Chapter Text
It ends exactly like it began.
Tony and Rhodey lean against the most subtle car Tony owns, the one that screams ‘I’m rich’ instead of ‘I’m really, really rich.’ They stare at the closed doors of Midtown High, letting the silence swell between them like an angry cat. It’s been a year since Tony introduced Rhodey to Peter for the first time, since that subtle miscommunication where he falsely believed that Peter was Tony’s son. It feels like such a short time ago. Has it really been a full year?
Just thinking about that skittle cookie video makes Rhodey cringe, but God knows it worked. It’s been forty-eight hours since the YouTube video was posted, and it’s turned the whole ‘Spiderman Deserves the Death Penalty’ thing into a total joke. Peter’s just a teenager—a smarmy, sarcastic, wide-eyed kid with a sweet tooth and an inability to think things through.
“Tell me you have a secret biological kid that happens to go to Midtown High,” Rhodey says, nudging Tony. “Tell me we’re not here to pick up another child that has absolutely no relation to you.”
“No bio kids, I’m afraid,” Tony says. He sniffs and shoves his sunglasses further up his nose. “Not yet, anyway.”
“Are you and Pepper…”
“Yeah.” Tony grimaces. “Maybe. Jesus, Rhodey, I don’t know. One kid is more than enough. But…”
“But.” Rhodey agrees.
He smiles into his travel mug of coffee. It’s amazing how much Peter has changed Tony’s life. How much he’s changed all their lives. These days, Tony isn’t just dealing with his own mistakes. He’s dealing with Peter’s, and May’s, and everyone else on their nascent team. Gone are the days when Tony threw around some cash, flashed a smile, and snapped his fingers to make everything okay. Reality has come knocking at Tony’s door, and he offered it a seat and a glass of iced tea. Rhodey is so damn proud of him.
There are still reporters bustling around the school, but they keep a healthy distance. They’ve been threatened with lawsuits if they come anywhere near the students. That little asshole Eugene has been suspended until he agrees to take the Facebook page down. Apparently, the administration had no idea about the business he was running on school property.
A bell rings. Students swarm out of the double doors, heading in every direction. A few students turn to look at the shiny car and the two men leaning against it, but most duck their heads and move on with their day.
There’s a lone exception. In a carrying, awestruck whisper, someone says, “Holy shit, is that Tony Stark?”
“Sure is, Abe,” someone calls back. “Just ignore him. He’ll fuck off eventually.”
“Screw you too, MJ,” Tony mutters.
The owner of the voice jogs across the lawn to meet them. She’s tall and slender, with dark skin and a brooding expression. Rhodey tries to smile. He’s heard a lot about her, both from Peter’s besotted ramblings and Tony’s unbridled fury about the whole skittle cookie video.
Tony and Rhodey have spent the last twenty-four hours learning everything there is to know about Michelle Jones. She’s a sophomore who lives with her mother, and she hasn’t heard from her dad in years. She’s sarcastic and guarded, and she doesn’t have many friends. She’s also the captain of the decathlon team, with a 4.9 GPA and damn near perfect PSAT scores.
“Michelle,” Tony says coolly. “Excellent timing. We were just talking about you. Need a ride?”
“Methinks the fuck not,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. “Why are you here, Stark?”
“We can talk in the car. Get in.”
“I just said no.”
“Get in the car, kid. Now.”
“I’ll start screaming that you’re kidnapping me,” she warns, narrowing her eyes. “You’ve mistaken me for Ron or Hermione, or maybe even Ginny, but I’m the fifth year Ravenclaw who just wants to pass exams and get the hell out of dodge before Harry Potter blows up the whole castle. So don’t even think about trying to drag me into Peter’s hot mess of a life.”
Tony looks just as confused as Rhodey feels. Honestly, Rhodey’s not even sure the kid is still speaking English.
“I’m so sick of you Avengers,” she says, not half finished. “It was bad enough when Clint was spying on a bunch of kids through the vents—”
“I didn’t authorize that,” Tony says quickly.
“—and now he’s calling me every day,” she says, ignoring the interjection. “You know he calls me ‘MJ the Therapist?’ I took one semester of psychology freshman year. One. Next thing I know, he's telling me about the time he scalped a HYDRA agent with a paperclip, and then cleaned himself in the blood like it was bath water. What the fuck am I supposed to do with that information?”
“MJ—” Tony starts, and his voice has become almost sympathetic.
“Did you know he paid off my mom’s mortgage?” she demands. “Yeah. I come home one day, and my mom is waiting for me on the couch. And she’s all like… ‘So, I hear you got a job.’ And I was like… ‘What?’ And she was like, ‘Yeah, Hawkeye the Avenger just paid off our goddamn apartment. You want to tell me what that’s about?’ She thinks I’m pimping myself out to superheroes, and honestly, that’s not far from the truth—”
“Should we try to get her to calm down?” Tony mutters.
“No,” Rhodey whispers back. “Let’s let her yell at us for a few more minutes. We deserves it.”
It’s strange. Rhodey was bracing himself for a rude, sardonic, moody teenager. But if he didn’t know any better, he’d think the girl sounds almost panicked. It’s a nice reminder of how young the kids are, and anyway, MJ’s right. The past few months have been ridiculously unfair. They don’t have the right to ask her for anything else.
And yet, here they are.
“And then,” she continues, her voice rising. “Clint has the fucking audacity to give my phone number to Captain America. Captain America! And Cap calls me, and he’s all like, ‘is this MJ the therapist?’ And I can’t even be mad about it, because I’m so damn worried about Peter’s impromptu identity reveal. So I just sit there in silence and listen to Steve Rogers open up about how guilty he feels for making out with his ex-girlfriend’s niece—"
MJ takes a deep breath. Her fists unclench, and she stares at them with narrow eyes that are rimmed with red.
“So no,” she says, and her voice has become eerily calm. “No, Stark. I’m not getting into your car.”
“That’s fair,” Tony says.
“We’ll be going now,” Rhodey agrees.
Tony nods. “I'm sorry. Seriously, kid, you’ve been dealt a shit hand.”
They slink back into the shiny sports car. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so fucking humiliating. They’ve taken on some of the most dangerous villains the world has to offer, and here they are getting their asses handed to them by a fifteen-year-old girl. Happy shoots them a sympathetic look in the rear-view mirror, but Rhodey can’t look at him. He keeps his eyes fixed on the floor. Hoping. Praying.
Just before Happy puts the car in drive, the door bangs open. Just as quickly it slams shuts, and suddenly MJ is sitting across from them. She buckles the seatbelt, glowering at them from the parallel seat.
“1345 Sanford Avenue,” she says. “Make it snappy. I’ve got calc homework.”
Rhodey doesn’t think he’s ever seen Happy hit the gas so fast.
They ride in silence for a little while. She watches him out of the corner of her eye, her gaze narrow and observant. There’s something so all-knowing about her expression. It puts Rhodey on edge and soothes him at the same time. She’s just a kid, he reminds himself. A young, scared, wickedly intelligent kid. God knows he’s dealt with plenty of those.
“So why are you here?” she asks.
“We were in the neighborhood,” Tony says, pushing his sunglasses further up his nose. Liar, Rhodey thinks. They spent forty-five minutes driving to the middle of Queens.
“If you’re here about the skittle cookie video, I’m not apologizing,” she says bluntly. “You strung Peter out for a week, and in about two hours I got his entire rep turned around. You should be thanking me.”
Tony stares at her. Then he says, “I know.”
“What?”
“Thank you. You did good, kid."
She swallows.
“I was actually here to offer you a job,” he says.
“If you need a therapy sesh, you’re out of luck,” she says. “MJ’s Unlicensed Superhero Support Line isn’t taking new clients. I can put you on the waitlist, but I can’t make any promises about fitting you in before Christmas.”
“First of all, I don’t need therapy—"
“I’m positive that’s not true.”
“—and second of all, that’s not the job I was talking about,” Tony says. “I’ve been having some issues with my executive staff. Nothing major. But, as you so eloquently put it, you accomplished more in the last day then Randy the dipshit PR consultant has done in his entire life. So, if you ever feel like becoming the unofficial campaign manager for the Avengers…”
She stares at Tony. For the first time, it seems as though she’s at a loss for words.
“I’m massively underqualified for that,” she says.
“Sure.”
“I…I have calc homework.”
“Duly noted."
“I don’t want your filthy capitalist blood money.”
“Bold of you to assume I won't find another way of paying you,” he says. “You want to go to MIT? Harvard? Cal Tech, if you have no taste? One letter of rec, and I’ll smash your future open with a sledgehammer.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“No,” Tony agrees. “But we could use yours.”
“You act like I did something impressive,” MJ says. “The media isn’t some rabid, uncontrollable dog. It’s made up of idiotic people with short attention spans, and they’ll fixate on the newest toy the second it crosses their feed.”
They pull up in front of her apartment complex. Tony reaches out a hand and gives her a business card. There’s a slight pause. Then she accepts it, slipping the paper into the front compartment of her backpack. She gives him a tight, thin lipped smile and slips her bag over her shoulder.
“This sucked,” she says. “Let’s never do it again.”
“Agreed,” Tony says.
Something silent passes between them. For the life of him, Rhodey can’t make out what it is. They stare at each other, and he can feel tension rocking back and forth. It pulses underneath them like a potent bomb. Tony stares at her, and she stares back, and then she turns and gets out of the car. She doesn’t look over her shoulder as she jogs over to the front door of the building, and she’s disappeared before either of them speak.
“She’s something else,” Rhodey says.
Tony nods.
“Think she’ll call?”
“Maybe,” Tony says. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”
Rhodey turns to stare at the window. For the first time in a long time, everything is starting to feel okay. Back at the tower, Peter is having a long overdue conversation with May. Rhodey’s sure he’ll get to patrol again eventually. Maybe Wanda can go out with him, and they can watch each other’s backs. The team is ever growing, ever expanding. Even despite all the setbacks in the past few years, Rhodey’s certain that they’ll be able to handle anything that comes there way.
Tony shoots one last glance at MJ's apartment complex before Happy skids away. There’s a distant expression on his face. If Rhodey didn’t know better, he would think it was almost fond.
One kid, my ass, Rhodey thinks, and his lips twitch. More like one and counting.