The Avengers Weakness

Chapter Twenty-Two

"I can probably help and if you're worried I'll tell your brother and Tony, I can keep it a secret." she replied softly.

"I-i don't like surprises," Penny replied softly, her tone was so soft and low the older teen almost didn't hear her.

"Want to tell me why?"

"Surprises usually never mean anything good..."

"What do you mean peanut?"

"Whenever my aunt and uncle had a surprise for me it usually meant I was in trouble.....or that I was going to be locked in the closet again." she replied with a slight shiver.

"Are you worried about Nat's surprise, Peanut?"

"Y-yeah..what if it's bad..."

"I promise you it's a good one. Have you had a bad surprise here?" the redhead asked, turning her head to the side as she spoke.

Penny shook her head, "Not really...o-other than Aunt May..."

"That's not a surprise Peanut..that's a tragedy, something that should have never happened,"

"You think so? Parker luck has a way of doing things..."

"I know so and Parker luck seems to be working out pretty good for you right now...Last time we got a surprise, Tony was giving us that ice cream party last night. Before that, you got a new room and your hideaway nook in the corner. And before that, you were the surprise, which in my opinion is one of the best ones I've ever gotten. I promise you Peanut, Nat's surprise is going to be great." the redhead replied with a soft, reassuring smile.

"Okay..."

Wanda touched her arm lightly, "...And if it's something that's too much for you, we can always come back here and hide away from everyone."

"Promise?" Penny replied.

Wanda smiled at her largely and held up her pinky, "Pinky promise."

The two locked pinkies and fell into a comfortable silence. Penny ended up with her head in Wanda's lap as she stared at the ceiling. Wanda was gently combing her fingers through the thirteen year old's hair and was trying her best to put her anxieties to rest by telling her some of the things that Peter had done since she'd known him.

Wanda made sure to leave everything out that included Peter's Spider-manning or missions. But she had told Penny of the time when a sleep deprived Peter had called Pietro his favorite brother and how Pietro had endlessly teased him about it for the next two weeks. She also told her of all the times Peter and Tony had blown up the lab during their experiments and how Peter had to deal with his curly hair standing on end after he had been shocked after forgetting what he was supposed to be doing in the lab. Penny, in return, had told her of the few memories she had with her brother. Wanda found herself laughing at the stories of five year-old Penny and eight year old Peter. Her favorite was when they were at the beach and Peter tried to catch the waves that came their way and how later on the two had buried their dad in the sand. She found it funny that he had Captain America swim trunks and ironman floaties with a matching life vest. Penny stood up and brought over the photo that was framed on her dresser and handed it to Wanda. Wanda recognized the photo immediately, it was Peter's and by the looks of it Penny's favorite photograph of the pair of siblings. In the picture Peter didn't have a shirt on, but he was still sporting the iron man life vest and floaties, his hair was half damp with sea water, causing it to fall in messy curls against his forehead. Part of his hair was spiked up in different places, he had Penny on his back. Her curly hair was pulled up into two pigtails and she had a big grin on her face as she looked at her brother. She was missing two of her front teeth and was wearing a mint green bathing suit. Wanda smiled at the picture, the two of them looked so happy.