#(and i’ll be spending the rest next week getting a tiny piece of metal drilled into my jaw)

[umemiyan]

taking my car to the shop tomorrow send thotz and prayerz she’s feeling rough 🤞🏻🙏🏻

[stark-web-warriors]

Stark Contrast [Chapter One]

Masterlist | Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three

Pairing: Peter Parker x Stark!Reader

Word count: 6,557

Warnings: N/A

Chapter Summary: Y/N is trying to settle into her new life while attending her first day of school at Midtown School of Science and Technology, where she is bombarded for being Tony Stark’s daughter. She is overwhelmed, but finds solace in the kindness of her dad’s intern Peter and the open arms of his friends Ned and MJ.

A/N: I’m so excited to finally get this story started!!! I really wanted to make things still unknown and uncomfortable and to introduce characters slowly so we really get to see the relationships forming. If you want to be added to the tag list for this fic, reblog this with “Stark Contrast Tag List” in the notes and I‘ll add your username. Members of the tag list MUST reblog. I look forward to your feedback, friends!

Chapter One The brilliant lights came on automatically as she woke up. Y/N still wasn’t used to that. She opened her eyes to watch as the curtains rose up and revealed the beautiful morning sunrise on the horizon. “Good Morning. It is 6:30 am. The weather is 74 degrees with scattered clouds,” Jarvis began the morning protocol as the tired teen began to slump out of bed, making her way toward what, to Y/N, was the largest wardrobe ever. It wasn’t full. Not even close, but it had expanded from her modest 5 favorite tees to be a bit more well rounded since moving into the Avengers Facility. It had only been a couple of weeks, but Tony had been restlessly trying to make things as normal as possible for Y/N. He just didn’t necessarily know what “normal" was.

She’d gone to public school her whole life. It wasn’t as rough as everyone seems to think, but it wasn’t exactly glamorous either. She told Tony she’d be fine going to Midtown High with all the public school dwellers, but he insisted on sending her to the Midtown School of Science and Technology, a private STEM school. It wasn’t exactly her cup of tea, but Stark’s intern, Peter, whom she had seen in passing only a handful of times, attended the organization and Tony seemed to think they could look out for each other. It seemed like a strange arrangement. Peter was a scrawny 16-year-old kid, Y/N was 17 and incapable of completing a push-up drill. What could they do to protect each other that the school wouldn’t already be doing? Still, it was nice knowing there was someone with an incentive to be on her side if things did go horribly awry.

“Road conditions are normal. Mild traffic. I suggest leaving by 7:20 to get to school by 7:53,” Jarvis continued as Y/N pulled her best sarcastic t-shirt out alongside her leather jacket. It was as good as anything for the first day at a new school in which she’d be completely out of her element. “And miss Y/N,” Jarvis continued. It was an addition to his normal wake-up protocol and slightly jarred the girl as she struggled with her skinny jeans. She was surprised that he was still going. “Have a good first day of school,” Jarvis finished. Y/N smiled at the corner of her mouth. The idea that Jarvis, a mere computer program, had enough personality to want to wish her well was absolutely crazy. Some might even find it frightening, but Y/N found it endearing and appreciated the sentiment.

After lacing up her red converse, an item that would always be a staple in her closet whether they were in fashion at the time or not, Y/N hurried to get breakfast. The metal hardware on her trusty old jacket clinked as she jogged down the empty hall to the kitchen. It was an open design, so she supposed it was a dining room, too. Overall, the inhabitants of the tower just called it “the mess hall” as a reference to the number of people who use it during the day. Of course, one tiny kitchen wasn’t enough to house an entire team of Avengers. They all had kitchenettes in their individual rooms, so if they were in the mess hall, it was usually a social appearance. And like always, when she entered the wide open room, there was Steve Rogers making his, as he sat at the breakfast bar with his nose buried in a giant newspaper and a steaming coffee within an arms reach.

Y/N hadn’t really spoken to any of the Avengers yet, which was understandable. They all kept busy schedules and she was kind of irrelevant to the work they did, but Steve Rogers was a creature of habit. He went for a run at 5 am every morning. At 6:30 he’d pick up the daily paper he insisted get dropped off, which was a work out in itself to jog all the way down the drive to the outside of the security perimeter to get something he could have just pulled up on his tablet. Then he’d come to the mess hall, make himself a no-nonsense black coffee and read the paper front to back. So it was purely situational that Steve Rogers was the Avenger Y/N had spoken to most. It was like having your super young, super hot grandpa at the breakfast table, talking about the news articles he read in the paper, occasionally complaining that there were too many pictures these days and that in his day they wouldn’t have insulted the writers with such showmanship. It was usually at that point that Tony would lean across the breakfast bar and make a shady quip about Cap being old.

Behind the wide open newspaper, Y/N could see Pepper and Tony in the kitchen making a waffle breakfast. Seeing a literal billionaire making a modest meal was a sight to see, but Pepper said it kept him humble. For that matter, it seemed like they enjoyed it. It meant they got to spend time together. Not a CEO with a company to run and a superhero with responsibilities to fulfil. In these moments, they got to be Pepper and Tony, a complex and often confusing but ultimately loving couple. The way Tony smiled at his love as they moved about caused Y/N’s heart to flutter as she entered the room. From what she could tell, they really brought out the best in each other, especially Pepper. She had been so encouraging in these first rocky weeks of Tony and Y/N figuring out what their relationship is and how it should be, and such great emotional support in their struggles. If there was a hero of heroes in this entire Avengers Facility, it was Pepper Potts.

“First day of school!” Pepper exclaimed as Y/N sat down next to Steve, doing some oddly unexcited jazz hands beside her head. Pepper had been trying so hard, and as far as Y/N was concerned,  she seemed to have the whole “awkward mom” thing down to an art. Still, it put a smile on Y/N’s face. “How are you feeling?” Pepper asked as she opened the steaming waffle maker before her. It was strange to Y/N to just walk into a homemade breakfast before school, but she found it charming and appreciated it all the same.

“Indifferent,” Y/N stated after a beat of thought. Pepper seemed unsure what to respond and instead chose to smile and nod while shoving a plated waffle in front of Y/N. It was a strange state of mind Y/N found herself in. She felt like she should be nervous to be starting a new school where she didn’t know anyone, or the area, or anything a private school student probably should know, but at the end of the day, it was just school. She’d done school before and she knew the game. It’d come to her naturally.

Tony, in an attempt to not acknowledge the uncomfortable exchange, interjected, “Hey Steve, you want a waffle?” He jutted out another waffle across the bar toward the well-postured gentleman. Slowly Steve lowered the newspaper until his eyes just peeked over it to stare down Tony.  “Yeah, I didn’t think so. This one fell on the floor anyway, so…” Tony trailed off as he lowered the plate to the tabletop. Suddenly he looked back up, quizzing Cap, “What’s so interesting in that paper anyway?”

“You,” Rogers replied nonchalantly, folding the paper and turning it around to reveal a photograph of a young, clearly intoxicated Tony Stark under a headline that read, ‘Scandal, Disgrace, Sex: Tony Stark’s Illegitimate Daughter Exposed’. It was clear Steve had done this as a favor, and still, Y/N choked on a bite of waffle.

“Well, shit!” Y/N exclaimed as she both struggle to breathe through the food in her airway and struggle to speak around the rest of the bite. Before she could examine the piece, Tony had snatched the paper out of Steve’s hands. His eyes flew through lines of text, and he muttered as he skimmed.

“Son of a bitch,” Tony muttered as he continued to glance through the article. As he completed the column he threw the paper down on the table, looking up at Y/N directly. She furrowed her brow as she testy looking man tapped his finger on the table. his face was turning red and she could tell he was trying to keep his composure. It agonized her. Her curiosity and her own anxieties made her want to ask what it was right away, but her gut said to give Tony a moment to compose himself. Tony suddenly looked down at the paper on the table and gave a long exhale before looking back up and speaking. “Goldberg. Seems he was really desperate to get his name out there.” Tony turned the paper around and slid it toward Y/N, gesturing to the text as he claimed, “It’s all there. Your mother, the party we met at. Against all confidentiality laws, your name, age, location… The only thing he doesn’t have is a picture. And worst of all, he makes it out like he is the hero of the story.”

“I pretty sure Y/N’s leaked identity is worse,” Steve interjected seriously, setting the coffee he had neglected to sip back down on the table. The man adjusted his legs and leaned forward onto his arms. “We need a plan to keep Y/N safe,” he insisted. “She’s been exposed, and by all practical purposes she’s a civilian.”

“But she’s not just a civilian,” Tony argued, “She’s a kid—my kid—and I’ll be damned if anyone does anything to her as an attempt to get to me.” Y/N was shocked to hear Tony calling her ‘his kid’ is such a protective manner. He’d only known her for a couple of weeks at this point, and it felt weird, uncomfortable even. Still, she had never dealt with the notion of being Avenger bait, so she felt it best to let the man go through his process. “Fine!” Tony yelled, shaking his head and throwing his hands up in the air. As Tony Stark wordlessly ran out of the room, Y/N felt it best to just finish the damn waffle.

By 7:17 am and Y/N was beginning to worry she would be late. Which for embarrassment sake, she really didn’t want. She was glad Steve was trying to distract her, telling the story about the time he punched the real Adolph Hitler. It was extremely embellished and was comparable to listening to your grandfather tell the same story from Vietnam for the quadrillionth time, but it was charming coming from the spry man with the perfect teeth. He was just explaining his brilliant getaway involving a bottle cap, a toothpick, and some explosive fertilizer when Tony walked by, hollering, “Follow me, kid,” without so much as a glance toward Y/N. She looked at Steve with a slightly confused glance before hopping out of her chair and jogging to the hall to catch up with Tony. She felt like she was trotting to keep up with his brisk pace as she began to follow beside him. “This,” Tony began, clumsily pulling a mysterious item out of his inner jacket pocket, “is a standard issue Stark wrist communicator.” He held out an item that looked like an Apple watch if an Apple watch had been knocked up by the iron man armor and given birth to the future. “It is a touchscreen,” Stark explained, “but I also uploaded Jarvis to the mainframe. I’ve set it up to notify me at any hint of distress. If your vitals spike, I’ll know. If you send a distress signal I’ll know. If you need to contact me, all you have to do is smack it, just make sure you completely cover the face. Think of it like speed-dial.”

Tony paused for a moment in the main lobby where Y/N had waited anxiously that first day. He held out his hand and Y/N complied by setting her wrist on his open palm. The man pressed the square watch face to her skin and before her eyes, it expanded into a full-fledged metal brace. The face was surrounded by anodized gold hardware that led way to the armor-like plates of red metal that telescoped out of each other and encased the girl’s wrist. She was now in possession of one of the most advanced devices on earth and had virtually no idea how to use it. She wasn’t even sure how to take it off, but Tony was in such a hurry that he had already moved on, rushing toward the main entrance. Y/N took one last moment to admire the strong looking tech on her arm before taking off out the front doors with Tony. As the two exited a silver sports-car bearing the Audi rings across the grate pulled up the drive and stopped right in their path.

“This is my 2008 Audi R8. She might be old, but she’s got plenty of tricks up her sleeve. Jarvis can connect to the vehicle from your com-link, you don’t even have to drive. It’ll take you anywhere you want to go and automatically take the best route possible. You can hail it from up to a mile away using your wrist communicator.” Tony stopped, pulled an expensive looking key fob out of his pants pocket and tossed it at Y/N. She almost missed it in her shock but snapped out of it fast enough to catch the small black object.

The man smiled and started jogging back inside, causing Y/N to turn around and call back, “Can I drive it?” Among all the features of a self-driving, completely automated car, he neglected to mention the most important part to any teenager: the freedom factor.

“Are you licensed?” Tony asked before slowly stepped behind him, moving backwards.

“Yes,” Y/N called back uncertainly. Tony simply raised his eyebrows and shrugged in response before he spun around, trotting to the large glass doors. Y/N carefully looked down at the small black object in her hand and turned it over to see the logo imprinted on the side. The attached key jingled and she was overcome with a smile. Turning back up to the vehicle that, although was old enough to not be the most sought after model, still looked like pristine money. “Yes!” The teen exclaimed as she ran around to the driver’s side and slid into Tony’s old car, of which she was sure he had many. The interior was dark leather, and the console had clearly been redone by Stark. Lines of thin blue lights detailed the edges of the console, and the after-market touchscreen display lit up with Jarvis’s systems when she got in.

“Preparing to take you to Midtown School of Science and Technology, Miss Y/N,” the computer notified her through the aged speaker system.

Eagerly, Y/N responded, “Just get me the map, Jarvis. I’ll take the wheel on this one.” She was switching gears before she had even finished speaking, so excited to take off in this ageless car she had seen so many times in movies and being driven by celebrities. It was a privilege she had yet to know, having her own car. She may have had her license, but never sole ownership of her own vehicle. She could go anywhere she wanted to in that thing, with full control over the radio, and for Tony’s sake, Jarvis as her only passenger. It was an escape plan first and foremost, she knew. Tony wanted her to have a fast and reliable way out if she was ever in trouble, but the fact remained as she floored the gas down the long drive of the Avengers Facility, he had simultaneously handed her independence in the form of a coupe.

Y/N violently swung into an open parking spot, flaunting the rich-looking car for no one but herself. Stark could have given her an old, barely working Toyota and she would have been just as happy. The Audi though, it was just old enough to be out of style, which she liked, and still screamed that she was a force to be reckoned with. Y/N pulled her heavy backpack from the passenger seat and flung it over her right shoulder and took a deep breath. She had no idea what awaited her, but against all social rules, she felt prepared for anything. Y/N tugged on the door handle and pushed her way out into the sunshine. The warmth immediately brushed her cheek. She glanced around at all the student groups in the parking lot sharing their summer stories. At least she was starting at the beginning of the school year. The teen confidently strode toward the front door of the school, passing by all the social circle. Many paused to look at the strange girl as she strode by, speaking low in their voices, but Y/N elected to ignore it. She had gotten to the front door when she realized her focus was so much on maintaining her composure that she forgot to lock the very expensive vehicle. “Shit,” She muttered, turning around to run back close enough to use the key fob.

“I’ve got it, miss,” Jarvis mentioned from her wrist, making Y/N jump and causing the judgmental looking teenagers who were loitering around the entrance to perk up attentively. There was a quiet chirp from across the parking lot, like hearing a cricket during the day.

“Thanks, Jarvis,” Y/N mumbled, thankful for the ease of having the AI’s help. She glanced at the group of girls to her left whispering and looking, but ultimately turned around and kept pushing into the building.

It was loud inside. All the excited students seeing their friends for the first time in three months from across the hall, yelling to each other. It felt chaotic. She just wanted to find her class as soon as possible and not be late. The starting bell rang as Y/N turned down the first hall she saw parting off from the lobby. She had 5 minutes of passing time to find her first-period class and no knowledge of the building. It was bleak and littered with grey lockers under fluorescent lighting that seemed to be just above spooky hospital lighting, but the windows were a nice touch. They let the natural light do all the heavy lifting in lighting up the place. So Y/N wandered off through the wedges of sunlight that bled up the walls, reading numbers to the left of every door. She was thankful to find they were in numerical order all through the building, making it very intuitive to get from one place to another. After a few minutes of following the door signs, she finally came across room 108-C, AP Literature and Composition. It seemed like a good place to start the day. A large woman with brown curly hair and a high, mousy voice greeted the steady flow of students excitedly as they filtered into the dim classroom. The oppressive fluorescent lights had been turned off, opting to operate on the natural sunlight coming in the windows at the back of the classroom. Y/N slid into a desk in the middle of the classroom. She wasn’t the person who needed to be at the back, she wanted to be engaged, but there was a certain comfort to not being on the first lines when it came to open questions from a teacher.

As the final bell rang, the round woman bobbled happily toward her desk, exclaiming, “Welcome to AP Lit!” The slide on the smart board at the front of the class changed to a purple title slide that looked like a third grader had done it, but you could tell there was thought put into it. The class was still chattering with side conversation between the excited students as the teacher announced, “I’m going to go ahead and do roll call right now just to get it out of the way, and then we can get to the fun stuff!” Y/N tried to remember the names as the teacher ran down the list, thinking it would help level the playing field. It wasn’t practical, though. She ended up forgetting each name as soon as it came. It was just too much information at once. She couldn’t even hear half of them over the continued summer recon chitchat. “Y/F/N-Stark?” The room went silent like they’d heard a school shooter in the hall. Y/N knew they’d heard the rumors from the paper this morning, and it didn’t help that Tony registered the teen with a hyphened name. He did it for clarification reasons so that when he did have to act as a guardian there would be no confusion that he held that role, and Y/N had agreed at the time. Now, she just wanted to bury her face in the textbook she hadn’t even received yet and become a mass of hair. She had no idea what that response would mean in trying to establish herself at a new school. It’s not like she was about to be isolated, except perhaps, by extremists who disapprove of her “illegitimate” existence. “Y/F/N-Stark,” the teacher called out again. Y/N hadn’t realized she’d been too distracted to answer.

“Here,” she claimed apathetically as all the eyes of the classroom shot to her at that dumb middle desk. It was as if to say, ‘If there was any confusion before, yes, this is Tony Stark’s daughter here in your classroom. Now don’t be shy.’ The next name, “Flash Thompson” was well heard, and well ignored as the students continued to process how they could use this to their advantage. Y/N felt like she was in a lobster in a tank, with nowhere to go and 30 curious eyes glancing between her and their friends. Still, she tried to keep calm and remind herself that they were in class, the teacher had control, and they couldn’t so much as find an excuse to talk to her without being reprimanded for not paying attention. With that in mind, Y/N fixed her posture to exhume confidence as she focused her mind back on the kind looking woman, who was moving on to the next slide.

“I am Mrs. Winterhalter and since you’re going to be hearing me speak a lot about English this semester, I figured I’d share some things about myself.” She clicked to the next slide, which displayed a photograph of the tubby woman with a silver-haired man, who near doubled her height, and a young girl with the same mop of curly brown hair atop a sporty physique. “This is my husband Ryan and my daughter Gwen,” the woman explained, “Ryan and I met when we were in college, and have been together since.” This earned a brief ‘Aw…’ from the room as Winterhalter continued, “Gwen is 14 and she’s a very talented lacrosse player.” Y/N appreciated the vulnerability of the teacher sharing her personal life with the class. Most people wouldn’t do that, and it really started the course off on the right foot.

After she concluded introducing herself, the class knew that Mrs. Winterhalter was an opinionated activist who loved her family and her dogs and indulged in the occasional mountain biking trip. At this point, she decided to give the class a quick 5-minute mental break before breaking down the course syllabus. She seemed kind and like an engaged teacher who didn’t take things too seriously, but would still get the job done. Y/N thought this would be a fun class to be in for the teacher alone. A good sense of humor and strong ideals were the way to her heart, and Mrs. Winterhalter checked those boxes easily. The large woman sat down at her desk but remained engaged in a conversation with the four students closed to that corner. Meanwhile, the honey-skinned girl beside Y/N leaned over, her long and straight, glossy, black hair spilling over the side of the desk. Y/N turned to meet her haunting hazel eyes that were so bright you’d think they were contacts. “So you’re like, Tony Stark’s daughter, right?” The beautiful girl asked.

Y/N had to take a moment to remind herself that not everyone in her life had malevolent intent, and she should give this girl who was trying to connect with her a fair chance. Just because things had changed in Y/N’s life, didn’t mean it was wrong for people to ask about it. “Yeah,” she responded nervously. “What’s your name again?”

“Pavitra Prabhakar, but people call me Pai,” the girl responded with a smile that Y/N could swear glittered in the sunlight. This girl was the millennial beauty standard and then some and it was intimidating. “So are you really living with the Avengers?” Pavitra asked. “I mean, that’s what J. Jonah Jamison said on the news, but it just seems so strange.”

Y/N felt a relief at that last part, letting down her guard and fully involving herself. “It is!” she exclaimed as her rigid shoulders dropped to a casual slouch. “It is so weird and I don’t think I could compare it to any other experience.”

“What are they like?” Pai inquired, dreamily resting her head on a hand. Nearby, people were starting to pay attention to the conversation taking place between the two girls. It was unusual, but Y/N felt a relief wash over her as she finally got it through her head that these kids were just curious, and more importantly they were willing to listen to her talk genuinely about how strange the last two weeks of her life had been.

“Well, I haven’t met most of them yet,” Y/N began. “They’re all people with lives outside of work, you know? They have homes of their own, individual projects. Some of them have jobs. the Avengers Facility is mostly intended to be a headquarters for when there is a team mission, or for the heroes who can’t or don’t want to live out in the world, so I really haven’t met anyone. Steve’s around, but we haven’t really talked much, and obviously Tony-”

“You call your dad by his first name?” a small blonde girl interrupted from a couple seats behind Pai. She looked like the kind of goody-goody that made you want to snap her bird-boned neck.

It was hard not to take offense at the subtle judgement, but Y/N turned to the fragile-looking girl with a scowl and turned back to Pavitra. She was ready to change the subject. This was supposed to be a get-to-know your classmates moment, and Y/N wanted to learn more about the girl who had engaged her, rather than spend the entire time being bombarded with questions about people she hadn’t met. Taking a deep breath, the teen attempted to return to her conversation, inquiring, “So Pai, are you in any clubs?”

“Just one,” Pai mentioned. “MISA, the Midtown International Student Association. It’s sometimes hard to balance identity and ambition in this place. It’s a private school with an unsurprising economic and race demographic. My family is from India, and I got here on a partial scholarship while my mother is struggling to pay the rest. It can be discouraging to navigate a sea of pasty white skin. I like knowing there is a place I can go where other people have untraditional backgrounds like me.” She gave a shy smile as she finished speaking that warmed Y/N’s heart. Clearly, MISA was a second home to Pai and it obviously meant a lot to her, and that gave Y/N hope.

“Alright, the moment you’ve all been waiting for… the syllabus,” Winterhalter claimed excitedly.

Y/N found the same story happened in all her courses. The cat was out of the bag; Tony Stark’s daughter goes here now. Better ask her about all the Avengers she doesn’t know and obtrusive personal questions that are just uncalled for. It wasn’t malicious, and Y/N was trying to focus on that, but between the boredom of syllabus day and the constant bombardment of questions, she was burned out by lunchtime. As she wandered the cafeteria looking for a comfortable looking place to sit, she sat Pavitra send a smile and wave her way, but Pai had so many friends and Y/N wasn’t ready to meet any more people. She smiled politely at the kind girl but ultimately continued to the back of the cafeteria where she saw a vacant table, opting to sit alone and isolate herself from the intrusive gossip that was out of her control.

Looking down at the food was unappetizing, but Y/N had been in worse situations. The fact that the school provided food, and worked hard to make it healthy and nutritious was something she wouldn’t take for granted the way so many of her American peers did. She stabbed her fork into a piece of steamed broccoli and spun it around as she meditated. Would it always be like this? Could people just get used to Y/N the person and not the Stark? She shoved the green vegetable into her mouth and tasted the earthy flavor of mass-produced food. It may not be the broccoli florets from Costco that she grew up with, but then again nothing would ever beat those. Y/N popped another in her mouth when she noticed a figure approaching her right shoulder. She turned to see the boy she recognized as Peter Parker climbing into the seat next to her.

“Hey,” the boy said kindly, glancing at Y/N for only a brief moment before turning back to his half-eaten tray of food nervously.

She hadn’t thought of this as an option. Peter Parker was Tony’s intern with no reason to ask dumb questions. This caused her lips to curl into a half-smile at the corner of her mouth as she responded, “Hey, Peter.”

The socially strange boy seemed to take this as a cue and looked back up. “I saw you sitting here all alone and I thought you might want someone to sit with,” he explained innocently. Y/N turned to look at Peter. She’d seen him in passing, but they’d never really spoken or stood together long enough in a room for her to really understand what he looked like or how he acted. He was cute. Kind of like the lost puppy you find on the street who is hesitant to come along with you but has these big hopeful brown eyes that beg you to be something safe, but the moment you give them some kind of positive interaction they start wagging their tail and running around in circles. That was Peter. All it took was for Y/N to say hello to him and now he was smiling and brushing back his hair as he excitedly continued, “Ned and MJ wanted to come over here, too, but I thought maybe they should wait for me to see if it was okay. You know, we didn’t want to impede on your alone time or anything, and-”

“Which ones are they?” Y/N interrupting, knowing she wouldn’t get a word in if she let him continue. Peter gestured a few tables down to a hefty kid in a zip-up hoodie and a small girl with her unruly hair tied back. Both were watching the exchange intensely from the empty table and smiled when Y/N looked over. If she didn’t know any better she’d say the two looked suspicious, for what she didn’t know. She could tell they were trying and it was sweet. Gently, Y/N smiled and waved them over, watching as the two clumsily struggled their way up from the table and speed walked over to where she and Peter sat like they’d just been invited to the “cool” table in a 1960’s comic book.

“Hi Y/N,” Ned greeted cheerily as he plopped down across from her, his tray making a loud sound against the table.

MJ carefully slid in next to Ned and uninterestingly asked, “You get asked about anything not Avenger related yet?” Peter’s head swung around with big scared eyes and furrowed brow as if to say, ‘I told you not to bring that up’, but MJ simply leaned forward with intrigue.

Y/N simply answered, “No.” To which MJ responded by laughing like a sociopath. It sounded like she was disinterested and even perhaps a tad condescending with her mocking laugh, but the smile on the girls face and her friendly posture told Y/N that this was MJ’s version of bonding, and honestly, Y/N didn’t mind.

“Yeah, people at this school are dumb,” MJ continued in her humorous way, nose crinkling in her amusement as Peter exhaled in relief that he hadn’t just facilitated a cat fight.

“Do you like Star Wars?” Ned inquired earnestly. He didn’t even waste time to wait for an answer, immediately continuing, “Because I just got this really great mold of a Count Dooku figure—Hang on, it’s in my backpack. I’ll show you,” Ned insisted as he turned to dig through his very full book bag. Y/N glanced at Peter who smiled nervously at her and then turned back to his friend. “Here it is!” Ned exclaimed, holding up the small vinyl figure victoriously.

“Nerd,” MJ scoffed amiably.

“Look at his face!” Ned told Y/N eagerly, handing over the treasured action figure so she could get a closer look. It really said a lot that Ned would let her handle something that clearly meant a lot to him when he barely knew her. It felt good to be given a chance.

Y/N carefully turned over the figure in her hands, looking at the intricate details and appreciating how it looked artistically. The truth was she liked Star Wars, but not enough to really know who Count Dooku was. Even so, she was glad Ned shared it with her. It made her feel like she was actually getting to know someone for the first time that day, and that gave Y/N hope. “That’s really cool, Ned. Thanks for sharing it with me,” Y/N offered kindly as she handed back the figure to its rightful owner. Ned took it from her hands while looking excitedly between Peter and MJ, and Y/N was pretty sure she’d received his approval. “What about you, MJ. Any big exciting news to share?” Y/N teased, trying to get the quiet girl to speak honestly.

Instead of answering, MJ simply shrugged and mentioned, “I like your leather jacket.” It wasn’t much, but it was a start. Somehow, in the time it took for the girls to converse those two lines, Peter and Ned were engaged in their own silent conversation. Y/N turned back to catch a glimpse of the two silently arguing with each other while making frantic faces before they quickly broke off and attempted to act normal. “Wow, you two are lame…” MJ judged, causing the two boys to drop their façade.

“Hey, so um…” Peter began awkwardly, turning toward Y/N. “Ned and I were thinking, you know you don’t know a lot of people here yet, but there’s this party, and you totally don’t have to feel like you have to, but like, we thought maybe you might want to go to meet people. I mean, we’ll be there, too-“

“When is it?” Y/N asked as a means of begging Peter to stop rambling.

“It’s Friday,” Ned piped in eagerly.

“I have a thing with Tony on Friday, but I’ll ask him if we can reschedule tonight,” Y/N explained. She and Tony were trying to implement a system that every week they do a bonding activity to get to know each other better. They’d only done it once before when Tony brought Y/N to his favorite shawarma joint. It didn’t seem like anything typical to the Stark lifestyle, just a small hole-in-the-wall type place. Then Tony explained how the Avengers came there after their first battle together, and it put things in perspective. Y/N couldn’t really take Tony to anywhere she knew as it was all too far away, and she honestly didn’t know what she was going to choose to do for her week anyway. She really did want to go to that party, if for no other reason than to have a shared experience to talk to people about so they’d stop asking the same 3 questions. She figured Tony would be fine with it. If there was something he understood, it would be a party, wouldn’t it? Y/N moved to brush a lot of hair out of her eyes while she said, “You know what? Plan on me being there. I think I’ll be fine.”

“Woah! You have a com-log, too?” Ned suddenly burst out, much to the confusion of Y/N.

“It’s called a com-link, Ned,” Peter groaned in embarrassment as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I don’t get it,” Y/N admitted, looking between the two. After stressfully running a handful of lean fingers through his thick brown hair, Peter pulled up the sleeve of his blue sweater to reveal his own Stark Communicator. It was the same build, same red armor-like band, the only difference was the frame. Where Y/N had the Ironman gold detailing, Peter’s comm had bright cobalt. It was such a rich combination of red and blue it seemed impossible to make metal look like that. “So is this one of those ‘you show me yours, I show you mine’ moments?” Y/N joked. She heard MJ, who had moved on from being a part of the conversation to sketching in her notebook, snicker to herself. Smiling at the fact that she got a reaction out of the individualistic MJ, Y/N shimmied one shoulder out of her jacket and held her com-link next to Peter’s.

“I mean, I just have it for the Stark internship. You know… so Mr. Stark can get a hold of me and I can send him files. Just a bunch of boring stuff like that.” Peter had awkwardly shaken his head and pushed his lips up as he emphasized boring. There was no denying, he was an awkward kid, but Y/N had a feeling if he could put up with Tony there was more to him than the bumbling, nervous boy she was seeing.

Tag List:

@ace-ingthroughlife-jk @just4muggles @i-alyssa @bravest-at-heart @bookgirlunicorn @really-lucas @loud-binch @alextheodd @avoirlu @tumblertrash @amazingficsthatididnotwrite @superspideyparker @whatevsmels @niteshines-on @royal-sunflower @spiderman-masterlists @goldenrose1099 @fav-fan-ficccs @iamburdened @justalittlecrazybutimok @coonflix

[petersquips]

Stark Contrast [Chapter One]

Masterlist | Introduction || Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four (pt 1) | Chapter Four (pt 2)

Pairing: Peter Parker x Stark!Reader

Word count: 6,557

Warnings: N/A

Chapter Summary: Y/N is trying to settle into her new life while attending her first day of school at Midtown School of Science and Technology, where she is bombarded for being Tony Stark’s daughter. She is overwhelmed, but finds solace in the kindness of her dad’s intern Peter and the open arms of his friends Ned and MJ.

A/N: I’m so excited to finally get this story started!!! I really wanted to make things still unknown and uncomfortable and to introduce characters slowly so we really get to see the relationships forming. 

If you want to be added to the tag list for this fic, Inbox me and I‘ll add your username. Members of the tag list MUST reblog. I look forward to your feedback, friends!

The brilliant lights came on automatically as she woke up. Y/N still wasn’t used to that. She opened her eyes to watch as the curtains rose up and revealed the beautiful morning sunrise on the horizon. “Good Morning. It is 6:30 am. The weather is 74 degrees with scattered clouds,” Jarvis began the morning protocol as the tired teen began to slump out of bed, making her way toward what, to Y/N, was the largest wardrobe ever. It wasn’t full. Not even close, but it had expanded from her modest 5 favorite tees to be a bit more well rounded since moving into the Avengers Facility. It had only been a couple of weeks, but Tony had been restlessly trying to make things as normal as possible for Y/N. He just didn’t necessarily know what “normal" was.

She’d gone to public school her whole life. It wasn’t as rough as everyone seems to think, but it wasn’t exactly glamorous either. She told Tony she’d be fine going to Midtown High with all the public school dwellers, but he insisted on sending her to the Midtown School of Science and Technology, a private STEM school. It wasn’t exactly her cup of tea, but Stark’s intern, Peter, whom she had seen in passing only a handful of times, attended the organization and Tony seemed to think they could look out for each other. It seemed like a strange arrangement. Peter was a scrawny 16-year-old kid, Y/N was 17 and incapable of completing a push-up drill. What could they do to protect each other that the school wouldn’t already be doing? Still, it was nice knowing there was someone with an incentive to be on her side if things did go horribly awry.

“Road conditions are normal. Mild traffic. I suggest leaving by 7:20 to get to school by 7:53,” Jarvis continued as Y/N pulled her best sarcastic t-shirt out alongside her leather jacket. It was as good as anything for the first day at a new school in which she’d be completely out of her element. “And miss Y/N,” Jarvis continued. It was an addition to his normal wake-up protocol and slightly jarred the girl as she struggled with her skinny jeans. She was surprised that he was still going. “Have a good first day of school,” Jarvis finished. Y/N smiled at the corner of her mouth. The idea that Jarvis, a mere computer program, had enough personality to want to wish her well was absolutely crazy. Some might even find it frightening, but Y/N found it endearing and appreciated the sentiment.

After lacing up her red converse, an item that would always be a staple in her closet whether they were in fashion at the time or not, Y/N hurried to get breakfast. The metal hardware on her trusty old jacket clinked as she jogged down the empty hall to the kitchen. It was an open design, so she supposed it was a dining room, too. Overall, the inhabitants of the tower just called it “the mess hall” as a reference to the number of people who use it during the day. Of course, one tiny kitchen wasn’t enough to house an entire team of Avengers. They all had kitchenettes in their individual rooms, so if they were in the mess hall, it was usually a social appearance. And like always, when she entered the wide open room, there was Steve Rogers making his, as he sat at the breakfast bar with his nose buried in a giant newspaper and a steaming coffee within an arms reach.

Y/N hadn’t really spoken to any of the Avengers yet, which was understandable. They all kept busy schedules and she was kind of irrelevant to the work they did, but Steve Rogers was a creature of habit. He went for a run at 5 am every morning. At 6:30 he’d pick up the daily paper he insisted get dropped off, which was a work out in itself to jog all the way down the drive to the outside of the security perimeter to get something he could have just pulled up on his tablet. Then he’d come to the mess hall, make himself a no-nonsense black coffee and read the paper front to back. So it was purely situational that Steve Rogers was the Avenger Y/N had spoken to most. It was like having your super young, super hot grandpa at the breakfast table, talking about the news articles he read in the paper, occasionally complaining that there were too many pictures these days and that in his day they wouldn’t have insulted the writers with such showmanship. It was usually at that point that Tony would lean across the breakfast bar and make a shady quip about Cap being old.

Behind the wide open newspaper, Y/N could see Pepper and Tony in the kitchen making a waffle breakfast. Seeing a literal billionaire making a modest meal was a sight to see, but Pepper said it kept him humble. For that matter, it seemed like they enjoyed it. It meant they got to spend time together. Not a CEO with a company to run and a superhero with responsibilities to fulfil. In these moments, they got to be Pepper and Tony, a complex and often confusing but ultimately loving couple. The way Tony smiled at his love as they moved about caused Y/N’s heart to flutter as she entered the room. From what she could tell, they really brought out the best in each other, especially Pepper. She had been so encouraging in these first rocky weeks of Tony and Y/N figuring out what their relationship is and how it should be, and such great emotional support in their struggles. If there was a hero of heroes in this entire Avengers Facility, it was Pepper Potts.

“First day of school!” Pepper exclaimed as Y/N sat down next to Steve, doing some oddly unexcited jazz hands beside her head. Pepper had been trying so hard, and as far as Y/N was concerned,  she seemed to have the whole “awkward mom” thing down to an art. Still, it put a smile on Y/N’s face. “How are you feeling?” Pepper asked as she opened the steaming waffle maker before her. It was strange to Y/N to just walk into a homemade breakfast before school, but she found it charming and appreciated it all the same.

“Indifferent,” Y/N stated after a beat of thought. Pepper seemed unsure what to respond and instead chose to smile and nod while shoving a plated waffle in front of Y/N. It was a strange state of mind Y/N found herself in. She felt like she should be nervous to be starting a new school where she didn’t know anyone, or the area, or anything a private school student probably should know, but at the end of the day, it was just school. She’d done school before and she knew the game. It’d come to her naturally.

Tony, in an attempt to not acknowledge the uncomfortable exchange, interjected, “Hey Steve, you want a waffle?” He jutted out another waffle across the bar toward the well-postured gentleman. Slowly Steve lowered the newspaper until his eyes just peeked over it to stare down Tony.  “Yeah, I didn’t think so. This one fell on the floor anyway, so…” Tony trailed off as he lowered the plate to the tabletop. Suddenly he looked back up, quizzing Cap, “What’s so interesting in that paper anyway?”

“You,” Rogers replied nonchalantly, folding the paper and turning it around to reveal a photograph of a young, clearly intoxicated Tony Stark under a headline that read, ‘Scandal, Disgrace, Sex: Tony Stark’s Illegitimate Daughter Exposed’. It was clear Steve had done this as a favor, and still, Y/N choked on a bite of waffle.

“Well, shit!” Y/N exclaimed as she both struggle to breathe through the food in her airway and struggle to speak around the rest of the bite. Before she could examine the piece, Tony had snatched the paper out of Steve’s hands. His eyes flew through lines of text, and he muttered as he skimmed.

“Son of a bitch,” Tony muttered as he continued to glance through the article. As he completed the column he threw the paper down on the table, looking up at Y/N directly. She furrowed her brow as she testy looking man tapped his finger on the table. his face was turning red and she could tell he was trying to keep his composure. It agonized her. Her curiosity and her own anxieties made her want to ask what it was right away, but her gut said to give Tony a moment to compose himself. Tony suddenly looked down at the paper on the table and gave a long exhale before looking back up and speaking. “Goldberg. Seems he was really desperate to get his name out there.” Tony turned the paper around and slid it toward Y/N, gesturing to the text as he claimed, “It’s all there. Your mother, the party we met at. Against all confidentiality laws, your name, age, location… The only thing he doesn’t have is a picture. And worst of all, he makes it out like he is the hero of the story.”

“I pretty sure Y/N’s leaked identity is worse,” Steve interjected seriously, setting the coffee he had neglected to sip back down on the table. The man adjusted his legs and leaned forward onto his arms. “We need a plan to keep Y/N safe,” he insisted. “She’s been exposed, and by all practical purposes she’s a civilian.”

“But she’s not just a civilian,” Tony argued, “She’s a kid—my kid—and I’ll be damned if anyone does anything to her as an attempt to get to me.” Y/N was shocked to hear Tony calling her ‘his kid’ is such a protective manner. He’d only known her for a couple of weeks at this point, and it felt weird, uncomfortable even. Still, she had never dealt with the notion of being Avenger bait, so she felt it best to let the man go through his process. “Fine!” Tony yelled, shaking his head and throwing his hands up in the air. As Tony Stark wordlessly ran out of the room, Y/N felt it best to just finish the damn waffle.

By 7:17 am and Y/N was beginning to worry she would be late. Which for embarrassment sake, she really didn’t want. She was glad Steve was trying to distract her, telling the story about the time he punched the real Adolph Hitler. It was extremely embellished and was comparable to listening to your grandfather tell the same story from Vietnam for the quadrillionth time, but it was charming coming from the spry man with the perfect teeth. He was just explaining his brilliant getaway involving a bottle cap, a toothpick, and some explosive fertilizer when Tony walked by, hollering, “Follow me, kid,” without so much as a glance toward Y/N. She looked at Steve with a slightly confused glance before hopping out of her chair and jogging to the hall to catch up with Tony. She felt like she was trotting to keep up with his brisk pace as she began to follow beside him. “This,” Tony began, clumsily pulling a mysterious item out of his inner jacket pocket, “is a standard issue Stark wrist communicator.” He held out an item that looked like an Apple watch if an Apple watch had been knocked up by the iron man armor and given birth to the future. “It is a touchscreen,” Stark explained, “but I also uploaded Jarvis to the mainframe. I’ve set it up to notify me at any hint of distress. If your vitals spike, I’ll know. If you send a distress signal I’ll know. If you need to contact me, all you have to do is smack it, just make sure you completely cover the face. Think of it like speed-dial.”

Tony paused for a moment in the main lobby where Y/N had waited anxiously that first day. He held out his hand and Y/N complied by setting her wrist on his open palm. The man pressed the square watch face to her skin and before her eyes, it expanded into a full-fledged metal brace. The face was surrounded by anodized gold hardware that led way to the armor-like plates of red metal that telescoped out of each other and encased the girl’s wrist. She was now in possession of one of the most advanced devices on earth and had virtually no idea how to use it. She wasn’t even sure how to take it off, but Tony was in such a hurry that he had already moved on, rushing toward the main entrance. Y/N took one last moment to admire the strong looking tech on her arm before taking off out the front doors with Tony. As the two exited a silver sports-car bearing the Audi rings across the grate pulled up the drive and stopped right in their path.

“This is my 2008 Audi R8. She might be old, but she’s got plenty of tricks up her sleeve. Jarvis can connect to the vehicle from your com-link, you don’t even have to drive. It’ll take you anywhere you want to go and automatically take the best route possible. You can hail it from up to a mile away using your wrist communicator.” Tony stopped, pulled an expensive looking key fob out of his pants pocket and tossed it at Y/N. She almost missed it in her shock but snapped out of it fast enough to catch the small black object.

The man smiled and started jogging back inside, causing Y/N to turn around and call back, “Can I drive it?” Among all the features of a self-driving, completely automated car, he neglected to mention the most important part to any teenager: the freedom factor.

“Are you licensed?” Tony asked before slowly stepped behind him, moving backwards.

“Yes,” Y/N called back uncertainly. Tony simply raised his eyebrows and shrugged in response before he spun around, trotting to the large glass doors. Y/N carefully looked down at the small black object in her hand and turned it over to see the logo imprinted on the side. The attached key jingled and she was overcome with a smile. Turning back up to the vehicle that, although was old enough to not be the most sought after model, still looked like pristine money. “Yes!” The teen exclaimed as she ran around to the driver’s side and slid into Tony’s old car, of which she was sure he had many. The interior was dark leather, and the console had clearly been redone by Stark. Lines of thin blue lights detailed the edges of the console, and the after-market touchscreen display lit up with Jarvis’s systems when she got in.

“Preparing to take you to Midtown School of Science and Technology, Miss Y/N,” the computer notified her through the aged speaker system.

Eagerly, Y/N responded, “Just get me the map, Jarvis. I’ll take the wheel on this one.” She was switching gears before she had even finished speaking, so excited to take off in this ageless car she had seen so many times in movies and being driven by celebrities. It was a privilege she had yet to know, having her own car. She may have had her license, but never sole ownership of her own vehicle. She could go anywhere she wanted to in that thing, with full control over the radio, and for Tony’s sake, Jarvis as her only passenger. It was an escape plan first and foremost, she knew. Tony wanted her to have a fast and reliable way out if she was ever in trouble, but the fact remained as she floored the gas down the long drive of the Avengers Facility, he had simultaneously handed her independence in the form of a coupe.

Y/N violently swung into an open parking spot, flaunting the rich-looking car for no one but herself. Stark could have given her an old, barely working Toyota and she would have been just as happy. The Audi though, it was just old enough to be out of style, which she liked, and still screamed that she was a force to be reckoned with. Y/N pulled her heavy backpack from the passenger seat and flung it over her right shoulder and took a deep breath. She had no idea what awaited her, but against all social rules, she felt prepared for anything. Y/N tugged on the door handle and pushed her way out into the sunshine. The warmth immediately brushed her cheek. She glanced around at all the student groups in the parking lot sharing their summer stories. At least she was starting at the beginning of the school year. The teen confidently strode toward the front door of the school, passing by all the social circle. Many paused to look at the strange girl as she strode by, speaking low in their voices, but Y/N elected to ignore it. She had gotten to the front door when she realized her focus was so much on maintaining her composure that she forgot to lock the very expensive vehicle. “Shit,” She muttered, turning around to run back close enough to use the key fob.

“I’ve got it, miss,” Jarvis mentioned from her wrist, making Y/N jump and causing the judgmental looking teenagers who were loitering around the entrance to perk up attentively. There was a quiet chirp from across the parking lot, like hearing a cricket during the day.

“Thanks, Jarvis,” Y/N mumbled, thankful for the ease of having the AI’s help. She glanced at the group of girls to her left whispering and looking, but ultimately turned around and kept pushing into the building.

It was loud inside. All the excited students seeing their friends for the first time in three months from across the hall, yelling to each other. It felt chaotic. She just wanted to find her class as soon as possible and not be late. The starting bell rang as Y/N turned down the first hall she saw parting off from the lobby. She had 5 minutes of passing time to find her first-period class and no knowledge of the building. It was bleak and littered with grey lockers under fluorescent lighting that seemed to be just above spooky hospital lighting, but the windows were a nice touch. They let the natural light do all the heavy lifting in lighting up the place. So Y/N wandered off through the wedges of sunlight that bled up the walls, reading numbers to the left of every door. She was thankful to find they were in numerical order all through the building, making it very intuitive to get from one place to another. After a few minutes of following the door signs, she finally came across room 108-C, AP Literature and Composition. It seemed like a good place to start the day. A large woman with brown curly hair and a high, mousy voice greeted the steady flow of students excitedly as they filtered into the dim classroom. The oppressive fluorescent lights had been turned off, opting to operate on the natural sunlight coming in the windows at the back of the classroom. Y/N slid into a desk in the middle of the classroom. She wasn’t the person who needed to be at the back, she wanted to be engaged, but there was a certain comfort to not being on the first lines when it came to open questions from a teacher.

As the final bell rang, the round woman bobbled happily toward her desk, exclaiming, “Welcome to AP Lit!” The slide on the smart board at the front of the class changed to a purple title slide that looked like a third grader had done it, but you could tell there was thought put into it. The class was still chattering with side conversation between the excited students as the teacher announced, “I’m going to go ahead and do roll call right now just to get it out of the way, and then we can get to the fun stuff!” Y/N tried to remember the names as the teacher ran down the list, thinking it would help level the playing field. It wasn’t practical, though. She ended up forgetting each name as soon as it came. It was just too much information at once. She couldn’t even hear half of them over the continued summer recon chitchat. “Y/F/N-Stark?” The room went silent like they’d heard a school shooter in the hall. Y/N knew they’d heard the rumors from the paper this morning, and it didn’t help that Tony registered the teen with a hyphened name. He did it for clarification reasons so that when he did have to act as a guardian there would be no confusion that he held that role, and Y/N had agreed at the time. Now, she just wanted to bury her face in the textbook she hadn’t even received yet and become a mass of hair. She had no idea what that response would mean in trying to establish herself at a new school. It’s not like she was about to be isolated, except perhaps, by extremists who disapprove of her “illegitimate” existence. “Y/F/N-Stark,” the teacher called out again. Y/N hadn’t realized she’d been too distracted to answer.

“Here,” she claimed apathetically as all the eyes of the classroom shot to her at that dumb middle desk. It was as if to say, ‘If there was any confusion before, yes, this is Tony Stark’s daughter here in your classroom. Now don’t be shy.’ The next name, “Flash Thompson” was well heard, and well ignored as the students continued to process how they could use this to their advantage. Y/N felt like she was in a lobster in a tank, with nowhere to go and 30 curious eyes glancing between her and their friends. Still, she tried to keep calm and remind herself that they were in class, the teacher had control, and they couldn’t so much as find an excuse to talk to her without being reprimanded for not paying attention. With that in mind, Y/N fixed her posture to exhume confidence as she focused her mind back on the kind looking woman, who was moving on to the next slide.

“I am Mrs. Winterhalter and since you’re going to be hearing me speak a lot about English this semester, I figured I’d share some things about myself.” She clicked to the next slide, which displayed a photograph of the tubby woman with a silver-haired man, who near doubled her height, and a young girl with the same mop of curly brown hair atop a sporty physique. “This is my husband Ryan and my daughter Gwen,” the woman explained, “Ryan and I met when we were in college, and have been together since.” This earned a brief ‘Aw…’ from the room as Winterhalter continued, “Gwen is 14 and she’s a very talented lacrosse player.” Y/N appreciated the vulnerability of the teacher sharing her personal life with the class. Most people wouldn’t do that, and it really started the course off on the right foot.

After she concluded introducing herself, the class knew that Mrs. Winterhalter was an opinionated activist who loved her family and her dogs and indulged in the occasional mountain biking trip. At this point, she decided to give the class a quick 5-minute mental break before breaking down the course syllabus. She seemed kind and like an engaged teacher who didn’t take things too seriously, but would still get the job done. Y/N thought this would be a fun class to be in for the teacher alone. A good sense of humor and strong ideals were the way to her heart, and Mrs. Winterhalter checked those boxes easily. The large woman sat down at her desk but remained engaged in a conversation with the four students closed to that corner. Meanwhile, the honey-skinned girl beside Y/N leaned over, her long and straight, glossy, black hair spilling over the side of the desk. Y/N turned to meet her haunting hazel eyes that were so bright you’d think they were contacts. “So you’re like, Tony Stark’s daughter, right?” The beautiful girl asked.

Y/N had to take a moment to remind herself that not everyone in her life had malevolent intent, and she should give this girl who was trying to connect with her a fair chance. Just because things had changed in Y/N’s life, didn’t mean it was wrong for people to ask about it. “Yeah,” she responded nervously. “What’s your name again?”

“Pavitra Prabhakar, but people call me Pai,” the girl responded with a smile that Y/N could swear glittered in the sunlight. This girl was the millennial beauty standard and then some and it was intimidating. “So are you really living with the Avengers?” Pavitra asked. “I mean, that’s what J. Jonah Jamison said on the news, but it just seems so strange.”

Y/N felt a relief at that last part, letting down her guard and fully involving herself. “It is!” she exclaimed as her rigid shoulders dropped to a casual slouch. “It is so weird and I don’t think I could compare it to any other experience.”

“What are they like?” Pai inquired, dreamily resting her head on a hand. Nearby, people were starting to pay attention to the conversation taking place between the two girls. It was unusual, but Y/N felt a relief wash over her as she finally got it through her head that these kids were just curious, and more importantly they were willing to listen to her talk genuinely about how strange the last two weeks of her life had been.

“Well, I haven’t met most of them yet,” Y/N began. “They’re all people with lives outside of work, you know? They have homes of their own, individual projects. Some of them have jobs. the Avengers Facility is mostly intended to be a headquarters for when there is a team mission, or for the heroes who can’t or don’t want to live out in the world, so I really haven’t met anyone. Steve’s around, but we haven’t really talked much, and obviously Tony-”

“You call your dad by his first name?” a small blonde girl interrupted from a couple seats behind Pai. She looked like the kind of goody-goody that made you want to snap her bird-boned neck.

It was hard not to take offense at the subtle judgement, but Y/N turned to the fragile-looking girl with a scowl and turned back to Pavitra. She was ready to change the subject. This was supposed to be a get-to-know your classmates moment, and Y/N wanted to learn more about the girl who had engaged her, rather than spend the entire time being bombarded with questions about people she hadn’t met. Taking a deep breath, the teen attempted to return to her conversation, inquiring, “So Pai, are you in any clubs?”

“Just one,” Pai mentioned. “MISA, the Midtown International Student Association. It’s sometimes hard to balance identity and ambition in this place. It’s a private school with an unsurprising economic and race demographic. My family is from India, and I got here on a partial scholarship while my mother is struggling to pay the rest. It can be discouraging to navigate a sea of pasty white skin. I like knowing there is a place I can go where other people have untraditional backgrounds like me.” She gave a shy smile as she finished speaking that warmed Y/N’s heart. Clearly, MISA was a second home to Pai and it obviously meant a lot to her, and that gave Y/N hope.

“Alright, the moment you’ve all been waiting for… the syllabus,” Winterhalter claimed excitedly.

Y/N found the same story happened in all her courses. The cat was out of the bag; Tony Stark’s daughter goes here now. Better ask her about all the Avengers she doesn’t know and obtrusive personal questions that are just uncalled for. It wasn’t malicious, and Y/N was trying to focus on that, but between the boredom of syllabus day and the constant bombardment of questions, she was burned out by lunchtime. As she wandered the cafeteria looking for a comfortable looking place to sit, she sat Pavitra send a smile and wave her way, but Pai had so many friends and Y/N wasn’t ready to meet any more people. She smiled politely at the kind girl but ultimately continued to the back of the cafeteria where she saw a vacant table, opting to sit alone and isolate herself from the intrusive gossip that was out of her control.

Looking down at the food was unappetizing, but Y/N had been in worse situations. The fact that the school provided food, and worked hard to make it healthy and nutritious was something she wouldn’t take for granted the way so many of her American peers did. She stabbed her fork into a piece of steamed broccoli and spun it around as she meditated. Would it always be like this? Could people just get used to Y/N the person and not the Stark? She shoved the green vegetable into her mouth and tasted the earthy flavor of mass-produced food. It may not be the broccoli florets from Costco that she grew up with, but then again nothing would ever beat those. Y/N popped another in her mouth when she noticed a figure approaching her right shoulder. She turned to see the boy she recognized as Peter Parker climbing into the seat next to her.

“Hey,” the boy said kindly, glancing at Y/N for only a brief moment before turning back to his half-eaten tray of food nervously.

She hadn’t thought of this as an option. Peter Parker was Tony’s intern with no reason to ask dumb questions. This caused her lips to curl into a half-smile at the corner of her mouth as she responded, “Hey, Peter.”

The socially strange boy seemed to take this as a cue and looked back up. “I saw you sitting here all alone and I thought you might want someone to sit with,” he explained innocently. Y/N turned to look at Peter. She’d seen him in passing, but they’d never really spoken or stood together long enough in a room for her to really understand what he looked like or how he acted. He was cute. Kind of like the lost puppy you find on the street who is hesitant to come along with you but has these big hopeful brown eyes that beg you to be something safe, but the moment you give them some kind of positive interaction they start wagging their tail and running around in circles. That was Peter. All it took was for Y/N to say hello to him and now he was smiling and brushing back his hair as he excitedly continued, “Ned and MJ wanted to come over here, too, but I thought maybe they should wait for me to see if it was okay. You know, we didn’t want to impede on your alone time or anything, and-”

“Which ones are they?” Y/N interrupting, knowing she wouldn’t get a word in if she let him continue. Peter gestured a few tables down to a hefty kid in a zip-up hoodie and a small girl with her unruly hair tied back. Both were watching the exchange intensely from the empty table and smiled when Y/N looked over. If she didn’t know any better she’d say the two looked suspicious, for what she didn’t know. She could tell they were trying and it was sweet. Gently, Y/N smiled and waved them over, watching as the two clumsily struggled their way up from the table and speed walked over to where she and Peter sat like they’d just been invited to the “cool” table in a 1960’s comic book.

“Hi Y/N,” Ned greeted cheerily as he plopped down across from her, his tray making a loud sound against the table.

MJ carefully slid in next to Ned and uninterestingly asked, “You get asked about anything not Avenger related yet?” Peter’s head swung around with big scared eyes and furrowed brow as if to say, ‘I told you not to bring that up’, but MJ simply leaned forward with intrigue.

Y/N simply answered, “No.” To which MJ responded by laughing like a sociopath. It sounded like she was disinterested and even perhaps a tad condescending with her mocking laugh, but the smile on the girls face and her friendly posture told Y/N that this was MJ’s version of bonding, and honestly, Y/N didn’t mind.

“Yeah, people at this school are dumb,” MJ continued in her humorous way, nose crinkling in her amusement as Peter exhaled in relief that he hadn’t just facilitated a cat fight.

“Do you like Star Wars?” Ned inquired earnestly. He didn’t even waste time to wait for an answer, immediately continuing, “Because I just got this really great mold of a Count Dooku figure—Hang on, it’s in my backpack. I’ll show you,” Ned insisted as he turned to dig through his very full book bag. Y/N glanced at Peter who smiled nervously at her and then turned back to his friend. “Here it is!” Ned exclaimed, holding up the small vinyl figure victoriously.

“Nerd,” MJ scoffed amiably.

“Look at his face!” Ned told Y/N eagerly, handing over the treasured action figure so she could get a closer look. It really said a lot that Ned would let her handle something that clearly meant a lot to him when he barely knew her. It felt good to be given a chance.

Y/N carefully turned over the figure in her hands, looking at the intricate details and appreciating how it looked artistically. The truth was she liked Star Wars, but not enough to really know who Count Dooku was. Even so, she was glad Ned shared it with her. It made her feel like she was actually getting to know someone for the first time that day, and that gave Y/N hope. “That’s really cool, Ned. Thanks for sharing it with me,” Y/N offered kindly as she handed back the figure to its rightful owner. Ned took it from her hands while looking excitedly between Peter and MJ, and Y/N was pretty sure she’d received his approval. “What about you, MJ. Any big exciting news to share?” Y/N teased, trying to get the quiet girl to speak honestly.

Instead of answering, MJ simply shrugged and mentioned, “I like your leather jacket.” It wasn’t much, but it was a start. Somehow, in the time it took for the girls to converse those two lines, Peter and Ned were engaged in their own silent conversation. Y/N turned back to catch a glimpse of the two silently arguing with each other while making frantic faces before they quickly broke off and attempted to act normal. “Wow, you two are lame…” MJ judged, causing the two boys to drop their façade.

“Hey, so um…” Peter began awkwardly, turning toward Y/N. “Ned and I were thinking, you know you don’t know a lot of people here yet, but there’s this party, and you totally don’t have to feel like you have to, but like, we thought maybe you might want to go to meet people. I mean, we’ll be there, too-“

“When is it?” Y/N asked as a means of begging Peter to stop rambling.

“It’s Friday,” Ned piped in eagerly.

“I have a thing with Tony on Friday, but I’ll ask him if we can reschedule tonight,” Y/N explained. She and Tony were trying to implement a system that every week they do a bonding activity to get to know each other better. They’d only done it once before when Tony brought Y/N to his favorite shawarma joint. It didn’t seem like anything typical to the Stark lifestyle, just a small hole-in-the-wall type place. Then Tony explained how the Avengers came there after their first battle together, and it put things in perspective. Y/N couldn’t really take Tony to anywhere she knew as it was all too far away, and she honestly didn’t know what she was going to choose to do for her week anyway. She really did want to go to that party, if for no other reason than to have a shared experience to talk to people about so they’d stop asking the same 3 questions. She figured Tony would be fine with it. If there was something he understood, it would be a party, wouldn’t it? Y/N moved to brush a lot of hair out of her eyes while she said, “You know what? Plan on me being there. I think I’ll be fine.”

“Woah! You have a com-log, too?” Ned suddenly burst out, much to the confusion of Y/N.

“It’s called a com-link, Ned,” Peter groaned in embarrassment as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I don’t get it,” Y/N admitted, looking between the two. After stressfully running a handful of lean fingers through his thick brown hair, Peter pulled up the sleeve of his blue sweater to reveal his own Stark Communicator. It was the same build, same red armor-like band, the only difference was the frame. Where Y/N had the Ironman gold detailing, Peter’s comm had bright cobalt. It was such a rich combination of red and blue it seemed impossible to make metal look like that. “So is this one of those ‘you show me yours, I show you mine’ moments?” Y/N joked. She heard MJ, who had moved on from being a part of the conversation to sketching in her notebook, snicker to herself. Smiling at the fact that she got a reaction out of the individualistic MJ, Y/N shimmied one shoulder out of her jacket and held her com-link next to Peter’s.

“I mean, I just have it for the Stark internship. You know… so Mr. Stark can get a hold of me and I can send him files. Just a bunch of boring stuff like that.” Peter had awkwardly shaken his head and pushed his lips up as he emphasized boring. There was no denying, he was an awkward kid, but Y/N had a feeling if he could put up with Tony there was more to him than the bumbling, nervous boy she was seeing.

[eldradii]

June tournament preparation

Hey guys! Normally I just write about the Tournament games, but this preparation process was pretty cool so I thought I might share some of it with you. 

For list choosing and other gameplay stuff, please check out my other post (in this blog, or the other link off facebook!)

I usually procastinate a lot and this tournament was no different. I didn’t even have the whole army assembled a week before the event. I played a couple of games with some very inventive proxies. 

Here are my Ranger conversions - they are composed of a combination from Eternal Guard/Wildwood Ranger parts, a Drukhari knife on their back where the quiver would have gone, Glade Guard and Wych/Helion/Kabalite/Venom crew helmets. I was lucky to pick up all the wood elf parts I needed on cheap, and then the legs are kabalite ones you can buy from bits stores like Hoard O Bits for barely anything! In this way I had parts for over 20 rangers. I like running them with just splinter rifles, since once they’re painted there’s no mistaking them for kabalites, and this way I can run them as Kabalites or allied Rangers if needed!

Here they are in my new lightbox!

Quick guide:

1. Clip off the non-cloak parts of the cloak, so the back half of the torso where it would join to the front, then use a hobby drill/sand tool to quickly bore out the neck area of the little mount.

2. Glue to a Wych/Pilot torso - kabalite torsos can work but I prefer the less armored look of the Wyches. Then put on some kabalite legs, a head. Maybe use some greenstuff to feed into the neck. I didn’t use the back half of the Kabalite legs, instead covering it with either green stuff or some grenades/pouches from Harlequin kits. 

3. Finish with a trimmed of spikes splinter rifle or rifle and knife. 

Here are my storm Guardian conversions, very simple, scourge/wych legs, then wych blades. I figured wych blades already grant one extra attack so as a counts as chainsword they fit well. For pistols I had some random Storm Guardian metal parts that I used for some, or used a grenade, second knife, or splinter pistol arm with a shuriken pistol glued on. 

Here they are based. I use a combination of slate, milliput slabs broken up to give a fine detail slate, and milliput to sculpt raised areas, finally a mixture of sand and rocks for the dirt texture. I’m super proud of the guy on the right, looks very menacing!

Basing in this way also adds weight and fully secures the feet into what is essentially rock, so I don’t have to worry as much about these models falling off the base, saves me a bit of time pinning. In general if a model has a tab for slotta base, I cut it down and then sink it into a scenic base, and if it doesn’t I either pin it or glue a small piece of sprue just to give it something to properly bond to.

Here is my OOP autarch obtained from http://blackmarketminiatures.su , incredibly quality, and the staff were really great. It didn’t come with a reaper launcher but I had a spare, so just cut off the support for a shuriken catapult arm (the tube and stuff) and kept the top trigger mount, then glued it on the bottom. It is of course magnetised too!

So at this point I have my assembled army. I always love to have all my models out to just admire them and reflect on my work. My girlfriend makes a bit of fun of me for it. I sometimes feel a bit like Smeagol from lord of the rings. Admiring my precious! This will be a nice comparison shot to the finished army!

2 Days Before

I have to start painting up! So I started with the rangers, doing a quick drybrush over the black cloak with mechanicus gray, then washed it with whichever color I coded to the squad. 

So for the green, Coellia Greenshade, purple, Druchii Violet, and for blue I used Drakenhoff Nightshade. Then I redrybrush with Dawnstone, celestra, then a final drybrush, very targetted, with Ulthaan grey. Then I used a glaze to recolor it. For Blue Guilliman Blue, Green, Waywatcher Green, for purple I don’t have a purple glaze so I just used Druchii Violet. The picture above is the final picture.

Then I worked on the new Wine Red armored recruits. I knew I wanted very distinct guardian squads, as they would often be mixing up in formation to make sure I always had screen for my characters. So I have made them Ynnari colored. 

Unfortunately I was not too good at painting this time, just couldn’t focus on the little details well. I couldn’t really do as much detail as I would have liked but it was at least tabletop ready and looked nice from a distance. I followed the White Dwarf recommended Ynnari style. Started with a airbrush on the armor of Vallejo Scarlet Red which I then washed with Nuln oil, then went over quickly with Khorne red to brighten it back up a bit. I was having problems with the airbrush so couldn’t get it to apply smoothly with the Air Khorne Red. Anyway, then I highlighted with Mephiston Red, then a finer highlight of Evil Sun’s Scarlet, then a sparing highlight of Fire Dragon Bright. Finally, I added a touch of Yriel yellow on the very extreme corners for a bit of extra color. 

Finally I did my blue sashes and what have you to tie them with my existing force a bit more. They were done with Kantor Blue > Vallejo Magic Blue > Vallejo Electric Blue. Gold detail, then Mechanicus grey on the weapons. Leadbelcher on weapons. Mournfang brown on pouches. For skin tone, I basecoat with Doombull brown. It’s a very nice earthy tone. Then layer with cadian fleshtone, flayed one flesh, wash the pouches and faces with agrax earthshade. I wish I could show pictures of this but some of it’s not very impressive to look at up close and it’s a bit embarassing for me. 

Anyway at this point I have to do a couple characters, my Farseer, two Autarchs, the rest of the reapers, the Hemlock. I’m pretty tired anyway so I mostly spend the time with my lovely girlfriend playing some video games and watching netflix together. It’s important to take these kinds of breaks when you’re rushing like this. Sure you might not get everything done as much as you like before a tournament, but it won’t do you any good to be continuously worn down from not resting properly the days before.

Last day!

I really would have liked to do better work on the Farseer but it worked out alright. I actually still batch paint characters, often along with the rest of an army. I used my standard Blue recipe for the cloak to match my other characters. Starting off with Kantor Blue, layer with Magic Blue and highlight up to Electric Blue. This one turned out a little bit flatter, but that’s a bit because the cloak itself lacks the heavy folds of something like Eldrad’s cloak. 

Here’s a better example of how it looks with more folds to work with. I like this one a lot more. 

I painted the purple sashes on all my characters at the same time. It ties them together quite nicely and provides a bit more color. Basecoat Naggaroth Night, Highlight up to Xerseus, then Genestealer. Often I go back and forth deepening recesses as well when I’m painting like this. It’s pretty quick to do. My style is to be a bit neat but mostly just plan out which areas will be easiest to clean up. 

The navy robes are basically that technique of starting with the Fang, then highlighting with Russ Grey, shading with Dark Reaper just painted into recesses, just play with it till it gets nice. 

Bone white is Rakarth (two thin coats), Pallid. Brown is Rhinox > Mournfang. Gems are just Black basecoat > Mephiston Layer > Smaller Evil Suns Layer > Wild Rider Red layer even smaller then a tiny bit of Fire Dragon Bright. I wanted to do the Farseers middle gem like the Eye of the Time Stone (as it looks like the same!) but I honestly forgot. Maybe I’ll do it now :D

White is Mechanicus>Celestra>Ulthanaan. Prep all gems and details by painting them gold. Gold is great on a time budget because it naturally has shading and highlights already. If you’re going to use metallic gold to paint beyond tabletop, avoid washing the entire gold section with wash, as it dulls it down. 

At this point i’ve done all my details above on my various characters. Gold, white. I was yet to decide on colors for the autarchs besides the red for the Alaitoc autarch to match the new guardians and what have you. I still had a fair bit to do and all the bases. Starting to panic a bit, I took a break. 

Next step is the blue blades I like to do. You start with a blueish basecoat (can either be Sotek or Caledor Sky) then layer on with multiple thin layers to establish Temple Guard blue, then mix and layer up to Baharroth Blue then Baharroth blue + White. I wish I had more time to push these, but I rarely paint except when I’m prepping for a tournament, so these would match the ones I did before. 

Running out of time, I quickly did my reapers, just doing Russ Grey, a wash, the weapons and plumes are Nagaroth > Xerseus > Genestealer; White is Mech/Celestra/Ulthanan. Wish I could have done these better but a bit of a wash and they fit in with the slightly better painted ones from before.

For the rangers, they really needed some detail so I decided to just give them a quick dryrbrush on armor of Dark Reaper, into a lighter shade of “ I can’t remember “. Then the silver details and they were tabletop ready. 

I was still at a loss for my Autarch at this point and resolved to just send him in as mostly black (as he had his blade, robes, gems and gold done). After drybrushing his helmet plumes, my girlfriend suggested doing his eyes to add a bit more detail so he’d look better. I was way too tired to do such a fine detail task so I asked her to do it for me. She took a while and it turned out she’d gone way beyond my request of “ just paint them green “ and done some really nice highlights!

They look awesome! Really excited to do more work on this guy now I’m not under the gun. Anyway. I put all this down and finished up some detail on other units. Finally I had to work on the Hemlock. Unfortunately my airbrush was not cooperating so I couldn’t do my usual punchy blue that I like. I didn’t mind. Just did a thick highlight of Eshin Grey then a smaller of Mechanicus. Painted a couple small things gold then added a turqoise glow to the engine vents and the D-scythes. 

Not very proud of this one but I was very pressed for time. That’s why you don’t get to see it up close. Basically it’s just a drybrush starting with Sotek Green > Temple Guard Blue > Baharroth Blue > 50% Baharroth and White, with a smaller and smaller drybrush area each time. 

Finally, I needed to do all my helmets. Ended up not feeling steady enough so mostly left them white. However when I was airbrush priming all the white I realized I could do some work on my currently mostly black Autarch and just do a zenithal highlight to catch his wings with a quick burst of the airbrush (I prime “ white “ with vallejo light ghost grey). It worked out pretty well! Nice and quick too and I felt comfortable with the work on him!

Anyway everything is mostly done at this point (”Good enough”) so I was working on my display board. It didn’t really work out as I had left it too late, so the first layer of PVA bonding the texture to the surface hadn’t dried. We tried everything to speed up the process but it just was not working. It was time to work on all the bases. I had to basecoat a lot of them to get the dirt and rock basecoated. I didn’t have time to do any in progress pictures, but you can see it in the pictures of the storm guardians above, reposted below for ease:

So basically I have one of two ways I do a base. If I’d had to airbrush, I needed to use the base colors to really cover those areas, then redefine them with a wash of Agrax and/or Nuln oil. If they’re black, I can just drybrush immediately. For dirt, the base is Baneblade Brown. Then I heavy drybrush the rock Mech grey. Then, highlight the dirt with Ushabti Bone, not being too afraid to get it on the rock because it helps you tie it together. Then, on the rock, Dawnstone over all of it with a less heavy drybrush but you still mainly want the color to be dawnstone. Then, another drybrush mostly on edges with Celestra gray, then onto a fine drybrush of Ulthaan. 

Once that’s all done, my amazing girlfriend rebasecoated the edges of the bases with chaos black, while I placed my tufts on the bases and put snow on them. This was getting very late at night. My tufts are “ gamer grass “ of the beige 6mm, green 6mm variety, and on bigger bases I use 12mm tufts. Then I applied generous but sparing Vahallan Blizzard. It’s quite useful to cover any areas you messed up in the basing process, like missed texture, or areas where the red from airbrush hit somewhere. Other than that I like to create little stories of where grass grows. For a bit of realism with snow remember it mostly would stay on the edges and then the snow melts onto the area below a ridge. But mostly I do it how I think looks good. Little bits of grass growing from crevasses is my favorite, it reminds me of that line from Jurassic Park where he says “ Life finds a way “. 

A cool trick is to really drag out the texture spreader to create thin snow. I’m not sure how to describe the technique but it ends up looking quite nice I think! 

Anyway I ended up finishing all of it around 2 AM! Quite bad to have to play the next day getting up at 8 latest! I couldn’t resist a group shot before I packed it all away. Here it is!

And here is the before picture!

I was very happy with how the Dark Reapers turned out with the basing, as they have three points of white for the eye to look at. I’m not sure how to say that but it just really pleases me to look at so I hope it looks good for others too. Anyway I hope this has been a bit entertaining and maybe helps you prepare for your next event. Obviously take more time! You need to be rested and take care of yourself! My final tip is to just start with biggest areas you can. Finally you can really cheat and push some details, like on my guardians, the big highlights on the armor with that final push of yellow, really can draw the eyes and make them look a lot better than they actually are. They’re very messy, and the helmets aren’t done, but I still got a lot of comments for the army looking nice. 

Till next time! :)