Viva la Vida - Coldplay
I hear Jerusalem bells are ringing
Roman cavalry choirs are singing
Be my mirror, my sword and shield
My missionaries in a foreign field
For some reason, I can't explain
I know St. Peter won't call my name
Never an honest word
But that was when I ruled the world
It was 9:52 pm when Amara reached Avengers tower again. She hadn't realised how long she had spent talking with Spiderman (or, Peter). Amara was quite proud of the progress she had managed to make with the hero. Although, she couldn't help but feel a pang of sympathy for Peter; he had poured his heart out and told her something incredibly personal to him, and she was only using him for her mission. Ugh, she hated that word - using. She wasn't using him, technically, she's doing what's best for him, she's recruiting him to the Avengers! But didn't he say he didn't want to be Avenger right away?
When Amara took this mission, she didn't think that Spiderman would only be a... kid. Of course, he had things he wanted to do first. Not everyone's priorities are the same as yours. Not everyone wants to be an Avenger at 15.
After thinking about this Amara decided that it may be time to meet Spiderman as Aura. Maybe he'll reveal more to a fellow superhero.
Amara absentmindedly turned the corner, not bothering to listen to her sense that was telling her what was there.
She walked into something, no someone. "Oh shit! I'm so- Cooper?"
Cooper Barton looked at Amara his eyes widening, "H-hi, Ama-Amara."
"Hey. I haven't seen you yet, you got here yesterday, right? I was talking to Lila, Nate and Laura. Where were you?"
"Y-yeah, I had...uh homework."
Amara nodded, "How've you been? School good?"
"Yeah, we told the school we're going on vacation."
"Oh." Amara rolled onto the heels of her feet, trying to fight the awkwardness.
"D-didn't you start school...uh... today?" Cooper asked, just before Amara was going to say goodnight and go upstairs.
"Uh, yeah. It's been okay."
"If- uh, I mean, if you want to go get coffee together, we can catch up...tomorrow?"
Oh shit!
"Uh, you mean with Lila and Nate? Yeah, that'd be cool! I could bring Pietro, too," Amara hoped he took that as a friendly hint.
Cooper reached his hand behind his neck and scratched it, wincing when he heard Pietro's name, "No! I mean, I was kind of hoping it could just be the two of us?"
Amara cringed, Fuck! Now I have to be the dick and turn him down.
"Listen, Cooper, I'm flattered, I really am, and any girl would be lucky to go out with you, but, I don't think I'm the right person for you. I'm more focused on my training than I am on dating right now, and it's probably gonna be that way for a while, I- I don't want you to bother waiting for me. Besides, you deserve someone who's gonna be all in and who appreciates you."
Amara hoped and prayed to the gods that that would be enough.
Cooper shook his head and said, "I don't mind waiting. You're focused on your career and that's fine, I'll support you. I know you have your priorities, but I can be there for you."
Amara wanted the ground to open up and swallow her, which, technically, she could one hundred per cent do, but she was afraid that would break Cooper's heart even more.
Amara took a deep breath and said, "Look, Coop, I don't want to lead you on, and I'm sorry if I made it out as if this would happen sometime in the future. Cooper, the truth is, I don't like you like that. Don't get me wrong, I love you, just-"
"Just not in the way that I do, right?"
Amara sighed again and nodded, looking down as she was unable to meet his eyes. "I'm sorry, Cooper. I really am."
"It's okay," he said quietly, so quietly that Amara almost didn't hear it.
Amara walked towards Cooper and wrapped her arms around him. He wrapped his arms around her too. She wasn't sure, but Amara thought she heard Cooper sniffling.
Amara pulled away and finally looked at Cooper, "We can still get coffee if you want? Platonically?"
Cooper looked down, "No, thank you." Then he walked away.
Amara's heart clenched. She didn't want to hurt him. But you would've hurt him more by leading him on for longer, she told herself. You did the right thing.
Amara realised at that second how tired she was, after all, she hadn't gone to sleep at all last night. She made her way towards her bedroom, still feeling guilty about Cooper, but more than ready to collapse on her bed and become unconscious for the next 8 hours.
Of course, when she opened her bedroom door, she was met with Pietro sitting on her bed with snacks, watching a movie.
"Finally! You know how long I've been waiting for you?" Pietro said, keeping his eyes on the screen.
"What are doing in my room?" Amara asked, setting her things down and then walking over to put a Cheeto in her mouth.
"I haven't seen you all day! I thought we were gonna watch a movie!"
"Well did you tell me that we would be watching a movie today?"
Pietro thought for a moment. He opened his mouth as if he was about to speak and then close it again.
"Right. Look, I'm sorry, P, I've had a really long day, and I didn't go to sleep yesterday so I'm exhausted. I just need to go to sleep. Maybe we can do something tomorrow? No, wait, on Wednesday! I have a 21st-century integration session with Steve tomorrow."
Pietro paused, "We're still friends, right?"
"What are you talking about? Of course, we are!"
"Okay, just checking I wasn't being replaced."
"By who?" Amara asked, laughing.
"...Cooper," Pietro said, the smile on his face growing as quickly as Amara's was leaving.
"What the fuck, P! How do you know already?"
"I asked FRIDAY to tell me when you got home, then I looked at cameras to see what was taking you so long to get here."
"I can't believe you did that!"
"I can't believe you flat out told him you weren't interested. And made the poor kid cry!"
Amara threw a pillow at him, "You're such a dick. Have some compassion."
"Hey! You're the one who just broke the hopes and dreams of an innocent 12-year-old kid."
Amara used her power to blast him back. "He's 14! He's only one year younger than me!"
"Then what's the problem?" He dodged out of the way quickly before Amara threw something else at him. "He seems like a nice guy! Go for it! Live a little! Viva la Vida!" He made his way to her door while Amara kept aiming shoots of water at him, but he was too fast, now, "Okay, goodnight, bye!"
Amara flipped him off before he left and then glanced at her bed, now covered with snacks.
Thank you for that, Pietro. Nice of you to leave me to clean up your mess!
She used her powers to lift everything off, which took a matter of seconds then she got straight into bed.
She was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. FRIDAY barely had time to switch the lights off.
—————
The next morning, Amara woke up earlier than she needed to, presumably from all the extra sleep she managed to acquire last night.
She took a shower, did her hair and makeup and even had enough time to paint her nails a navy blue.
Amara was having an exceptionally good morning, it was almost too good to be true
Although she still felt awful about what went down with Cooper the night before, she couldn't help but feel good about the day: she knew Spiderman's identity, she had friends to see, and she had the perfect thing planned to show Steve for their 21st-century integration. She doubted anything could ruin this morning.
Or at least she thought so until she walked into the kitchen to make breakfast and saw her father sitting at the kitchen island, eating a packet of dried blueberries.
Amara's stomach sank, forgetting all about her embarrassing interaction with Tony not 12 hours ago.
Amara tried her best to be nonchalant, "Hey Tony," she said as she got the milk out of the fridge.
"Morning, Kiddo. How'd you sleep?"
"Yeah, pretty good actually...what about you?" Amara grabbed the box of cheerios out of the cabinet and poured some into a bowl.
He paused, "Not really,"
"Why not? You didn't spend the whole night in the lab again, did you? If you did, I swear to god, I'm telling Pepper!" She sat down opposite Tony, who passed her a spoon from the drawer next to him. She poured the milk in and took a bite.
"No, that's not it. I tried to get to sleep, but I was trying to figure out what to... say to you... after yesterday."
Amara choked on her cereal. "Tony... I am so sorry. You don't have to say anything. It was a mistake, and it won't happen again, I promise," she held her breath, waiting for his response.
"Kid, it's too late for that."
Amara felt her stomach churn, if she wasn't sitting down, she probably would've fallen over, "Tony... I promise! I'm so sorry and I know how much you were against it before, but it just slipped my mind, and I wasn't thinking straight. Please give me another chance. I won't mess up again... I promise! And- and if I do, then you can-"
"Wait a second. First of all, what, exactly, do you think I'm gonna do? Kick you out? Kid, I adopted you, I'm responsible for you, which means, I can't kick you out even if I wanted to," Amara let out a sigh of relief, even though she knew Tony would never stoop to that level.
"Okay, so what do you mean by 'it's too late?"
"Just, listen, and don't interrupt." Amara nodded.
Tony continued, "Eight years ago, you turned up at my house, in Malibu. The one with the private address that nobody knew. At first, I was confused: how did a tiny kid like you manage to figure out where I live when the whole world failed. Then you told me about your powers and I didn't know what to do. You told me you didn't want to go to the government, and that meant SHIELD, you didn't want people to know about your powers, you didn't want people to use you. I remember you telling me that you wanted to stay with me. At that point, I never even thought about being a father, never mind the opportunity actually presenting itself to me. I told you you could stay the night, that I'd figure out what to do with you later. Of course, later took longer than I thought, and by that time, I had already become attached. It was a real Annie the Musical, kind of thing. Of course, all that stuff happened with the expo and Vanko. Then the Avengers were formed, and you became a superhero. I remember that first battle against the Chitauri, and I never told you this, never told anyone this: I should've been completely focused on killing those aliens and getting to Loki, but for the whole fight, I had JARVIS monitoring where you were at all times, your location was in the corner of my vision at all times, because I was so worried that day, that I would lose you. That something would happen to you, and if it did, I knew I could never live with myself. That was when I knew - when I knew I wanted to adopt you. I was scared about being a father, about whether or not I would be good at it. But, ultimately, I was more scared of not having the chance to be your father." Amara felt touched by his words and she smiled as he continued. "Amara, I've made thousands, millions of mistakes in my life, making you my daughter, was not one of them. In fact, becoming your father is one of the greatest things I have ever done. You are one of the greatest, if not, the best thing in my life. You're my kid. And I hate that I ever made you feel like you couldn't be that. Yesterday, you called me dad for the first time, and I thought that it would feel weird, or that our relationship would change somehow, but all I remember from yesterday, is thinking about how wrong I was. Amara, I would love for you to call me dad. If you want to, that is."
Amara was speechless, she sat in shock for ten seconds before Tony said, "you gonna say something? Come on! I just spent four hours on that speech, the least you could do is applaud!"
Amara had made her way around the other side of the island and hugged her father.
"Thank you...Dad," Amara said.
"Are we gonna have to hug like this all the time, now, or," Tony joked while also wrapping his arms around his daughter.
"Don't get used to it. This is a rare thing; baby steps."
When they pulled away, Tony said, "Okay, get ready, I'm dropping you to school today."
He said it so casually that Amara almost thought she misheard him. "What are you talking about?"
He shrugged as if it was the most natural thing in the world for a famous billionaire to drop high schoolers at school. "What? I want to drop my daughter off at school, what's so wrong with that?"
"Oh, nothing, except for the fact that your daughter's undercover and can't have her billionaire father dropping her outside a crowded high school.
"Relax! I thought this through. I'm gonna use one of Nat's photostatic veils."
The photostatic veil is a mask that adheres to the face of the wearer - it essentially changes the appearance of a person so that no one would be able to tell the difference.
"We good?" Tony asked raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah, okay."
"Great! Finish your food, Get your things, meet me in the garage, you get to choose a car..." and with that, he left.
Amara laughed, finishing the last few bites left in her bowl and then went up to her room to grab her things for school. She had a hard time believing what just happened. After all these years, all she had to do was mess up earlier and she could've been calling Tony her dad all this time? She had a hard time trying to keep her mouth from smiling as she made her way to the tower's private elevator.
When she reached the garage, she saw Tony and Pepper, standing, waiting for her.
Amara hugged Pepper and said, "What are you doing, here?"
"I tried to tell her, kid, but she just wouldn't listen," Tony said.
Pepper rolled her eyes and said, "I'm coming to drop you, too."
"Really?" Amara asked, shocked that both Tony Stark and Pepper Potts, two incredibly busy people, were taking time out to come and drop her to school.
"If it's okay with you, of course."
"Um, yeah!" Amara said, realising just how much she was loved by these people - she felt happy. When she said nothing could ruin her morning, apparently the universe was on her side.
Amara got into the back seat of the only car in the garage without the word "Stark" on the number plate, which happened to be Maserati. And Tony and Pepper got in the front two seats. They both put the veils on and appeared as two randomly generated people.
"So, how are you finding school?" Pepper asked.
"Yeah, the mission's going good. I made some friends, they seem nice." Amara replied, "I don't really know much about them, though. I've only known them for one day. And I forgot to get their numbers, which I will get today."
Tony spoke up, "What about with Spiderman, you came home pretty late last night," Tony raised his eyebrow and looked at Amara through the rearview mirror, "did anything happen between you two? 'Cause if it did, I want to meet him, you know, figure out his intentions."
"Tony! Leave her alone! Honestly, she's only just met the guy!"
"Thank you, Pepper, nothing happened, I just learned more about him, that's all. I promise...dad."
Amara saw Tony's face light up in the mirror when she called him dad.
Pepper said, "Also, don't forget about Pietro."
Amara snorted, "Pietro?!"
Tony rapidly looked between Pepper and Amara, "What? What is it? What about Pietro?"
"There's something going on between you two, right?" Pepper asked, looking genuinely confused.
"What!? That little shit!" Tony.
"Holy shit, guys, Pietro's just my best friend, I promise you, if something was happening, I would have told you already," Amara said, enunciating the last bit to Pepper, widening her eyes and laughing in embarrassment.
"Better be, no way he's going anywhere near my daughter if there's something like that going on, besides, he's way too old for you."
"Hold on, what's with the protective father act? Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that I can call you dad now, but I thought the relationship wasn't going to change. And you were never like this before, also, Pietro's only 2 years older than me" Amara said, slightly amused, even though she knew that his fatherly protectiveness would get old very quickly.
Tony grumbled, "2 and a half! That's basically 3! And that's because before, you weren't going to school and hanging out with people that we didn't know," he looked at Pepper and Amara's exasperation and said, "but okay, I'll try to tone it down, slightly."
"Pepper? How's the company doing?" Amara asked.
Pepper smiled at the fact that Amara seemed interested in her work, "it's going good. The Stark phone's being developed pretty quickly. The tech department's working on some portable holograms, like the ones in your lab. Small enough to fit in the phone."
"That's so cool, Pepper! I knew Tony made the right decision making you CEO."
"Thanks, Amara."
Amara spoke, "Hey, dad?" Tony hummed in response to show that he was listening. "I've been meaning to ask how the other Avengers are doing with their recruitments. Have any of them had any success, yet?"
"Steve hit a dead end with his buddy and, uh, Antman's onboard and he actually recommended his girlfriend, or I think it's his girlfriend, I'm not sure, I'll have to check that. I've not met him, I don't know what he's like, but I guess this is just one those things where I have to trust that Sam knows what he's doing. And we haven't heard anything from Thor. Actually, we haven't heard anything for a while. I should probably look into that at some point."
"What do you mean? You mean, Thor's missing?" Amara asked, worriedly.
"I wouldn't worry too much, he has this tendency to go off planet for a while and not keep his teammates informed. He's a big guy, he can handle himself."
Pepper addressed Amara, "your making progress, right? How's the search for Spiderman going?"
Amara smiled and replied, "It's good, I have a pretty good idea of who it might be..."
They pulled into the parking lot at the front of the school and Amara saw Peter, Ned and MJ standing at the front of the school looking around for something. Are they...waiting for me?
Tony must have noticed Amara staring at them because he said, "Are those your friends?"
"What?"
"Those kids, are they your friends?" Tony repeated.
"...Yeah..."
Pepper looked confused, "Well, why did you say it like that?"
"No reason, I just think they're looking for something?" Amara said.
Tony sighed dramatically, "They're waiting for you, you little shit, go!"
"Fucking hell, I'm going."
"Wait!" Tony said before Amara opened the car door. "Am I picking you up after school?"
"Uh...no I'll be fine, I might stay in Queens for a while after school," after seeing a concerned look on both Pepper and Tony's face, "don't worry, I won't come back at 10, today, I have that thing with Steve, remember?"
"Okay, have fun! We'll see you tonight!" Pepper said.
"Don't do anything I wouldn't do," Tony said.
Before he could carry on, Amara quickly said, "And don't do anything you would do, I know, don't worry. Love you guys!"
"Love you!" Pepper said.
Tony hesitated before saying, "Yeah, me too."
Amara knew that Tony was taking baby steps, so she didn't mind that he didn't say it back.
She left the car and MJ spotted Amara. In fact, everyone spotted Amara, the second she entered the grounds in a Maserati.
Amara waved at her friends and tried to make her way towards them as quickly as possible, which was hard considering the number of students gathering around her, trying to see the car that she came to school in.
"Hey, guys!" Amara said cheerfully to her friends.
"Hey, Amara, you didn't tell us you were rich!" Ned was obviously very shocked, still staring at the Maserati that was driving away from the school.
"We're comfortable, me and my family, I mean," Amara said trying to avoid talking about this anymore.
MJ narrowed her eyes at Amara, "That's exactly what a super-rich person would say."
Amara rolled her eyes, "Oh, shut up! Come on let's go before Mr Harrington gives us all detention for being late."
"Uh, let me just remind you that we were the ones waiting for you?" MJ said, causing a chuckle from Amara.
The four of them walked through the front doors of the school and Amara felt as ready for the day as she ever could.
(A/N: Okay so another fluffy chapter, I just want to set the scene for the actual plot - and I promise there's an actual plot in here somewhere! The next chapter will probably also be fluff, but I just want to enjoy the happy moments before we get to the plot-heavy stuff. Anyways, thanks for reading and don't forget to vote, it really helps xx)