Adore You - Harry Styles
You wonder, under summer skies
(Summer skies)
Brown skin and lemon over ice
Would you believe it?
Over the course of the next few days, Amara had been busy answering all of MJ's questions, training with the Avengers, working in the lab and doing her school work.
Apparently, the school was able to expel her if she wasn't meeting the standards of the school, so she was forced to complete her homework and submit assignments and group projects.
But the first thing she had to deal with when she got back on Saturday from her sleepover, was finding out what was wrong with Nat.
And so she made her way swiftly towards the training room, where Natasha always goes when she starts to feel human emotion in an attempt to punch it away.
"What are you doing down here?" Amara asked. She knew from experience that you can never straight up ask Natasha Romanoff what's wrong, you had to wait for her to bring it up.
"Training," Natasha replied, still looking straight at the punching bag in front of her.
"I can see that. Wanda told me you'd been down here for six hours straight," Amara waited for a reply but didn't get one. "Do you want to come up to eat?"
"I'm good. You go ahead."
"What about a break? 15 minutes is all I ask."
Again, no answer.
"10 minutes?" Amara bargained, desperately trying to get a reply. "5 minutes? 3? 1? Come on, give me something, anything!"
"I don't need a break. You take breaks when you need one."
"Yeah, well sometimes you don't even realise you need one."
"Well I don't and I've not reached my limit, yet."
"If that's the aim, you're gonna be training till tomorrow," Amara said.
"Then I'll see you tomorrow," Natasha replied just as quickly, finally stepping away from the bag as she unwrapped the boxing tape from around her hands. She then walked over to pick up her gun and unlatched the safety.
Amara watched Natasha head over to the shooting area and begin hitting the targets placed on the opposite wall, hitting the bullseye every time.
Amara sighed in frustration; she really didn't feel like doing this but was getting impatient with this tactic of getting Natasha to talk, "Get over here. Let's spar."
Natasha looked back at her and raised an eyebrow, "Really. You want to spar?"
Amara took her jacket off and readied herself in a fighting stance, "Uh huh, let's go." If she couldn't ease the information out, then Amara would overload her with questions while she was trying to fight someone off.
Nat threw the first punch, which Amara dodged, easily, "You're getting sloppy, Natty. Are your emotions getting in the way?"
Natasha lunged forwards and grabbed a hold of Amara's arm and punched her in her unprotected stomach causing her to fall to the ground, "Down here, there are no emotions."
Amara got up slowly and shook off the fall, "I can see that."
Natasha stated, "Again."
Amara breathed heavily, This is going to be a lot harder than I thought.
Amara went first this time, aiming for Natasha's legs and hoping to swipe them from under her, but she caught on quickly and retaliated by blocking her and consequently sending Amara to the floor once again.
One of Natasha's hands was pinning Amara to the floor while the other was holding a practice gun to her head, but the Black Widow watched her teammate as a new determination filled her eyes, adamant to find out the truth, "What's going on with work? Have you managed to complete all of your missions so far?" Amara asked, obviously trying to narrow down the possible reasons for what could have happened.
"Yes, I always complete my missions."
"Okay, not a work thing then? At all?" Amara said barely holding Natasha's hand back from pulling the trigger on the fake gun.
"Nope, nothing's wrong with work, I'm doing great."
Amara thought for a second as she rolled the both of them over so she was pinning Natasha down, now, and slammed her hand over Natasha's gun, finally obtaining it in her grasp, "Is this about your sister? The one you haven't seen in ages, you know, since the red room?"
Natasha kept her hand on Amara's that was currently on her throat, "Yelena? No, I don't even know where she is, probably living her life somewhere, but no, it's not her. Think less obscure."
"A relationship...?" Amara took Natasha's silence as a yes, "Okay, a relationship - finally we're getting somewhere."
Natasha used Amara's distraction to gain power back as she placed both her hands behind her head and pushed both of them off of the ground, leaving her completely balanced and Amara stumbling in an attempt to regain her composure. But she wasn't fast enough, Natasha had already begun charging at her and within a second had performed her signature takedown and placed the gun at Amara's head, who finally raised her hands in defeat, "Is something wrong with you and Bruce? I thought you two went on a few dates?"
Natasha placed the gun back into its holster, stood up and held out her hand to help Amara up, which she took very quickly, "We went on a few, but that's it. I realised it wasn't gonna work so I ended it."
"And... I'm guessing you ended it on Friday, when you called me?" Natasha nodded. "So what happened? I mean, I thought that things were off between you two from about a few months ago, but I didn't want to assume anything."
"Assume away, but I realised that I didn't like him like that."
"I'm sorry, Natty. How did you realise? Do you like someone else like that or...?" Amara said raising her eyebrows at her friend.
"Amara!"
"What?! Okay, fine, I won't be pushy. Just know you can tell me anything, without me having to beat it out of you."
"You didn't beat me. And also I would have told you, that's what I called you up for on Friday, but then realised it's not actually that important so I was gonna leave it."
"Okay, but I want to know everything, even if you think it's not important because it is to me. And because I tell you everything."
"Okay."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
—————
Peter had gained a lot of confidence within the last few weeks. Almost too much. Ever since Amara had been giving him more attention, he felt the need to earn that attention. Especially after she invited herself over to his house on Wednesday. It was stupid, but he couldn't help himself.
He was also getting annoyed at Flash's attempts to get closer to Amara.
For example, today in Gym class, Coach Wilson said we'd have to be partnered up to do situps like we always do on a Monday. Amara usually partners up with MJ, but she wasn't there that day.
But before Peter even had a chance to go up to her to ask to be her partner, Flash beat him to it.
"Hey, Amara. Wanna partner up?" Flash asked her.
Amara masked the blatant shock on her face with a hurried smile as she looked around frantically, before smiling again and nodding, "Sure, why not."
Peter partnered with Ned, as always and stayed in the spot next to them, watching cautiously.
When Amara was doing situps, he held her ankles down on the ground. She did the exercise with ease as if she had been doing them for years, which she probably had been if she was doing martial arts since she was 6 as she told him.
Peter noticed that Flash was being strangely nice and supportive of Amara as she did her situps.
"You're doing so good." and "You're really good at this!" Peter gritted his teeth every time he heard something similar.
"Thanks," Amara would reply, each time getting more shocked at how nice he was being.
After fifteen minutes, they switched and now Flash was the one doing the situps and Amara was holding his feet.
After a while, Flash started to ask Amara things like, "How have you been?" and "Am I doing okay."
To which Amara would politely reply, "Yeah, It's all good."
Flash suddenly said, "You know. I've had a lot of time to think about what you told me a few months ago. About how I'd regret being a dick to your friends. You were right. I do regret it. I realised that too late. I was just so angry all the time, I took it out on them. But, after I met you, I don't know, it's like I realised the error in my ways."
Peter knew, of course, that Flash was full of shit, and he was sure Amara did, too, until he looked over at her face. She had a softened, sympathetic expression and she was smiling.
Was she seriously falling for whatever new trap Flash was laying out for her?
"I was thinking," Flash started. Peter could see where this was going and rolled his eyes, "We have a, uh, basketball game this week. You should drop by, bring your friends, Parker and them."
"Really?" Amara said, suspiciously. "You want me to bring Peter to your game?"
"He's your friend, and I respect that. And him, by the way," he added quickly. Peter scoffed and shook his head.
"Yeah, I don't think I wanna spend my Friday night in a sweaty gym, but thanks for the offer," Amara sniped.
Peter tried to hide his smirk, but it was almost impossible.
—————
Peter had agreed to photograph the cheerleaders for the school newspaper, where he had worked for a while now. He just had to photograph for the article about the upcoming basketball game and how everyone was so excited about it.
Amara agreed to come to the gym with him and sat on the bleachers watching the drama kids make some posters and banners for their next showcase, which, apparently was actually a thing that she didn't know about. Sitting in that hall made Amara realise that she really needed to get more involved in the school's extra-curricular opportunities. She remembered Liz once mentioning trying out for the Academic Decathlon. Maybe she'd do that.
The sound of shoes squeaking on the floor filled the room as basketball practice was conveniently happening at the same time.
Peter looked over at Amara after taking a few photos and aimed his camera at her. She didn't notice at first, she just looked bored. He took a few of her looking off into the distance. Then she looked over at him and laughed, he got a photo of that smile too, mouthing, "Cheerleaders. Over there," She pointed at the pyramid they were making.
Peter chuckled and shook his head as he went back to photograph them, Amara watching intently.
As he took the photos, Amara tilted her head and noticed how... cute Peter looked when he was taking photos. How his eyebrows would scrunch between his eyes in concentration and how he would constantly swap from looking with his left to his right eye.
Suddenly she saw a player jump up to throw the ball into the basket before it was intercepted and thrown in the opposite direction by Flash. The player lay down on the floor as Flash shouted, "Rejected!" Catching the attention of everyone else in the court.
The ball that had rolled away, knocked over a can of paint onto the banner that Missy Kalleback, a really sweet theatre kid, had been painting.
The girl stood up and said, "You did that on purpose, Flash!"
"No, but I should've. Better watch your back," Flash replied.
Amara rolled her eyes and walked down to where Missy was standing to help her out, but Peter got there first."Hey," he said.
He leaned down to pick the small can of paint up and stood again, "All right?"
Amara smiled at him as she came up behind Missy.
Once again, Flash threw the ball in the same direction towards Missy. Amara noticed it but was too far away to catch it. But Peter wasn't. He leant to the side, balancing on one foot as he reached with his right hand and caught the ball as it came up from behind. Amara raised her eyebrows. That had to have been his spider powers.
He brought the ball in front of him and thought to himself for a moment, Missy looking up at him in amazement.
"Give it up, Parker," Flash said, asking, only because he had finally noticed Amara standing there.
Peter looked at him and Flash extended his arms, gesturing for him to throw it at him.
Peter looked at Missy and then at Amara behind her, "Oh," he nodded, "One sec."
He held his camera out to Amara who grabbed it, quickly, smiling at him.
Peter walked into the middle of the court, holding the ball between his hands, "Why don't you take it from me?" Peter challenged, as Amara held his camera up to her face. She adjusted the aperture and zoomed out to capture the whole scene, ready to take photos.
Flash laughed, obnoxiously and walked to stand in front of Peter.
"Come on, Flash. Take it, man," One of his teammates encouraged.
Peter held the ball with one hand out to his right side, "Go ahead, take it."
When Flash reached for the ball, Peter quickly passed the ball behind his back to his other arm. Amara and some other people giggled, quietly, causing Flash to give him a death stare as he reached for it again, and Peter swapped hands again.
Now he held it up on the right, in the air for him to take. But when Flash reached up to try and grab it once more Peter jumped up, moving the ball in a circle over Flash's head, which he followed, also turning around in a circle. Thinking Peter had thrown it back, he turned his back to him and Peter bounced the ball off of Flash's back, catching it once again. Amara clicked the shutter and captured the moment. She pulled the small lever, moving the film on.
The gym erupted in exclamations of awe as Peter smiled back at Flash, who was growing more frustrated by the minute. Suddenly Peter pretended to throw the ball aggressively at his face, causing Flash to duck out of the way. Another chorus of "Oohs" and "Ahs" erupted and Flash looked down, tired of the embarrassment as his teammates laughed at him.
Peter looked at Flash, "Just take it."
When Flash didn't advance, Peter said, "Alright, how about this?" He covered his eyes with his other hand and playfully opened his fingers, allowing him to see through, then closed them again. "Alright? How about that?" He said turning his whole head away, hand still covering his eyes."
Flash, annoyed, walked over to take the ball out of his hand, but it was almost like it had stuck to his palm.
Amara's mouth opened in shock. He was using his sticky... fingers!
Flash put both of his hands on the ball and pulled, still unable to get the ball to leave Peter's grasp. He tugged harder, once more and Amara took another photo.
"Come on, Flash!"
"Flash, stop playing with him, man!"
"Take it from him!" His teammates were shouting encouragement, confused as to why Flash hadn't managed to take the ball, yet.
"Come on, Flash, take it," Peter encouraged, teasing him.
Flash let go of the ball, anger and determination in his eyes.
"Come on, do it, Flash!"
"Stop playing, man!"
Flash walked slowly, backwards.
"Come on, what are you doing?"
Peter bounced the ball on the floor once.
"What are you doing man?"
Peter continued bouncing the ball, challenging Flash, provoking him.
"Alright, bring it! Come on, Parker! Come on!" Flash shouted, standing in front of Peter blocking his way to the hoop.
Peter smirked and dribbled the ball, quickly, and surged forward. He pushed Flash down on the floor, out of the way and jumped up, ready to dunk the ball into the hoop. Amara stood on standby, waiting with the camera, finger on the shutter.
Peter slammed the ball into the hoop and Amara took the photo just as the backboard completely shattered into a million pieces.
When Peter landed on the floor, the shattered glass landed around him and he still held what was left of the hoop in his hands. He looked up as an expression that clearly said, Oh, Shit! covered his features.
Flash looked up from the floor in surprise and Amara scrunched her eyebrows in confusion and nodded once in acceptance before running forwards to Peter's side.
She didn't make it in time, however, before Coach Wilson walked into the gym and hurriedly escorted Peter out of the room.
Amara looked around at the people in the room who were still having a hard time believing what had just happened, before quickly grabbing Peter's camera and their bags and rushing out of the gym, following closely behind.
—————
Aunt May had to travel down to the school to discuss Peter's behaviour on the basketball court. She was pissed, to put it lightly.
When the meeting was finished, Peter walked with his Aunt May through the school halls.
"They're not gonna make us pay for the backboard, you know that-" Peter started.
"I don't care about the backboard!" May interrupted, angrily. She stopped at the corner of the hallway. "Was that true?"
"What?"
"What I heard in there, just now. Did you humiliate that boy?"
"Yeah, I did," Peter said. "But-"
"But What?" May demanded.
"-this guy deserved it," Peter finished.
"Did he?" May challenged.
"Yeah," Peter nodded.
"Is he the kid? The one that picks on you?"
Peter sighed. "Is he?" May repeated.
"Yeah, yeah, but..."
"So all this is about getting even? If so, you must feel pretty good about yourself, now, right?" After hearing nothing from Peter, May asked, "Am I right or wrong?" Peter scoffed and looked down. "Yeah, I thought so," May finished.
"I'm sorry, May," Peter said.
"It's fine, just- just don't pull anything like this again. Understood?"
"Yeah."
"Okay. Good."
"Am I grounded?" Peter asked.
"No, not for a first offence. You're let off with a warning. This time," May warned.
Amara had just made her way to the opposite corner of the hallway, watching nervously from the distance. May noticed her first.
"That doesn't mean you won't be punished, though."
"What do you mean?" Peter asked. "What does that mean?"
May nodded to Amara, "She looks familiar."
Peter turned around and saw Amara turn around to look somewhere else in an attempt to seem inconspicuous, but failing.
"She's the girl on your computer," May said, smirking.
Peter shook his head, desperately, "No. May."
"Yeah," May nodded.
May said, louder this time, for the whole hallway to hear, addressing Amara, "He's got you on his computer. I'm his probation officer."
May patted his shoulder before walking away.
Peter followed her for a second in an attempt to get away from the situation, only to realise that May had walked out of the school, completely.
Peter laughed, awkwardly to himself, before turning around to face Amara, who was slowly walking towards him, "Okay!"
"She's a character. That's my Aunt. She's a pathological liar. She thought you were someone else," Peter attempted to cover himself up so he didn't suffer any more embarrassment, especially now that she was standing in front of his face and would be able to see the red in his face.
"Oh man, you don't have me on your computer?" Amara asked, feigning disappointment.
"Well, yeah, I mean. I developed those photos, you were in those photos, remember?" Peter said, nervously.
"Right," Amara said.
"So... it must have been on one of your..." he looked back, "I was touching up stuff," he said, while motioning his hand like he was shading with a pencil.
"Touching up stuff?" Amara asked, smirking.
"Come on," Peter said as he breathed out a chuckle. Amara looked down and laughed, too. "I was- I was- I'm not gonna answer that," he said, looking away, almost blushing.
Amara was still smiling widely from laughing when she asked, "Did you get expelled?"
"No, no. I didn't get expelled. I got community service."
Amara nodded. She reached into her bag and pulled out his camera, "Here. Probably don't want to lose this. I caught the exact moment the backboard broke. Pretty cool."
"You did? That's cool."
"I'm not encouraging that kind of behaviour, though, just to be clear!" She put her hands up in surrender and Peter smiled.
She turned around her as if she was about to leave but instantly turned back around to face him, when Peter said, "Um, so you want to, uh... I don't know...? Uh..."
"Want to what?" Amara asked, innocently.
"I don't know... just, uh..." he bit his bottom lip and looked at her, "Um... I don't know, we could, uh... I don't know, uh..." he breathed in once again, "or we could do something else... or we could... if you don't feel like-"
"Yeah," Amara jumped in.
"-we could... Yeah?"
"Yeah, either one," Amara said, grinning.
Peter's face broke into a huge smile, "Really?"
"Sure," Amara replied.
Peter froze for a second, "Okay, alright. Good, sounds good."
"Cool," Amara whispered.
"Okay," Peter nodded. When they both didn't move, Peter clarified, "I can't right now, I can't right now."
"Yeah, no," Amara agreed.
"I'm just so busy, right now."
"I know, me too."
"But, uh, maybe..."
"Yeah, just, you know..."
"Some other..."
"Time," Amara finished for him as she walked backwards, away from him.
Peter laughed, "Okay. Alright."
He stood there, watching her walk away for a while.
Amara turned around to look at him, once more, before she turned the corner. Peter looked up and spun around, so happy about what had just happened. He skipped away through the halls and turned around one more time to catch one more, slight glimpse of her as she walked away.
—————
The rest of the week passed by pretty quickly.
On Monday evening, Amara and Tony had finally managed to integrate FRIDAY into some contact lenses, which now belonged to Amara and she wore them every day.
On Tuesday, Steve had finally learned who Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn were and Amara had learned how to use a telegraph machine, which they had Fury dig up from some old Shield warehouses.
By Tuesday evening, Amara had no energy left and went to bed at around 8 o'clock, hoping to get a large amount of sleep. Unfortunately, her plan was interrupted by that same dream she had a few months ago. With Ultron, the Chitauri and Loki, only this time, the Chitauri had kind of absorbed together and morphed into a small... book? A red book with a dark red star on the cover.
When Amara looked closer, she saw a person, but it was too dark to see their face, walking forward and claiming the book, holding it tight as though someone could take it any time. It looked as though this person had helped Ultron or Ultron had helped them, Amara couldn't be sure, she only knew that they had formed some kind of alliance, and that can't be good.
What is going on? I though Ultron was gone. Amara's dream was different this time, last time she was actually a person in the dream, this time it was like she was watching the events unfold from behind a TV.
She had to find out what the book meant. She had to find that man. If he was connected to Ultron in any way, then everyone was in danger.
—————
Amara jolted awake and checked her surroundings, she was safe in her bed at Avengers Tower. She lifted her hand up to her bedside table, emanating a glow from her palms as she glanced at the clock: 2:57.
When she saw this, Amara knew she was getting no more sleep tonight, so she got up and made her way to her father's lab to see if he had gone to sleep yet.
He hadn't.
"Hey kiddo, what are you doing up still, don't you have school tomorrow?"
"Yeah, dad, I went to sleep I've just woken up."
Tony checked his watch, tapped it and looked back up at her, his face plastered in confusion, "It's 3 in the morning."
"Yeah."
"Yeah? So what happened?"
Amara sighed, "I- I had this weird dream, and it felt so real."
Tony stopped what he was doing and moved over to where his daughter was, "How real?"
"like it was some kind of warning."
"What kind of dream?"
"The Ultron kind," Amara watched as her fathers face fell and while he tried his best to hide it, she could see the brief glimpse of fear in his eyes.
"Dad? Are you one hundred percent sure Ultron's gone? That his programming is completely destroyed?"
Tony's face went blank for a moment as he hesitated, "...yes."
"Dad," Amara is awful at lying to her father, and similarly, Tony was also awful at lying to her, "Ultron is gone, right?"
He didn't answer and Amara just watched Tony Stark scramble to his computer to type some stuff into it.
"Dad?"
He looked up, finally acknowledging her and breathing a small sigh of relief, "Yeah, I heard you the first time, just ignored you. It's fine, Ultron's not a problem."
"Kind of seemed like a problem just a second ago."
"No it's fine trust me."
"We'll you're not exactly known for being the most trustworthy person... just tell me that Ultron is one hundred percent gone with no chance of coming back and that will put my mind at ease."
Tony put his hand behind his neck, "Well, about that, this seems like a great time to bring up something..."
Amara widened her eyes in realisation, "No... Dad, are you kidding me?! You didn't get rid of Ultron."
"What?! No! But it's nice to know how little faith you have in me, thank you!"
"Well then what is it?"
"After Vision destroyed the last Ultron bot, his subconscious wasn't gone, it was scattered across the meta verse. And I tried to destroy it, but I couldn't risk his programming to come back online. I tried everything, trust me, and I'm still trying, but Ultron is, essentially, a program, a code, and you can't destroy a coded program, once it's been discovered and created, you can't uncreate it. It's there, forever."
Amara scrunched her eyebrows, trying to understand what her father was saying, "Are you telling me that there's no way get rid of Ultron for good? That he's always gonna be there, and you didn't tell the team? Are you kidding me? This is where it started, Tony, you didn't tell anyone!"
Amara's father winced at her use of his name instead of dad, which he had grown accustomed to lately, but he replied, quickly, "I didn't tell anyone, then, because I was arrogant and didn't care about the consequences of my actions, I didn't tell them now, because there is so much trauma there, and these people don't need to relive that. And I don't want them to. Besides, I don't need to tell them about something that will only stress them, out when we have it under control."
Amara raised her eyebrow, "We?"
"Uh, yeah! Me and you."
"Dad, who's we? Because I didn't know about this before today, and it's clear someone did." After hearing her dad's silence, Amara tried guessing, "Who is it? Bruce? Nat? Steve?"
Tony hesitated, "...All of the above? Among others..."
"Others? Who's others?"
"...Vision, Barton and Laura because he tells her everything, apparently, the Black Panther, because they have the last of the vibranium on the planet, Thor, Jane, because she can help track his activity and now you."
"So... everybody. Everybody knew, except me, wow, really makes you feel special."
"No, not really, there are loads of people who don't know and you know before them."
"Yeah, I guess Pietro doesn't know."
"Oh, no. Wanda and Pietro know, I forgot to list them."
"Pietro knew?! And he didn't tell me!"
"Well, he wasn't supposed to, and he followed his orders so that's good. Also he only found out a little while before you went to school, so he didn't actually have time to tell you."
"Fine, I'll let it go, it's not that important. How can you be so sure you have it under control."
"This system is tracking him at all times, if any of them get a little too close and alarm will sound and we'll use electromagnetic pulses to force them away from each other, trust me, there's no way he's getting out."
"Okay. I trust you. Sorry I got angry at you."
"It's alright, kid."
—————
"You dick!" Amara shouted as she used her powers to knock Pietro Maximoff over, before he could retaliate, "How could you not tell me about Ultron?!"
Pietro was still recovering from hitting the wall when he said, "Ultron? You know?"
"Yes! I know and I found out from my dad not my best friend who is supposed to tell me everything!"
"Like you tell me everything! You haven't told me anything since your first week of school, you have a new best friend!"
"What? No, you're my best friend! I tell you everything!"
"Really? You tell me everything? What about all the times you've met Spiderman? Not to mention, you know who he is and you didn't tell me!"
"I can't tell anyone who he is!"
"Okay, fine, what about your new friend, the one you had a sleepover with? You never told me about her!"
Amara blinked and said quieter, "Well, what do you want to know?"
"I don't know... nothing, actually."
"Okay," Amara said.
"Okay," Pietro said.
They sat in silence for a short while until Amara said, "I'm sorry, I guess I have been kind of distant and I should have worked harder to keep you updated on things, but you also should have done the same. We're both as shitty as each other, agreed?"
"Agreed."
"Good, okay. Do you want to bake some cookies...?" Amara asked uncertainly.
"Yes, right now, let's go!" Pietro grabbed Amara's hand and put her on his back as he sped them towards the kitchen, Amara holding on tight and squealing in fear of bumping into something.
(A/N: Something big is coming in the next chapter... I won't say anything specific but we're starting to get to where we need to be, story-wise. See if you can guess where this is heading...)