Devil's Promise
Chapter 8: The Consultant

A/N: This chapter is dedicated to Hurricane.'97, who reminded me that I didn't write Callie with the goal of not making her a Mary Sue- I wrote her so she would be a good character. Thank you so much, and I really hope you enjoy.

Callie Watson meets Spiderman two weeks into the first semester of her first year at college, and two weeks into her first encounter with hell on Earth. Which may be just her exaggerating how much her situation totally and entirely sucks, but still. Whatever.

The truth is, Callie doesn't exactly... fit in at Rutgers. It's sort of like when Blair Waldorf went to NYU for a year and had the worst time of her life, only Callie is from Malibu, not the Upper East Side, and she actually really, really likes her school and the people in it, she just doesn't know how to talk to anyone there.

This is different from Spade, when everyone grew up together so everyone already knew each other and everyone knew how to deal with Callie's neurotic tendencies and her bad habit of talking about engineering/computer-coding/oceanography. It's different from Harvard Westlake, too, where her friends were the girls on the cheer squad and the boys who were friends with the girls on the cheer squad. But there are no cheer squads at Rutgers New Brunswick University, and the only person she's known here for longer than the four months she's been in New York is Doc, and he's her boss, so he doesn't really, technically count.

There's Peter, of course, but Peter is... Well, he's Peter- all sarcasm and grins and awkward pats on the back and so much like Tony that it physically hurts Callie sometimes. The problem is that Peter is a guy, and Callie's never really had guy friends before. She likes to think that she's a girly girl, and she likes going shopping with Pepper and Natasha and talking about whether or not pink really does clash with red hair or what the best way to seduce a man before killing him is.

She can't talk about any of those things with Peter.

And despite her sporadic fighting lessons with Natasha, and despite her weekly S.H.I.E.L.D consultant training with Coulson and a dark-haired agent named Ward, and despite her daily phone calls with Tony, and despite the success of her internship and the overall amazingness of what she's learning every day, Callie is very, very lonely.

She misses Malibu and Pepper and Rhodie and JARVIS and Happy. But most of all, she misses her dad.

This, naturally, does not make for a very happy Callie, the tall girl scowling down at Scarlet as she methodically places copper wires into the body of the AUV and twists them together. Peter stares at her in concern over her shoulder, sipping on her now-cold Chai tea.

"Do you want to talk, or something?" he asks slowly.

"Or something," Callie responds, knowing from experience that she's overwhelmingly awful at anything that has to do with expressing her feelings.

And that is when things- as they always seem to do when Callie is in the vicinity of them- go terribly, horribly wrong.

It's fairly late on a Wednesday night and aside from Callie and Peter, the only people still at the lab that night are Doc Suttwell and his wife/receptionist, Polly. The other staff-members all have actual lives outside of work, and have left hours ago. Callie was too bitter about the I-have-no-friends thing to follow them, so stayed behind to keep working on Scarlet with Peter keeping watch.

Glass shatters from the general direction of the lobby, and Peter and Callie straighten up immediately, both of them wide awake.

"What was-?" Peter begins.

Callie shakes her head at him. "I'll go check."

She methodically pulls her hair into a bun, keeping it off of her face and out of reach of potential attackers, tugging a wrench free from underneath the clutter on her work table as an afterthought, in case she needs a weapon. She can feel Peter's scared eyes on the back of her neck as she moves out of the work room. Callie is scared, too, she's just a lot better at hiding it than he is.

The long, white-washed brick and cement hallway is eerie. Callie can still hear noises from the lobby, muted voices that rise in pitch, indicating the owners of them aren't exactly happy. She resists the urge to run forward, not wanting to let potential enemies know she's coming.

It's when she passes one of the store rooms that she's grabbed and yanked inside.

A hand slams against her mouth before she can scream, and if Callie weren't so confused about the fact that she's just been pseudo-kidnapped by a man in a stretchy red suit, she would have kneed him in the crotch already. In the mean time, she pushes his hand away from her mouth, forces distance between the two of them and demands, "Who the fuck are you?"

She thinks the wannabe-super-hero blinks at her, but she can't be really sure. He clears his throat, squares his shoulders and says in a trying-to-be-macho voice, "I'm your friendly neighborhood Spiderman."

Now she really wants to punch the guy, because the hell kind of name is Spiderman?- and also a voice that sounds suspiciously like Polly's has just screamed and Callie really doesn't want the Suttwells to die because they're such a nice couple and also hello, Doc is her idol-

Spiderman has heard the scream too, it seems. His head whips around in the direction of it, and he starts toward the door to the storeroom before pausing, glancing back at Callie, and saying, "Sorry about this, ma'am. Can't have you getting in the way and hurting yourself."

"The hell are you talking about-?" Callie begins to say, but the man is gone and when she goes to follow him, she finds that her hand is stuck to the wall with some kind of sticky white stuff-

Shit.

Is that a spider web?


Callie Watson is really pissed off.

And when she's pissed off, she's distracted.

Natasha takes advantage of this fact during their spar and round house kicks her in the face.

"Shit!" Callie growls into the floor of the sparring ring, head ringing with the force of the blow.

Natasha stares down at her in concern, an expression Callie has not often seen on the beautiful woman's face. "Are you alright?" she asks as Callie finally gets to her feet, brushing sweaty strands of hair away from her eyes.

Callie just shrugs, tightening her ponytail. "I don't know," she says honestly, because Natasha sees through lies very easily, she's found. "Something happened last Wednesday- I don't-" She groans again and flops down into a sitting position, rubbing at her eyes with hands that smell like salt and blood. "What do you know about some guy named Spiderman?"

Natasha stiffens just the slightest bit. Before training with Coulson, Callie wouldn't have noticed it. The Russian woman frowns and seats herself across from Callie, albeit more gracefully than the younger girl had. Nat's face is almost completely free of any sweat, and Callie finds herself envying her, not for the first time.

"What do you know about Spiderman?" Natasha replies softly.

Callie frowns, fingers tugging at a curl that's fallen loose from her ponytail. "I met him Wednesday night," she divulges. "Something happened at my internship... I'm still not sure what, actually, but he was there and apparently he saved the day. He locked me in the store room, though."

She flushes at the memory, not proud of the fact that she'd been rescued nearly an hour later by a very confused Polly who had heard her yells and pried the webs away from her hand.

A raised eyebrow is all the reaction Natasha gives her story, but she says, a moment later, "Let me know if you see him again. S.H.I.E.L.D has been searching for this kid for a while now."

"Why?" is all Callie says, since she has only like, level two security clearance here, and she's not on the payroll or anything, and there's really not much Natasha's allowed to tell her. (She knows a lot more than she's supposed to, though, being Tony's adoptive daughter and all.)

Natasha rolls her neck in a circle, cracking it, and gets to her feet, holding out a hand to help Callie up. "He's an unregistered super," Natasha explains. "Coulson and Fury want to get a hold of him just to keep track of him in case he... Well, turns out to not be much of a hero."

Callie opens her mouth to ask the inevitable question (Does that happen often?) but Natasha is swinging at her before she can, saying, "Back to work, Callie. Try the Cheat 720 twist. Forty repetitions!"


You could say that Callie is proud of Tony.

No, scratch that. You can bet your ass that Callie is proud as fuck of her father!

Her chest swells with pride as she watches Tony and Rhodie accept their hard-earned medals of valor- from Senator Stern no less! He looks positively sick as he presents the awards to the two men, and Callie has to stifle a laugh at a glare from Pepper, who stares pointedly at her from their seats together at the ceremony.

It's nice to have the government on their side for once, Callie reflects as the shining medal is pinned to the lapel of Tony's suit, but it's even nicer to be with her family again. She's missed them a lot, more than she thought she would, and being back together feels like that hole in her heart is filling again. Tony's taken notice; she can tell. The hug he gave her when her plane touched down in Washington DC was an extra long one, despite the fact that it's only been about two weeks since the last time they saw each other.

Albeit, the last time wasn't exactly a happy occasion, what with Vanko and Hammer and the killer droids and all. But still. It really hasn't been that long.

It feels like it has, though.

Callie supposes that she's gotten so used to Tony's constant presence in her life that she can't imagine living without him. It's a humbling realization, and she knows if he ever heard her say it he would be cockier and smarmier than usual for weeks, but it's true. She doesn't think she'd be able to handle a world without Tony in it, and God has she missed him.

She's dwelling on this fact nearly two hours later. They're at the celebratory banquet at the actual, honest-to-God White House, so Callie actually looks presentable for the first time since school started in a floral, Zang Toi dress with pale pink pumps.

She's glad for it, too, considering she's seated next to frickin' Michelle Obama who it turns out is more of a bad ass than Pepper and her mother combined, and that's definitely saying something. Whether or not the first lady is more kick ass than Natasha, Callie isn't sure. She doesn't know either of the women well enough to come to a conclusion in that regard, but she makes an educated guess that they're on equal levels.

Still, super impressive.

Pepper and Mrs. Obama have been talking for hours, and Callie can see why. They have quite a fair bit in common, and she has a feeling Mrs. Obama will soon be joining Pepper's frequently-growing list of odd lunch dates. Callie can't say she'll mind this addition. Mrs. Obama is fun and spunky and Callie enjoyed talking to her. Maybe she can tag along once in a while, like she does whenever Coulson comes to Malibu.

Which reminds her. She's going on her first mission tomorrow.

Callie isn't sure if she feels excited or if she feels like she wants to throw up, but either way she's meeting with Coulson, Ward, and Fury at S.H.I.E.L.D.'s central headquarters tomorrow afternoon and heading out on her first consulting job.

Tony, as he tends to do, plops down in the seat across from her, champagne glass in hand and medal of honor glinting proudly on his lapel.

"You have your squishy-wrinkly-nose face on," he informs her, taking a sip of champagne and then frowning. He pulls an Iron Man flask (yes, they have started making those, much to Callie's chagrin), and continues: "You're nervous about something, aren't you?"

"What? No," Callie responds immediately, instinct trumping the fact that she's pretty sure Tony already has a good idea what's going on with her.

"What? No," Tony mimics in that squeaky, girly voice he uses when he wants to get on her nerves. "Oh, bullshit, kid. You're doing something for Fury's little secret agent play team, aren't you?"

"How-?"

"I have eyes everywhere, kid." Tony takes another swig from the flask (Rhodie eyes him unhappily from across the room) and tilts his chair dangerously onto two legs. "Everywhere."

Callie snorts unhappily at him and crosses her arms over her chest. "If those 'eyes' mean that you've hacked all the security cams around campus and use them to spy on me I'm going to murder you-"

"What on Earth would make you think I'd do something like that, kid? That's totally and completely illegal and frankly I am wounded that you think so little of me."

He's only saying this because Pepper, the First Family, and the Attorney DA are all within earshot, and both of them know it.

Callie can't pretend to be grumpy anymore; she's too happy to be play-bickering with her dad again to be able to. So she breaks character and giggles at him, grin growing broader when he slips his flask into her hands under the table cloth.

"So what's the dealio, kiddo?" Tony asks, keeping watch as Callie spikes her lemonade. "Fury got you stopping international jewel thieves or something? Because if so, I'm grounding you and taking over the mission for you."

She shoots him an actually surly look and takes a sip of her boozed-up drink. "You are not. And I don't know yet. They haven't told me anything, I'll find out tomorrow afternoon. But I really don't think I'm doing anything superhero-ish. The only combat training I've been getting is from Nat, and she's doing that off the clock. I'm just... consulting, or whatever."

"Consulting?" Tony smirks around the word. "That makes it sound like you're working for a law firm."

Callie shakes her head. "I don't do office work, Tony. I'd tear my hair out if I had to do anything that boring."

"I know," Tony says. "Speaking of jobs, how's Doctor Suttwell doing? You haven't said much about college and all when you call. It's just me talking about the suits and Pepper and boring old Malibu."

The you aren't happy tell me why so I can fix it is hidden, but still there.

"It's going good," Callie says immediately. "Actually, not it isn't. Not really- shit." She frowns into her glass. "I don't want to talk about it." She drains her drink and sets it down on the table, getting to her feet only a little unsteadily. "Let's just stop talking and dance."

Tony doesn't make the snarky comment he wants to ("Well yeesh, kid, if I'd known the way to get a daddy-daughter dance out of you was to just start talking about our feelings, I would've tried it ages ago"). He also doesn't say anything about how lonely Callie's eyes look and how sad her voice sounds whenever she talks about college. But he does decide that he's going to be making business trips to New York more often.

A lot more often.


If Callie lets the effects of her slight hangover show the next afternoon at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, Coulson, Ward, and Fury don't say anything about it. Of course, Fury is too busy glaring at her, Ward is too busy kissing his boss's ass, and Coulson is too busy smiling both pleasantly and creepily to leave any room for chit chat, but still.

"Here." Ward slaps two cards and a leather wallet down on the table in front of Callie. Upon further inspection, she sees a S.H.I.E.L.D. card identifying her as an Avengers Initiative Consultant, security clearance level 2, a scarily-realistic-looking fake ID that proclaims her to be twenty-one and named Missy Dartmouth, and an honest-to-God badge like the ones she always sees in CIA movies.

"Your target is General Thaddeus 'Thunderbolt' Ross, recently suspended from active duty due to an incident involving a mutated scientist in Boston this past August." The picture placed in front of her is of a stern-looking man, all thick muscles and surly frown.

Coulson smiles at Callie with his eyes. "I'm sure Mr. Stark told you about the Incredible Hulk?"

Callie nods slowly, very aware of the fact that Fury's one eye is boring into the side of her face angrily. Apparently, she isn't supposed to know about Hulk. Or at least, Fury is the one who was supposed to tell her.

Ward draws himself up. His eyes keep flicking in Fury's direction. "Well, the Hulk is missing as of now, and good riddance, I say. But the General still has the other mutant involved in the incident in his custody- Emil Blonsky, the Abomination."

"Since you already seem to know about my Avengers Initiative," Fury snaps, with more than a little bit of frustration, "I'll let you in on a secret, Watson: I want the Abomination, and I want you to make Ross give him to me." He nods at the fake ID on the table. "He'll be at the Gibson bar tonight at nine. Do whatever you can to make him hand over the Abomination."

The or else I'll kick your pansy ass out of S.H.I.E.L.D. myself is left unsaid.


"General Ross?"

The man at the bar glances up at Callie, fat cigar hanging between his teeth, looks her up and down, and then turns back to his beer. "Who the hell are you?"

Callie scowls at him and smacks his shoulder, waving her newly-acquired S.H.I.E.L.D. ID in his face. She doesn't, however, notice the fact that she's holding it upside down. "Callie Watson, S.H.I.E.L.D. consultant."

Damn does that feel weird to say.

General Ross snorts at her.

Snorts at her.

"What?" he mumbles into his beer. "They're hiring teenagers now? Figured Fury would have more gumption than that." He sighs heavily and finally turns around to face her. "What does he want?"

Resisting the urge to turn his tie into a noose and fling him forehead-first into the bar (a move Natasha has recently taught her), Callie takes a seat on the stool next to him, nearly choking on the smoke emanating from his cigar. "It's about what happened in August, with the-"

Ross raises a hand, stopping her in her tracks. "Yeah, I get it. Shoulda' known the freaks over at S.H.I.E.L.D. would be interested in Banner." He puts out his cigar right on the wooden counter, attracting a glare from the bar tender. It leaves behind a perfectly round scorch mark. "Unfortunately for Fury, I don't know where he is." Ross makes a shooing motion in Callie's direction, royally pissing her off. "Now goodbye."

Callie's changed her mind. She won't do the tie-noose thing. Instead, she'll elbow him off of his bar stool and jam the heels of her boots right into his eyes. Nowhere that will leave permanent damage, just in that perfect spot between cornea and socket to momentarily incapacitate and make him hurt like the little bitch he is.

"It's about the Abomination, actually," she says instead, because she doesn't think she'd like getting yelled at by Ward very much.

Much to Callie's satisfaction, Ross looks stunned. The now-unlit cigar falls right out of his mouth and onto the disgusting floor of the bar. Before he can say another word, the door opens, and the last voice Callie wants to hear at this point in time calls out, "I smell smoke and defeat. Thaddeus, is that you?"

The expression on General Ross's face is murderous. Callie's matches it. "T-" she begins to growl, but Ross beats her to it.

"Stark!" he barks. "The hell are you doing here?"

Tony has reached them at the bar. He's wearing the sunglasses Callie gave him for Christmas, despite the fact that it's eleven at night and he's indoors. He reaches over to tousle her hair, mussing it all up. Callie wants to punch him but doesn't.

"Just visiting my daughter," Tony replies all what a coincidence, huh? Almost like he isn't ruining whatever chance Callie has at somewhat of a future with S.H.I.E.L.D.

Ross looks at Callie with new eyes, and she knows that look. That's the oh you're that Callie Watson look. The one that means people are going to start treating her different. She hates that look.

"Since when have you had a daughter, Stark?"

"Since a year ago when he adopted me," Callie replies, noticeably grumpy. "Tony," she whines, "you're ruining my first assignment."

"I wouldn't say ruining," Tony replies. "I'm making it better, more interesting. You're learning to think on your feet and deal with interruptions-"

"Annoyances," Callie corrects, feeling sufficiently shoved aside for the circus act that is Tony Stark. "Now, General Ross, about the Abomination-"

"That thing?" Tony intones again, and now Callie is thinking that maybe she could swipe his glasses and shove them down his throat. Not enough to choke him, exactly, but enough to shut him up for a little bit. "The one that destroyed half of Harlem a month ago? Why does Fury want him in the boy band?"

"What boy band?" Ross asks.

"It's not a boy band!" Callie says shrilly. "It's a super secret team of superheroes and spies and- God damn it, Tony!"


Two in the morning the next day finds all three of them in a jail cell at the local precinct.

"I hate you," Callie says decidedly, and she can physically feel the weight of the bags under her eyes at this point. "And I'm serious about it this time. I really, really hate you."

Tony just frowns at her. His hands are twitching every couple of seconds, which means he's late for his hourly caffeine fix. "No you don't. Fury wouldn't want the Abomination anyways. The thing is literally an Abomination. And Ross is a dick, too."

Callie doesn't say anything. She kind of wants to cry, actually. Because this was her chance and she blew it.

Maybe, she thinks, if she'd been able to get Tony out of there fast enough, Ross wouldn't have made a crack about Armani suits. And maybe Tony wouldn't have made a crack about whiny government bitches who try to kill their daughter's fiances. And maybe Ross wouldn't have punched Tony in the face. And maybe Tony wouldn't have smashed a glass over Ross' head.

And maybe the three of them wouldn't be in holding cells right now.

Ross, for his part, has been silent for the past few hours, due to the fact that he is passed out (and snoring very loudly) on the cot in his and Tony's cell. Tony is leaned up against the bars between him and Callie's space, as far away from the violent general as he can get. He's also sporting a nasty-looking black eye, and Callie winces whenever she looks at it. She doesn't like seeing her dad hurt.

But Tony doesn't like seeing his daughter hurt, either.

"You're not enjoying college so far," he says very suddenly, "are you, kid?"

And just like that, Callie deflates like a punctured balloon, sinking down to sit on her cot, lower lip trembling in the way it does before she's about to cry. Because she's still only eighteen, and she's still Callie- the Callie that isn't grumpy all the time, and usually makes friends very easily, and was so God damn excited for Rutgers and New York and Doctor Alexander Suttwell...

But it's nothing like how she thought it was going to be, and that makes Callie, dumbly enough, sad.

Very sad.

"No," she whispers. "I'm really not."

She looks very young right now, almost like a kicked puppy, and if Tony could hug her, he would.

"Aw damn, kid. I didn't mean to make you cry," he says awkwardly, because she is crying, and it's really, really embarrassing.

"I didn't mean to cry!" Callie practically wails, nearly waking up Ross and the police officer who is supposed to be guarding them until their bail money comes through. "I feel- I feel so stupid and childish and-"

"You still are a child," Tony tells her, realizing the truth in his words as he says them. Because she is just a child, a child who lost her mom a little less than a year ago, who's been putting up with all the Iron Man bullshit for him, who is burdened with a genius's brain in an eighteen year old's hormonal head, and who is already being recruited by the scariest organization on Earth to do life-threatening work for them.

Callie's been through a lot. It's no wonder she's been so upset lately. She sort of has a right to be.

So as he talks his daughter through the first nervous break down she's had since learning about Obadiah Stane almost a year ago, and as Coulson finally shows up to bail them out, and as Ross very firmly tells them there's no way in hell he's letting the Abomination join the Avengers, and as Coulson explains that they never wanted the Abomination in the first place and he only had Callie do the consulting thing because he knew Tony would come and royally fuck the whole thing up-

Well, you get the idea.

Tony's mind is anywhere but in the present. Instead he's toying with ideas for a brand spanking new Stark Industries headquarters in New York City, the likes of which will make Donald Trump shit his pants with jealousy.

If Callie can't find happiness in New York City, then Tony will just come along and make some for her.


A/N: Hey howdy my loves! I figured I'd let you know that the rest of the month of May and all of June will be dedicated entirely to Devil's Promise. I definitely won't be finishing anytime soon (there's still a shit ton of plot to get through), but you can probably expect me to get to at least the events of The Avengers before I switch back to the Damsel in Distress Diaries. Anyway, I sincerely hope you enjoyed this chapter, and please leave a review below if you feel so inclined!