be content with the important, ground-level, safe mission that you've still not completed?"

"I'm ready for more than that! And if you trusted me like I thought you did, you'd feel the same," Amara said, scrunching her eyebrows.

"And that's your problem. You act on emotions. Your number one weapon that you always resort to is emotions and you can't control them. But you need to learn how, before the world judges you for something that's out of your control. And you need to learn that these villains that you're so desperate to fight, don't have emotions! They are a threat and they would not hesitate to kill innocents. But in order to understand that, you have to control yours, first."

Amara scoffed, "Controlling my emotions? I'm better than you! Getting so drunk, that your daughter has to look after you - has to be the adult - and then proceeding to treat her like a kid. At least, I'm not sitting at the bar every other day, crying over a breakup that happened months ago! Pepper's gone! And it's your fault. Fucking deal with it! Like the superhero you claim to be!" she took a shaky breath, realising that she had just proved her father right.

Tony remained calm - scarily calm. For, at least, three whole minutes, he was silent, almost like he was calculating what to say next, he had never had to discipline Amara before, so he wasn't entirely sure what to do.

"You're... grounded. For a month. And that means no Aura, either. Not even for your mission or for patrolling. Grounded means grounded."

Amara knew that she was somewhat in the wrong, but she was stubborn, just like her father, so she would never admit it. And she wasn't going to back down, now, "Fine!"

She turned away and slammed the door on her way out.

—————

The next few days went by without any hiccups. She had phoned MJ to explain that she was grounded and how unbelievably annoyed she was about it.

She had started going back to school, which Peter and Ned seemed very happy about, claiming they hadn't seen her in ages. She was happy to see them, too, of course. By the time Friday rolled around, everything had gone back to normal, or as normal as things could be when she was grounded.

Amara was sitting with MJ, Ned and Peter at their lunch table, talking about who the best superhero was.

"Aura would kick Hawkeye's butt!" MJ said.

"Yeah, but have you seen the footage from the battle of New York? I'm just saying, Hawkeye outsmarted Loki and grounded him. He couldn't do anything after that!" Peter argued back.

Amara glanced over at Peter, "Since when are you such a die-hard Hawkeye fan?"

"I'm not, just giving credit where credit's due."

"But, did you see the leaked Stark Tower footage? The Hulk smashed him into the floor, that's the only reason he was grounded. Otherwise, he would have just gotten right back up after Hawkeyes arrow," Amara said, having fun with this conversation - it had managed to distract her from things for a few moments.

"I'm just saying that it's nice knowing that a regular person, with no superpowers, can train and work that hard and reach that superhero level. And with the Avenger's status," Peter said.