Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Descansos are symbols that mark a death. Right there, right on that spot, someone’s journey in life halted unexpectedly. To make descansos means taking a look at your life and marking where the small deaths, las muertes chiquitas, and the big deaths, las muertes grandotas, have taken place.”

It’s not something she talks about often but MJ knows there is probably some significance to the fact that her first memory is of her father. She was, in many ways, committed to the act of memorization and so many of her hobbies were manifestations of her compulsive need to categorize and commit to memory the things and people around her.

Because her first memory is of her father and there’s so much she doesn’t remember about it. It wasn’t vivid or exciting or traumatic, but there was a moment in time where she existed in this world as Michelle Jones Watson and she was three years old and she was meeting her father for the first time.

Sometimes she felt guilty that her first conscious memory didn’t center her mother. The girl of this time lived and breathed her mother, never thought about her father, and yet this voice on the phone that sent odd presents and made weird small talk, was the one that occupied such an important space in her mind. 

Oddly enough, while Michelle knows that her father called (although how often is another specificity lost to time) she can’t remember any of these phone calls before she met him. The jarring feeling of hearing his voice in the room with her for the first time is as clear as ever, though. A voice that she couldn’t connect to a real person was all around her, in front of her, and now, her father. She remembers pushing up on her toes to look at various bobbles that covered the station he was working at. It’s why this memory plays in her mind so often. These days everything felt small to her in his lab and it was jarring to feel the passage of time so succinctly. Now, when she went to look at what he was doing, these too tall tables were just normal sized work benches. So the thought came often that in that time and space of before, she’d needed two hands to grip the edge and the full strength of her toes to make up for the height she was lacking. 

She remembers too, that as she walked around his workshop, that he was talking to her. That too was lost to time. As often as she tried to reconstruct it, she couldn’t place her mother in the room or imagine a single thing he would have said to her that day. Nevertheless she tried—in vain—to fill in the missing pieces and smudged edges that marred her recall and left her with nostalgia and bits (not even pieces) to a full story. 

Time is weird in that some parts of your life completely end and flow into another without warning or conscious thought. No signal to tell you that things after this would be different. She wonders sometimes if her mother knew that this absent man would become a inconsistent staple in her life. He was just a voice on a phone for so long, and then he was the man that called weekly and made her laugh. As she grew older, he demanded more of her attention and wanted more her time even though he gave very little of his. Things changed. She knew that the guy that used to be the voice on the phone was Tony Stark. There were serious talks about his side job as Iron Man. And he just so happened to her father. The father of it all was treated with the least amount of importance. It was like saying his hair was brown, he liked honey made hand soap, and he had a daughter named Michelle. 

MJ hated that she couldn’t remember when he stopped being the man that she thought of as her father—the same way she thought of her aunt who lived in a far city and sent pictures, a person you love because you know they’re important but their existence is a mirage—and started to think of him as dad. No one ever told her what to call him and she does know for years, she never called him anything. 

Can we call him?

Did he send that?

Are we going to his house?

She guesses the change came after he moved to New York. She knows her mother told her that he’d be closer but it seemed to worry her. He’d be closer but ‘he’s still busy so we probably won’t see him much more than we do now’. Michelle knew from evenings when she was supposed to be playing in her room or sleeping that it was that portion of the situation that deeply irritated her mother. Phone calls and long talks over wine with her aunts boisterously discussing it in the other room helped shade the memory of his arrival in her mind.

“I’m sure Malibu was doing good and well before Tony took his ass out there. And now he wanna bring all that back to New York?”

“And for what?” She remembers hearing through the crack in the door. “It’s not like he’s about to suddenly become Daddy Dearest.”

“Girl, don’t get me started. Hold on.”

Michelle could hear the giggling, the clinking of glasses as they were lifted and returned to the glass table. She knew the sound of a cork popping intimately. She waited for the conversation to continue, sitting on the floor of her room with a puzzle. 

“Hey, Miche, you okay.” Her mom asking, poking a head into the bedroom.

“Mhm.”

“Alright, twenty more minutes and then I want you to start brushing your teeth and putting your pajamas on okay? When the big hand gets to the 12” She’d instructed, pointing to the purple clock on the wall.

“Okay, I will.”

When her mother left the room, she closed the door completely and the muffled laughter was cut off entirely. Michelle could put two and two together and remembers being angry at being shut out. She knows he must've become her dad around this time, though.

That’s another stupid thing about memory. It’s not chronological. It takes these snapshots and spreads them out for you to consciously contextualize. MJ hated not knowing these things as concrete fact and abhorred the process she took to fit each memory into the place it belonged. So, while she didn’t quite know when that night fell on the calendar—the one where the room got silent when she came in to say goodnight and kiss and hug her mother and aunts before bed—she did know that the first time her father stood in that same spot was two days after he’d moved to Manhattan. 

Her parents were arguing when she walked in the door. She wasn’t old enough to walk home from school by herself but after some negotiation and more than one long conversation out on the stoop with a few other mothers, it was agreed that Michelle could walk home from school with a few other kids and their mothers would trade off on escorting them to and from. Her best friend was in that little group and they all watched and waited as each child parted from the group and made it safely into their building, often with a wave from a waiting caregiver. She remembers that on this day, Natasha’s mother asked her if her mom was home and MJ gave her confused shrug.

Her mother hadn’t been waiting for her downstairs but she technically had a key and was allowed to go up on her own. 

“You come get me if no one’s there, alright, Michelle.”

“Yes, ma’am.” She nodded and rushed in. 

It didn’t happen often that no one was waiting for her, whether that be a babysitter or her mother, but sometimes she’d be home for five to ten minutes by herself. She knew to take her shoes off, put her backpack and coat away, unpack her lunch bag on the kitchen counter, throwing away trash and putting any food left in her bag back in the fridge. She also always called him. 

So, it was a surprise that day, walking into the apartment and seeing him there for the first time. She wishes she’d been quieter. She came in, keys jingling in her hands, water bottle sloshing in her backpack and it was dead silent as their argument halted in her presence. 

It was awkward. It might have been the first time she realized her parents were just people. Not all knowing, all seeing adults that knew everything. They stared at her and each other and no one said a word for enough seconds that Michelle wondered if she should walk back out and wait patiently in the hall for them to finish. She never knew adults to not have an answer. For them to fall silent and search for the right words. Her mother was brilliant and knew everything. Her father talked to much. It was never quiet. Michelle didn’t know if she should be the one to change that.

It was her father that broke the silence, going through the mental checklist of questions he’d asked her on many an afternoon call from the comfort of three thousand miles away. She wonders if he could feel the lackluster energy in her answers. This was too different for her to engage without questioning the reason for his unforeseen appearance.

Her mother watched wearily from across the room, eyes flitting back and forth between them. Eventually the small talk petered out, flooding the room with silence again. Michelle hadn’t moved from her spot at the door, the keys still dangling precariously from her fingers, shoes still on, and a jacket tied around her waist.

“Well…I should get going.” He said, staring at her mother a moment before crossing the room to her. 

Michelle doesn’t know why she remembered the fact that he didn’t take his shoes off. He stopped in front of her, kneeling down to really look in her eyes, brushing errant curls back from her face. He promised he’d see her later and she gave him a nod, unsure of what to say. All of this was so new. He didn’t wait for a response, stepping around her to reach for the door, but the look he gave her mother over his shoulder sent the woman rushing towards him, pushing him out and closing the door behind her with a quick ‘Michelle, go ahead and take your stuff off’. 

She did as she was told, throwing her keys back into the side pocket of her backpack and stripping it off along with her shoes and jacket. She organized everything neatly, taking her time to as she lined her shoes up under the bench in the entry way. She was stalling. Listening. Michelle considered putting her ear to the door but worried that her mother might open it at any second, slamming it into her face. She was ready to give up. There were other things she could be doing, but then she heard it, the easy way her father let threats fall from his lips. Most of it was muffled but his tone was clear and so was the way he’d said “She’s mine, too. Remember that. My kid.”

“What’s really interesting is that aside from the vague press release from Stark’s publicist, he’s been unusually mum about the whole thing. 

“I mean, are we really surprised that he’s not parading around the fact that he apparently knew he had a child and was hiding it? I think what’s really surprising is that he fessed up to it all.”

“Turn that off.”

Michelle was sitting upside down on the couch, her head dangling off the cushions and her socked feet against the wall over the top of the sofa. She only knew her mother was serious because she didn’t comment on that first. 

“Michelle.”

She knew not to drag it out any longer, reaching for the remote control before making a dramatic show of pressing the ‘power’ button. She kept the controller in her hand with the futile hope that she might be able to turn the television back on before the segment finished.

“And sit on the couch like a person.”

Even though she knew it was coming, she still rolled her eyes before flipping over and laying across the length of the sofa instead.

“Anything else?” She asked, refraining from rolling her eyes this time if only because she knew her mother was trying to be understanding and wasn’t sure how far that understanding stretched so many weeks into this. “I should be allowed to know what people are saying about me.”

Michelle could feel the weight of her mother’s stare as she listened to her settle onto the L-shaped space across from her. She appreciated the space but still wished that she’d sat closer, that the sofa were smaller so she’d be forced to curl into her mother’s lap like she did as a small girl.

“And how is that making you feel? Knowing what people are saying about you?”

“Why aren’t they doing anything?” Michelle huffed, the tone of her voice rising. “Everything they’re saying is untrue…and no one is contradicting them.”

Michelle opened her eyes and turned to face her mother with a wrinkled brow and down turned lips.

“Is that why you’re not talking to your father? Because you think he should be sticking up for you more? Protecting you?” 

There was an edge to her voice.

“It’s not about me.” Her mother’s eyebrows shot up, mouth opening with a retort primed to spill out. “It’s not!”

“It’s your face on every news station and paper and it’s your education that’s being interrupted.”

Michelle could tell from by the words were punctuated that this wasn’t the first time they left her mother’s mouth. She shook her head to physically clear the thoughts of her parents fighting before they could take root and amp up her anxiety. She wondered what her mother fought for the hardest. Her statement wasn’t entirely true. For as many times as her Midtown yearbook picture flashed on screen with more pontification of what Michelle Stark might be, Marie Jones Watson got her fair share of screen time as well. 

“But no one is calling me a bad parent,” Michelle tilted her head and started to tick off each statement on her fingers. “A liar, an irresponsible philandering whore-“

“That’s enough.” Marie interrupted sharply, raising her hand up with a sigh. “You are not responsible for your father’s reputation.”

“They wouldn’t be saying any of this without me.” Michelle pointed out, crossing her arms in defiance.

“Miche, your father was being called everything but a child of God long before you were even a twinkle in my eye.” Her mother shrugged and leaned forward like she wanted to reach out and touch her. “We’re all getting battered right now but we’ll be fine. It’s you I’m worried about.”

“I’m fine.” She interrupted.

Marie grumbled before continuing. “If everything is fine, why aren’t talking to him?”

Michelle rolled her eyes harder this time, rubbing her thumb over the power button on the remote control again. She probably wouldn’t get in too much trouble for ignoring this conversation and falling back into the hole of entertainment news. She just knew her mother didn’t deserve her feened nonchalance.

“Do you really believe that?” Michelle tilted her head back to make eye contact with the ceiling, a habit from childhood and a remnant of her active imagination. “Friday, when’s the last time I talked to Dad?”

It was silent for a second before the computerized voice came back with an answer.

Hi, MJ. You spoke with Boss just yesterday at 9:53 pm before going to bed. 

“Can you tell me how long he’s saying it’s been?”

Boss said it’s been weeks in a conversation an hour and twenty-seven minutes ago.

Michelle smirked, eyebrows raising as if she were daring her mother to argue with her.

“He misses you…” She said simply, but her expression was pained. “This is the longest you’ve gone without spending time at his place since you were in elementary school.”

“It’s been three weeks.” Michelle answered with another eye roll. “He’s being dramatic.”

“I don’t disagree…but he clearly missed you.”

Michelle shrugged, focusing on the remote in her hands. “Once they got my picture, it just seemed better to stay home. Stay here, I mean” Michelle shrugged again but this time her whole body was tense against the cushions as if a board lay between her body and them. “Who knows what they would say with more fodder.”

Marie opened her mouth to respond but sighed heavily instead, watching her daughter for a moment before she said anything. “Michelle, I don’t want you worrying about this.” She stressed once more, the strain in her voice pulling at the words as she spoke them. “I want you to go to school and hang out with your friends. Anything but sit on this couch all day watching trash journalism.”

“Mom, you love journalism. You told me it’s one of the most noble professions someone can have.”

“And you’re a smartass.”

“At least I get the smart from you.” Michelle swears her mother giggled. Laughter was on short supply these days. They were both tense and the apartment was silent with their worries more often than not. “I’d already decided to go back to school after the weekend. If I miss another day, my friends are going to bring the school to me.” 

Michelle picked at the buttons on the remote like she might pull them right off. “And I don’t want you worrying either. I just want them to do something to make all of this stop. I can’t use my phone, my school is surrounded by creeps, and they been reporting on everyone in this family like we committed a crime.”

“I know.” Her mother whispered, nodding her head slowly. 

She finally stood, bending down to kiss Michelle’s forehead, murmuring encouragement into her hairline. Michelle liked that her mother lingered for a moment, brushing a hand through her hair before retreating to the kitchen. In a way, she liked being babied. She liked that her mother was worried enough that she’d all but demanded that Michelle sleep in the same bed with her like when she was small and too scared to sleep anywhere else. Although she might have gotten away with it with her mother distracted in the kitchen, she didn’t turn the television back on. Instead she curled up on the couch and watched as her mother pulled different ingredients out of the fridge and cabinets, before finally deciding to get up. She crept closer to the kitchen like a guarded cat and sat on a stool across the island. 

It was her spot. Even as a little girl she liked to sit and watch the way her mother’s hands would glide over seasonings and her feet carried her from stove to fridge to counter like expert choreography.

“You wanna help?” Marie asking, amusement carrying the words at the answer she knew she would receive.

“Not unless you want me to mess something up.” 

“You can’t mess up, there’s no recipe. Just your instincts and ancestors.”

Michelle scoffed, resting her cheek on the cool surface of the island. “My instincts are great but thanks to you my colonizer blood is blocking the ancestors.”

That got a full belly laugh from her mother and a spritz of water, flicked from freshly washed hands.

“At least you’re learning by watching.” 

Michelle grimaced in disagreement but let it be before she talked herself into chopping vegetables. “Hey Friday, can you play some music.” 

Sure MJ, would you like to hear the playlist you started this week? 

“Nah. Can you play MJ’s mix for Mom?”

MJ watched her mother smile as Bill Withers filled the space between them, looking at her with shining eyes and a quick smirk before she turns back to the fridge, face pointed towards the ceiling to speak.

“Friday, change that to Michelle’s mix for Mom.”

MJ remembers being just Michelle and not MJ at all and she remembers the exact day she became MJ and not Michelle. It’s the same day that if ever asked, MJ is sure that she’d say the best day of her life. The day she got to meet her sister Morgan. She was 11. It was the year she layered all of her clothing, a tank top over a t-shirt, over a long sleeved t-shirt. Maybe a cardigan. Leggings under shorts and shirts and long, patterned knee-high socks. The photos were ridiculous but one day in her father’s living room, wearing seven different colors, Pepper placed a baby in her arms. 

“This is Morgan.” Pepper all but cooed next to her. 

She could see her mother move back, a camera in her hands and crouched for the perfect photo. 

“Morgan?” She repeated, looking up at her father who hovered anxiously. 

“Morgan…Michelle. We’re going with a theme. I like themes. You like themes, right, MJ?” Michelle crinkled her eyebrow in amusement at the rushed way the words flowed from his lips. 

“Since when do I have a new name?” 

“Since now.” He threw a look at her mother over his shoulder and rolled his eyes when he turned back to her. “Somebody gave you way more names than you need.” 

The scoffed “Tony, shut up” was neither unexpected nor unwelcome. 

Michelle felt like the room was floating. Everyone was so happy. 

“You’re MJ, she’s MJ. Sisters.” 

His tone broke her focus. She’d been watching Morgan’s pretty little face. Noting where her skin looked chafed, where it was pink and rosy, the way every single little finger was wrapped around one of hers. Especially how small and delicate her fingernails looked. The way her eyes moved underneath the thin membrane of her lids. What did she dream of? Did she know who was holding her? Would she love her? Michelle had never thought about siblings and now she thought, why didn’t I always want a sister?. 

“What are you talking about? My name’s not MJ.” She asked with a furrowed brow. 

He did this. Talked in riddles, said things she didn’t always understand, gave her more nicknames than she could remember. 

“Michelle Jones…Watson-Stark. And she’s Morgan James Howard Stark. So both of you have way more names than you need but you’re both MJ.” He looked nervously back at her mother and then to Pepper before his gaze returned to her. He placed his hand over hers where she cradled Morgan’s tiny hands in hers. “That okay with you?” 

Michelle hummed an affirmative answer without looking away from the baby in her arms. 

“I can’t wait until she can talk.” 

Her father scoffed, finally backing away to give her space. “Yeah, I can’t wait to have four women telling me what to do.”  

MJ giggled and looked around at everyone in the room. She remembers feeling like light was physically coming from her with the way she was beaming.

“For now, you’ll have to make due with us three.” Her mother added with a sarcastic smile. “Sit down so I can take a decent picture of the four of you.”

Of course he followed her directions, sitting next to MJ who was flanked by Pepper on her other side. She knows that he leaned down and kissed the top of her head and that her mother asked more than once for her to look up at the camera, but the photo that hangs in the hall near the kitchen and decorates both her father and Pepper’s office is one where Pepper has an exasperated smile on her face, her father is laughing at the camera, and MJ’s smile is bright but her eyes are glued to Morgan in her arms.

“How long do you think she’ll let me hold her?” MJ asked as her sister squirmed in her arms and began to whine.

“I think she’s probably a bit hungry now and will need a diaper changer. How about I take her for a little bit and then you can have her right back.” Pepper said, rubbing a hand down MJ’s arm. 

MJ didn’t really have a choice in the matter, the baby was already being transferred from her arms but Pepper didn’t leave like MJ thought she would. Instead she pulled down the dress she’d been wearing, shielding herself from MJ’s view with intentional arm placement. She ran a finger around the inside of Morgan’s mouth to help her latch better and then wrapped her arm around MJ to pull her closer.

“See? She’s like you that way, fussy when’s she’s hungry.” Pepper smiled as she nudged MJ into her side. “Then we’ll make your dad change this stinky diaper, so she’ll be fresh and happy to see you.”

MJ remembers thinking she was probably more happy to see Morgan than the other way around but her sister did smell better when she was once more placed gently in her arms. Her eyes were open and she was staring up without blinking. MJ was reluctant to look away for any reason. She thought she could sit and make faces at Morgan for hours without getting bored. She’d even said as much and got a laugh from everyone in the room.

“Can I stay here?” She asked, her hands free to play with Morgan’s tiny fingers since they’d propped her up on an odd U-shaped pillow that hugged her tight.

“You’re staying for dinner, Kid. You choose and we’ll order it.”

“No,” MJ shook her head with out looking up. Morgan was pursing her lips and drool came freely. It was new and fascinating. “I mean can I sleep here.”

MJ remembers feeling the silence more than hearing it. It wasn’t until she’d started sleeping in her mother’s bed again that this came up. That her mother admitted to her in a low, pained voice that she’d been going through the motions and her father’s involvement was mostly convenient. How, even after all of those years of day trips and phone calls that she’d never let herself imagine that she would really truly have to share her child with this man. The fact that he knew she existed was a mere curtesy. She said this under the cover of darkness where they both felt safe talking for hours before they finally succumbed to sleep. But MJ knows there was anger in her voice and she wasn’t sure at whom it was directed and why her identity reveal brought it to the surface.

“Maybe-I mean…tonight’s probably not the best, honey.” Pepper stuttered but MJ wasn’t old enough to differentiate Public Relations Pepper from Stepmother Pepper. “You don’t have any clothes and you know…Morgan’s been sleep most of the day which means she’s going to scream most of the night. You won’t get much sleep.”

MJ looked up in time to see Pepper look at her mother, who looked frozen where she sat. When MJ caught her eye she nodded slowly.

“Pepper’s right. Not tonight.”

“Yeah Kid, you’ve got school tomorrow, too.” Her father jumped in, he fidgeted where he was standing.

MJ smirked and shook her head. Sunday. Right.

“How about Friday then? You could pick me up after school because it’s an early release day and then I won’t have school the next day in case Morgan cries all night. I can bring all the clothes I need to school with me or we can go home and get them first.”

She looked from face to face as they looked at each other, waiting for someone to respond. Finally it was her mother that spoke.

“Okay. Next Friday.”

And that’s how she started spending every other week with her father.

“Look who it is, MJ Watson.”

“Hi dad.” MJ answered with an eye roll, sitting up in her bed with her phone propped against her open laptop that she had resting oh her chest. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I should be asking you that.” He scoffed, looking at the screen like the power of his gaze might transport him through it.

“Stop telling mom I’m not talking to you. She worries.”

“We’re all worrying, in case that escaped your notice. Which is why I’m calling.” He paused, she could tell he was replaying what he’d said to make sure he hadn’t messed up this early into the call. MJ wasn’t above hanging up on him. “What can I do for you?”

MJ’s face scrunched with incredulity. “What does that even mean?”

“It means what can I do for you? What do you want? How do I make this better so you’ll stop avoiding me.”

Michelle shook her head and sighed, too tired to work through why she hated everything about this phone call already. He’d made strides as a parent, his work made him better, but narcissism was hard to grow out of.

“This isn’t about you and I’m not avoiding you.”

“Okay, you still haven’t given me anything concrete. You can ask me for anything that’ll make this better for you. Come on. Trip to Italy? Endless supply of art supplies?”

“You can unblock my phone.” She suggested with a raised eyebrow.

“Okay, so you can ask me for most things but nothing you know I’ll say no to.” He held his hands up in surrender when she huffed and rolled her eyes. “Why do you need your phone unblocked anyway? I know Eustace is sending you regular updates.”

“You know his name is Eugene-“ MJ stopped abruptly as she computed what he was saying. “Are you reading my emails?” 

“No-“

“Because it sounds like you’re reading my emails.” She couldn’t keep the anger out of her voice. It was one thing to insist on protecting her but quite another to invade her privacy for the sake of doing so.

“Nobody’s reading your emails. Everything that gets sent to you has always gone through security checks. Now, those checks are a little bit more thorough meaning, when you started getting an emails with the subject line ‘Newsletter’ from a fraudulent website multiple times a day, security traced it back to him. I’m not an idiot, I can put two and two together.”

She nodded, feeling her body physically deflate but she hated that she was unable to shake the anger that lingered.

“I deserve to know what people are saying about me.” MJ added after a few seconds of silence.

“Not if it makes you feel like this.” He gestured at the screen as he spoke and huffed as he settled back in the chair he occupied.

She could see it then. Since her sister was born, sometimes Pepper would say things like ‘you Stark girls look just like your dad when you do that’. MJ always scrunched her face up in confusion. If you’d asked her, she didn’t look like either one of her parents but she especially didn’t look like her father. Strangers commented on her likeness to her mother but even when she looked hard, she couldn’t find it. There were features she could tell that they shared and old pictures of her mother that looked like she would if she were darker. She never saw that in her father, though. Except that now he was angry and she could see what Pepper meant. His jaw was tight and his eyes focused and he was staring at her with flaring nostrils and fire behind his gaze. And maybe (sometimes) she favored her father.

“You’re angry.” She pointed out, fully aware of the anger in her own tone.

“Makes two of us, so why don’t we take turns. You first.”

It wasn’t a question, but she was still scared to answer. Sometimes tears came with the anger and she knew that would make her angrier and unlikely to finish this conversation in any productive manner. Instead she took a deep breath and spoke slowly.

“I’m angry that my friends are being harassed, that I can’t walk outside without my picture being taken a hundred times. I’m mad that everything they’re saying is either untrue or taken out of context and you haven’t said anything. Tony Stark releasing a statement instead of holding a press conference? That was bullshit.” She could hear the way her voice got louder and her pitch higher, but she couldn’t stop. She still feared the tears that might come if she stopped to take a breath or gather her thoughts. “And mom? She doesn’t even have the means to defend herself.”

Thinking about her mother made her chest feel tight. How, for the first two weeks, they’d both been stuck in the house and the phone hadn’t stopped ringing. She hadn’t been able to forget the tears she’d seen or the strangled ‘I don’t even know if I’ll be able to work after this’ whispered into the phone receiver as her mother cowered in the pantry for privacy in the middle of the night.

“MJ, you know why I can’t call a press conference. You know it was the first thing I suggested and Team Family was in agreement that doing that would make it worse.”

MJ nodded but ignored him because she did know that. She deflated a bit at Team Family—what they’d began to call their little unit, because it was more than just her mother and father. It was mom’s best friend that was more an aunt, and her father’s best friend that was more an uncle, and her stepmother and so many people whose opinions mattered when her wellbeing was in question. And she knew that they all shot down another Tony Stark press conference for the simple reason that putting him in front of a camera and expecting him to follow a script was a historically horrible idea.

“You see what they’re saying right?” Her lip trembled but she bit at it until it stopped. “They wouldn’t treat mom like this if she looked like Pepper or even if she looked like me. All of the speculation about her not knowing who my father is and picking a rich target or jokes about living in Queens as a single mother…it’s all because we’re Black…because she’s dark.”

It was quiet on both ends now. She knew it was unfair to ask him for the one thing he couldn’t give her: media silence and equality. She wanted it anyway. All of the headlines and gossip persisted and took on various faces because they couldn’t have what they wanted: complete access to a rich (now controversial) teenager. 

“Okay…” He took a deep breath, rubbing his face with both heads. His stress more evident than his anger now. “What if I do an interview? We can veto certain questions, we’ll have final approval on anything that runs, and it still keeps you and your mom out of the spotlight. I’d have to run it by everyone first. You know they’ll filter it as much as they can but…I don’t know…maybe that might help.”

There was a warning in his tone. A cautiousness as well. There was room in his emotional maelstrom for fear and self-consciousness too.

“Okay.” MJ nodded once, anger unabated but so tired and too exhausted to let it course through her as it had moments ago. “It’s your turn. Why are you angry?”

He scoffed and leaned back in his chair, arms wide open like the answer to her question would run into his arms.

“Do you remember the first father’s day we spent together?”

MJ’s brow furrowed at the segue. “No?”

“There’s this picture of the two of us. Pepper bought me this dumb shirt. Anyway you had on about 5 different shades of pink which I wasn’t allowed to comment on because you dressed yourself-“

“Are you answering my question?”

“I was trying to before you interrupted.” He leveled her with an unimpressed smirk and then continued. “Look…I know that you choose everything in Pepper’s closet…that Morgan picks out all of her clothes for the week before you go back to your mom’s so you can give your opinion. I know she’s been calling you every morning before school to make sure her outfits are okay. You were the kid that always had an opinion on what everyone was wearing. And now…you dress like the Hamburgular.”

MJ opened her mouth to interrupt again before he continued more forcefully.

“You’re hiding. You’ve been hiding since you started at this school. Your mom says it’s a phase…Pepper…Pep told me to leave you alone about it but I’m really scared, MJ. And I’m angry. Because it started with the clothes and now you’re not going to school or leaving the house or answering anyone’s calls and I’m angry that they’re taking something from you that’s going to change who you are. And it won’t just be a phase. You’re disappearing. I’m…I’m angry that I’m losing my kid to this.”

They were both quiet then as MJ searched for a single thing to say but in typical Tony Stark fashion, the silence was more uncomfortable for him than for her.

“I feel like…I should apologize.” The words came out thick and slow. 

“Apologize for what?” MJ frowned as she watched his eyes roam the room before returning to the screen.

“Jameson is an asshole. Let’s be clear on that. And…he’s making a lot of accusations and I know most of them are wrong but some of them…some of them I don’t know.”

“Like?” MJ pushed him to be specific. 

“Like…I should’ve been a better father to you.” He let out a deep sigh before he made direct, intentional eye contact with the camera. “Some of these reports are exaggerating but they’re not completely wrong about Morgan getting the type of father you should’ve had.”

MJ’s frown deepened. Flash hadn’t sent her too many articles where her parents were being lambasted. Those she had seen before they realized she had full access to everyone’s opinion. So, MJ knew a bit of what he was talking about but she wondered what specifically set him on this train of remorse. 

She had never consciously compared her childhood to Morgan’s. Her mother never left room for her to question what she was missing by having a father that only showed up when it was convenient to him. He was just an extra treat on top of the full life she already had. There were times though, when he’d wake up with an idea and they’d pack up and drive off on some excursion and in the middle of the fun, she’d watch him with Morgan and think Did he ever do this with me? It hadn’t mattered then so it shouldn’t matter now. These memories belonged to both her and Morgan. He was doing these things with both of them now. Still. Still somewhere in the back her mind she knew that Morgan was getting a better version of him because he’d had MJ to fumble with. She knew that she was only getting this improved version of him because he had Morgan to reflect the years he’d been absent.

“That’s what first kids are for. It’s why the eldest always needs therapy.” MJ saw that he didn’t take her joke lightly. “Just don’t make her a middle child because then she’s doomed. At least as the youngest she has a chance.”

He rolled his eyes at her. She could see herself in him then, too.

“I’m sorry.” He said. His face open and sincere. “And I’ll pay for all the therapy you need.”

“You can apologize when my therapist unearths something I really need you to apologize for.” She laughed and the continued hesitantly. “The media finding out I exist…we all knew that was going to happen, right?” 

“We’d hoped we’d get to control the narrative. Announce it. We considered it…talked about it a lot when Morgan was born. Whether or not we should do a birth announce and casually let everyone know she was making us a family of four.” He shook his head like he regretted the decision not to and she couldn’t blame him. “We couldn’t decide. So no birth announcement. We arranged it so they’d catch Pepper putting the carseat in the car and then we could absolve ourselves about lying. This is about as bad as we thought it’d be though.”

MJ nodded but before she could answer, her phone and laptop signaled another call coming through.

“Who’s calling you this late?” Her father’s voice was tense where it would have once been teasingly suspicious. 

“It’s just Peter.”

“Decline the call. Tell Parker you’ll talk to him when the sun is out.”

She couldn’t help but laugh at that. At how much he loved Peter Parker for the son he didn’t have and hated that in his overprotective mind, this teenage boy could actually secure his spot in the family by running away and marrying her. MJ knew for a fact that Pepper was exhausted from trying to field his emotions about his daughter’s first relationship with a boy he couldn’t disapprove of.

“We’re going over the plan for Monday.”

“Plan?” His right eyebrow raised and his mouth was quirked with held back accusations. “That tracker in his suit will shock him if he goes anywhere near your window.”

“For school!” She stressed, ignoring what’d he’d said for fear that it was true. “…I’m not hiding.”

“You’re going to school Monday?” He sat forward in his chair like it would bring him closer and waved his hand flippantly at his surroundings. “What about…”

Me.

“You can pick me up when school is over…I’ll put my bag in the car for Happy to bring back to the house.”

He was physically trying to swallow his joy.

“Yeah…okay. Perfect. That’s a plan.” He nodded frantically a few times, his eyes roaming to avoid letting her see how emotional it made him.

“I’m gonna hang up now.”

“Of course. Sure. You do that. MJ?” He swallowed and looked into the camera again. “I love you.”

“You too, dad.”

He nodded deeply and took a deep breath like he needed to hear it and then he was gone. As she opened up her recent calls list and went to click Peter’s name, a text came through. A picture and more emojis than were necessary, especially since they didn’t make sense together. Then one more. 

Remember this bold little girl?

MJ was doodling on the edges of her notebook when Flash hurriedly slammed open the door to her advanced placement government and rconomics class. His eyes searched the room at a manic speed before meeting hers, immediately conveying the panic he felt before turning his eyes to the teacher who was staring at Flash with an unimpressed frown.

“Um…Mr. Crosby, sir. I need MJ. I mean Mr. Harrington needs to see MJ. Academic Decathlon. It’s stuff. We-he needs her for it. Sir.”

Mr. Crosby turned with deliberate slowness to look at the time on the clock, back to Flash and then nodded in MJ’s direction. 

“Take your things with you, Miss. Watson. The period is almost over.” He back was already facing the classroom and his pen on the Smartboard before MJ could finish nodding.

If Flash’s tapping foot was any indicator, she needed to pack as quickly and quietly as possible but as she was slipping through the door, Mr. Crosby demanded her attention.

“Leaving early is no excuse for missing tomorrow’s homework. Make sure you get it from one of your classmates.”

“She will.” Flash squeaked, pulling her into the hall and slamming the door between them.

“What is your problem? Where are we going?”

He was dragging her down the hall in the opposite direction of where Mr. Harrington’s eclectic classroom held space.

“Where the hell is your phone?” He asked instead, ignoring her.

“You know Crosby is strict about that. I don’t want detention.”

That gave him pause as he looked at her over his shoulder with a face painted in incredulity.

“Since when? 

“Where are we going?” She pressed, ignoring him in favor of her pride that wouldn’t admit to anyone but the object of her affection that she spent so many afternoons in shared punishment for the pleasure of the company of her boyfriend. 

“In here. Come on.”

When he opened the door to the empty chorus rehearsal space at the back of the school, she was shocked to see Peter and Ned there as well.

“What is going on? I’m not ditching school with you idiots. I know for a fact my parents have a tracker on my phone."

“Have you looked at your phone?” Peter was watching her, eyes soft and worried.

She scoffed and took it out of her pocket, blanching at the number of missed calls, text messages, and notifications. She was terrified to open any one of them.

“What happened?” She asked, looking at each of the boys to gauge their emotions. These weren’t faces that said someone was dead and that gave her a bit of relief. Plus, Peter was there. No matter how much he cared for her, if the city were burning to the ground, he’d be out there doing something about it. “Who is it?”

“The Daily Bugle just ran a piece saying they’ve got big news about Tony Stark’s secret love child.” Ned surprised her taking the lead.

Flash handed her his phone with the tweet open on his phone. She could see the engagement increase in realtime. Fuck.

“They haven’t said your name but they said enough. No pictures but it’s definitely coming. I think he wants to wait until tonight for maximum views.”

“They published the name of our school. Are they allowed to do that? I’m a minor.” MJ’s eyes scanned the article repeatedly. It was short and to the point. Nothing to dissect or decipher. They absolutely knew who she was. There was no bluffing in these words. 

“You should call your mom. Or your dad. Or Pepper. Or literally anyone because they’re freaking out not being able to reach you.” Peter held up it’s phone as it lit up in rapid succession. She could just see her father’s name at the top of each message before the screen went black and then lit up again. She looked at her phone and immediately hit the camera icon to call her mother. When the call connected, she could see her mother was in her father’s living room. Pepper was on the phone in the background.

“Michelle? Are you okay? Peter said you were in class.”

“Why don’t you have your phone on? This is an emergency. You’re supposed to answer when we call.”

“Tony…” Her mother snapped, pushing his head out of the way where he blocked the screen, popping his head into the camera from behind what she presumed was her mother’s laptop from the positioning.

“I’m fine. I put it on Do Not Disturb when I’m in that class. My teacher is really strict about having phones go off. But I’m fine. I promise, I’m fine.” MJ watched them relax as much as they seemed capable of in the moment. “Are you guys okay?”

“We’re as fine as we can be seeing as you’re still in a building full of people without security.”

“And we’re changing that now.” Her father jumped in once more. “I sent Happy. He’s the only one I can trust. He’s waiting for you out front. I want you out of that school as soon as possible.”

“Wait! Don’t go anywhere.” Pepper shouted from the kitchen behind them, her hand out and face turned away as she spoke quickly and quietly into the phone.

“What about Morgan?” MJ asked quietly, trying as best she could to keep everyone in view, to see how bad this was from the contortions of their faces.

“She’s here. I picked her up from school on my way from work.” Her mother answered, looking anxiously from Pepper to the screen and back again. “We’re just waiting to get you. You’re the furthest. It was faster to send Happy. He was already in Queens.”

Pepper came into focus at the moment, walking up behind her mother to take a set on the arm of the chair she occupied.

“There are paps outside. So, we really need to talk about what message we want to send here. They’ll recognize Happy and then her picture is out before we even know if they really have a picture.” Pepper looked between her and her parents as she spoke. 

MJ could tell she was trying her hardest to be diplomatic. She was putting on Public Relations Pepper but it was slipping. She was worried and that energy alone was worrisome to everyone else. They all started talking at once. MJ could only pick out a few arguments from each of them before she felt herself shutting down.

Instead, she made her way across the room to sit next to Ned and Peter who had taken a seat on the floor. Flash followed her lead, never too far from her side, and together they formed a circle around the phone which MJ placed on the floor in the middle. She tried to find it sweet the way they sat like kindergarteners in a morning circle. Instead she could only compare them to cave men and the first fire. They leaned over the device, their faces aglow from the light that illuminated their apprehension, anxiety, worry, and fear of what that thing between them would bring.

“What if I decoy?” Flash threw out, breaking through the argument on the other side that bounced between helicopters, iron man, pap walks, and masks.

They all turned to look at him. 

“Decoy how?” Her father asked first, eyes squinting in suspicion.

“I’ll walk out and talk to Happy…distract the paps so MJ can slip into the car.”

“They’ll be watching the car.” Pepper answered with a shake of the head.

“It’s not a bad idea though.” Ned jumped in, looking at her for approval. “If we can come over, Mr. Iron Man, sir, we can get in the car with Happy and pick MJ up from the back gate.”

“Thank you, Ned, but I don’t want Michelle alone on the campus.” Her mom vetoed this time, Pepper cosigning afterwards.

“Plus, any other exit is sure to be covered. They’ll all be communicating with each other.”

“The back exit isn’t really…official we could say. I use it sometimes when-” Peter cleared his throat at the look her mother was giving him. “What I’m saying is, no one would know to wait there and I would go with her. Nothing will happen to her as long as I’m there.”

The adults on the phone were quiet again, sharing looks with each other. She could see from the look on his face that her father was sold on the idea and was unsurprised when he spoke first.

“Alright, you two go to Happy. I’ll call him and he’ll walk up to the door to get you. School is out in about 5 minutes so be quick.” His eyes found Peter and he pointed at him with fierce eyes. “Pete, you got your suit?”

“Always, Mr. Stark.”

Marie and Pepper’s mouths dropped as if they’d rehearsed their lines together. It was her father’s name that came out in chastising synchronicity.

He ignored them.

“If a single thing goes wrong, you swing her home. Forget about the car. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.” Peter looked at her as he spoke, eyes determined. 

Her father nodded confidently before stepping away with his phone already to his ear.

“Alright, go on then. I’ll start calling parents. You all okay staying for dinner? It’s gonna be a long night.” Her mother sighed, exhaustion clear in the way she slumped into the armchair as she spoke.

There were affirmatives all around, traded for ‘be safe’, ‘check in’, and ‘thank you’ before the screen went black and the group let out a collective deep breath. That was all the time they had. Flash and Ned were already throwing on their backpacks and double checking the plan. Ned gave her a spirited push to the shoulder with a “don’t worry MJ, we got it” and Flash pestered him to hurry up as if he hadn’t given her an uncharacteristically tight hug before heading to the door. 

MJ was left standing with Peter who took her hand in his as soon as the other two were out of the door.

“Everything’s gonna be fine right?” MJ looked to his earnest eyes as she interlocked their fingers.

“Of course. Might be crazy for a little while but we’ll all be here.”

MJ nodded, waiting for Peter to sling his backpack over his right shoulder before starting the trek across the back of the campus to a makeshift gate in the corner of the empty quad. She could tell Peter was listening for anything unusual, his eyes scanning as they walked.

“I’m gonna be MJ Stark after this.” She opined, as they came to a stop at the gate, waiting for Happy. “My family says it sometimes as a joke but I’ve never just been MJ Stark.”

“You do have a lot of names. Who knows? Maybe one day you’ll decide MJ is short for Mary Jane just to add another one to the list.” Peter chuckled and bumped his shoulder with his. “Michelle Jones Watson or Stark…it doesn’t matter what they call you. You get to decide who you wanna be.”

All she could was nod, but she liked that answer so much that when the car came speeding around the corner, the worries about her name were forgotten, her eyes were closed and her lips were pressed softly against his. 

Peter was the first person she saw when she left her third class of the day. He was leaning against the lockers across the hall, utterly failing to look as casual as he wanted to.  

“You do not have to walk me to and from every class.” MJ scowled but she took his hand anyway and was glad that he had insisted on escorting her around the school. “How are you getting out of your classes early anyway?”

He shrugged but didn’t answer, instead pulling her closer as more students poured into the hallway, some with phones already poised in her direction. Some students called out to her casually but she did her best to keep her head down, watching her feet and trusting Peter to guide her to the lunch room. He gripped her hand tightly as they entered the atrium like space and the noise level increased.

“We moved to a table in the corner.” Peter told her as her eyes swept the room and saw their usual table occupied. “Everyone knows we sit there and started joining so Ned got here early to get a new table with way less space.”

MJ could help the laugh that leapt from her lips when she saw the circular table they’d clearly stolen from the teacher’s lounge which Ned and Flash were hunched over. There was just enough space for the four of them and that was still barely. They turned at her laugh and immediately began scooch around the circular bench to leave her the space where her back would be to the rest of the room. Peter sat pointedly across from her to watch behind her.

“How’s you day been?” Ned asked with an optimistic smile on his face. He was rifling through his lunch bag and tossing various packages into the middle of the circle. She snatched a few grapes from one of the small plastic baggies before answering.

“Everyone’s trying to be really normal about it but they’re staring…I don’t know it’s weird but not in the way I thought it’d be.” MJ shrugged popping a grape into her mouth, hating the effort it took to chew and swallow. “Mrs. Roberts was not subtle in her opinion about my so-called ‘ardent criticism of a system in which I’m not only complicit but will have meaningful influence over’ so that sucked.”

Ned grimaced and she imagined that if he could physically hide from those words he would have.

“We all hate Mrs. Roberts but now we’ve got half an hour where we don’t have to talk or think about her or any of the rest of them.” Flash asserted, trying to steer the conversation. “We should’ve just gone to the roof.”

“You know there are helicopters.” She added with a disappointed shake of the head. As soon as she stepped out her house today, she was treated as something consumable. Maybe her father was right and she was hiding. “This isn’t too bad.”

“Oh fuck.” Peter murmured eyes glued to something behind her. 

“What is it? What’s happening?” She didn’t turn for fear of the cameras she knew were pointed at her back and the faith she had that whatever it was wouldn’t cause her physical harm.

The boys had different versions of horrified looks on their faces but no one moved from their seats. Ned looked away quickly and put a hand on her arm.

“Anyway, you know it doesn’t matter what everyone’s saying right?” He laughed nervously as he spoke and grinned sheepishly with a self deprecating hunch of his shoulders. “Just don’t turn around.”

That did it. And she was horrified to see that no one was looking at her at all. There were moments when the small televisions in the cafeteria actually drew the attention of the student body. Particularly funny student announcements, the gymnastic events at the olympics, and now a segment quoting a well known “source” that could confidently report that Tony Stark didn’t meet his illusive love child until this entire scandal hit the news stands. In fact, the closed captions revealed, his personal security guard escorted her into school this morning with the intention of convincing people that he was involved. 

The captions couldn’t keep up with the chatter of the five women on this daytime panel and it was way too loud to hear but she got the gist and turned back to the table.

“How long has that been happening?” She asked, eyes burning and trained on her clenched hands.

“The first few days we were able to get Davis to change the channel but she’s just as interested as everyone else, you know? And you weren’t here so the lunch monitors pretty much pretend it isn’t on. 

She nodded in understanding, breathing heavily from her nose. “This is fucking ridiculous. How long are we supposed to live like this?”

MJ looked up in time to see the boys looking back and forth at one another, clearly communicating their panic at not knowing how to console her. 

“Fuck it. Flash, can I borrow your phone?”

He handed it to her without hesitation while Peter and Ned protested.

“MJ, are you sure this is a good idea?”
“Em, what are you doing?”

She ignored them, opening Instagram.

“If you’re gonna go live on my Spider-Man account, can I tweet about it first…ya know so people know to tune in?”

MJ cut her eyes at him.

“No.” She was already busy logging in. “And if I find out you’re running a fan account for me, I’ll kill you. Spidey’s is weird enough.”

“That’s not fair that I should give up my idol because of dickhead over here.”

Peter was far to preoccupied with watching her fingers move across the screen to respond and she was far too focused to instigate a response like she normally would.

“Flash, why is your AirDrop set to ‘Everyone’, that’s so stupid.” She fussed, switching between her phone and his to make sure she was sending him the right photo. “I’m changing it to ‘Contacts Only’.”

“I like the element of surprise. Sue me.” His brow furrowed as he watched her work though. “What are you doing?”

“Silence clearly isn’t working as well as they want it to so if they won’t say anything, I will.”

“That’s really not a good idea, though.” Ned added immediately

“MJ…” Peter prodded gently, reaching across the table to place his hand gently on her wrist. “Are you sure about this?”

They could all see that she’d drafted a post, even if they couldn’t see what it was. 

“If they want MJ Stark, they can have her. I’m tired of putting my head down.”

Her jaw was set, eyes shifting between the three of them in defiance as they looked at each other with apprehension.

“I say go for it.” Flash grinned, gesturing at the phone.

“Hold on, I wanna be first.” Ned whines, pulling out his phone to open Instagram and her profile. “Okay go.”

MJ looked around at them one more time, Peter and Ned with their phones gripped so tightly in their hands that their fingers were sheet white from the pressure. Flash’s chin was on her shoulder, looking at his phone in her hands, the weight of his head grounding her unexpectedly.

“Yeah…okay…I’m gonna do it.” 

And then she pressed ‘Post’, letting out a deep breath before logging out and handing Flash his phone back.

“Parker, you can stop commenting ‘first’ on all of her posts, we get it, you like her.”

“I was first.” Peter rolled his eyes but then turn to her with a smile. “This is very cute.”

MJ felt her cheeks get hot at the lopsided smile sent her way. She shrugged it off and started fiddling with a granola bar that Ned had thrown out just for something to do with her hands.

“How long do you think it’ll take my parents to see that and flip their shit.”

“I’d say very soon.” Ned answered, turning his phone to her so she could her father’s like.

And then her phone started vibrating on the table. “And by soon, I meant now.”

Ned mouthed sorry as she picked it up but she felt oddly at peace about her decision.

“Hi Dad.”

“MJ, do you want your mother to have a stroke?”

“You told me to be bold.”

He chuckled at her rebuttal. “Alright here’s the deal, your mom is gonna enter this call at any moment and she is very upset with you so I am very upset with you.” He paused and she could hear him moving around. “With that said, this was very Tony Stark of you and I’m very proud. Succinct and to the point…full of sarcasm…you’re a chip off the old block. I’m very proud.”

“Thanks dad.”

“Oh, don’t thank me. As soon as your mother gets on this call, you can forget I said any of that.”

“Of course.” She could hear the smile in his voice as loud and clear as he could probably hear hers.

Then the call was interrupted by a two tone beep announcing that another caller had joined.

“Michelle!” Her mothered breathed into the phone, anxiety and frustration evident.

The tone sounded again and she could hear heels clicking in the background. Pepper.

“MJ?”

“Yeah, I’m here. MJ…Michelle…I can hear you.” 

And then they let loose.