To All Those Brave and Lovely

Avengers Assemble

She spends a lot of time at MJ's, her ever absent parents reassuring Tony that no, of course we don't mind, Nora can stay as long as she needs to, leaving Nora to waste away on the couch (because the ER doctor said to try not to move for at least a week) with MJ while they watch episode after episode of Law and Order.

MJ is trying her best not to let Nora come into contact with anything that has to do with the events of last week, or the new terrorist group, or Spider-Man, or anything else that might send her into a panic attack.  Still, she can't block out every news alert and radio station that Nora has access to, so she sees it all anyways- how two of the men that broke into her house are in the ICU and unable to speak, how one ate a cyanide pill because apparently this is more hard core than anyone had been expecting, how no one is any closer to catching the bad guys than they were when they first showed up.

"It's going to feel weird not having you here,"  MJ says, throwing Nora's bag into the back of the car and waving off Happy's (who has heard too many of her tirades to argue) offers to help.  "We should be room mates in college or something, I think we'd work well together."

Nora stares, thinking of the idea of going to some university with MJ, eating mac and cheese past midnight and having a dorm room full of more books than clothes.  But the prospect sends another spike of pain through her skull, so she just gives her a weak smile and a hug before crawling into the car beside Peter.

He smiles brightly at her, moving to the side to give her more room, but she just moves towards him, laying her head on his shoulder and ignoring the looks Happy gives her in the mirror.  "Don't move, "  She orders, because Peter was looking vaguely terrified, like he was fighting the urge to jump out the window.  "Just stay."

He stays for longer than she thought he would, the whole drive up to the Avengers complex and then even when they get there, throwing his bag on the counter and collapsing on the couch like he had been here before.  Maybe he had.  Nora doesn't know what all being Tony's number one intern entails.

"Isn't this a school day?"  Nora knew that it was, because MJ would disappear for a few hours, just long enough to give Nora time to fight through the haze of the medication that she was having to take every morning.  Then she would come back loaded with homework and complaints about Ned and Flash and idiot teachers.  

"Yeah, well..."  Peter shrugged, hopelessly, like she had caught him in a lie.  "Mr. Stark asked me to stay with you until one of the avengers got here."

Nora stares at him.  She's had this feeling before, like Peter was acting as some babysitter or body guard during the times when Tony has to go away for a long while.  It had been nice, when all that meant was that he would keep her company in the tower, but became a bit more concerning when Tony apparently thought he could fight off robbers with guns and members of a terrorist group.  Still, she didn't like the idea of sitting in this big place all alone until someone showed up, just listening to the whir of machinery and the rain hitting against the windows.  "Where does Aunt May think you are?"

"On a business trip with Mr. Stark."  Peter has now moved to the kitchen and found where Wanda keeps her chocolate, talking through a mouthful of the stuff.  "What she doesn't know won't hurt her."

Nora feels a pang of guilt for that, because there's very few things that Peter would lie to his Aunt May about, and she never wanted to be the cause of one of them.  But she also feels a bubble of something else, something warmer, that comes when she thinks that he'd do these things for her- face down an unknown danger, miss school, lie to his Aunt- without blinking.