Author's Note: Ok so we may be getting close to a reveal soon. I own nothing.
28. Run With It
The next three days passed in a blur and soon Piper was helping prep the living room for the party. There wasn't much to do. The rest of her team was out patrolling with Flash. They hadn't decided if they would officially let Hobgoblin join up with them but none of them seemed totally against the idea. She smiled as she headed back to her level and changed into her dress. It was a blue number that matched Harry's shirt for the night. Things were going so smoothly between them and Piper knew that she needed to tell him soon, the truth, that she was Spidergirl. That she knew about her parents, about his father's involvement in their deaths. Her hands shook slightly. Tonight. She would tell him tonight that she was Spidergirl. She took a deep breath and headed back to the living room.
The party was just starting when Harry showed up and Piper grinned from her current spot talking to Uncle Rhodey who shooed her on her way when he spotted who she was looking at. She met him with a hug and a smile and he held her close for a moment. She spotted Tony rolling her eyes at them from across the room, but he said nothing. One of the few reporters in the room had spotted him though and stepped over to them to grab a quote from each of them.
It was a few hours later when they finally got some alone time. Piper slipped back behind the bar and grinned at Harry. Harry smiled right back and cleared his throat before speaking.
"So, what brings a beautiful girl like you to a place like this?" Piper snorted slightly.
"Oh, you know, the usual. A boy." Harry grinned at her. "He's a bit of a dork though but I think I can run with that."
"Then I think you should." She looked down at the mini fridge and pulled out a soda for each of them.
"I think I will but…" Harry's smile slipped slightly. "He doesn't know everything about me though. I'd like him to but I'm not sure how he'd react to this particular secret." Harry raised an eyebrow.
"I think if he's really the right guy he won't care what you've done or what secrets you keep." Piper grinned as he took her hand and kissed the back of it. "Run with it." Before Piper could speak Thor practically materialized beside Harry.
"This must be your suitor Lady Piper!" Before Piper could protest Thor was dragging Harry away. Piper sighed and rolled her eyes at the ceiling wondering if she would ever get to tell Harry the truth.
The party had basically wrapped up by the time she got another chance to talk to him. It was just the Avengers now, along with Agent Hill, Dr. Cho, Rhodey, herself and Harry.
"Come on it's a trick!" Piper snorted at Clint as Thor motioned his forward. Clint tried and failed to lift the hammer and each in turn took their try. Piper giggled as Bruce faked a roar. She patted Harry on the shoulder as he tensed. Bruce gestured to Natasha who shook her head.
"That's not a question I need answered." She gave Piper a pointed look and Piper eyed the hammer for a moment. It would be interesting if she could lift the hammer. Knowing what she knew of magic she knew that not just anyone could be worthy of it. Though whose definition of worthy the hammer was working off of seemed a bit up in the air to her. After a moment she shook her head.
"I think I'm with Auntie Tasha on this one. Not a question I think I need answered." Harry raised an eyebrow at her.
"Why not?"
"I know my value. I don't think I need a hammer to tell me how much I'm worth." Natasha smiled at her and Agent Hill raised her glass in her direction. Piper rolled her eyes as Steve stepped up to the bat.
"For what it's worth I think you'd be able to lift it." Harry said softly. Piper grinned slightly at him as the Hammer shifted slightly in Steve's grip and Thor went pale. Piper held herself beck from laughing, but only just. This would be a good time to sneak off and talk to Harry in private. She grabbed his hand as Thor stood up and easily picked up his hammer, grinning at them.
"I have a better theory. You're all not worthy." They all laughed. Piper made to pull Harry to his feet and out onto the balcony when her spidey sense jolted her and she stumbled slightly as a hissing whirring crackling voice echoed around them.
"Woooortthyyyy." They all turned toward the elevator. Piper sidestepped in front of Harry as they all spotted the source of the sound. It was a half built iron legionnaire. Its face was partially melted like someone had splashed it with acid. It walked like it was injured, trailing oil along the floor. The voice that came out of it wasn't familiar.
"How could you be worthy? You're all killers." The room went tense as the half built thing gestured around the room his arm skipping only Piper and Harry.
"Stark." Steve's voice had gone full Captain America, calculating and commanding.
"JARVIS." Tony tapped his phone but got no response. The machine in front of them whirred and kept talking.
"Sorry, I was asleep. Or… I was a dream."
"Reboot Legionnaire OS." Still nothing happened. "We got a buggy suit."
"Terrible noise." Piper stared. This wasn't a bug. This approached sentience. "I was tangled in… in strings. Had to kill the other guy. He was a good guy." Piper's blood ran cold. She twitched towards her watch. Had someone from the team come back early?
"You killed someone." From the sound of Steve's voice his mind was working along the same line as hers.
"Wouldn't have been my first call. But out here in the real world we're faced with ugly choices." The room was so tense that Piper could practically hear the muscles tense in the fighters around her. She kept Harry behind her as she fingered her bracelets. Well they looked like bracelets. They were a set of webshooters in reality. She'd worn them in case Harry had asked for proof when she told him the truth. She guessed that she wouldn't get the chance to tell him the way she'd wanted to.
"Who sent you?" Thor asked twirling his hammer in his hand. There was a faint click and the voice echoing from the robot changed.
"I see a suit of armor around the world." It was her father's voice. Bruce was the first to react his eyes going wide.
"Ultron?" It was a name she'd heard bandied about a few times. But it had always been a fantasy, something that her father and Bruce like to theorize about but it was never real. Except that it seemed to be staring them in the face right now.
"In the flesh. Or no, not yet. Not this chrysalis. But I'm ready. I'm on mission." The faint click of a safety being flicked off and a gun cocked met Piper's ears and she tensed, ready for battle. This wasn't how she'd wanted it to be. This was so far from how she'd wanted Harry to find out. She would just have to run with it.
