West Coast - Lana Del Rey
I can see my baby swingin'
His Parliament's on fire and his hands are up
On the balcony and I'm singin'
Ooh, baby, ooh, baby, I'm in love.
I can see my sweet boy swayin'
He's crazy, Cubano, como yo la-la
On the balcony and I'm sayin'
Move baby, move baby, I'm in love.
Arriving back at the tower was nerve-wracking, especially because Amara's father was waiting for her, an annoyed look on his face.
As the hatch opened, Amara saw the Hulk being escorted out, in handcuffs. She hoped that that may distract her father for a second, but he continued to stare straight at her, eyes narrowed.
Shit. Shit. Shit!
Amara stopped walking when she reached the top of the ramp. Steve put his hand on her shoulder, urging her forwards. "Come on. I'm not getting in more trouble because of you."
She groaned, knowing how much trouble she was in, just from the look on Tony's face.
"Well, well, well, if it isn't my disobedient daughter," he said, crossing his arms.
"Dad, before you say anything, I'm really sorry and I messed up, I know I did, but I only did it because Steve said he needed me."
Steve's eyes, widened.
"Oh, Steve said that huh?" Tony said, looking at Steve, accusingly.
"Hey! Don't bring me into this! I'm leaving," Steve said, holding his hands up and walking away.
Tony led Amara back to his lab, where he had all his important conversations.
"So, Steve needed you is the excuse you're going for? What about when I said I needed you to stay out of the field?" Tony said to his daughter, waiting for an answer.
"I know. And I made a mistake. But you can't stop me from going on missions. I came to you when I was six because I thought that you, of all people, would understand wanting to help people, you promised, no matter what."
"No, I remember you asking to be my sidekick, and me declining, multiple times. The only promise I made was to help you train. That means you don't do any field work until I decide you're ready."
"Yeah and I train every day! For hours. But I have to go on missions. To get experience. Because that's where the real training happens. And I know you're worried about me, but I can handle it!"
"Amara this isn't about your protection, you're perfectly capable of that."
"Then what is this about?"
"It's about all the emotional trauma and pain that I can't protect you from."
"I'm fine! And as I said, I can handle myself," Amara argued.
"What? like you've handled everything so well, already? What? With your little failed attempt at proving yourself, today? And let's not forget Lagos!" Tony fired back.
Amara was getting angry, balling up her fists. How could he mention Lagos? He knew how much that affected her. "Lagos wasn't my fault. And as far as this mission went, we got samples, we got info, we took down the base."
"The base with only a dozen agents protecting it? The mission where you failed to bring Bruce back? He's stuck, Amara! He's stuck and we don't know how long he's gonna be stuck! And you think the mission was successful?! I hate to break it to you, but a successful mission is a mission where the positives outweigh the negatives. Now I know you're good at math, 'cause I taught you myself."
"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.
Ned chimed in, "I happen to think, that even though he's not an official Avenger, Spider-Man's pretty cool."
All of a sudden, Amara realised something. Her eyes widened in stress, "Wait. Time out. What day is it?"
MJ looked up, "Friday. Why?"
"Shit! Shit. Shit!" Amara exclaimed.
"What? What happened?" Peter asked, concerned.
"I just remembered that I'm still grounded and I have to be somewhere today," Amara groaned, laying her head on the table.
"Well, is it important?" Ned asked, "why don't you reschedule?"
"You don't understand, Ned I have no way to reschedule. It's... ugh! It's complicated."
Amara looked at MJ, pleading.
MJ cleared her throat, "Okay, we're gonna go to the bathroom, real quick. Be back in five."
As they walked away, Amara heard Ned say, "Is it just me, or does it feel like they're hiding something from us?"
"Everyone has secrets, Ned," Peter shrugged, just as Amara went out of earshot. He lay his head down on the table.
Peter knew what Amara had forgotten. He knew exactly what she had forgotten. The only problem, now, was figuring out if she was still going to make it.
—————
MJ and Amara had made it to the bathroom and checked all of the stalls to make sure they were empty, before MJ said, "What's going on?"
"I was supposed to meet Spiderman tonight. But I'm grounded, Dad will never let me go," Amara said.
"But if it's for your mission?..."
"No, he said no more mission stuff, either. At least while I'm grounded," Amara sighed.
MJ remained silent for a while and when Amara looked over at her, she saw a thoughtful expression take over her face. "What? What is it? Do you have an idea?"
"Yeah... but. If this goes wrong, you're gonna be in a lot of trouble. How badly do you need to see him?"
Amara breathed in - a determined look in her eyes.
"What's the idea?"
—————
It was 3:23 pm and Amara was back at the tower.
When she walked in, she made a big deal about being left alone and how she was taking dinner to her room, for later.
She also asked to not be disturbed by anyone, and that she was just going to get some homework done and maybe, get a nap in, somewhere.
That seemed to do the trick, especially considering that she had acted exactly the same every night this week; Amara may be smart, but she was a Stark, after all. And Stark ego was not something easily diminished.
At 4:06 pm, Amara began carrying out MJ's master plan.
She quickly sneaked out of her bedroom, forcing FRIDAY to remain silent, and made her way slowly to the Avenger's weapon vault - or gadget vault, as Steve liked to call it (he claims it's less violent).
She disabled all the security cameras, forcing them to replay a loop of an empty room, and she entered the code, discreetly stopping any notifications from travelling to her dad's lab, telling him his grounded daughter had found her way to the weapon's vault.
She swiftly moved through the aisles, looking for one thing in particular and when her eyes finally landed on it, she quickly picked it up, and made her way back up to her bedroom, successfully avoiding any hiccups, as of yet.
"FRIDAY, get up the footage of my room that I told you to take in case of emergencies," Amara said.
Her father had never put security cameras in anyone's room, for obvious reasons, but Amara installed these ones, only for one day, or her simply walking around, playing video games, or reading, just in case she would ever need them. Little did she know, then, that she'd be using it against her father.
She plugged in the B.A.R.F machine that her father had presented to those MIT students a couple of weeks ago.
"FRIDAY, upload the footage to this, and let it convert to the right format," Amara said.
"Yes, Miss Stark. This will take a moment."
"Great, let me get ready for my..., not dinner date," she said, walking into her wardrobe.
She picked out a casual black dress and pinned her, already curled, hair back from her face, with little butterfly clips. She wore lots of blush with her signature, winged liner and pink-stained lips.
Amara grabbed a small bag and put her mascara, lip gloss and phone inside it, closing it and taking one final glance in the mirror, she smiled, satisfied with her appearance, before walking back into her bedroom.
"How we looking FRI?"
"93% complete. Estimated three minutes left on the conversion."
Amara nodded and looked at her clock, beside her bed - 4:41 pm - and she decided to message MJ, updating her.
She wrote, "hey, just finished getting ready. Plan's working so far. Three more minutes left for the upload into the machine, and then I'm outta here."
It didn't take long for MJ to reply, "Good luck!", "And remember to check before sneaking back in, you don't want to be caught out at the last second."
"Don't worry, it'll be fine.", "Sneaking out was the hard part."
She put her phone away when she heard FRIDAY say, "The conversion is complete, Miss Stark."
"Great. Start the simulation," Amara moved back towards her balcony to examine the machine at work.
She saw a hologram of herself sitting on her bed, reading a book and then getting up to switch her music on.
It felt weird watching herself do regular things just a few feet away from her, but she quickly got over it and headed to the balcony, closed her door and jumped off the edge, making sure that the wind didn't mess up her hair or makeup.
She looked back at the tower as she shot off in the opposite direction, This isn't gonna end well. Fuck it, I've come this far.
—————
Spiderman was already waiting on the roof before she got there. She glanced up at him and saw him looking ahead, trying to find her. She smiled at him, forgetting all about how she snuck out behind her, already pissed, father's back.
To be perfectly honest, Amara had no idea why she was there. Why she was going against everyone back at home? Why she was putting her relationship with her dad at risk? What was all of this for? The mission? Proving herself? Spiderman?... Peter?
"You gonna stay up there all night, or are we gonna get dinner?" Amara shouted up at him, smiling.
He looked down at her and jumped off the roof, landing in front of her, "Hey."
"Hey."
After standing in awkward silence for a short while, Amara cleared her throat and said, "So how's this gonna work? I go in, order a takeout and we sit on the curb and eat?"
He laughed, "I had something else in mind..."
"...okay."
"Can I-" he gestured to her and Amara nodded.
He wrapped his arm around her waist and looked down at her, "This okay?"
"Yeah. Just don't ruin my hair, okay?" she joked.
"I'll do my best, but, I can't make any promises," he shrugged.
Amara playfully shoved him, "Shut up!" Then wrapped her arms around his neck, and she heard his breath falter.
And they launched into the air.
Amara wasn't sure how long they were swinging from building to building, but it can't have been more than a few minutes.
They landed on a roof that Amara had never seen before. It had two layers to the roof, and they currently stood on the lower level.
"I thought we were getting dinner?" Amara asked, confused.
"We are." Amara raised her eyebrow and he said, "Just close your eyes."
Amara sighed but closed them.
She felt his hands on her shoulders, leading her forwards and up a small flight of stairs, "Careful here. There are steps."
She tripped over the last step and stumbled, being caught in his arms, quickly, "Thanks."
They took a few more steps forwards and then she felt his hands leave her shoulders. "Can I open my eyes, now?"
"Just a second," she heard shuffling and, what sounded like switches being flicked on.
She felt his presence approach her once again and settled in the area next to her. She felt his hands on her arms, again. "Okay... now."
She opened her eyes, instantly, but it took her a few seconds to register what she was seeing. She gasped and smiled.
Peter had laid out a picnic blanket with paper plates, cutlery and glasses. There were fairy lights hanging from the poles surrounding it and he had tied up a small canopy with his web fluid.
"It's... beautiful," Amara smiled looking up at the lights. "When did you do this?"
"This morning. Now I can't cook, so, I got takeout from the Chinese place down the road. You like Chinese food, right?"
She smiled and nodded, "Yeah."
They sat down and Spiderman opened the boxes of food and put some on her plate. "Thanks," she said.
Once they had settled down and started eating, Spiderman lifted his mask up, just under his nose so that he could eat. Amara quickly looked up, "Just to clarify, this isn't a date, right?" She couldn't risk starting a relationship with someone who was her mission, it would never end well.
"Oh no, of course. This is just, a friend date."
Amara nodded, "Okay. Good." Then she took a bite of her noodles.
"You know, if this was a date, I would tell you that you look beautiful," Spiderman said, casually taking a bite of his food.
Amara raised her eyebrow and replied, "If this was a date, I would tell you how great you did. And how all other dates have to live up to this expectation."
"Really?" He said, interested now.
Amara shrugged and she saw a slight blush form on his face, and his lips curl upwards in a small smile.
They sat there making random conversation for a while, but to Amara, it felt like a few minutes.
"Can I tell you something?" Amara asked.
"What?"
"I'm not supposed to be here."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm... grounded," Amara laughed. "I snuck out. To see you."
"Oh." He said. "We could have just rescheduled."
"Right. I could have called you on the phone number I don't have. Or emailed you with the email I don't have. Oh, or sent you a letter? To the address, I don't have."
"Okay, I see your point."
"Besides, if I didn't show up, especially without a reason, what if you just thought that I was a stuck-up bitch who was only playing with your feelings?"
"I wouldn't think that. And you would have explained it later. How long are you grounded for?"
"A month."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"What did you do?"
"It's a long story," she laughed. "But, my dad has never grounded me before. He's always been pretty chill. I don't know what changed." She thought for a moment. "Actually, scratch that. I know exactly why he grounded me. I got kind of pissed that he was lecturing me about being irresponsible and I just lost it and brought up his ex-girlfriend that he's still trying to get over."
Peter remained silent and Amara continued, "I shouldn't have said that to him. I said some pretty shitty things."
"Hey, don't worry. I'm sure he'll understand... I mean, as long as you don't get caught sneaking out."
"Yeah. I hope you're right."
They finished up the rest of their food and Spiderman said, "Do you wanna go for a walk?"
"Yeah," Amara nodded, excitedly.
They packed all the food boxes away and were about to throw them in the bin, when Amara said, "Wait! There's a lot of food there. It'd be a waste to throw it away. Let's give it to the man that stays on that park bench."
Spiderman smiled, once again realising why he liked her so much.
"What?" Amara asked, noticing this.
"Nothing," he replied quickly.
"Okay...? So let's get out of here?" She asked, walking closer to him and wrapping her arms around his neck.
"Uh, what's happening?" Spiderman asked, panicking at the sudden contact.
"We're going to the park? I assumed we were... you know, swinging there?" Amara said, hands still in the same place, tapping him, playfully on his shoulders.
"Right. Yeah, that makes sense," he replied, flustered.
—————
The man had been grateful for the leftovers, and Amara had decided to give him some extra money, to help him, besides she had enough. She had reached into her pocket and given the man three, hundred dollar bills, without showing Spiderman or the man how much she had actually given.
They had already left by the time the man even had a chance to react to the amount of money he was holding in his hands.
They looked up at the setting sun. The sky had turned purple and Amara watched as the clouds danced across the sky's canvas as the final birds flew back to their nests for the night.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Amara said.
"Yeah," He replied, he looked up to where she was looking and then glanced over to make sure she couldn't see him. He looked right at her, admiring her, looking at every curve, every line of her face, "It really is."
Amara looked over at him as if she had broken out of a trance and noticed his gaze on her. However, she didn't feel uncomfortable, or nervous. She simply smiled.
As they continued walking through the trees, straying from the set-out path and opting, instead to head for the dense trees, away from the public. Amara became all too aware of Peter's hand only a few centimetres away from her own.
She felt her own fingers betray her as they reached out, calling for his. She flicked her eyes downwards, quickly and saw that his fingers were doing the same.
She exhaled slowly and then a sharp intake of breath.
Amara closed her eyes as Peter reached further and their pinky fingers touched. She moved away slightly in shock and then moved her hand closer to his.
Peter closed the rest of the distance between their hands and covered hers with his.
They interlocked their fingers together as they continued walking side by side and Amara smiled to herself, as both of them occasionally looked down at their hands as if to check if this was really happening.
Amara wrapped her other hand around his arm and they continued to walk like that for a while. But they were comfortable, they were content, and they felt no need to do anything other than just be there with each other.
When Spiderman looked down at her, he started speaking again, "You know. There was a time when I was convinced that I would never tell anyone my secret identity. That it would always be one of those secrets that I take with me to the grave. I guess I just thought that everyone was safer that way." Amara rested her chin on his shoulder, throwing him off guard and flustering him.
"Uh- I... I mean. Yest- t-today. I was- I thought." He stopped and took in a breath, "Okay, just forget all of that. Right now, when I'm looking at you and you're, you know, you. I just... I don't want to keep any secrets from you. I want you to know everything about me. Everything. Because I want to know everything about you. I just feel like taking my mask off, right now. Throwing it away. And just- I don't know."
Amara remained silent, "You know you can't do that. You barely know me."
"No. You don't understand!" He sighed, stepping back to run his hands through what would have been his hair if the mask was off. Both of them stopped to stand where they were, with their hands no longer intertwined. Then he stepped closer to her, grabbing her hands in his, "I feel like I've known you my whole life! And I want to know you, for the rest of yours. But you have the right to know me, first!"
Amara reached up to hold his covered face in her palms, "No. No," he was looking around frantically, now, as she tried to, continuously, move his head so he was facing her. So he was looking into her eyes. "This isn't right. This isn't what I want. You're a superhero, and we can be friends, but I can't know who you are. I don't want to."
"you're only saying no because you don't know who I am under here," he sighed in exasperation, clearly frustrated at the situation. "If I could just tell you, you'd understand why I want to..." he closed the gap between them so that their foreheads were resting against each other, "...so bad."
Amara stroked his face, affectionately, as he nuzzled into her touch, moving his hands to rest on her waist. Amara closed her eyes and said, "And maybe it's because I don't know who you are, that I feel so comfortable with you. Did you ever think of that? That not knowing who you are, leaves no expectation for either of us to live up to? And who knows? Maybe on our... 9th date, you can reveal yourself to me, once and for all."
Peter just stared into her sparkling eyes, so sure of everything, and although he had no idea how long he had been doing that, he continued to do so. Amara became all too aware of how close they were, once again and she cleared her throat, stepping back and looking down.
Soon enough, the distance was there, once again.
Amara looked around, "Those flowers are really pretty, right?" She said looking at the pink petals blooming from the trees.
He looked up, "Yeah, they are... give me a second," he said before shooting a web and disappearing into the trees
Amara scrunched her eyebrows and called for him, "Bug boy! What are you doing?" She said walking towards the tree that he shot a web at.
Suddenly, she turned around and was faced with his mask, upside down, staring back at her. He held his hand forwards, which now grasped a small bunch of the pink blossoms, and gave them to her. "Flowers for you. Seeing as I didn't get you any before," he joked.
Amara reached out to grab the flowers and smell them, but Spider-Man's hand caught hers before she could.
"Did I hear you say something about a 9th date? So this was a date?" He said, still holding her hand.
Amara smiled, playfully and said, "Think of it as a test run."
She wasn't sure what she was doing. She had made a promise to herself that they were just friends. That nothing could ever happen between the two of them.
She remained quiet for a moment, still holding his hand, and debating with herself on whether she should do this. "And think of this as a promise for a next time."
If someone were to ask Amara why she did what she did, she would confidently say that she had no idea, that something inside of her possessed her to do this. But deep down, she knew. She knew that this was something she had wanted to do for a while now. So she did. No excuses. No distractions. No rules. She just went for it, forgetting all of her worries.
She took a step closer to him and let go of his hand.
Amara reached up to touch Peter's, still upside down and covered, face. She could see his eyes widen through his dense lenses as she reached up to his neck, where the mask met the rest of the suit.
As she began to tug the mask down, Peter quickly brought his hands up to stop hers, "I thought you didn't want to know," he breathed out.
"I don't."
His hands left hers and she continued pulling his mask down, stopping just before his nose. She glanced quickly down at his eyes, then back up to his lips. Amara leaned in, and so did he, their lips meeting.
The kiss was slow, cautious and soft. Both of them took their time as Amara brought her hands up to cup his face and his were still firmly gripping the web that was stopping him from hitting the floor. Amara felt the butterflies in her stomach before she felt the pounding in her head.
They pulled away, slightly out of breath. Peter leaned back in for one last kiss, both of them smiling into it before Amara stepped back once again and pulled his mask back up, over his chin.
"This was fun. See you around, bug boy," she winked before walking off in the opposite direction, leaving the superhero in shock and confusion over what had just happened.
----------
Amara was lost in her thoughts the whole way home.
She knew that this was wrong. She was playing with his feelings. She was playing with her feelings - lying to herself. She could never be with him like that. And even if she was, what would he do when he found out who she really was? Why she had really started talking to him? He would hate her! And adding another element to that would just make this thing worse.
But she simply couldn't help herself. It was almost as if every time she was near him, everything that she was supposed to do or not do went out the window. Amara Stark just couldn't wrap her head around how much of an influence this boy has over her, and she hated it. She hated how when she was around him, she wasn't in control of what she does or says. And she absolutely hated how much she didn't care about any of that - she only cared about him. And that is selfish. And cruel, especially considering he has no idea who he had, actually, just kissed.
Had she made a mistake? Or had she just made the only right decision in the last few weeks? Amara was beyond confused. What was she supposed to do now? Reveal everything to him? Tell him that she knows who he is. Tell him who she is. Who her dad is?
Shit! My dad! He's still pissed at me! And I'm still grounded! What am I doing?! I'm a mess! I have to get home!
She flew home, quickly, with a high sense of urgency. She looked down at her watch - 8:53. She had been out for way longer than she had anticipated. Someone must have gone into her room to check on her by now. Amara just prayed to the Gods above that that person was not Tony Stark.
But it was too late, because the second she landed on her balcony, she could sense it. Sense him.
Her father sat on her chair, watching the balcony door and waiting for her to walk into the room, an angry expression plastered over his face.
Fuck.
(A/N: sorry for missing last week's update! I just didn't want to rush to create something unfinished when I can work harder for the extra week and create something better. So they kissed!!!!! What does everybody think?? Is the plot getting heavier now? Don't worry, this is just the beginning. I have a lot of other things planned! Just stay tuned :)))