"Breakfast!" Peter called, kicking the door closed behind him.
Four teenage girls groaned and grumbled as they rolled over in their spots and promptly went back to sleep. Peter made a round of the room, waking them up one by one.
"Get up, losers. Tonight we head home."
"Ugh," Lana grumbled, rolling over again, "finally."
Peter sighed as he went to check up on Lana's shoulder wound. "Does anyone want to know about Morgan's superpowers?"
"I do!" Lana cried, sitting up and bumping her head against Peter's. "What the hell, Parker?"
"What do you mean, what the hell? You asked me to monitor your stupid cut!"
"Oh. Right. I did."
Peter rubbed his head and walked over to Nicole and Cassie. He tugged at the duvet. "I didn't wear Lana's stupid wig and get asked by three kids if I was still going to put my drag queen makeup on, for you to not eat the food I brought."
Morgan laughed into the pillow.
"I call shower!" Cassie suddenly shouted.
"What does she plan on changing into?" Nicole asked as Cassie sprinted like she was racing the others.
"Little miss over-prepared packed clothes from the house before Ellie and I set it for toeching. She packed the bags into the cars before we suited up."
"Huh. I'm next!"
Once they were all showered and dressed, Peter handed out the cheeseburgers and fries. "Desert consists of corn dogs I found on the way back. Enjoy, ladies."
They all sat around the coffee table as there weren't enough chairs for them all to sit at the dining table.
"So, whatever's giving Morgan her gifts isn't something I could identify. I've never seen anything like it."
"What was it like?" Nicole asked.
"It was . . . it was like her cells were repairing themselves. Like regeneration on a much, much higher level. Kinda like lizards but so much more. Whatever's in her body could probably cure any disease. It's like every single cell is a stem cell. It could become anything. I'm eighty-three percent sure Morgan can regrow limbs."
"I find that hard to believe," Cassie said, grinning.
"Does everyone remember when Lana and Morgan thought it would be fun to fight in the yard? And Morgan had that deep gash across her lower back?"
Nicole shuddered. "That was worse than Lana's shoulder."
Peter nodded. He lifted his eyebrows briefly at Morgan, who sighed and turned around, lifting her shirt. Cassie's jaw dropped.
"Where's the scar?" Lana asked as Morgan fixed her shirt and turned back to her breakfast.
"There isn't one. That's what I'm saying. Whatever this is, it didn't just give her all that fire power, pun intended, it's saved her from probably everything except beheading."
"Beheading?" Cassie asked, "you mean like the guys at the warehouse? The ones Lana killed?"
"You think those guys had this too?" Morgan asked
"If they were experimenting," Nicole said, "there were definitely more of them. So, as far as you could tell, it's not hurting Morgan?"
Peter shook his head. "Normally, with wierd shit like this, there's the risk of your body not accepting those strange new things. I looked for signs of that in Morgan. There's none. It's like -- it's like you bonded with whatever it is."
"Are you calling me a mutant, Mr Parker?"
"Well, that depends, Miss Stark, does it bother you?"
"If it did, what would you do?"
Peter smiled. "Absolutely nothing . . . mutant."
Morgan blew a raspberry at him.
"Really?" Cassie said, "in front of my salad?"
Nicole stuffed a few fries in her mouth to keep herself from laughing. Lana grinned.
"Shut up," Morgan muttered, waving her hand in Cassie's direction. "Anyway, you wouldn't eat a salad if we paid you."
"Depends how much you're paying. My best friend's father likes to spoil her and her friends on birthdays. Speaking of, graduation is coming up."
Lana laughed. "If we can catch up on all our missed work."
"There's time," Cassie said, leaning back and scrunching up the cheeseburger wrapper.
"It's May," Nicole said, "finals are next month. If we don't make it back, like, today, none of you are passing this year, and I'll be first year college again."
"Wow," Peter said, "lives on the line, been kidnapped, starved, bruised and cut, experimented on, and you're all worried about school?"
"Listen, Parker, I refuse to die before finishing my education. I will graduate out of spite."
Peter grinned at Lana. "Oh, I believe you. It's Cassie I'm not so sure about. She's the laziest."
"Clearly you weren't counting yourself," Cassie said, sticking her tongue out at Peter.
"What about El?" Nicole said, "what do you think is her kill switch?"
"We think it's a mental thing," Peter said.
"When Morgan and I were little, my mom used to sometimes put us to bed with these stories of hers. As we got older, she stopped telling us bedtime stories. I hated listening to them, so when I stopped hearing them, I kind if blocked it all from memory."
"We're thinking it was a subconscious learning. Not specifically the skills itself, but the theory of it. The way Ellie knew almost everything about the house. All those stories, they were probably true. The fail-safes, the cars, the gasoline, the back-up plans. Everything Ellie knows probably came out of those stories."
"Still doesn't explain the skills, though," Cassie said, leaning against the couch behind her and Nicole. "I mean, even if you know all the theory, without practice, you can't do anything."
"When El and I were seven, Dad sent us for martial arts training. In hindsight, it was probably because we never shut up at home and any kind of extra-curricular activity meant we'd be yapping elsewhere. I never picked it up, I didn't quite like all the kicks and punching and the work. It was around then that I got into hockey. I enjoy hockey so the work isn't really work, you know? Anyway, El picked up the training really well. She did it for about two years after, maybe two and a half. Maybe that's where she put it all into practice?"
"Why'd you stop?" Peter asked.
"Good at it, didn't like it."
"For someone so anti-violence, you're actually really violent."
Lana smiled. "Only when necessary."
"And how grateful we are for it," Cassie murmured, closing her eyes and tilting her head upwards.
"So now it's straight home?" Nicole asked.
"We've established that whatever's in Morgan isn't hurting her, so I say it's safe to head home."
Cassie gave a half-hearted cheer.
"We can't," Lana said softly, staring at an empty fries packet.
"What?" Morgan asked, smile frozen on her lips. "What do you mean? Why not?"
"We can't go yet. Not until we know we're not being chased anymore. I know that my mom was once this badass criminal or whatever, but that was like fifteen years ago. Whoever she used to team up with could be anywhere, there's no guarantee she has her old backup. We can't risk taking these guys right into Stark Industries. We'd be putting your dad at risk, Morgan. Clearly, they want to target him, why else would you have been the guinea pig?"
In the silence, Lana studied the faces of her two best friends, her sister, and her new friend. None of them looked happy about it. Eventually, Peter sighed.
"So, I guess we're going to fight back, huh?"
"We can't do that either," Nicole said.
"Why not? We have Killer Lana and Arson Morgan."
"Cass. Have you ever seen either of them consciously tap into those skills? If we go after the guys chasing us, they'll have to make a conscious decision to tap into them. We can't risk each other like that."
"I know what we can do," Lana said.
"All ears," Morgan said.
"We can get help. Weapons, a little proper training, something easier to manage than a sports car."
"Yelena?" Peter asked, remembering the name Lana had told them in the coffeeshop at the hospital.
"It's worth a shot," Lana said, shrugging.
~~||~~
Yelena Belova was more than surprised to find five teenagers in the garage. She recognised the one with hair as black as the night. "You can't keep closing my shop, маленька Романова."
Lana pulled the wig off her head and shook her curls out. "The wig's been really helpful, Yelena, thank you."
"What do you want?" Yelena asked, folding her arms.
"Help," Lana said, offering the blonde a pleading smile, "I need your help. You said you knew my mother a long time ago. That means you must know what she used to do, right?"
"The Black Widow is a mantle, we compete for it. Your mother won that title. I was just behind her. I could've done it just as well as she could. But she had a certain flair. Something specific about her. I was unable to perfect what made her the perfect candidate."
"Okay, fine, but you can fight like her? So can you train us? My friends? Do you have weapons? Can we borrow bikes? I'm talking about that kind of help."
Yelena rolled her eyes. "You are so much like your mother, маленька Романова. Come, I'll see what I can do."
Lana followed Yelena, motioning for the others to join. "Say, you wouldn't happen to be able to get in contact with someone for me, would you?"
~~||~~
Jarvis stared at the hole in the drywall. "I'll go and see if Mr Stark requires ice."
"Why?" Rhodes asked, "he's not the one that punched the wall."
"No, but he's the one who dragged Romanoff from the room."
"Ah."
While Jarvis left to find an ice pack for Tony, Rhodes dropped down on the couch with a heavy sigh. He could understand why Natasha was going around punching walls. He wanted to as well. Not only did they have no idea what was going on, but they now had confirmation that Morgan had been an Extremis test subject. Bruce told them that he couldn't make a judgement based on the small -- and old -- sample he'd been given, but he was fairly certain Extremis was killing Morgan.
Rhodes knew Bruce would need a fresh sample from Morgan if they were to truly know whether or not Morgan was surviving Extremis, but they couldn't get that if they couldn't find the kids. When the phone rang, Rhodes almost didn't pick up.
"Stark residence."
"I'm looking for Romanova."
"Who?" Rhodes strained to understand the woman's thick accent.
"Romanova. Tell the Black Widow I'm looking for her."
"Now why should I do that? Who's looking for her?"
"I will speak only to Romanova. I should think she would want to hear news about her daughter."
Rhodes almost ran into three walls as he sprinted across the tower floor. "NATASHA!!"
With all the racket he caused, everyone who was staying in the tower crammed into the lounge to listen as Natasha asked Seb to put the call on speaker.
"Okay, I'm here. Where are they?"
"Hello, Romanova." Unlike when she spoke to Rhodes, the woman's voice was light and her smile could be heard. "I didn't think it would take your child's kidnapping for us to reconnect."
Natasha frowned. "Yelena?"
"The one and only, Widow."
"Where are they? What did you do with them? You tell me right--"
"You've always been quick with your judgement. I did not take them. They're not with me. Did you really think I would still be working with Hydra?"
"Yelena," Natasha said, straining to keep from blowing her top, "why did you call?"
"Well, I have information, obviously."
"And?"
"The kid's pretty talented. She does the leg lock like you. Very good at strangulation, snapping necks and slicing throats. She'd be better if you actually trained her."
"Get to the point," Natasha hissed.
"The point? Oh! They're going after Hydra and Aim. They could use some help."
"They're what?!" Tony blurted.
"Who was that? The boyfriend? Hello, Stark. Your midget's pretty talented too. Very quick learner. Also, you might want to hurry. I don't think they're very far from their target. I activated the trackers in their lenses, their bikes, and the suits. You'll find them heading to an Aim base East Hampton in an old jet. Not that surprisingly, the Parker kid caught on to the basics pretty well. Oh, I hope I taught him to land. . ."
They were faced with a dial tone. After three seconds, the room erupted into chaos, shouting for the jets to be readied for flight as soon as possible, shouts for people to suit up, for someone to call the brothers, for someone to get a hold of Clint, Scott and Hope. Somewhere in the chaos, Natasha demanded her ten dollars from Bucky, who refused and demanded she had him ten dollars.