joey looks over at him, eyebrows still pulled together slightly. "you're a jerk, you know that?" they both know that she's referencing several things at the moment, not just his words minutes ago.
"yeah," he tells her, shaking his head and looking a...
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"MISS STARK, YOUR FATHER IS REQUESTING YOU DOWNSTAIRS."
The cadence of Friday's voice breaks through the conversation in the den. It's after dinner, and today was just like any other day. Basic training in the morning, Enhanced in the afternoon, and a short training one-on-one with Carrelli just before supper. Now, Steve, Bucky, Clint, Natasha, and Thor are gathered in the living room, while everyone morally supports Bucky in his 12th attempt at beating Thor in Super Smash Bros.
"Be back," Joey tells them, before slipping out of the room and down the hall to the elevators.
As soon as the elevators open on the first floor, Joey recognizes her dad's voice coming from the front. When she steps out and rounds the corner, it takes her a second to process who all is standing in the cluster by the door: Tony, Peter, Pepper, and May.
"May!" Joey shouts, bolting over to the group and attacking her with a hug. It's then that she realizes that she hasn't ever hugged her before, but neither of them care— they're just glad to see each other. "Oh, my god, I'm so glad you're here," Joey says into May's shoulder before pulling away.
"I'm glad to be here, too," May replies, keeping one hand on Joey's shoulder and moving the other to Peter's. "Your dad gave me a call and asked me to come up and answer some questions for Agent Murdock," she tells Joey. Then, to both her and Peter, "I'm all yours until I have to head home."
Peter shows May to the waiting area of the lobby, but Joey stays back for a second to talk to her parents.
"How is she– how is she here? I thought with the security reinforcements and everything, we weren't having anyone in or out, except for missions—"
"Fury cleared her for Agent Murdock," Pepper explains. "She wants to see if May was around before your mom went missing. See if she knows anything. This guy here, though, invited her to hang around for a while longer for a couple of kids who might want to see her."
Joey wraps one arm around each of the people before her, tangling them into a group hug.
"Thank you guys, so much."
"Of course, sweetheart," Pepper says.
"Anything for you, duckling," Tony tells her.
Upon pulling out of the hug, Tony squeezes his daughter's shoulder and smiles, before turning to walk off with Pepper while Joey practically skips into the next room, to find Peter and May seated on the sleek, gray upholstered lobby chairs. Based on Peter's hand gestures, it appears that the two of them are talking about something Spider-Man-related, but they drop the topic when Joey joins them.
The first thing May asks is how things have been going since the two of them arrived a couple weeks ago. Joey lets Peter rave about all of the team trainings, and missions, and all of the sciency things that Dr. Banner and Tony let him help with. Joey chimes in every now and then, but she's perfectly content letting Peter go off on his tangent. Inevitably, though, the topic does finally turn into the real reason May is here in the first place, and the energy of the conversation gets heavier before Peter lets Joey take over.
