Another One Bites The Dust - Queen
Steve walks warily down the street
With the brim pulled way down low
Ain't no sound but the sound of his feet
Machine guns ready to go
Are you ready? Hey, are you ready for this?
Are you hanging on the edge of your seat?
Out of the doorway, the bullets rip
To the sound of the beat, yeah
Amara woke up on Friday morning, still happy and completely confused about the events that happened at Peter's the other day. What had gotten into her? Lately she had been finding the boy extremely adorable, and it made it hard to keep lying to him.
But what could she do? She couldn't possible ignore one of her only friends, but she couldn't tell him the truth either. Amara was stuck.
And Amara did think about telling Peter the truth, telling him everything, in fact, she was seriously considering this.
The thought was still on her mind when she arrived home that night, ready to relax on a nice, long, weekend. She walked into the kitchen after quickly depositing her stuff into her room, and saw Steve and Nat, staring, intensely at each other. Steve was holding onto Nat's arm to stop her from leaving and it looked like they were in the middle of an intense conversation.
Amara cleared her throat, "What's going on in here?"
"Nothing," Nat said, still looking at Steve until she eventually shifted her focus towards Amara. "So we heard about your friend."
Amara's heart stopped, "how did you-?"
"When can we meet them?" Steve asked.
Amara was still looking over in shock, "What is going on? How-" Amara paused, in realisation, "Pietro. That little shit!"
Amara stomped off in determination to find Pietro Maximoff and have him explain what he has just done.
When she found him, sitting on the sofa, eating popcorn, she snatched his popcorn away from him and used her powers to throw him off the couch. "What did you do?!" Amara asked, clearly frustrated at her friend's significant lack of ability when it comes to keeping secrets.
Pietro threw his hands up, "Before you get mad, it wasn't my fault! Wanda forced it out of me; she read my mind, I tried really hard, I promise!"
"So then how do Steve and Nat know?" Amara asked.
"Agent Romanoff was in the corner of the room when Wanda found out. "She must have told Steve. They've been really close lately."
"Yeah I noticed that, too. Do you think there's something going on?"
"Maybe. I think you should-" Pietro started.
"Stop distracting me!" Amara said, angrily, playfully pushing him. "You know how much I love getting involved in other people's shit! Who else knows?"
"Well, Natasha told Steve and Bruce, but they didn't tell anyone. Wanda told Vision and Clint, but Vision didn't tell anyone because the only person he would have told was Wanda. Clint told Laura and Laura told Pepper who didn't tell Tony because they're on a break, but she didn't tell anyone either. Laura told Jane too who told Thor, and that's it, I think."
"So everyone," Amara said, "thanks, Peepee. Does my dad know?"
"No, Stark doesn't know, at least, last time I checked he didn't know."
"That's reassuring. When was the last time you checked?"
"About 2 hours ago?"
"Okay, maybe he'll be less annoyed if I'm the one to tell him."
Suddenly Tony's voice appeared in the doorway of the living area, "Talking about me?"
"No! You'd love that, though," Amara quipped, but then silently scolded herself, she had to keep him in a good mood.
"Maximoff? Do you mind? I want to talk to my daughter," Tony gestured for Pietro to leave.
"Sure, Bye," he said to Amara.
"Bye," Amara held up her hand to wave, but he had already sped out of the room by then.
"So, there's a rumour going round."
Shit. I'm dead.
"One of your new friends is aware of your... situation?"
Well what was the use in lying now? Amara nodded and said, "Yeah... but she won't tell anyone, she-"
"Just answer my questions, okay? I just need to get a few things straight," he pretended to think, pacing the room. "You blew your cover. You willingly told a person the truth. You revealed the mission, and your relationship to me to this person. You directly disobeyed me. You revealed your superhero identity to her. And let's not forget that you have been continuing this for the last few days and didn't report a change in your mission. Hell, you didn't even come to me as a daughter to tell her father what's going on in her life." Tony scoffed.
"Sorry," Amara looked at her feet, trying to figure out if he was mad, disappointed or even if he cared at all. Tony was hard to read. "Yeah, I did all that, and I'm extremely sorry. But MJ is my best friend and if I didn't tell her, and I kept hiding stuff from her, then I was gonna lose her friendship. And I did leave some details out. She doesn't know who Spiderman is." Tony narrowed his eyes, thinking about what to say. Amara continued quickly, one last desperate attempt to convince him, "And if you're mad, then I'm sorry to be the one to tell you that you hold the record time between becoming a superhero and revealing your identity to, not just one person, the whole world."
Tony raised his eyebrow at his daughter's bravery and candour and he thought for a moment longer. "Alright, fine. You win! As usual." Amara smiled in victory and then Tony added, "Can I, at least, meet this friend?"
Amara frowned, "...why?" She asked suspiciously.
"Relax, I'm not gonna send her to prison or kill her or anything, I just want to meet my daughters first real friend."
"Pietro's my friend," Amara pointed out.
"Well, yeah, but you only became friends with him because you trained together. This is your first friend that you went out, by yourself, and made."
"Fine, I guess."
"Cool. Invite her over. Maybe sometime next week? Let me know the day and I'll make an appearance."
Amara smiled at how supportive and excited her father was about the situation. She definitely wasn't expecting it. If she had, she wouldn't have kept it a secret for so long. Although, Amara should have learned a long time ago not to underestimate Tony Stark. "Yeah I'll text her."
"Okay," then Tony walked out of the living room, almost as if nothing had ever happened, and if Amara hadn't been smiling so wide, she would have believed it too.
She turned back to face the TV and flicked through the channels, attempting to find something interesting, or worth stopping at. She flicked past the shopping channel, the cooking channel, sports and finally news. On Fox News channel, Amara saw a flash of red, causing her to stop on the channel.
She knew that suit anywhere, only it wasn't the same. Spiderman swung from building to building, the camera trailing helplessly behind, trying its best to keep him in the frame. But from the shaky and unstable filming, Amara caught a glimpse of something that made her drop the remote and lean forward to get a better look.
Peter's suit was still red, but he now had blue joggers and blue sleeves. Amara gasped as she remembered their conversation, weeks ago:
"What's your favourite colour?" The hero asked Amara.
"Anything pretty I've ever seen in my life has been blue, so I started to associate it with... happy memories? I don't know."
Oh. My. God. Amara gazed in wonder at the screen in front of her, her mouth hanging open.
Could he have done that for the reason she thinks? Did he change his costume for her? If he did, Amara realised she had to distance herself from him, slightly. If he's forming that kind of attachment to her, then she is definitely giving him the wrong idea. But, she's probably just getting ahead of herself. There's no way that he would base his entire superhero persona on one short conversation with her... Is there?
"What happened?" Pietro asked walking back into the room, cautiously looking around for any sign of Amara's father.
"Relax, he's gone. He invited MJ over. Next week." Amara said, turning off the television and getting up, still stuck in her thoughts.
"Really? That was unexpected," Pietro said, not noticing that Amara had gotten up until she left the room.
On her way out, she said, "I'm gonna go text MJ. Tell her she's been officially invited over. She's gonna freak out."
"Oh, okay," Pietro said, shrugging his shoulders as he reached for the TV remote.
Amara was already out of the door and en route to her bedroom by the time Pietro switched it on and flicked to a different channel.
Amara picked up her phone when she entered her room and opened up her messages with MJ. 'Hey, so my dad found out,' she wrote.
A few minutes later, when Amara was taking her textbooks out of her bag, he phone buzzed with MJ's reply: 'Found out?'
Amara picked up her phone and typed, 'He found out that I told you everything.'
Amara watched as the three dots to show that MJ was typing appeared on her screen. 'Is he mad?', 'Is he gonna show up to my house and kill me to keep me quiet?'
Amara laughed, 'Yeah, he's on his way rn, he just got his suit.'
'Really?!'
'No! He was surprisingly chill about the whole thing.' 'He actually invited you over for dinner' 'Sometime next week?'
MJ didn't reply for a little while, but Amara assumed that she was just in shock.
'Tony Stark. Invited me over to his tower. Where the Avengers are? Am I gonna meet the Avengers?'
'Yeah, probably. So are you in?'
'Ummmm, let me just think about it...YES!'
Amara laughed again, 'Thursday? My dad has a work thing on Friday.'
'Yes' 'Ahhhh! I'm so excited!'
Amara smiled at her friend's excitement, then put her phone back down on her bedside table and reached for the hair tie to put her hair into a bun.
—————
Thursday finally approached and Amara was now watching as MJ made her way towards her as she waited outside of the school.
"Hey, let's go," Amara said, gesturing for MJ to follow her.
Amara spent the whole journey attempting to give MJ a brief introduction to her family, so that she wasn't too flustered when she meets them for the first time. And when they finally arrived at the tower, Amara was confident in MJ and her theoretical ability to keep her cool.
They walked through the lobby, straight to the private elevators and Amara scanned her hand, looked at the camera and activated the lift by saying her name.
"Unauthorised visitor in elevator," FRIDAY boomed from the speakers.
"She's with me. This is MJ. Mark her as an authorised visitor from now on FRI," Amara said.
FRIDAY welcomed MJ, "Enjoy your visit at the tower Miss Jones."
"This is awesome!" MJ said. "Does Tony Stark know that we're in the building, right now?"
Amara shrugged, "Probably."
"So cool," MJ said to herself, then looked up at Amara, "Not that I'm a nerd, like Ned and Peter, but meeting superheroes is really cool. Like really cool. And even... freaking, Beyoncé would be excited."
"Relax, I'm not saying anything. I was pretty excited when I met him for the first time, too," Amara remembered her small face lighting up when she saw her hero walk through the doors to meet her. Little did that girl know, that hero was going to be her dad.
The elevator doors opened on the main floor. They stepped out and Amara said, "Welcome to Avengers Tower."
The room was massive, almost three times the size of the school gym, with the far wall made completely out of glass, looking down at the city beneath them. There was a bar in the far right corner and four large sofas in the middle of the room. A large flat screen TV was hung up on the wall and the room was decorated with minimalistic furniture and art pieces of the Avengers, MJ assumed they were old... family photos? Is that what Amara was with the Avengers? Family?
"I can't believe I'm here. I can't believe I'm standing in the Avengers Tower!" MJ said, turning to Amara, "Thank you for bringing me here."
"Oh, shut up! You're my best friend! Next time we'll have a sleepover," Amara said.
They put down their bags in Amara's bedroom, which MJ absolutely loved. "You have a book corner that looks like a mini library!"
"Wait till you see our actual library... it was my idea to set one up. Well, me and my dad, except he only wanted boring, science books and dictionaries. I wanted the fun stuff," Amara laughed, "Speaking of my dad, FRIDAY? Can you let Mr Stark that we're on our way down to see him?"
"Yes Miss Stark."
MJ looked speechless as she followed Amara out of the room. And she was frozen in place when she caught a glimpse of Captain America, himself walking down the hallway. "Oh my god! It's Captain America! What do I do?"
"Just stay calm. I'll introduce you!"
"What?! Hey, Amara, no-"
"Stevie! Come meet my friend!"
MJ's eyes widened when Steve Rogers made his way towards them. She watched as her best friend and Captain America hugged with familiarity, and all of a sudden, the situation became a lot more real. Her best friend was an Avenger, and Tony Stark's daughter, who all of the Avengers on a first name basis.
"Hi, Michelle, right? I'm Steve, it's nice to meet you," Amara watched as Steve extended his hand for MJ to shake, but she was too awestruck to say anything.
Luckily, Amara caught on and jumped in to save her from too much embarrassment, "She's just a little shy. It's her first time meeting a superhero, so, she's a little starstruck."
"I'm sorry, for being annoying, it's just, I'm a huge fan! I mean I see your orientation videos in Gym class all the time, but you're so different in person. Although I guess they were filmed years ago, so it doesn't really count, and you didn't know who I was, so. And now I'm rambling, I'm sorry, I do that when I'm nervous, or excited, and I'm feeling both of those emotions to the extreme right now."
"No worries, any friend of Amara's is friend of ours. Enjoy your visit, hopefully we'll all be able to properly meet you," he replied, smiling at MJ, then he turned to Amara, "Do you know where Romanoff is? I haven't seen her all day?"
"She took a personal day, something about fixing things. I think it had something to do with Bruce, he left a little afterwards to the same place," Amara watched Steve's face fall, slightly and she grew slightly suspicious, "Why, what's wrong?"
"Nothing, we just had some training to catch up on, that's all."
"Okay..."
"Michelle! Are you staying for dinner?" Steve said, clearly trying to change the subject to avoid any further questions.
"Uh, no, not today, my mom needs me home by 6:30."
"Well then, I'll see you soon." Steve held out his hand for her to shake, once again, and this time, MJ took it. "It was nice to meet you, Michelle."
"Thank you St- Captain America... sir."
"Call me Steve, please."
"Okay." MJ said, quietly.
Steve walked away, in the opposite direction that the girls were walking in and MJ turned to Amara, excitedly. "I can't believe I just embarrassed myself in front of Captain America!"
"You didn't embarrass yourself! He liked you, I can tell, besides, it's hard to be disliked by Steve Rogers, he's just too good. My dad's the one you have to worry about..."
"Really?! Oh god! Amara, why would you say that!?"
"No, I'm kidding, I swear! He's excited to meet you, too. You're my first friend and, despite what you might think, he is just like a regular dad who's excited to meet his kids friends, and also nervous to make a good impression."
"He's nervous? To meet me?!" MJ asked.
"Yeah, he'd never show it, though. Neither should you. Just pretend you're meeting Ned's parents or Peter's Aunt. It'll be that easy, I swear!" Amara held up her hand and placed the other on her heart.
MJ didn't even have time to say "Okay" as they approached Tony Stark's lab and walked inside.
Tony Stark was sat at his desk, looking through some files when they entered the room. Amara could tell that MJ was uncomfortable, she was no doubt worrying about whether she's seeing something she's not supposed to, so Amara reassured her, "Don't worry, they're just some suit designs."
Tony looked up and noticed Amara standing with her friend, and he stood up straighter, clearing his throat, "Hey, kiddo, and your friend..."
"MJ," Amara said, helping her father out.
"Right! MJ! Nice to meet you, I'm Tony Stark, as you probably know, Amara's dad. And you know... everything?" Tony asked Amara.
"Yep, except Spider-Man's identity, she knows everything," Amara replied.
"Okay. Well, I'm sorry to say this, but we're gonna have to kill you, the information you possess is far too valuable to take the risk," Tony said.
Amara glanced over at MJ who, had turned a sickly pale colour. Amara quickly said, "He's just kidding, don't worry," then she glared at her father, "it was a bad joke."
"Uh, yeah, sorry, I was messing with you, obviously I would not kill you. I'm a superhero. Although it would have been nice to know you had a little faith me, you know, just-"
"Okay, let's stop right there!" Amara said, holding up her hands. She turned to her father, "Dad. Didn't you say you were gonna give MJ a tour of the tower?" She said in an attempt to keep the conversation moving.
"Right, yeah. Let's go."
(A/N: Okay, I know this chapter took a while, but I had my reasons, and on top of those reasons, I also had an extreme case of writers block. The chapter was originally less than 1000 words, which isn't great, for my standards. So I had to go through and try to edit some bits, and maybe add some too. The additions including MJ's first visit to the tower, which I wasn't going to include, it was just going to be something that I skipped over, but what are your thoughts? Is it a fun and harmless addition, or should I leave out unnecessary aspects of the story, to keep the main plot moving forward?)