We Resume All Activities...
Avengers Tower was a masterpiece of architecture; there was no doubt about it. With its soaring spires and metal framed windows clambering into the sky, it stood out against New York’s geometric skyline.
And it was tall . Like, really really tall. Taller than most of the buildings around it, with a fantastic jet landing pad on the outside. StarkTech coated every inch of it.
Only when that StarkTech stopped working did Peter realize just how tall the Tower was.
Too tall to scale using emergency stairs. Way too tall. It would be faster to build a slide that got everyone to the ground. By the time Tony and Peter reached the control room, Peter’s shirt was soaked with sweat, despite his crazy fast metabolism (which was working overtime like a chainsaw).
“Bruce! Get to the containment chamber until we need you.” Tony waited until Banner was out of site before slamming open the double doors without hesitation, and barging through to who knew what.
Peter knew he should follow, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to. Yet.
Looking back over his shoulder, he watched as the school group half fell, half stumbled down the stairs after Natasha, who was looking a little out of breath herself. Even Flash didn’t have enough air to grumble about the situation, though he looked like he wanted to. The look he shot Peter’s way was weirdly blank, a far cry from his usual glare.
Ned and MJ were bringing up the tail.
Get a bunch of nerds to do stairs with the world’s most badass personal trainer.
But he felt kind of guilty for going off while they hid in the basement from a possible apocalypse.
They’ll be fine, he told himself. It didn’t help.
Ned caught his eye and waved him away. “Dude, GO! Iron Man’s waiting.”
”You’re right about that.” Tony popped his head back through the doors. “Kid, why the hell are you still out here? We got a bogey on the radar.”
”O-Okay, uh, coming!”
He scrambled after Mr. Stark, through the double doors, and into whatever chaos waited within the control room.
The doors slammed behind Peter with a loud BAM that echoed through the stairwell.
MJ watched the door’s sensor light blink red onoffonoff for a few more seconds, half entranced by the light, half numb with shock, before she felt someone grab her firmly by the bicep. She whirled around to face Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow herself, face shadowy under the dim red lighting.
“Move,” was all the assassin said. She pulled MJ bodily down the stairwell, away from the screaming alarms, away from the field trip.
What field trip? The bus ride to the Tower, the clearance gate—it all felt miles away from where they were right now.
It took them five more minutes to reach the bottom of the stairs. Five minutes during which MJ found herself running faster than she’d ever run before in her life. There was no coach blowing whistles at her, no warm up or stretching. Just a hand pulling her down down down and a slightly life threatening emergency at her rear.
What could she say? When an Avenger tells you to move your butt, you do. No questions asked.
It was good motivation. Maybe she’d workout more if she had an Avenger as her personal trainer. Probably not. Who was she kidding? She hated exercise the way Ned hated people who preferred Star Trek over Star Wars—keenly and with a passion.
The bottom of the stairs was a little anticlimactic: just a concrete landing that led into a narrow hallway, doors lining either side. Still, it was Stark Tower , or Avengers Tower, or whatever it wanted to be called these days, so naturally MJ was kinda curious about what lay behind each of them.
Before she could look for longer, someone else was impatiently dragging her through a set of heavy, industrial double doors, saying:
“I swear, none of these civvies has a clue ‘bout what high-level-threat means. They’re all slower than you in the morning.”
The last part made her look up reproachfully, until she realized it wasn’t being directed at her.
The Winter Soldier stared pointedly at Hawkeye as he pushed MJ into the safe room.
She couldn’t bring herself to think of them as “Bucky” and “Clint”—that entailed a feeling of comfort and familiarity, and right now, armed to the gills with sharp pointy things, they looked about as friendly as explosive urchins.
Hawkeye rolled his eyes, holding the door open for MJ to pass through. “Deal with it. I’m perfectly functional when I need to be. Like right now.”
“Barne’s right, though.” The Black Widow slipped her way into the room. “Two coffee pots is too much for one person.”
Hawkeye made a weak gesture that might’ve been a harmless wave if it hadn’t been accompanied by a very real arrow. Either way, the Winter Soldier ducked out of arm’s reach, scowling.
“I did that once, guys. I’m a clean guy—really,” the archer protested. “One and a half pots, max. That’s all for little old me”
Black Widow shot him a look, and he pouted a little as the doors closed on them. “C’mon. I’ve come to terms with my coffee addiction. Why can’t you just accept me, Mom?”
Black Widow snorted, pushing MJ further into the room, while Hawkeye and the Winter Soldier stayed on the outside.
They were, MJ realized with a deadened jolt, guarding the entrance.
The “crypt” was an enormous industrial bunker, with low ceilings stretching into the dim corners. The place was already jam-packed with SI employees of all shapes and sizes, and from where MJ was standing, the Midtown group was nowhere in sight.
MJ spotted some of the guys from the lab, a couple from the front desk, several security on high-alert, and one woman dressed like a cook, all against the back wall.
They looked about as numb and shocked as MJ felt
MJ liked to think of herself as keeping pretty collected and nonchalant, but even she had to admit that today had her feeling like a goldfish. A goldfish who’d known only a tiny bowl for her entire life, only to find out there's a big wide lake all around her.
One moment, she was watching Flash get well and truly trounced, the next, she was hunched on the concrete floor between Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and the sous chef who cooked brunch for Tony Stark.
And they were all dirty and tired and very human. Nobody was asking for anyone’s selfies—they wouldn’t get very good light down here, anyways, even if they did.
The room sat for a while in an imitation of peaceful silence. Moments stretched out long and strained. By the door, the Black Widow paced, the only Avenger in the crypt, and clearly the last defense against whatever the hell had bombastically ruined their trip.
It was stupid and immature to keep thinking about the trip, but it was easier than thinking about aliens, or about Peter up in the control room.
Why why why did he have to be so nobley dimwitted? So self-sacrificingly shortsighted?
The alarms blaring outside the door sounded very far away, but MJ almost missed them. They made the tension at least justifiable, the emergency more real. In here, in their safe little bunker, MJ felt almost worse than before, like she was just waiting for something to come crashing down.
It reminded her horribly of the battle of New York. She’d only been ten at the time, and all she remembered was the screaming, the sirens, and the rubble raining down. She remembered her dad picking her up and carrying her down their apartment stairs, shielding her from debris, as the fire alarm went off in the stairwell,
Nothing had made sense, and nobody was sure they would make it out alive.
“Hey.”
MJ looked up to see the Black Widow herself looking down at her with a blank expression on her face. Somehow, even in the craziness of the moment, the assassin managed to look pulled together and professional.
It’s her job, dumbass, MJ thought, and blinked in acknowledgement.
She expected the woman to move on. She did not expect for her to slide down into criss-cross-applesauce less than a meter away from MJ and look her in the eyes.
“How’re you doing?” she murmured.
MJ thought about saying fine or eh like someone who wasn’t freaked out would say. But nobody was pretending to be calm, so she decided to be honest.
“I’m scared,” she admitted, knowing she probably looked like a mess, with her ratty sweater and sweat-stained cheeks.
“Mmm.” The Black Widow looked at her for a moment more, eyes steady as a cat’s. Most likely, she had some special ability to peer deep into your soul and scrape out all your secrets.
MJ would believe it. She imagined telling the Widow why: My parents and I sat like this in the basement of a library, waiting for the Chitauri to stop blowing up our neighborhood. I thought we were going to die.
But she didn’t say anything. Because she had no idea who this woman was, only that she saved the world a few times, trained Peter on weekends, and killed criminals for a living.
Not exactly the textbook counselor for the job.
Eventually, the Widow raised an eyebrow and asked, “So you know.”
“About what?”
“You know what I mean. Peter.”
It wasn’t a question, because damn this woman was good. ”I’m not sure which part you’re talking about. He has many idiotic facets to him.”
The Widow’s mouth quirked up a little, and MJ thought, score . “That he does, though I’m sure all of them lend to a more charming individual.”
“I think he dreams of that.” MJ fidgeted with the fraying hem of her sleeve. “Are we talking about his hobbies or what?”
The Widow hummed a little. “No, I don’t think so. It was pretty clear you weren’t too shocked when Clint put on his little performance, though I’m happy to see that he didn’t traumatize all of you with that.”
MJ smiled, but the other woman kept on. “I’m talking more about the slight issue of your classmates. Peter has a bad habit of not standing up for himself against people who try to hurt him. Your classmate is doing a pretty good job of that. Any idea why that’s the case?”
MJ hesitated, watching her reaction as she stalled. What do you say to that? The whole thing was kind of exciting, like talking in code, only much less complicated than what the Widow probably dealt with on the regular. “Um, we’re all nerds here, really, so it’s not that. Flash...Flash just has a bit of a ego problem. I think it got bruised when he was a child. Peter’s nice and likeable, and it makes his lizard brain feel threatened.”
The Widow smiled again at that. “I think it’s more than that. Tell me, does Thompson make it a habit to call all of your classmates by the names of other people and of male genitalia? It seems like an odd choice of insults.”
Shit . Natasha Romanoff, at it again. Scissor-kicking people out of their comfort zone since 2012. Probably before then, too.
“ You know,” MJ said in an accusatory tone. “Did he tell you, or did you use your special spy skills to figure it out. Anybody else know without his permission?”
The woman shook her head. “Of course not. I value Peter’s privacy. But I did want to know if you were aware of the whole situation before your classmate humiliates himself even more in front of the class.”
MJ raised an eyebrow. “What do you have planned for him?”
“Me? Nothing. I can’t say the same for Tony, though.”
MJ smiled a little broader. “I’m glad we’re all on the same page then.”
“Good.” Widow gave her a weird look. “Now. You and Peter? What’s that about?”
This woman knew too damn much. MJ was fairly sure she was the same red as Widow’s hair. “I plead the fifth.”
“Hmph,” was the reply. Then the assassin rose from her resting spot and resumed pacing.
“ MJ!” A quite hiss had her turning her head, to find a very sweaty, flushed Ned wildly beckoning to her from across the room.
A wave of relief rushed through her, flushing away some of the tension she’d been carrying. As she made her way over, Ned came to meet her halfway.
“ Where the hell have you been?” he whisper-screamed. He tried to glare at her, but she could tell that he was just as relieved to see her as she was to see him. “They’ve been looking for you for the past fifteen minutes.”
“ You guys were the ones who ditched,” MJ retorted dully without really feeling the words. “Besides, I was talking to her.” She jabbed a thumb back to where Black Widow was pacing, and felt a ping of satisfaction as Ned’s jaw popped open a little.
What a fanboy. She rolled her eyes and grabbed his arm, forcibly yanking him away. “C’mon, where are we?”
The team had apparently found the dirtiest, darkest corner as far away from the door as possible, which, on the warehouse-sized-bunker scheme of things, was pretty far away. Everyone was slouched in some form or fashion against the dirty wall, looking at once terrified, bored, and put out.
MJ picked a seat next to Sally, who was the least likely to ask stupid questions that MJ didn’t want to give answers to, not that anybody looked in the mood to talk.
Anybody, it seemed, except for Flash, who managed to scoot around three sets of legs and across the floor to where she was sitting. One set of legs kicked him as he crawled over, but he ignored it.
He got close enough for her to smell his Eau de B.O. (yuck). “Is—” he swallowed and tried again. “Is Parker actually up there right now?”
MJ felt a swell of anger boiling on the backburner, and she tried to shove it down. For the sake of the wonderful SI employees, who didn’t need to hear Midtown bullshit when they were hiding for their lives. “Yes.”
The building shook a little, and a shot of fear bolted through MJ. Peter. He was probably acting heroic and saving lives, but dear god, would he just think about himself for once?
Flash went on. “Like, actually up there up there? With the Avengers and Tony Stark?”
You know what? Screw backburners and screw SI employees. She was so done with this bullshit. “ Yes , he’s up there, you idiot. Risking his hide so he could save your sorry ass from a crew of aliens or robots or whatever’s about to kill all of us.”
Several people shot dirty looks their way, so MJ lowered her voice. “He’s up there, trying to stop you from dying, when all you’ve done is been a complete asswipe to him. Calling him all the shit you’ve been calling him and dragging him through the dirt. He’s going to let you forget it, but trust me—I’m not, and neither are the Avengers.”
He had the decency to look miserably confused. It was a good look on him. “Shit. He’s up there for real.”
“You wanna know something? It took you less than two hours for the Black Widow to hate you. Two hours. That’s pretty impressive. You’ve always been an asshole, but since when did you become a transphobe and a raging sexist? Decided to take a slip down the QAnon hole? Couldn’t stick to just one -ism for the New Year?”
She knew she was twisting the knife in deeper, knew her words were cutting deep with each shade of pale his face turned, but the farther she went, the less she could bring herself to care.
“I—”
“And if the aliens come in and end up killing Peter, they can have you for all I care. You’ve been nothing but terrible—”
“I’m sorry! Jeez, MJ!” he blurted.
MJ almost felt a twinge of guilt as she looked at the dirt streaked along his shirt and pants, at the defeated expression on his face. Then she remembered the smirk he had as he shouted, Emily , right in front of—.
“I know I’ve been an asshole, all right?” He darted his eyes away from hers. “It’s not—I just– just react , okay?”
“Oh yeah? To what exactly? ” Their voices had passed into subtones, barely breaths exchanged between the two of them. If someone had looked their way, all they would probably see was an angry intense staring contest.
“God, I don’t know. Parker’s a—” Flash stopped dead at the expression on her face, before seemingly deciding to switch tracks. Smart boy. “Never mind. There are things, okay? Stuff that just gets on my nerves. It’s not him.”
Hello? Could the real Flash Thompson please come to the phone? This was more than he’d ever said to her since they’d met. “Then what the hell is it, Flash?”
“I just didn’t want anybody to figure out that I’m not—”
His mouth snapped shut suddenly. The look on his beet-red face was the look of a handler who’d just let a boa constrictor out of a zoo cage, and now the snake was facing them with an intent to choke.
MJ was pretty sure that she wasn’t the snake.
Quickly, Flash turned, as if to slide back to his original spot, but seeing the legs in the aisle and the curious looks a few of their teammates were shooting the two of them, he seemed to think better of it. MJ found herself neatly sandwiched between Sally and one very flustered Flash Thompson.
He said nothing to her for the rest of the time they were down there.