The Stark Trap

~18~

~A/N~ There's only 6 chapters left of the whole story, that's wild man~

Melissa read Andi’s text and her eyes widened. ‘You can’t get arrested just to get Dad to Malibu! He’d be even more pissed than he already is’
 
After she sent the text, she went to take a shower before bed, taking her phone with her. Andi texted back not long after she got into the shower. ‘It’ll be fine. It wouldn’t be the first time I almost got arrested or was about to get arrested. All I have to do is get into a fight or something’
 
Melissa texted her back through the phone holder thing on the shower curtain. ‘You know you could just call him and tell him that you were arrested… Or I’ll tell him that you called me and told me’
 
“Yeah but that’s not fun. Plus I’m pretty sure he would believe it more if Mom or the police called him’
 
She finished showering and got out, wrapping herself in a towel and grabbing her phone. She left the bathroom and sat down on Andi's bed. 'You don't need to be that dramatic though. I'll tell him that Mom called me because you got arrested for getting into a fight at Walmart or something and they won't release you to Mom because she doesn't have custody over you' 
 
Melissa set down her phone and stood up, she started to take her towel off to get dressed when the door opened.
 
"Hey An-" Harley said walking in, stopping when he saw her in a towel. "Shit- I'm sor-"
 
He was cut off by Peter walking out of his room, which was right next to Andi’s. “What’s going on…?” He asked when he saw Harley standing outside of Andi’s room. 
 
Sighing, Melissa pulled her towel around her more and sat down on the bed. “Well this is great…” 
 
Peter poked his head into the room, he saw Melissa in a towel and smacked Harley in the back of the head. “Don’t you ever knock before going into someone’s bedroom? Especially a girls”
 
“I didn’t think!” Harley said, putting his hands up defensively. 
 
“Can you guys leave so that I can get dressed?” Melissa asked. 
 
Peter nodded, grabbing Harley's arm and pulling him out of the room. “Yeah, sorry Liss-” 
 
Harley looked at Peter confused. “Liss? Who the hell is Liss?”
 
Melissa sighed, putting her head on her hands. “I’ll explain after I get dressed…”
 
Pulling Harley out of the room, Peter smiled sheepishly at Melissa and shut the door. Melissa went over to Andi’s closet and pulled out a random outfit. She got dressed and then quickly ran a brush through her hair. 
 
Her phone lit up as she got a text back from Andi. ‘Fine. We’ll do it your way. The No-Fun, Legal, Melissa way 🙄’
 
She rolled her eyes at her sister's text and went downstairs. Peter and Harley were sitting in the kitchen, Peter was making something on the stove and Harley was questioning him. 
 
“Why won’t you tell me?” Harley asked. 
 
Peter sighed. “Because she said she’d explain it to you” He looked over his shoulder at Harley and saw Melissa walk in. “Ask her yourself”
 
Melissa went over to the fridge, grabbing out a soda. “Where’s Dad?”
 
“Asleep probably. It is after midnight”
 
Melissa raised an eyebrow. "I didn't know he slept," She joked. "What are you making?"
 
Peter lifted up the pan. "Pancakes"
 
"Why are you making pancakes at 12:30am?" 
 
He shrugged. "There's no time that you can't have pancakes"
 
Harley threw his hands up. “Is no one going to tell me what’s going on?”
 
Melissa sighed, sitting down at the island across from Harley. “I’m not Andi…”
 
“What the hell do you mean you’re not Andi?”
 
Melissa explained everything, that she and Andi were twins and didn’t know about each other, how they met, the switch, even everything that happened between her parents. Peter had brought them pancakes while Melissa had been explaining everything, so the three of them were now sitting at the island eating. 
 
Harley sat there with his fork halfway in his mouth, a confused look on his face. “So, you’re Andi’s identical twin sister?”
 
She nodded. “Yeah. I’m Melissa” She stuck her hand out, smiling. “It’s nice to officially meet you Harley”
 
Laughing, Harley shook her hand. “It’s nice to meet you too Melissa…”
 
Peter looked between the two of them, rolling his eyes at Harley. Harley had the look on his face that he always has when he likes a girl, though there was a weird look in his eye that Peter had never seen before… “I hate to interrupt whatever is happening here but Liss, have you talked to Andi since the facetime call?”
 
“Oh! Right, I forgot to mention. Andi had the idea that Dad would go down to Cali if she got arrested since he is her custodial parent”
 
Peter’s eyes widened. “She’s not-”
 
Melissa shook her head. “I convinced her to let one of us tell Dad that she was arrested without her actually getting arrested. I told her that I would tell Dad that Mom called me because Andi got into a fight at Walmart or something and that they won’t release her to Mom because Mom doesn’t have custody over her”
 
“Tony might leave her there,” Harley said, shrugging. 
 
“Well we’ll see” Melissa shrugged, eating the last bite of her pancakes and putting her plate into the sink. 
 
Harley went over, reaching past Melissa and put his plate in the sink. “You should do it now, it would be more believable if it happened late at night”
 
Melissa turned around, eyes widening when she realized how close they were, their chests were almost touching. "Um… Maybe…"
 
Harley also seemed to not realize how close they had been until she had turned around, he bit his lip and took a step back. "Sorry…"
 
"Um" Melissa cleared her throat. "I don't know if I want to wake Dad up just to tell him that Andi was fake-arrested"
 
"Mr. Stark isn't asleep," Jarvis said.
 
Melissa jumped, still not used to him. "He isn’t? Peter said he went to bed?"
 
"He went to his room but he isn't asleep"
 
Nodding, Melissa took a deep breath. "I guess we're going to tell him… Don't snitch on us Jarvis"
 
"Wouldn't dream of it"
 
Melissa and Peter went to Tony's room, leaving Harley in the kitchen since he wasn't originally a part of all of this. Melissa hesitated, taking a deep breath before knocking on the door.
 
"Who is it and why are you awake?" Her fathers voice asked from inside.
 
"It's Liss… And Peter"
 
"Come in" 
 
She slowly opened the door and she and Peter walked in. Her father was sitting on his bed doing something on his laptop. He shut the laptop when the kids walked in, looking up at them with a raised eyebrow. "Why are you guys awake? I expect this from Andi and Harley but not you two"
 
"Speaking of Andi…" Melissa trailed off. She wasn't sure how this all would play out and she was afraid it would go bad, she didn't think everything out… Tony motioned for her to continue and she took another deep breath. "Mom called me a few minutes ago… Andi snuck out of the house and went to Walmart and then she ended up getting into a fight and the police came and arrested her…"
 
Tony sighed, putting his head in his hand. "Of course she did…"
 
"The police won't release her to Mom because Mom isn't her custodial parent…"
 
Tony looked over at the two of them, raising an eyebrow. "Is this a ploy to get me and your mother back together?"
 
Melissa shook her head. "I wouldn't lie about something like this…" She hated lying, especially to her parents…
 
Her father looked at the two of them for a few minutes, trying to figure out if they were telling the truth. After what felt like forever to the two teenagers, Tony sighed. "We'll head to Malibu early tomorrow morning. Now go to sleep"
 
They nodded and left the bedroom. Harley was about to go into his room when they walked out, he stopped and raised an eyebrow. "How'd it go?"
 
"We're leaving tomorrow morning," Melissa said. 
 
Peter yawned. "Well I'm gonna go to bed. Night guys"
 
They said goodnight and Peter went into his room. Melissa turned back to Harley, looking down. "I uh, I want to apologize for walking in on you in a towel a few weeks ago…"
 
Harley shook his head. "I don't care about that, plus we're kind of even now. But I apologize for earlier, I should have knocked." He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. "Ya know, that day you walked in on me should have been my first guess that you weren't Andi. She wouldn't have acted like that…" He smirked. 
 
"Like what?" Melissa asked, looking up at him. She raised an eyebrow, trying to look and act confident, but she was pretty sure she was failing.
 
"Like you were into me" He said, shrugging. "Now that I think about it, there have been a few times when I should have known you weren't Andi… You're a lot different than Andi"
 
"We're very different, but I'm not into you"
 
He shrugged. "Alright… Sure. I'll believe you…" 
 
She knew he wasn't going to believe her, and she didn't blame him, she wasn't a very good liar. He was right, she did like him, but she wouldn't tell him that… "I'm going to bed. Goodnight Harley"
 
"Goodnight Darlin" He said, winking.
 
Melissa went into Andi's room, leaning against the now closed door and sighing. She's seen how Harley is over the past few weeks that she was there, and he wasn't the kind of guy that she usually crushed on, but here she was, crushing on Harley…
 
Getting into bed, Melissa pushed the other thoughts out of her head and sent Andi a quick text, telling her a brief summary of what happened.
 
As she laid in bed, she wondered how everything would go tomorrow. It could either go really good, or really bad, and Melissa had a feeling that it wasn't going the way that they hoped it would…