This is a fan made story. I don't own the rights to Captain America, any of its characters or any characters within the MCU… Much to my disappointment. This will have some violent content and possible triggers. Steve/Bucky Established Relationship. Constructive criticism is welcome but if you don't like it simply because you don't like the line of thinking, please don't attack me for it.
I Am SO SORRY for the delay. I got a very nasty cold, followed by my father almost dying and requiring open heart surgery twice and when all that chaos was over, Thanksgiving popped up out of nowhere and as my day job is a baker, I was buried under the work load of literally (and I mean that in the strongest sense of the word of literal) thousands of pies. Good news is that I have a week of vacation now so hopefully I can pound out a few chapters to catch up.
Chapter 21: Moving
One Week Later
If anyone had told May Parker three weeks previously that her nephew was a super hero, she would get a job offer from Tony Stark, and that she would going to buy moving boxes because she accepted said job offer which required her to move into Stark Tower, she would have laughed like a mad woman and then referred them to Dr. Rakish who headed the Mental Health ward. Now? She wasn't sure she didn't need to be committed. As it was, the job offer was really something that only a mad man would reject, but also one only the truly deranged would accept without her exact situation occurring.
Tony, he had insisted on her calling him that, had offered to have her apartment packed up for her but she soundly rejected the idea. This was her home of the past five years. The apartment she had been forced to find when she couldn't afford her old one without her late husband's second income. As May picked up packing supplies, she took a brief second to almost resent Tony. If he hadn't been so damned flamboyant with his super heroizing, maybe Oscorp wouldn't have created that damned spider. She dropped that line of thinking quickly though. The type of technology that Oscorp had used for making that spider had been in development since Peter was a baby. The goal they had, much like with Dr. Banner, was to recreate the Super Soldier program.
Ironically, according to Steve and Tony, Peter was stronger than any Avenger other than Banner and Thor. Once more, May was extremely grateful that if Peter's powers had to be discovered, and they did have to be discovered at some point, they were found out by the Avengers, a group that understood that just maybe a super powered 15-year-old boy needed to be kept as quiet as possible for now. May sighed as she finished getting everything she needed for the packing process. She had already talked to the hospital and while they were understandably upset, the promise of a Regen Cradle a full year before it went on the market smoothed over any ruffled feathers about taking their top Pediatric surgeon.
Knowing what she did of Tony, May wasn't surprised this morning when the Hospital Director called her and said thanks to her for accepting the offer having the Cradle already being installed in his Trauma Unit. As a result of this, she now had a week to pack everything before taking up her new job for Tony Stark as Director of ECHO. She still wasn't certain she bought into his 'ECHO was already in the planning phase' argument but it did make some sense that the Avengers would need to create something like that to help with good PR. Every Crisis Hospital Organization, May had to admit that Stark had a way with acronyms, even if they were a little forced to sound elegant.
She bought the packing supplies and then quickly shoved them into her trunk. If her estimate was right, she had three days, if she was lucky, to get everything packed before Tony lost his patience and sent a team to finish the job for her. She got home as quickly as possible when living in New York City given the traffic. Once inside the apartment, May dropped everything on the kitchen table before going through a short mental debate. That debate ended with the living room being the best starting spot. With this, she prepped two smallish boxes and immediately started loading them with the books on the shelves. From there she moved on to the everything else in the room excepting the TV, though even it's cords were packed with everything that went with it.
After the living room, May went to her room and packed everything that wouldn't be essential within the next few days, including most of her clothing. She paused briefly for lunch before entering Peter's room and immediately groaned. Of course, her 15-year-old nephew wasn't going to have anything organized or clean. May dropped a few boxes on the floor and began to process of sorting and packing at the same time. Electronics in one box, books in a second, toys in a third, and clothing going into the hamper like they should have in the first place. When the hamper was full, she brought it down the hall to the laundry room and started a load, grateful that in the middle of the day, no one was around to hassle her about it.
She went back to packing, pausing to switch the clothing to the drier and then fold and pack them away with the rest of his stuff. By the time Peter got home from his 'internship', he found his room nearly empty except for boxes, some trash bags and his aunt stripping the empty top bunk of his bunk bed.
"Take out that trash. Honestly, I have no idea how you managed to accumulate this much crap in your room, Peter. Also, move these boxes out with the rest in the living room," May didn't even turn around as she stretched to pull the sheet off.
Peter sighed, realizing that every corner of his room had likely been searched by his aunt. A glance up revealed the ceiling tile slightly out of place and he groaned. He may not have had to hide his uniform, old homemade one or new, from her anymore but the fact that she found the old one so easily was a little unsettling. Peter moved to do as ordered, noting that all the boxes were neatly labeled. He would need to sort through the 'electronics' box which was likely mostly crap, but his aunt wouldn't know good from bad.
He grabbed the bags of trash to bring down to the dumpster and did what he was told. Before he could enter the building, his senses shot to high alert. He glanced around a few times, looking high and low before spotting a glint in a window. He allowed his eyes to adjust slightly and realized that it was someone with a camera and groaned. He went back into the building and ran up the stairs.
Once he was back in his apartment, Peter, casually walked to his room, moved them into the living room and strategically stacked them in front of the window there. When his aunt came out with the last box from his room, Peter waved her over to the blind space he had created and held up a piece up paper, 'We're being watched' he had quickly scribbled and then pointed to the window. May mercifully didn't speak, edged to the window that was mostly blocked by the boxes and shifted the blinds enough to peak out. She saw the same glint and sighed.
She picked up the pad of paper and pen and wrote quickly, 'Get Tony to send movers to grab everything tomorrow. We are mostly packed away.' Peter nodded and pulled out his new Stark Phone. Tony had smirked and told Peter that it was completely secure. He texted Tony that he could send the movers in the morning as his aunt was tired of packing already. There was barely a three second delay before he got a response of 'Knew she'd cave'. Peter responded that someone was watching them and got an angry face emoji and was told to play it cool. Peter started engaging his aunt in talk about her new job and her progress on the packing, making an emphase on how it was surprising that she had gotten it all done so quickly.
May realized what he was doing and let him lead the conversation through eating take out. She was more than little upset by the clear surveillance on her home but given the three highly placed job offers she had received in the past week by government run medical facilities, all of which were away from New York, May realized that it was likely the doing of Ross. Why he got so obsessed so fast, she couldn't say. It was extremely unsettling that he had resorted to such methods so quickly. She was almost damned certain that he couldn't have managed to get a warrant for that surveillance team across the street meaning that he was violating their right to privacy and the law.
May's concern only increased when, just after they finished eating, Natasha and Bucky showed up and took to writing on the pad of paper that Peter and May used when they wanted to keep what they really needed to say. 'It's Ross. Tony had a drone scan the building and there are wireless signals coming from your apartment.' Natasha wrote neatly. 'We will stay the night to make sure he doesn't try anything. He doesn't have a warrant for this, we checked. In the meantime, pretend we aren't here. Just get what ever else needs to be packed up and the movers will be here first thing.'
May nodded her understanding, anger clear on her face now with the realization that Ross was likely insane and willing to do whatever he could to get information on the Avengers. May made a vocal show, of telling Peter she wanted to be packed completely before the movers got there in the morning, so they needed to pack up the kitchen after cleaning up dinner. Natasha gave an approving nod when Peter reacted with a groan and complained like a normal teenager would. Part of his training had been espionage with Natasha and the boy was surprisingly good at lying if he wasn't worked up.
Bucky and Natasha helped them, moving silently and out of sight of the windows, rush through the packing of the rest of the apartment. After they finished, Peter and May were waved off to sleep. Natasha and Bucky set up a watch of the surveillance team. Neither of them felt it worth mentioning that Steve and Clint were on the roof of the building, keeping an eye on the streets. It was the first time that Natasha really could appreciate the need for sharing the parental responsibilities between then entire family. Laura was overseeing a 'sleep over' for all the kids, and Vision had offered to watch the twins since they still didn't sleep through the night and he didn't need sleep at all.
The next eight hours were dull. The surveillance team was lazy and obvious, which is probably why a teenager spotted them. Natasha wouldn't even be surprised if they had set up shop earlier the same day they got spotted. At least she knew that her training for the kid was sinking in. He was using his senses, not letting his guard down. At seven a.m. on the dot, a moving truck rolled up to the building. May and Peter were already awake, dressed and ready to go as soon as the 'movers' knocked on the door. Each and every one of them were security personal that Natasha recognized. No one was taking any chances. Peter and May helped, carrying boxes down while the team handled the furniture.
By ten a.m. the truck was loaded. Peter and May got into May's car and drove to Stark Tower. There was no problem with the employee entrance opening up and then May's car was parked in the Avengers' garage. It was only when they were safely in the building that the team relaxed. Of course, the eight hours weren't a complete waste, while Bucky had watched the surveillance team, Natasha had searched every inch of the apartment and found every listening device placed with the furniture. All the packed boxes would need to be scanned before being moved into their apartment as well.
FRIDAY took May and Peter directly to the common floor where the remaining team members were waiting. Tony wore a massive smirk, "Ross made a big mistake with his latest move. At the very least he is going to be forced to resign when this gets out, worst, he is looking at serious jail time. Secretary of State or not, he had no warrant and no grounds for surveilling private citizens. My money is on it being because Peter is Bruce's intern. Ross is insanely obsessed with Bruce. The Hulk is the white whale to Ross's Ahab. My drones took readings and photographs of that surveillance team, that with the bugs that are CIA standard issue and the highjacked audio feed from your apartment, I got him."
Steve rolled his eyes but couldn't argue. Ross hadn't just stepped over the line, he had violated basic legal rights. Not even the Patriot Act covered that level of surveillance without valid evidence of terrorist activity and neither Peter nor May fell under that category. It was midafternoon before they finished scanning everything and finding all the listening devices. By the time that they finished, May was just about ready to storm the White House herself and tell the President that not only was Ross a liability, he was a threat to National Security with his obsessions with Dr. Banner. Natasha had to talk her down and urged her to channel all that rage into writing her speech for the UN session and working with Helen to find suitable doctors for ECHO.
May calmed a little bit while working on her speech when she glanced at Tony as he spoke on a conference call with several senators and state representatives about Ross. Tony's near childlike glee couldn't help but make May smile a little. Peter had disappeared a while ago to train and it was just her, Steve and Laura also on the main floor. Everyone else had disappeared to their own jobs that were less mobile.
May noted that the people that Tony were speaking with were the ones with probably the cleanest records in government. They were the ones that supported universal health care and had backed the Avengers after they saved everyone in the Battle of New York. They were the people, mostly Democrats, that focused on trying to change things for the better. More than a few of them absolutely hated Ross and the information that he had violated someone's right to privacy to such an extreme extent was both disturbing and music to their ears.
Peter was summoned part way through the meeting to explain that he had noticed because of a glint of light catching on a camera. At some point, a few federal judges, one from the supreme court, and the Attorney General joined them. The meeting ended with the Attorney General assuring Tony he would bring it to the President's immediate attention. Tony in turn promised to have all the evidence delivered to his office by Natasha first thing in the morning.
There had been over a dozen mentions of a special prosecutor being assigned to investigate the situation and the depth of Ross's corruption. There was even a request that Dr. Banner document the entirety of his interactions with Ross along with listing names of every person that might be willing to testify against him. Tony had even given them a starting point of Dr. Elizabeth Ross, Secretary Ross's own daughter who had worked with Bruce on the project that turned him into the Hulk.
Once Tony finished, he disappeared as well. Bucky appeared with Rebecca and began cooking with the little girl. Almost immediately, May's mouth began to water. She wasn't much of a cook, that had always been Ben's area of skill, half the reason she married him. Once the cooking started, May's progress halted.
"How frequent are the home cooked meals?" She asked Steve and Laura.
"Steve and Bucky prefer to cook when it is an option. Why?" Laura responded, setting aside her work and helping set up the table.
"Because if Tony had included that in his original offer to move into the Tower, I probably would have broken much sooner. It's a shame they're gay. I have a total weakness for a guy that can cook well. It's how Peter's uncle managed to win me over," May shrugged and gave up altogether on her speech.
"Huh. Good to know. May Parker, greatest weakness, good food," Tony sounded from behind her, his daughter clinging to his hand.
"Oh, that isn't my only weakness, just the one that is likely to lure me in," May commented.
Peter laughed at that, "No kidding. The two guys Aunt May has attempted to date since Uncle Ben died were both chefs. Neither lasted long though. They couldn't really handle dating a woman smarter and had custody of a kid."
Tony smirked, "Well, I am certainly not intimidated by an intelligent woman, I got I kid of my own and yours is pretty okay, and I can keep you in close proximity to not only Steve and Bucky's cooking but there isn't a restaurant in the world that I can't get a reservation to. Is that enough to earn a date?"
May laughed. Tony had been flirting with her the full week they had been negotiating her working for him. For some reason, the man didn't lose interest even when she had been cold, "Well, it is a start, though I still don't like you that much." May's response made Tony pout.
By the time Bucky and Rebecca had finished making dinner, pot stickers, veggie rolls, sushi rolls and fried and white rice, everyone had returned and the table was set with the necessary utensils. May proposed to Bucky after dinner and was rejected on grounds of her not being Steve. Tony pointed out that she still had him and got a slap to the back of the head from Natasha. When they returned to their floor, Peter and May realized they still needed to unpack and their beds had been replaced with much nicer beds. May curled up happily in probably the most comfortable bed she had ever had, not that that was saying much since her old bed had been beyond worn down. The nigh before hadn't given much rest so she fell asleep almost instantly.
So, I am going to assume that in the Avengers Universe, they would never elect such a shit president like ours and given the circumstances at least a small chunk of the government would be pro super-heroes after something like the Battle of New York. Thus, I am going the route that the president it Pro-super heroes and so most of his administration is. This would also explain Ross being Secretary of State since he has personal experience dealing with them. I am going to give this fictional President the benefit of the doubt and say that Ross lied through his teeth to get the position and the Army covered up much of Ross's exploits to conceal the fact that they were involved in essentially illegal human experimentation that resulted in the Hulk.