The Legacy of a Hero
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Black Widow blinked sluggishly at Iron Man, her brain trying to process the fact that somehow help had miraculously come even though she was pretty sure she hadn't summoned it. "H-how?" She finally moaned, her nerves finally seeming to resettled themselves after the taser.
"We might have tracked your cell phone and followed you," Iron Man admitted, sliding an arm under her back to help her sit up. "You two were doing good too. We weren't going to intervene, but then it looked like you might need a hand, so..." he shrugged.
She sucked in a deep breath. "Thank you," she murmured, her mouth feeling weird and heavy. "We were going to call, but they were jamming my cell." She looked around the warehouse, spotting the Rhino laying on the floor, clearly out cold. "Robin?" She asked.
"I think he and Cap are cornering the fish bowl guy," Iron Man threw a thumb over his shoulder and now that she was listening for it, she could hear Robin cackling and Mysterio's yells of frustration.
Iron Man helped Widow to her feet. She could see that Spiderman was still pinned down to the table, but Hawkeye was at the computer terminal clearly trying to free him. "That was risky," Spiderman said harshly and she turned her attention back to him. "Didn't you get hurt enough by Electro?"
Now that the fight was practically over, she felt all her frustration and anger boiling to the surface. "What the fuck do you care?" She spat.
"Excuse me?" Spiderman spluttered. His restraints released with a small hiss and he hopped down, coming to stand in front of her. He folded his arms and glared at her, "You wanna try that again?"
"Save it!" She snapped. "You don't have any right to tell me what I can and can't do. Not anymore," she growled, getting in his face. "You are not my father," she hissed, low enough so only he could hear.
Something in his stance shifted, and she could imagine the blood draining from his face, even if she couldn't see it. "Wha- how?" He stuttered, clearly thrown off.
"The only way I could find you, was by tracking you down through our shared radioactive DNA. Imagine my surprise when there wasn't much in common to find," She folded her arms protectively, feeling hot and cold all at once and she wasn't sure it was from the electricity anymore.
"You-" Spiderman started, then stopped when Iron Man put a firm hand on his shoulder. The arachnid shook the other man's hand away angrily, and the mechanic let go but didn't move away.
"I know there's a lot you two need to talk about," Iron Man said quietly, "But now is not the time to do it. Walls have ears, you know."
Black Widow was suddenly aware of Hawkeye restraining Doctor Octopus and Rhino in some type of hard fast expanding foam. The spy was clearly trying to give them privacy, but his curiosity was obvious. Just then Captain America and Robin came back from the shadows of the warehouse, the Captain dragging Mysterio by his cape.
Robin gave her a searching look, the grin of victory fading from his face. "You good, BW?" He asked, touching her elbow.
Widow swallowed the hard knot in her throat. I am not about to cry in front of the Avengers and my friend. I refuse to cry in front of other superheroes twice in as many weeks. "Peachy."
The ride back to the Avenger's Tower for a run down of the evening's events was painfully quiet. They'd taken the team's quinjet, and Heather had been far too angry and drained to even appreciate the sleek technology, instead choosing to sit as far as possible from Spiderman, staring at the metal floor to stew in her thoughts.
Robin had left as mysteriously as he'd appeared, leaving only a text message that the next time they hung out it should be in civvies getting pizza - his treat. The message had made her smile, at least for a moment, glad that somehow in all of this mess she'd made a friend.
At the Tower, she'd followed the others into the conference room she'd found Tony in the previous night and slumped into a chair, already feeling dead on her feet. Spiderman had taken lead on the meeting, breaking down the information he'd been able to gather prior to his capture by the Sinister Six (well, more like sinister four, Heather thought). It was about what Heather had figured out on her own and what the criminals themselves had admitted to.
Money. It all came down to money.
The Kingpin, aka Wilson Fisk, was the head of the underworld of New York, but that wasn't all. The man had a huge finger in just about every pie of illegal activity found worldwide. He'd been trying to expand his influence in New York for years, but was seriously impeded by the little bubble of protection that was the Triad's district. He couldn't do anything with the Chen's protection racket in place around their territories, so he'd decided to start knocking out chess pieces one by one. The police raid, which had left one Chen brother in prison and the others under intense scrutiny, had been organized by a well placed tip from Fisk. From there, he'd been chipping away at their businesses, undercutting them financially, and fouling up their supply chains at every turn. Stephen's brother had been very close to agreeing to give his portion up to Fisk, if only to end the harassment, but Stephen wouldn't hear of it. Mr. Chen had harbored a special resentment towards Fisk, as it was one of his schemes which had inadvertently led to the death of his wife.
"So Mr. Fisk took Iris in a last ditch attempt to get Mr. Chen to cave?" Heather finally interrupted, ignoring the way Peter's eyes narrowed at her.
Everyone at the table was in some form of half-dress; Heather and Peter were both maskless, Tony had lost the suit almost as soon as he came in the door, Cap's cowl and gloves were discarded on the table, and Hawkeye had abandoned his bow and quiver in favor of nursing a cup of coffee. The clock on the wall showed that it was bordering on four in the morning, and it felt like everyone in the room was ready to call it a night.
The bruises on Peter's face from his captivity had given Heather pause for a moment, a rush of sympathy and worry flooding her for a moment before she remembered that this wasn't her dad. This man had lied to her for years, and was apparently the only person who knew where her real father was.
As far as Heather saw it, the last ten years didn't mean crap. He wasn't her dad, and he'd never done a very good job of pretending to be one in the first place. Her mind replayed every forgotten birthday, every missed gymnastic and track meet, every time Peter had failed to be there when it really counted. He kept a roof over your head, a traitorous part of her mind whispered, made sure you had food and clothing. She shook the thought away fiercely, anger flaring up behind her sternum. Doing the bare minimum doesn't make up for everything else.
Peter sighed, rubbing his eyes. "Yes. Essentially the idea was to force the Chen's to give up their territory and influence in exchange for Iris' life. Clearly that didn't go as planned."
Heather looked down at the table, a sour feeling filling her stomach. "It doesn't matter. Even with the others in prison, there's nothing concrete to tie Fisk to Iris' death. All I wanted to do was to give her justice, and I failed," She leaned on to the dark wood table, dropping her face into her hands.
"Sometimes," Clint offered softly. "The bad guy gets away. But that doesn't mean you failed. You know now why this happened, and you can make sure it doesn't happen again. Take the little victory for what it is, kid."
"He's right," Steve added. Heather looked up to meet his tired but very sincere blue eyes. "There will be other fights. You'll get your chance to nail him. You did good work kid."
Then why does it feel like I lost, Heather thought.
If the ride back to Avenger's Tower had been quiet, the ride to their apartment was dead silent. Peter had tried once or twice to start a conversation, but Heather had ignored him and sat in stony silence in the town car Tony had ordered to take them home in.
Unless the next words out of his mouth are 'I know where your dad is', I don't want to hear it, Heather thought stubbornly. When they pulled up in front of the apartment, the sky was beginning to brighten just a little, but the sun was nowhere close to rising still. Once in their home, Heather headed straight for her bed, intent on sleeping until the end of the year. Peter caught her by the wrist and she glared at him.
Peter looked as tired as Heather felt and it softened the angry knot in her heart just a smidge. "Don't worry about school tomorrow - ugh, today - I'll write you a note. Go get some sleep. I'll tell you everything in the morning."
Heather blinked at him, surprised, but then she nodded and disappeared into her room, shutting the door behind her.
When Heather finally opened her eyes again, the sun was beaming bright rays of afternoon light across her comforter. She rolled over in bed, wincing as something hard dug into her hip. She looked down and could tell instantly that she'd slept in her suit, only bothering to remove her gloves and boots.
She glanced at the clock, unsurprised to see it was a little after two in the afternoon. In truth, she wanted to sleep longer, the bone deep weariness of the last few days having not quite worked itself out of her system, but she also remembered what Peter had told her last night.
He'd promised her answers. That was one promise she was going to make sure he kept.
Heather showered and dressed as quickly as she could. The apartment had been mostly quiet since she'd woken. She'd heard someone, Peter she presumed, in the kitchen when she ducked into the bathroom but nothing else. Her brother would be at school of course, and her little sister was more than likely with her mother. It was just the two of them in the apartment, and Heather wasn't sure how to feel about that.
Sure enough when she came into the kitchen, she found Peter sitting at the table nursing a cup of coffee in a to-go cup, a second cup sitting on the table beside him. He looked up and gave her a wan smile. She didn't smile back.
Peter sighed. "Alright, kid, grab your bag. We've got a long ride across town ahead of us."
"Where are we going?" Heather asked, picking up the coffee he'd clearly poured for her and following him to the door, snatching her bag off the hook on the wall.
"We're going to see your dad," Peter said simply.
AN: Another short one, but like I've said before the shorter chapters are actually way easier to get out than longer chapters. I feel like it forces me not to spend ten thousand years debating over one sentence, which I have done, many times. Also keeps me from slipping into long dramatic bits of prose that goes nowhere; I'm also prone to that. I hope you all had a great weekend, and I wish you the best week. Reviews and comments are always appreciated ^_^