I jumped up from bed due to a terrible nightmare. It was probably the middle of the night. I wanted to get fresh air so I stood up and climbed out onto the fire escape. I just sat there admiring the stars reminiscing about every moment that happened since I moved to this apartment. It just wouldn't be the same without Peter, I just can't... I can't kill Spiderman.
I heard some ruckus coming from my living room, it can't be a robber because Beti would've alerted me. I creep closer to the fire escape that hangs in front of the living room. It... It was Wanda, why would she have come here.
I knocked on my window to get her attention, and she came closer, I pulled her up and we just sat and talked a bit.
"Listen, Wanda, if this was about earlier with my dad, I wasn't planning on my powers getting ahead of me. I just saw red."
"Hey Y/n/n, I get it... Being back here must be hard on you, especially after working with Hydra for so long... But remember that your past doesn't define you, it's what you do now that does. For example, I chose to join the Avengers even after helping both Ultron and Hydra."
"But I'm not working with Hydra though."
"Y/N, I knew you a while before I left Hydra. You were a warrior project, you were made to be a weapon. But why go down a path that they created for you, wouldn't you like to go down your path?"
I am so frustrated, she looked right through my lies... She moved closer and wrapped me in her arms. She leaned closer and whispered, "I didn't tell anybody about your secret, because I know for sure that you are your own person, yes you have blood on your hands. But why would you let that define you, Y/N?"
"But Wanda who am I then? If I'm not agent Stark, if I'm not Y/N Stark or even this Y/N Danvers that my Dad came up with, who am I..."
"To me, it sounds like you're having a real identity crisis. You've only recently moved here, it's gonna take time to find yourself Y/n/n!"
"Why are you here by the way?"
"Just to talk to you, I heard about the fight with your Dad, and I know how hard it can be to be 'good', but I knew you could kid."
"Thanks, big sis..."
"By the way, you should probably apologize to your Dad... He's been cooped up in his lab for an entire day now, and you know how he can get with these types of things..."
"I will do..." I muttered.
I offered Wanda to sleepover but she declined. That was nice to talk to her. She's like the big sister I never asked for. I went back inside and went back to sleep.
***
It was the weekend and I didn't have anything planned so I decided to tinker with some gadgets I'd been thinking of, I've been thinking if I don't want to kill Peter, I'd probably want to keep him safe, wouldn't I?
While I tinkered away I let Beti try and hack into Peter's suit, if I know Dad, he'd have set protocol after protocol to keep Parker safe.
"Beti, have you had any luck yet?"
"The problem that I have been facing currently is that it seems that Peter outsmarted your Dad, his tracker is still sending signals from the hotel you all stayed in when you went to Dc!"
"Ok, well that seems to have put a spanner in the works."
I walk over to the whiteboard and rub out previous things I have been looking into. I play around with a few things until I finally come up with a breakthrough!
"That's it Beti!"
"What's it?"
"What if we track his phone, that might give us his location."
"But the problem is, we won't be able to track it if it isn't being used," she says concerned.
"Well I have that covered, just give me a few seconds."
I pick my phone up and dial him, it rang for a few seconds until he picked up.
"Uh, hi... Why are you calling me, is everything okay?"
"Yeah, everything is fine Peter, I just wanted to know if you are busy right now..."
I see how Beti starts going wild on the computer screen, how she is closing in on his location. As I am focused on the screen, a boat's honk echoes through the phone.
"Well, a little bit Y/N..." I cut him off.
"Is that a boat's horn?"
He is quiet for a second until answering, "Oh yeah, I'm just here down at the docks buying some fish for May."
"Oh, can you wait up for me, I'll meet you there."
"No! I'm sorry I didn't mean for it to come out so aggressively, I'm just... I'm on my way to Ned's after this."
"Oh... With the fish?"
"Yeah... Ned's granny also wanted fish..."
"Oh ok, well then I'll meet you at Ned's house."
"No... Uh, please don't... I'll stop by your apartment after visiting Ned."
With the help of the boat horn and the fact that we know it's at the pier I finally figured out where Peter is on the Staten Island ferry. I said goodbye to Peter and made my way to the ferry. I tapped my necklace, equipped my suit, and flew some way there, it wasn't that far so it wasn't that hard to get to.
When I finally arrived, the ferry had already started sailing. I ran and jumped off the pier and levitated myself to the ferry. As I boarded it, I looked if anybody was around. When the coast was clear I tapped my suit again and took it off. I took my phone and decided that it might be time to ask Pete what he is planning, and why he had been led here of all places in Queens. Funnily enough, when I started to ring him I heard his phone start ringing right over the edge in front of me. What a coincidence?
I took a deep breath and committed, I peered over the edge and ended the call. I started giggling which made Peter look up.
"Hey Pete, where's the fish?"
"Wait what?!"
He climbed up and stood in front of me.
"Why would you think I'm this Peter Parker ma'am?"
I shake my head and laugh, I pick my phone up and press his contact icon to call him. Soon enough his phone started ringing.
"Pete, face it... You've been outsmarted."
"Ok fine fine fine, we'll talk about this later, now I just need to find a way to get you off of here, it's dangerous!"
"Why?"
"There is supposed to be doing a big deal happening between big evil dudes."
"Ok, but why would I run Parker?"
"It's dangerous Y/N!"
"Peter, you still haven't caught on, have you? Sirens love the water!" I wink at him and activate my suit again.
"Wait what! Y/N, we better talk about this later!"
"Ok well give me a rundown of the mission."
"You know that vulture dude we faced back in Dc, well he on this and my little spider cam had found the weapons that will be in the dealing."
"Ok shit, well why don't you have your spider drone keep an eye on Vulture, and bust the dealings?"
He agrees and we waste no time, we jog to the other side of the ship where apparently this dealing is supposed to happen. It was true some men gathered around the vehicles, Peter and I kept an eye on what they were doing. Peter's suit identified one of the men as Mac Gargan. He has an extensive criminal record, including homicide.
Everything was going well until I heard Peter start talking, he sounded panicked.
"Uh, I'm actually at school."
I ordered Beti to connect to Peter's suit and let me listen in on the call. It was my Dad calling.
"Nice work in D.C. I have a few questions on this Siren girl?"
"Can it wait until later," Peter asks
"Okay fine, but I just wanted to say something. My dad never really gave me a lot of support... And I'm just trying to break the cycle of shame."
Oh, you must be kidding me... He tries breaking the cycle of shame but look how he reacted to me? Does he think Peter is more capable than me?
"Uh, I'm kind of in the middle of something right now," Peter tries to excuse himself.
"Don't cut me off when I'm complimenting you. Anyway, great things are about to-" Dad is interrupted by the ferry horn that blares.
"What is that?"
"Uh, I'm at band practice."
"That's odd. Happy told me you quit band six weeks ago. What's up?"
This is annoying, I order Beti, "End call Beti."
Peter looks over at me and I just try and act innocent. Meanwhile one of the men takes out keys, Peter spots this and yoinks it out of his hand. We jump down onto the deck and I joke, "Hey, guys. The illegal-weapons-deal-ferry was at 10:30. You missed it."
Peter disarms one of the men, while I disarm the other one by flicking the gun out of his hand into the water, "Oh oops, you needed that?" I joke with him. Peter ducks from Schultz's Shocker gauntlet, which gets caught in a gate.
"Spider guy's here." One of the men radios it to their teammates.
While Peter is fighting someone in front of him, two other guys try to get him from the back. I notice this and move in, I quickly encase the one in magic and flick him off the boat into the ocean. The other one I roundhouse kick in the stomach, he bounces back and clenches his stomach.
Peter gets knocked back and bumps into me, I look around to yell at him, "Be careful Spidey!"
We swap enemies as he goes for the one I roundhoused kick and I go for the one he struggled with, I look at him as he charges. I stand still dodging each of his punches, "My turn then." I look at him and grin, I point at him and focus on smacking him against the roof and then the floor couple of times. He groans in pain before passing out.
"Are you okay? My bad. That was a little hard," I mock him sarcastically.
When I looked behind me I saw how Peter kicked the guy over the edge of the boat.
Peter then eyes Schultz, who is still struggling to free himself. He walks over to him and reloads his web shooters, "I'm honestly, I'm, I'm shocked." One guy tries to attack us from the rows of cars, but I hold out my arm and elbow him as he tries to get close, knocking him out cold.
Peter walks over to me, and high-fives me, "We make a good team."
"Freeze! FBI!" four men come running out of the window.
I look at Peter and laugh, "Shit this might go on my record,"
"What?"
I look up at the agents and with a sway of an arm I get access to all of their minds, brainwashing them in a mere second "It's bedtime guys..." Their bodies fall limb, they fall asleep right into each other.
"Oof, I hope they don't remember that one..." He laughs.
We turn our attention back to Schultz, but a mechanical wing bursts out of the truck, Vulture flies toward the deck in his vulture suit. I shoot at him but sadly miss.
"Get out of the way! Get out of the way!" Peter yells.
Vulture fires a high-tech weapon and drags a car, he throws it toward me.
"Look out, look out, look out. Move, move, move!" Peter yells. As I'm focused to catch the car and throw it out of the way. Vulture hits Peter, causing him to fall into the water. He then fires energy blasts at Schultz's arm.
The flying Vulture commands, "Get to the top deck. We're getting out of here."
Oh no, you're not... I run towards Schultz, he tries to hit me but I duck below his arm, I punch him in the stomach. He didn't flinch. I look at him and punch him three more times before he kicks me back and punches me with the shock gauntlet, I flew back at hit a car.
"Yeah... that one stung," I try and sit up straight.
Peter shoots his web at Schultz but misses. He shoots the web at Vulture's leg and pulls. One blast hits an indoor seating area. Peter attached Vulture to a car with his web. Dodging a blast, he leaps to the upper deck and shoots some more webs. He jumps and shoots a web at Vulture, he connects with the enemy's suit. Hanging from Vulture's suit, Peter swings over the water. The flying man fires at Peter. He swings back onto the deck. Vulture cuts the strands of the web with the blades of his wings. Peter shoots a web at the barrel of Vulture's high-tech weapon.
"Activate Taser Web!" I hear him yell.
Electricity travels up the strand of web and the weapon is yanked away from Vulture. On the deck, it bounces around wildly. Peter traps the weapon using lots of spiderwebs.
"You're messing with things you don't understand kids," Vulture warns.
"I think he's right Spidey, that doesn't look too safe does it," I slide off of the car and walk towards the high-tech weapon that is now emitting purple light. The weapon's laser beam breaks up into multiple rays. The energy blast cuts through the upper seating area, narrowly missing frightened passengers. In the air, Vulture dodges the blasts as they shoot into the sky. Schultz sprints toward an upper deck leaps into the air, and lands on Vulture's back. The rays slice through the length of the ferry, then vanish. In the seating area, passengers move cautiously. In the cargo bay, jets of water start to split up the ferry.
"Oh, my gosh. What do I do? Karen, uh, give me an X-ray of the boat and target all the strongest points." he yells, he acts running towards the center of the cargo bay. I lift myself up trying to avoid any incoming vehicles.
Shooting web, he leaps between the two sides of the ship. Peter tumbles back and forth on the upper part of the ferry, connecting the ship with strands of web. He dodges flames as he travels down the length of the ferry. Peter fires several strands of the web once and binds them together with another strand. Reaching the bow, he crouches on the edge of the roof. He eyes the two leaning halves of the ferry that are crisscrossed with spiderwebs.
I hear Karen's voice through my earpiece as Beti still connected our two suits, "Great job, Peter. You are 98 percent successful."
"Ninety-eight?" Peter questioned.
"Spidey careful!" I yell as I see strands of webbing start shooting apart. I quickly fly towards Peter and simultaneously focus on the two halves of the boat, imagining their weight this is going to leave a big toll on my body. I spread my arms out and slowly and painfully try and bring them together, my two hands symbolized the two halves of the ship, but the weight started to become too much. I was nearly successful, my hands were inches away until I felt my body start to become weaker with each passing second. I started floating downwards, Peter jumped from the right side of the ship and caught me before I tumbled into the water.
The last thing I saw and heard was Dad that flew over the ship, I heard small things attach to the ferry's outside walls, and thought to myself, at least the boat has a real hero on board.
***
I jumped up in Peter's arms, I didn't realize we were on a ledge, he caught me before I went diving over the edge.
I jump on the edge and look over to Peter.
Peter looks down upon all of the cars racing past, this failure sure took it out of him, didn't it... The smell of trash stings my nose every time I try and come near him. I try and make small talk, I try and motivate him that we'd be able to get it next time, but he didn't want to hear it.
He turned around and looked at me with some worry in his eyes, "Y/N... Are you okay? I know that you overexerted your powers and it made you collapse with pain, how are you feeling now?"
"Well, I can walk so that's always good..."
"Pete, we did good, next time we just got to do better." He smiles, jumps off the edge and walks to me, takes my hand. "You really are a special person aren't you."
Dad interrupts us and comes flying over to the building and lands on the roof, "Previously on Who Screws the Pooch: I tell you two to stay away from this. Instead, you hacked a multimillion-dollar suit so you could sneak around behind my back doing the one thing I told you not to do. While you decide to throw a tantrum and break one of my arms?"
Peter looks at me confused. I unactivated my suit and looked at Dad, Peter asks Dad," Is everyone okay?"
"No thanks to you two."
Peter walks toward Dad angered, "No thanks to us?"
"Those weapons were out there, and I tried to tell you about it. But you didn't listen. None of this would've happened if you had just listened to me. If you even cared, you'd actually be here."
The Iron Man suit opens, revealing Tony inside. He steps down from the suit and marches toward Peter, who backs off.
"I did listen, kid. Who do you think called the FBI, huh? Do you know that I was the only one who believed in you? Everyone else said I was crazy to recruit a 14-year-old kid."
"Don't you dare talk to Peter like that Dad!"
"Wait, Dad...?" Peter questions.
"Don't get me started on you Y/N, Cap warned me about you, he told me to watch out, but hah... look where that got me! And here I thought I had my eye on you."
I clench my fists and walk up to Dad, "So he warned you huh? Then why didn't you do anything? Why didn't you even try and keep an eye on your daughter. I snuck into your lab without you knowing, I reprogrammed Friday to Beti to be my own assistant, and here you say you 'kept an eye on me'? Bunch of Bullshit!"
"Oh is that now?"
"Yes, you want to blame us for this mistake, maybe I should start calling up your mistakes, 7 years ago..."
He cuts me off, "No, this is where you zip it, all right? The adult is talking. What if somebody had died tonight? Different story, right? 'Cause, that's on you. And if you died, I feel like that's on me. I don't need that on my conscience."
Peter grabs my shoulder and tries to calm me, "Y/N, he might be right."
"But..." I try and get out of it.
"We... We're sorry." Peter apologizes.
I walk behind Peter, trying to still assess what Dad said, on my conscience?
"Sorry doesn't cut it." Dad says firmly.
"I understand. I just wanted to be like you." Peter wines.
"And I wanted you to be better. Okay, it's not working out. I'm gonna need the suit back." Dad gives up... He gave up on Peter...
I push Peter to the side, going back at it with my Dad, "For how long?"
"Forever."
"Forever isn't gonna cut it, Dad!"
Peter shakes his head with a shocked expression.
"You thought I was only referring to him?" He looks at me, he's never looked at me with these eyes before. Disappointment is all that I see. He lifts his arm and snaps the necklace off of my neck. I flinch at the bit of pain that stung because of it.
"I've also removed your stolen tech from your apartment, and I've shut this 'Beti' down!"
"No... you can't, I won't let you."
I lift my right hand to try and use my powers on him, at that moment Dad moved too quickly for me to see what was happening, he wrapped a bracelet around my wrist, and I could feel my powers had faded.
"What the heck is this?"
"You are a danger to everybody around you, and you are a danger to yourself."
Peter jumps in front of me and defends me, "She's only helped people, Mr. Stark?"
"And if she one day turns on us..." That's true, what I do just snap back to the Dark side...
Peter seemed shocked, he couldn't believe what he was hearing, clearly hearing this and the fact that Iron Man is my dad was too much for him. He gave up his suit and jumped away... It was only Dad and me on that roof.
"Dad... I'm sorry, " I plead.
He turns around hiding hints of him tearing up, "I know I've failed as a father, but I don't want to fail now..."
"Dad, if I tell you something, you have to keep it to yourself, okay? No other Avenger can know, or I'd be dead in an instant."
He turns around shocked at what I had said, "Okay I understand what is it?"
"It's the reason I need my powers, I need to be able to protect myself, Dad..."
"Ok, we'll talk about that after you tell me what is going on..."
"I haven't been 100% truthful with you."
"I got that, don't worry."
"Without my powers, I can't stop these signals that Hydra would send to basically make my brain mush."
"Then let's find another way!"
"There isn't, I am the only one that can pick these signals up and also block them out!"
I look at Dad, it hurt me that I have to do this, but here goes nothing. I start faking a migraine attack. Clenching my head and waddling side to side, screaming as if I am in excruciating pain.
I mutter under the fake pain, "Dad, please... You don't want to see me die, do you?"
His hand dived into his pocket, and he took out a remote, he pressed the button and the bracelet fell to the ground, I heard how it clanked on the cement roof.
I act as if I was starting to regain control and stand straight up to face Dad, "Dad... I understand my actions have consequences... So please take away what you want, but at least let me keep Beti and my powers... It's all I need to fight these brain clashes.
I look at my and order Beti to give me a status check, she lies for me, "Everything seemed to have calmed down, it seems you are in the clear Y/N."
I look up at Dad, "See Dad... I need these."
"Okay, well then I'd need to think of something else, wouldn't I...?" he walks around until finally thinking of a solution, "I have it, you'll learn the hard way, I'll be taking your allowance and you'd have to find a job to sustain your apartment."
"Wait so you forgive me?"
He starts chuckling, "What a father wouldn't do for his daughter..."
"Thanks, Dad!" I kiss him on the cheek. I look at him and give him puppy dog eyes, "What's it?" He asks.
"Can you give me a lift to my apartment, Dad?"
"Sure kiddo..." He shakes his head as he climbs back into his suit.
***
I unlock my door and the room. I check my spare room and just like he said, my tech was gone, he made it back into an actual spare bedroom. I took a deep sigh and plopped onto my sofa. I tried to just think of everything today, what had happened. As I was self-assessing I heard knocks come from my window, I looked back to see Peter. I lifted the window open from my sofa. He climbs in and takes a seat next to me.
We sit in silence until I finally break the ice, "Pete... I'm sorry."
"Hey, I thought about it as I walked home in these ugly clothes." I looked down, he wore pink trousers with a white t-shirt.
"Yeah and... tell me what you've thought about."
"You did it to keep yourself safe huh..."
I nod my head, "I want you to know that I became friends with you because I wanted to, my Dad had no say in that."
"Who are you then Y/N Stark?"
I think about that question, I turn to look at him in his eyes, I pull my feet up on the couch and pull my knees towards my chest. My lips quiver as I answer, "I... I don't know anymore..."
He sighs, and then he grabs my legs and rests his head on them, "Well... I'll help you figure that one out... What I know right now about you, is that you are one cool chick, you fight crime for a living and you are hella smart..."
I avoid eye contact as I can feel myself start blushing.
He continues, "Whoever you are, I know one thing, you're my best friend and I can't do this without you..."
A/N - Heyyyy this is gonna be a quick note before I publish the next part... This is my first chapter in all my books to reach 4k words, like what!!! That's crazy... But I hope ya'll enjoy it, don't let me keep you waiting, enjoy the ending of this arc, the homecoming arc. Bye~