Yo, yo, yo, Acadia here to answer a few questions asked by the masses.
How does Max know Pepper? I don't remember them meeting.
Ah, a very good point. They met in chapter 8 of Wither Wings when Tony kicks Max out of the tower telling her he has to do 'things' and that she should take a girl's day with Pepper, Natasha, and Jane. The girls day doesn't go well, but Pepper is like an aunt ever since.
What's the Goonies?
A ghettofabulous eighties movie involving pirates, Indiana Jones-style boobie traps, and a boy who says he can speak spanish but really can't and it sort of gets them all in trouble with wells and curses and treasure maps. No Dread Pirate Roberts involved, sadly.
Peter seems to stutter a lot. Why is that?
I recently rewatched The Amazing Spider-Man and Andrew Garfield's characterization of Peter really struck me. I liked how he did things more with actions than he did with words and wasn't really good on getting words out. He also does tend to stutter around pretty ladies, just as Max stutters around pretty boys.
Feet pounded on the concrete outside the back door of the Astoria-Waldorf hotel in Upper East Side Manhattan on a brisk fall afternoon. Leaves were beginning to shed from the trimmed-daily trees that lined the sidewalks and it made it just that much harder for Maximum Ride to sneak up on her target.
"Blech." She pulled a maple leaf wet with dew from her mouth and spit on the ground below, wiping her chin with the back of her hand. It had rained the night before and was proving to be a serious disadvantage.
But when did you ever let that get to you? Eh, Maximum? she asked scolded herself. She spotted the royal blue of the perpetrator's windbreaker a block down the road. Now go on after his ass!
Max landed, allowing herself to regain some strength and then took off on a running start, shooting a straight as a bullet towards him, wings tucked in close to her shoulder blades. Her boots scraped the pavement in front of him, leather gloves skimming the ground as she came to a stop, wings spread to their full length.
The man recoiled, clasping at the manila envelope that was stashed underneath his windbreaker and stumbled backwards, trying to run the other way. She flitted in front of him with ease, grabbing him by the shoulder as he turned around. The man fell to the ground, his pants soaked through from the sodden ground. He began to grasp at the asphalt as if to stand up and get away as Max stepped closer, casting a shadow over his face.
"The file, Mr. Hartley," she commanded, holding out one hand.
Ping. Ping. Ping.
"You'll never- Wait, is that a ring tone?"
Bzzt! Ping. Ping. Ping.
"Damn," Max swore, rolling her eyes with a huff and unzipping her jacket pocket to see who was calling. She punched the answer button with irritation. "Hello?"
"Max!" Peter's voice sounded hopeful and overflowing with cheer, like he overdosed on sunbeams and daisies. "How are you?"
"I'm great, Peter," she replied, a slight edge to her tone due to the interruption. The man in the windbreaker saw his opening and scrambled up. "Oh no you don't," Max whispered underneath her breath and grabbed his collar, deftly pulling him to the ground in one swipe.
"What was that?" Peter asked.
"Nothing," Max said, matching Peter's happy voice as the criminal was struggling at the end of his leash.
"So I was, er, wondering if you were free on Wednesday," said Peter.. "To go out on a date," he finished hastily. "A proper date- a better date than the one a few days ago."
The guy wormed free, but Max caught him by the elbow, twisting it at such an angle before pushing his face against the brick wall facade of the Waldorf-Astoria. He let out a groan. "I thought that your aunt May was sweet."
"Ha, yeah," Peter commented. "It was real sweet how she was sneaking peeks at us all through the movie, like I would spontaneously propose or something crazy like that- which I wouldn't, propose I mean. No, who would do that on the first date? I'm not that kind of creepy-"
"Peter," Max interrupted, pulling the file from inside the guy's jacket with his arms pinned behind him and her phone cradled between her right shoulder and her ear. "If I say yes will you stop talking?"
"Uh," Peter paused. "I have to say that's a first. If I talk even more will you go out with me next week, too?"
"Bye, Peter," Max laughed, knocking the man out with a blow to the temple. "See you Wednesday."
"Goodbye, Max." They hung up.
Max slung the unconscious Mr. Hartley onto her shoulder, stuffed the manila envelope into her jacket, and began the trek back to Avengers Tower.
And on the top of a midtown skyscraper, Spider-Man let out a mighty whoop of celebration and leapt off of the roof towards an unknown destination.
"Air mail for Bruce Banner!" Max called as she threw the criminal off of her shoulder and onto one of the tables in the sick bay at HQ. Luckily enough, Mr. Hartley was still unconscious and didn't mind being manhandled or, at least, didn't have a say in it. Max plopped down into Bruce's swivel chair and did a 360 rotation.
"You should call the police when you catch someone, Max, instead of just bringing them to me." Bruce rearranged Hartley's limbs so he was laying in more of a sleeping position than a corpse in a mass grave position.
"I only bring the baddies to you if they have injuries," she said.
"And yet they always seem to have injuries." Bruce chuckled.
"Sometimes they deserve it," Max said and pushed off of the side of the wall with her legs, propelling herself and the swivel chair towards the opposite side of the room.
He checked the vitals of the captured criminal before politely handcuffing him to the table and putting a pillow underneath his head. "Now, do you have the file?" He asked Max.
"Why do you even doubt me?" Max flashed a grin and pulled the manila envelope from her jacket. "Not sure if he tampered with it. I haven't taken a peek yet."
"Go and give that to Steve before you do anything else," he instructed. Max happily obliged and gave a mighty push off the wall opposite the elevator and slid, on the swivel chair no less, into the elevator with the file in her left hand. "And bring back my chair!"
"Yessir!"
Steve was biting into the bottom half of a bagel when Max found him a few stories up from the sick bay. He put down the newspaperand his brunch as she placed the file in front of him. "Right on time," he said.
"I'm never late," Max said, flopping down into the chair opposite him and putting her combat boots up on the table top. "My professors call me 'perpetually punctual.'"
"You inherited that one from me," Steve said with a self-satisfied nod.
"God knows Tony is anything but punctual." Max twirled a piece of hair around her finger and then blew it out of her face with a puff of air from her lungs. She pulled her boots off of the table and looked at the file. "Open it."
"Why?" Steve asked. "I was enjoying brunch before you got here and I'm going to continue to enjoy it."
"I want to know what I was sent out to get." Max pushed the file towards Steve. "Open it."
"Nope." Steve picked up his bagel and took another bite.
"Then I'll do it myself." Max picked it up and tore straight through the seal, yanking the contents out of the envelope. She picked up a newspaper clipping that was on top and squinted at it. "This...is a doughnut recipe."
"Yep."
"You made me go and beat someone up for a doughnut recipe." Max was incredulous.
"Not just any doughnut recipe." Steve set down his bagel. "My mother's doughnut recipe. It was published in the papers when I was eleven. She won a baking contest. This clipping was stolen from the newspaper archives."
"Cool." Max looked at the grainy picture that depicted a woman with a platter of doughnuts. Was this Steve's mother or just a typical 30s housewife? She put it back in the envelope and then gave the entire file to Steve before getting up from her chair. "Oh, I won't be able to make it to dinner Wednesday. I need to study."
"You always come over for dinner. What subject are you studying for?" Steve asked.
"Uh...Science." Max said, racking her brain for an excuse and coming up a bit short. "I have to write an essay on...Parkerson's, I mean Parkinson's, disease." Her thoughts were interlaced with those of Peter, making even words that sounded like his name pop out of her mouth.
"Aren't you studying herbology this semester?" Steve asked, catching on to the fact that something might be up.
"Uh," Max said with wavering certainty. "It affects plants as well."
"Okay..." Steve raised his eyebrows as she exited the room, shaking his head and picking up his bagel and the Daily Bugle to resume his brunch. "Women are strange."
Next chapter shall be the date! Yesh :3 And before the question of the day, I would like to ask you all a different question. When this fic is done, I was thinking of creating either a Maximum Ride/Harry Potter crossover or a Percy Jackson/Harry Potter crossover, in the HP mood and all. Would any of you be interested in that? No, I won't be abandoning this story at all, I have big plans for it, but the other crossover might be a spare time sort of thing.
And the question of the day is...
How long do you think Max can cover up her relationship with Peter from her parents?
-Acca