Chapter One: The Beginning

Bright orange autumn leaves drifted along with the wind as a multitude of thoughts filled Lainey's mind. Her mind raced in time with the falling raindrops, splashing onto the sidewalk below. The brisk chill in the air caused her to pull her sweater closer to her skin.

Lainey's feet ached as she continued to walk home from school, alone. Again.

That's how it was everyday.

A repetitive cycle of waking up in the morning, going to school, and coming home. Nothing interesting ever happened in her neighborhood.

Well, nothing that interested her anyway.

"Lainey!"

The preteen turned around to see a familiar face coming towards her. "Peter?"

What was he doing in the Bronx? Didn't he live in Queens?

Lainey wondered if he was just in the neighborhood for his daily Spider-Man errands. She was the only one, besides Ned to know that he was everyone's "Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man".

"What are you doing here?" The girl questioned. "I mean, not that I'm not glad to see you, because I am! I just…..you live a ways away from here." She smiled politely.

"Well, Aunt May and I haven't seen you and your mother in a while, so I figured I'd come down to see you." Peter explained, immediately brightening as he seemed to have remembered something right then and there. "And I have to show you the coolest thing!"

"What do you have to show me?" Lainey quirked an eyebrow.

Anytime the two were together and Peter said he had, "something to show her", they always ended up in some kind of trouble.

Not that trouble was something that Lainey was opposed to, she just didn't feel like getting into any today.

"It's going to be great, I swear!" Peter grabbed her hand and grinned, pulling her into the closest alley he could find. "Just trust me."

If there was anyone that Lainey trusted, it was Peter. "Fine. Can you at least tell me where we're going?"

"Nope." Peter popped the 'p'. "That's part of the surprise."

The teenager held a ski mask out to Lainey and she looked at in annoyance before finally relenting, pulling it over her face with a scowl.

"Climb on and hold tight." Peter hoisted her onto his back and flung his left arm out in front of him, shooting a web at the closest building.

Lainey closed her eyes and held Peter as tightly as she could.

This should be fun. She thought to herself, trying to make the best of the situation.

"See? That was fun wasn't it?" Peter set Lainey down as he landed.

As soon as her feet touched the ground, Lainey ripped the ski mask off of her head and threw it on the ground, glaring at Peter.

"Wasn't it?" He backed away from the seething brunette.

Fun? That ride was anything but fun!

Peter had swung up, down, left and right, just to get what he thought were, "funny reactions" out of Lainey.

"You think this is funny?" Lainey snapped. "I fell off of you three times! Three times Peter Parker! And if that wasn't bad enough, you didn't catch me until the last minute! And you ruined my hair!"

Lainey didn't really care about her hair, she just needed something else to rant about.

She was on a roll, why end now?

"Lainey, I think you-"

"-No! Who do you think you are anyway?" Lainey continued to yell.

Peter rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, leaning up against a wall.

Hey, if she didn't want him to stop her from making a spectacle of herself, who was he to intervene?

"And to think that I-" Lainey cut herself off when her eye caught a familiar logo from across the street. "Peter?"

"Hmm?" He smirked as her jaw dropped in shock.

"Is this what I think it is?"

Lainey couldn't believe it. The Avengers Tower was right in front of her.

She had only ever seen it from really far away or in pictures. Never this close.

"Mmhmm."

"A-And you didn't just bring me here for Shawarma, right?"

"No Lainey, I did not just bring you here for Shawarma."

It was taking everything in Peter's power not to laugh at the gobsmacked expression on his younger friend's face.

"Well? Don't you want to go in?"

"I do…..but what about Tony Stark?" Lainey furrowed his eyebrows.

"What about him?"

"I can't just walk into a building uninvited!"

This time, Peter did laugh. Sometimes Lainey was a piece of work.

"Of course you can't. They know you're coming. Now are you going to stand there all day, or are you going to go inside?"

The interior of the building was absolutely gorgeous. Like nothing Lainey had ever seen. It was filled with technology that the brunette didn't even think had been invented yet.

"Come on, you haven't even seen the best part."

"Alright. Divide that by two and then multiply what you get by x, and you have your answer."

The two kids had been at the tower for a few hours and to pass the time, they decided to do their homework. Lainey wasn't very good at math, so it really ended up with Peter helping her with her homework while his sat untouched in his bag.

"Well you kids look like you've been having fun."

In that moment Lainey nearly froze.

Because right in the same room, was her favorite Avenger of all. Natasha Romanoff.

Her mind raced and her heart beat so rapidly inside of her chest that she thought it would burst, but she kept her outward appearance very neutral.

She wasn't Peter for crying out loud.

"Hello." She greeted the redhead politely.

Peter looked up from the work and waved at Natasha before turning his attention back to a problem he was trying to solve for the kid.

So Natasha and Lainey had nothing to do but stare at each other in silence.

Neither chose to make conversation for two different reasons.

Lainey didn't really know what to say and she didn't want to open up her mouth and put her foot in it, the way Peter often did.

Natasha on the other hand, wasn't speaking because she was scrutinizing the brunette. She heard a lot about her from Peter, but she finally had a face to go with the name of the girl she had heard so many stories about. She noticed that she seemed a little tense and kept herself from smirking. She could really mess with this kid. Peter practically belonged to Tony, but she could have fun with this one.

"Oh! Sorry! Natasha, this is Lainey. Lainey, that's Natasha." Peter snapped out of the nerd zone and introduced the two.

"Nice to meet you kid."

The assassin smiled at the preteen and moved closer to shake her hand.

Lainey smiled back and took it, making sure her grip was firm and that she wasn't looking at the ground.

Natasha was pretty impressed with the kid's grip. It was strong, but she could still practically smell the fear coming off of her. She was right. She was going to have a lot of fun with this kid.

Lainey noticed the redhead's smile right as it morphed into a smirk and couldn't help but feel the shivers that ran up and down her spine.

What had she gotten herself into?