By the time Peter makes it back to his house, he's so caught up in her laughter and her wit and making sure she doesn't pass out from the blood loss that he almost forgets that Aunt May will be waiting up for him. But, sure enough, the moment the key twists in the lock and he pushes the aging door inward, her voice pierces the wall.
"Peter Parker, where have you been?"
The young man cringes and shoots Lee an apologetic look, leading her into the living room where his guardian is pacing in pajamas and a bathrobe.
"Hey, Aunt May," he says, giving her a hug and a peck on the cheek.
Eyes shifting from her tardy nephew to the stranger in her living room, May is distracted from her goal of scolding. Her gaze softens and she looks at the younger woman, whose wound has clotted but whose skin is still stained. Confusion settles into the wrinkles on May's face, just as worry sinks into her stomach.
"Who's this? And what in the world-"
Peter has become skilled at many things in his time as Spider-Man, and avoiding his aunt's questions is one of them. He heads into the kitchen and opens the freezer, pouring ice into a rag and twisting it. Pressing the newly made icepack to his lips, he brushes off her concern.
"There was an incident walking home. No big deal."
Aware that she looks like something straight out of a horror movie, Lee smiles her brightest, most polite smile to the older woman. In any other case, she would extend her hand for a shake, but the dried blood on her left hand and the sticky, stained t-shirt in her right keep her from the nicety. Instead, she gives a little bow of her head out of respect and embarrassment.
"Hello, Mrs. Parker. My name is Lee McCarthy. Peter helped me out of a tight spot tonight. I'm sorry I kept him late," she says, sincerely.
"Nice to meet you, Lee. Now, what exactly happened?"
Peter walks up to his new companion and touches her on the shoulder, gently leading her to the staircase. He speaks with the icepack firmly attached to his lip.
"Aunt May! Potentially life threatening injury over here," he says, attempting to skirt Lee from the room before either of them suffer any more mortification at the hands of his aunt.
With a scoff at the ridiculous exaggeration, the older woman hollers to the pair as they walk up toward Peter's room. Lee begins chuckling under her breath. She likes this Aunt May.
"I'll see you in the morning, Peter. Don't stay up too late. And make sure she gets home safely!"
Peter yells some sort of agreement before looking at Lee's laughing face and muttering with an abashed gleam in his eye,
"I'm sorry about that."
There's nothing for him to be sorry for. Lee never had someone like that. Never had someone to check up on her at night or yell at her about missing curfew. It's a small thing to want from life, but it all of the sudden seems so massive, so realistic, to crave. And Peter has that. Lee would be lying if she said she wasn't at least a little bit jealous.
"She's sweet," she beams, "Are your parents around?"
Entire body stiffening, Peter takes a moment before shaking his head.
"No. They're not."
It takes Lee a moment to realize what he means and the moment she does she feels like the worst kind of person. Not a second ago, she was jealous of him for his ideal home life. Her stomach feels heavy and repentance drips from her tongue. Of course his parents aren't there. She knows that they are gone. How stupid.
"Oh, God. Oh, God, I'm sorry," she breathes, a little lost for what to do.
A brave face slides on Peter's face like a mask as he points toward a door down the hall with his free hand, still clutching his quick-made ice pack in the other.
"Don't be. C'mon, the first aid kit's in here."
Lee raises an eyebrow, a joke lacing her suggestive tone. The adrenaline in her body has been pumping so intensely; she's shocked that she's managed to maintain this level of alertness for so long. Not that she's complaining. She hardly thinks Peter would want to be with someone falling all over herself due to blood loss.
"Your bedroom? If I didn't know better, I'd say you were trying to take advantage of me," she teases.
Peter offers a smirk of his own and lays his shoulder into the wood of the door, attempting to unstick the tricky lock.
"I wasn't planning on it, but now that you mention it," he trails off with an uncharacteristically proud tone.
The door isn't budging. A flush of embarrassment passes over Lee as she leans against the nearest wall for support. Her knees are starting to feel a little weak.
"Do you often take strangers back to your house?" She asks.
Peter shakes his head and gives her an honest answer, throwing his weight into the door again as he jiggles the handle.
"Never."
Genuinely surprised, Lee raises an eyebrow.
"Oh. Really?"
"Really."
With one more shove from his shoulder, the door finally budges, swinging open wide and dragging Peter along with it a few steps. Lee follows behind him, whistling low as she attempts to find a place to stand that isn't covered in stuff. She's read his file and she never thought that the meticulous Peter Parker would have a room that looks like this. There's just...stuff everywhere.
"Nice room," she quips, dryly.
Peter may not be blushing, but he's close.
"I forgot how messy I left it. One second."
He shoves clothes off of his bed, attempting to load them into a hamper already overflowing with pajamas and jeans. Patting the newly cleared seat, he offers it to her with a nod.
"Here."
She sinks, her body unexpectedly grateful for the time off of her feet.
"Thanks," She says.
Peter sets about looking for the first-aid kit which he assures her he left in here somewhere, but Lee doesn't trust that he'll ever manage to find it. He offers her a piece of ice from his ice pack and a fresh roll of paper towels (kept in his room for the nights he orders pizza, of course), so she can clean off her hands. As she does so, though, something catches the corner of her eye. Beside her, on the bed, are freshly developed photographs. Beautiful photographs. Someone on the opposite track of a subway station. Two men playing checkers in a park. Ships passing each other in the Hudson.
"These are good," she says, breaking the silence with a nod of her chin in their direction.
Those words force Peter to stand straight up from his rummaging. His heart stops. There are some of his original Spider-Man suit sketches in that stack. Lee dries her hands and picks them up, just at the time Peter is reaching for them. She begins to flip through them.
"Oh, I'll take those," Peter exclaims, taking them from her hands and shoving them in a desk drawer.
His dismissal catches her off guard, but it doesn't change the truth.
"They're really good," she repeats, her tone consoling and honest.
Peter nods his thanks and reaches under his bed, pulling out old skateboard wheels and magazines alike until finally and blessedly, he pulls out a first aid kit.
"Here we go," he announces proudly, with a flourish.
He clears another spot for himself on the bed so he can sit opposite her. Popping open the tin, he pulls out cloth and peroxide, knowing that his poor comforter might suffer some new stains from the harsh smelling alcohol in the black bottle.
"This is going to sting. Sorry," he says apologetically.
And it does. God, does it sting. He pours the alcohol over her new wound and, as it begins its bubbling, Lee attempts to continue her mission.
"I... I'm new in town, and I just...I have a question."
She had told Peter on their walk over here that she had just moved here from Texas, but offered him little more by way of actual exposition than that. Peter pulls out a few squares of gauze from the box and blots away the alcohol.
"Uh... Shoot."
"Who's this Spider-man guy?"
Spluttering, Peter almost drops the peroxide. His eyes flicker around. Did he leave anything out? Did he drop any hint that she might have picked up on? Fear trickles through his veins and it is so apparent to Lee that she jumped into the Spider-Man thing too soon.
"What?" Peter manages to gasp out.
Lee, too, struggles to recover. Attempting nonchalance, she lets Peter pour another, equally painful dose of peroxide on her skin. It bubbles and kills germs and tickles her flesh. She points to one of the magazines he pulled from under his bed. The last Daily Bugle article with his mask on it. Of course.
"I mean, I just got off the plane and people were talking about him. I'm just curious, I guess. This reminded me of him," she says, pointing to the magazine and hoping that her excuse will pass for something realistic.
Unable to help himself, Peter releases an audible sigh, grateful beyond compare that his secret seems safe for now. He grumbles out an explanation for her, hoping that it will be sufficient.
"He's... A jerk who runs around in tights trying to save people."
His fingers brush her skin as he removes the rest of the blood from her neck. It isn't the easiest time to feel romantic, but there is no irony in the way she says,
"Like you saved me?"
And the smile he gives when he looks in her eyes and says,
"Sure."
Lee already knows the answer to this question, just like she knows the answers to all of her questions, but she decides to push her luck a little bit.
"Is he an Avenger?" She asks, innocently.
Peter throws the wads of gauze into the trash and begins sorting through bandages with a sharp,
"No."
The rest follows so quickly that their words become the back and forth of a tennis match between two masters.
"Why not?" She prods.
"I don't know. Maybe he wants to keep everything quiet," Peter strikes back.
"But he could help more people as an Avenger, couldn't he?" Lee asks.
"Yeah, but maybe he doesn't want the people he cares about getting hurt."
That last sentence comes out razor sharp, and it forces Lee to lean back a little bit in shock. She holds her hands up in a sign of surrender.
"No need to get defensive. Just asking."
Peter begins unravelling the bandage for her neck, shaking his head as he apologizes. He got too invested, too carried away.
"Sorry. My relationship with Spider-Man is...complicated."
Lee's voice gets that graveyard, piteous tone to it as she looks him in the eye.
"Oh, Peter."
There's a gravity to her words that makes his stomach sink like a lead brick. She can't know. She couldn't know. There's no way she could know.
"What?"
But the lead in his stomach turns to butterflies as her deep-seated frown turns into a taunting smile.
"Are you dating Spider-Man?" She asks with mock sincerity.
"You caught me," he chuckles.
He lays the bandage over her neck and tapes it down. Maybe his fingers linger a little longer than perhaps they should, but he'll never admit to that.
"There you are," he says, tossing the bandages away with a flourish.
Lee drags in a deep sigh and adopts a soap-opera flair.
"Give it to me straight, doc. Am I gonna make it?"
Neither of them have noticed how close they've gotten until she and Peter are nose-to-nose as he whispers with a heavy nod,
"I think you might just live."
Their proximity shatters the moment and Lee jumps to her feet. Too much too soon. Too much too soon. Too much.
"I think I have to go home," she says, bashful.
Ever the gentleman, Peter rises to his feet, matching her.
"I can walk you, if you want," he offers.
God, does she want him to. How easy would it be to have him walk her through the streets like they were really something? But no. It would not help her cause if he walked her home... Home, for now, being Stark Tower, and all. It would certainly shatter the illusion that she's building. She leaves the room, with him tagging along behind, and begins a trek down the stairs.
"Your aunt might kill you if you do. It's late."
They reach the bottom and he walks her to the door, opening it. There are cabs out tonight like stars, and Peter knows she'll be able to get home safely. It eases his conscience about letting her go alone a little.
"Will I see you again?" He asks.
Did that sound as cheesy and desperate out loud as it did in his head, he wonders. But Lee doesn't seem to mind either way, as she just keeps walking down the steps with an easy air about her, light and dusty, as she hails a cab from the edge of the sidewalk. Peter stands on his stoop and watches.
"Maybe. I'll be the girl with the scar on her neck. Besides, you owe me leftovers," she nearly purrs, laying it on thick.
She winks. She actually winks. Dumbstruck, Peter feels the left side of his mouth tugs up in the smile of a love fool as the mystery that is Lee McCarthy calls to him one more time before sliding into the yellow cab that's come at her command.
"Goodnight. And thank you, again," she says.
Her head is disappearing into the cab just as Peter realizes he doesn't have her number.
"Wait!" He shouts, an anxious murmur in his chest erupting at the thought of losing her for good on this island of millions of people.
But she's already in the car, shouting to him through the window.
"Bye!" She calls.
And just like that, she's gone.
When she gets back to Stark tower, Lee is dizzy and exhausted and wants to sleep for days. Between the rocking and the darkness of the cab, the blood loss has finally hit her with the weight of a tank. She stumbles through security at the base of the building and lays her head against the cool wall of the elevator to give her a shock back into reality. When she reaches her stop, The Den, where she hopes to grab a drink of water before heading upstairs for bed, she is immediately set upon by a raving Tony Stark. There is something wild about his eyes.
"Where have you been?" He shouts across the room, striding with long steps to meet her.
Lee doesn't have the patience or the energy for him. She walks straight past him, toward the refrigerator, and tosses all of her sass at him from there.
"I'm sorry. Do I have a curfew now, Dad?"
Tony grinds his jaw and splays his fingers, a physical manifestation of the annoyance he's feeling right now.
"Don't start with me, or I swear to God-"
Pepper uncurls from the couch and puts aside her portfolio, rubbing the bridge of her nose as she stands to barricade Lee from her father's wrath.
"Tony. Lay off of her. Now, Lee-" Pepper is mid-thought when she sees the bloodstains on Lee's clothes and the bandage on her neck. "Oh my God what happened?" She exclaims.
Lee pulls a bottle of water from the fridge and shrugs.
"It was just an accident."
Pepper pulls the young woman in, leaning desperately close into Lee's skin so she can better see the damage.
"And how did that happen?" She asks, not wanting to touch the bandage, but wanting to understand all the same.
"When I was getting mugged. Agent Barton accidentally slid the knife a little too deep."
Tony feels a bit like he's having an out-of-body experience, like everyone knows something he doesn't and like they're all alright with that.
"Uh-excuse me. What knife?" He asks, his voice pitching up a few notes higher.
His daughter doesn't believe for a moment that his concern is based in anything more than the desire to not get sued for medical expenses. He doesn't care that the knife Agent Barton used was way too sharp and that Peter was surprisingly fast, so when Clint went to pull away from Lee, his knife dug in farther than it should have.
"Oh, please," Lee scoffs, rolling her eyes.
Pepper loops her arm through Tony's daughter's and begins walking her to the door.
"Come on. I'll take you to the Medical wing," The redhead says, worry coloring her world.
But Lee extracts herself and shakes her head, folding her arms across her chest, squeezing herself tighter and tighter and tighter.
"It's fine. Peter took care of it."
Confusion pervades the room.
"And how did bug boy manage that?" Tony asks, dryly.
Lee can't deal with her father at this moment. Giving her best matter-of-fact tone, she succinctly explains,
"He took me back to his place and got me cleaned up."
In spite of herself, a smile spreads across Pepper's face. This mission is half-baked and ridiculous and can only end in disaster as far as she is concerned, but it is happening all the same and the best thing that can happen is for everything to go smoothly between Peter and Lee.
"That's promising. How was it?" She asks like a gossip queen straight out of a 1980's teen flick.
How was it? Lee thinks on that one for a while, unsure of how to answer it. She almost had her throat slit. That wasn't particularly great. And, on some level, she always had it in her mind that it was fake. The entire night was contrived and unreal, which took away from his smile and his laugh and the way he took care of her. But, in all, the only thing that she can think to say to sum up the whole evening is,
"He's... He's a good guy."
Pepper touches the younger girl's arm and catches her gaze, giving a maternal glow to every word she utters.
"Well, I still want you to get looked at, alright?"
A protest falls from Lee's mouth. She's exhausted.
"Can it wait 'til morning?"
A few moments of thought and Pepper concedes, leaving Tony in the dust, watching his wife and his daughter disappear up the stairs toward Lee's apartment. Neither of them even bother to tell him good night.
"Sure. Let's go upstairs. I want to hear everything."
Tony takes the elevator to Clint's apartment, pounding his fist against the door. The noise fills the hall with sharp, echoing sounds that resound lie cymbals in Tony's head. Oh, he hopes he's waking this bastard up from a really restful sleep.
The door opens and Tony's voice raises to something dangerously resembling a shout.
"What the fuck?" Stark growls.
Clint's entire body immediately goes into defense mode. Everything stiffens, everything turns on.
"What?" Clint snaps.
Tony's eyes are alight with fire and Clint rises to the challenge. They're nearly chest-to-chest, the little space between them alive with tension and anger. Tony's anger is inexplicable, unknowable even to himself. But when he saw her walk in late with a bandage around her neck, fires began spreading across his world. Clint's anger is more indignance than anything else. He did his job. He did his stupid goddamn job and no billionaire asshole is going to tell him that he's done it wrong.
"You almost slit her throat. That's what. You were supposed to take care of her," Tony reminds the other man.
Every briefing began and ended and was sprinkled with the same directive from Fury. Lee McCarthy is not to be harmed in any way. But Clint shakes his head and turns reproachful.
"Babysitting kids is not part of my job description."
There's a distinction that cannot go unspoken.
"You weren't babysitting. You were robbing."
"Well, I did a good job, then, didn't I?" Clint asks, his tone laced with irony and malice all at once.
Tony's voice drops to an unimaginable low, rage slick and unjustified boiling in his throat.
"If something had happened to her-" Tony begins a threat that Hawkeye refuses to let him finish.
How dare Tony Stark barge up here and demand answers? Clint feels a righteous sort of rage flow through his veins as he barks,
"What? You would have just gone back to how you lived your life a few weeks ago. You don't give a shit."
The barb stings like whips and pulls a bit of Tony's emotional armor away.
"Just be glad she didn't suffer anything serious," he finally says.
Clint just rolls his eyes.
"Yeah. Because the wrath of your paternal instinct would be so impossible for me to bear."
The door slams in Tony's face. And once again, he is left alone.
Woo! This chapter was a doozy! I can't wait to hear all of your thoughts and feelings. Please, please, please review! You all are lovely and I love to hear from you! It means so much to me. :) Also, in case you missed it, I posted a Harry Osborn/OC fic yesterday, which you should check out too!