thank you so much for your comment! i actually have much more of this story already written, but i didnt post it here since I didnt think anyone would like it. Some stuff has changed, so if you see a few year/age changes and ghe like, I changed those purposely to "fix" the story for myself. idk if I could go back and change them though, because I probably forgot all of the changes alreayd lol. But I'll uodate a chapter a day until I get caught up to where I am now, if you like!

—*—*—*—*—*

"—But Spider-Man is so fast and he can lift a semi trailer with his bare hands!" Ned's voice was heard coming from a hologram that was playing, the picture of the boy animated as he waved his hands in time with his words.

"Well yeah, but Iron Man is obviously the best. He doesn't need any type of genetic super strength, he can make something to do all of that just with his intelligence," Peter's voice responded, just as animated. It seemed to come from behind whatever camera had filmed the footage, alluding to the teenager being the filmer. The curly-haired Michelle was seen rolling her eyes, her chin propped on her hand.

"Black Widow doesn't have any powers either, and she can still kick all of the other avengers' asses," the snarky girl commented casually, a single eyebrow raised lazily as if she expected to win the argument and the boys were only delaying their demise by continuing to speak. Then the light skinned girl's eyes flicked over the lithe Asian girl who was sitting directly across from the camera, and to Michelle's left. The girl had hazel eyes that were a mix of light brown and forest green, all surrounded by a barely noticeable ring of ice blue. Her pitch black hair was cut in a fashionable asymmetrical pixie, the longer side of her bangs slanting just above her right eye as she wrote something on a piece of paper. One slightly tanned hand reached over, armed with chopsticks, to grab a piece of what looked like fish and stuffed it into her mouth as she wrote. "What about you, Hebi?"

The girl's eyes immediately shot up to look at Michelle's, and then the others sitting with her. She chewed for a moment, then swallowed before asking: "What about me?"

Ned made an exaggerated sigh, throwing his hands up dramatically. "Your favorite Avenger! We've all been talking about our favorite and why they're the best, weren't you listening? Mine is Spider-Man, Peter's is Iron Man, and MJ's is Black Widow. What about you?"

"Bucky Barnes. Or Winter Soldier, whatever he goes by now," she answered immediately, not even bothering to think about her answer.

Unbeknownst to those watching the hologram, Hebi had given the subject a lot of thought in the past. Unlike Legos, the Avengers were actually relevant to her assassin training. She had been given all of their files when they had been formed, filled with whatever information her trainers could gather, and been forced to study them so she knew what to expect and how to react if she ever ran into them on a job. She had been instantly fascinated however, and continued to keep up with the expanding roster even after she escaped her childhood prison. When Bucky Barnes had shown up again and joined the Avengers, he had instantly become her favorite. He had gone through something similar to Hebi herself, except on a much higher scale, and she felt she could relate to him the most.

The three teenagers stared at Hebi, silent. She sat up straighter almost immediately, furrowing her eyebrows in slight confusion. "What?"

"Why?" Peter asked, sounding curious. "I mean, he's absolutely awesome don't get me wrong. I've just never heard anyone choose him as their favorite."

"Most people are scared of him because of the whole used-to-be-a-Hydra-assassin thing," MJ added helpfully. Hebi put down her pen and her chopsticks, her eyes suddenly filled with a passionate spark as she gained a type of enthusiastic energy she hadn't had before.

"Are you kidding? The guy started out as a soldier in one of the most elite and badass groups in the military, if not the most elite and badass. Then he persevered through being held captive, brainwashed, and used as a tool by the very people he spent years fighting— and for an entire lifetime! Most people would just decide to drop to the ground and give up and try to live as normal and boring a life as possible after escaping something even half as bad as that, but no!" Hebi only seemed to be exciting herself more as she spoke, her own hands starting to move with her words like Ned's had. "No, he comes back, gets whatever was done to his head sorted out, and willingly decides to continue being a hero and fighting to save lives! Not to mention, I've seen footage of him beating Black Widow back when he was under Hydra control so you—" she pointed dramatically to Michelle, "— are proven wrong! He has an arm made of metal too, and the strength to use it to completely destroy Iron Man's armor if he wanted to," she pointed to Peter (the camera, really) at that, and then turned to Ned. The plump boy had paled significantly as he awaited his verbal doom after seeing his friends so soundly taken down by the Asian. "And as for Spider-man," she said slowly, narrowing her eyes. "He isn't even in the Avengers! You lose. You all lose. Bucky is the only correct choice for favorite avenger, and I accept your surrender," the hologram showed Hebi bowing in her seat to her friends, who were pouting while trying hard not to laugh, before the hologram cut off.

"See?" Peter said, bouncing in his seat on the couch. "I guess that backpack-strap camera you insisted I carry and have filming at all times has finally come in handy," he drawled smugly as he looked over all of his family members that were gathered. Bucky, Steve, and Natasha sat on the other couch as Tony and Bruce sat next to Peter. They were all staring with various expressions at the open air where the video had been playing moments earlier.

The most notable was Bucky, who was wide-eyed, shellshocked, and slightly tearing up at the very first time he had ever heard someone not only call him their favorite, but argue in his favor so adamantly.

Steve didn't count, he was his best friend. Best friend opinions don't count.

"Why haven't you ever talked about her before? I thought we heard about all your friends already," Steve asked, one arm patting Bucky's back encouragingly even as he spoke to Peter. He shrugged.

"I told Dad and Uncle Bruce and Happy already, actually. She managed to pass the testing and get in even though it's already her sophomore year, so I've only really known her for a week," he told the blonde easily. "But she fits right in. It's kinda funny, because she has almost all her classes with me and Ned, and the two she doesn't have with us she has with MJ. Not only that, but you should have seen the way she stood up to Flash on the first day of school! I wish I got footage of that, but my backpack was facing the floor the whole time," the teen pouted for a moment before regaining his energy. "Oh yeah! Last month I met her as Spider-Man once!" This was news to everyone, even Tony and Bruce rose their eyebrows.

"Really?" Tony asked, sitting up slightly straighter. "Why?"

"Okay, so I'm doing patrol around time square, right? Then I get bored and decide to go patrol the streets around it, so I leave time square. I only get a few blocks away when I see this really shady guy following this pretty girl about my age, and she just walks into an alleyway. Which immediately set off alarms in my head because an alleyway? Not safe, especially when he followed her in and didn't look like he wanted a friendly chat, you know?" Natasha smirked, sharing an amused glance with the others as they resigned themselves to sitting back and listening to their favorite kid's all-too-familiar ramblings. "So I swing over. Except, I see her landing a really painful looking kick between his legs. I might have winced in sympathy a little for the guy. He drops the knife he was threatening her with, and I saw her catch it and toss it under a dumpster, and then the guy gets up and lunges at her right before I get there. She dodged, and then I landed in and knocked the guy out and webbed him up all nice and pretty for the cops. And then she looked at me and told me that she had the situation under control and I had wasted my time, but she still appreciated what I did to keep people safe, but that I should focus on protecting people who hadn't been learning self defense since they were a kid— and then I left."

The room was silent as the heroes tried to decipher the lightning-fast word vomit the boy had given them, but it only took a few seconds for everything to sink in.

"And then she just shows up as a new student at your school?" Bruce asked, eyebrows high on his face. "What is your luck?"

"I don't even know, man!" Peter agreed, throwing his arms up before sinking backwards into the sofa. "Oh, and get this!" He continued, guessing that Hebi hadn't told him to keep quiet about it and she had seemed pretty at ease about the information, so it was probably okay for him to tell his family that— "She's adopted too! She said that her dad—adoptive dad—was her legal guardian for a few months, but the adoption just went through a few weeks before school started. And she said he's kinda high profile, so she's like me! Well, I mean, not totally like me, but she hyphenated her name like me and has to keep it in it's old way at school for her safety. Like me."

"That's a lot of 'like me's," Bucky spoke up, his eyes and voice under control now that the emotional effect of Hebi's words had had time to settle down. "We aren't going to have to deal with another troublemaking vigilante kid now, are we?" The former assassin asked with a small grin. Peter shook his head, laughing.

"No, of course not! There's no way my luck would be that weird! Besides, I'm the only teenaged vigilante out there. I think," he twisted his face in thought for a moment. "Yeah, I think so. Oh yeah! Did I mention she has hearing aids? She said she's about fifty-percent deaf, maybe as much as sixty, but she hasn't bothered with the exact percentages in a while. Uncle Clint!" Peter raised his face to where he knew the archer probably was in the vents. "You'd be so proud! She made having hearing aids look badass!"

"Language!" Steve scolded, but his tone was pretty relaxed despite the reprimand. Peter ignored him, and Clint's voice echoed through the vents as he said;

"I approve! She and I can beat the shit out of ableists together!"

"Language, Clint! Stop cursing in front of Peter!" Steve scolded towards the vents even as Tony snickered.

"Yeah Katniss, stop fucking cussing in front of my son!"

"Tony!"

—*—*—*—*—*

"Anybody else think that that girl is weird?" Nat asked late that night, sitting at the kitchen counter with fellow ex-assassins Clint and Bucky. The winter soldier was downing a cup of milk, and rolled his eyes.

"Why, because I'm her favorite? Or are you sore that she knows that I'm stronger than you?" He teased. He didn't like thinking about his days brainwashed by Hydra, but after Hebi's little speech he felt okay mentioning his past triumph over the redhead. As long as he didn't think too hard about it.

Natasha glared at the man, but shook her head. "No, come on be serious. She meets Spider-Man, then shows up as a student at Peter's school when the school year begins the next month? When most people aren't allowed in even when they apply before their Freshman year like they're supposed to?" She asked, and Clint's eyebrows slowly started to furrow. "Not to mention, not many people train in self defense since they were kids. Most fifteen year olds don't know how to fight at all unless they're in some martial arts club, Peter not included, but according to Pete this Hebi girl only trains with her dad once a week. And the schedule? How can she just have every class with Peter or one of his closest friends? It smells fishy."

"Wow, now you just sound old," Clint teased, but his eyes were serious. "The adoption thing is weird too. Has anyone high profile adopted lately? And is it good high profile, or bad? The timing is just really off. Also, the footage of Winter Soldier beating you, Nat, is extremely hard to find even after the information dump you did when SHIELD fell. I've tried looking for it before and had to ask for Tony's help so we could hide it again. How does an average fifteen year old have access to that video?"

"I think you're all being ridiculous," Bucky voiced, his cup empty now. "She could have found the video before you guys hid it again, as a stroke of luck or something. Crazier things have happened. And the timing?" The former assassin raised an eyebrow at his friends. "Really? This is Peter's life we're talking about. He met Tony and fought us all as Spider-Man literal weeks after his thirteenth birthday and two months before his aunt died, his girlfriend's dad tried to kill him, and the scientist he visited to ask about how he knew his parents turned into a lizard and rampaged around town literal hours after they met. Nothing is normal with that kid's luck, this is probably just another monumental coincidence like the many that rule over Peter's life."

"I don't know," Clint argues, looking a little dubious. "Better safe than sorry. You planning on doing recon, Nat?"

The redhead nodded, smirking at her old friend. "Yeah. You coming with?"

The archer nodded. "Obviously, I'm your backup. What about you, Bucks?"

The man shook his head, sending long black hair flying. "You both are ridiculous," he groused. "I'm not going to help spy on a teenager. When I'm proven right, you can come and apologize to me. Goodnight, paranoid idiots," he stood up and left to go to bed after rinsing out his cup.

Nat and Clint shared a look.

"He's totally just upset that we're suspicious about his number one fan."

"Oh, totally."

—*—*—*—*—*

I punched the punching bag, feeling pretty good. My first week at school had been pretty smooth sailing, and I had fallen in with Ned, MJ, and Peter way more easily than I thought I could have gotten along with anyone my own age anymore. It just seemed so natural, it was a bit disorienting.

I hit the punching bag without paying attention to which hand I was using, and hissed in pain. Matt's head flew over to me, his red eyebrows furrowing slightly in concern.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, just hit my bruised knuckles like an idiot," I assured him. I had went out on patrol as Boa with him the night before, and had accidentally punched a wall when a wannabe mugger managed to dodge one of my strikes. I hadn't been using my super strength for obvious reasons, so instead of chipping away at the wall the wall had chipped away at my skin. Lovely. But it was minor, so it would be mostly healed by Monday.

I was about to ask if we could spar, but Matt tilted his head and said: "we have people watching us," as softly as he could while still allowing me to hear it. I froze for a split second before forcing myself to relax and appear natural, walking over to him. I took a small breath of air, and sure enough I smelled the very faint scents of two strangers.

"You need help with weights?" I asked, as if he was a normal blind guy I was helping out with on his fitness day. Matt looked confused for a moment before catching on, and nodded as he removed his boxing gloves.

"Uh yeah, you mind Hebi?" He asked in a normal volume, waiting until I "led" him to the weights and he was facing the wall before saying: "One man, one woman. Both fit, one of them is carrying… arrows? The other sounds like electricity. Professionals, perched on the rooftop to the left," he whispered into my ear as he bent down to pick up a weight and I made a show of helping him pick out the right one.

I blinked, min whirring as I was confused for a minute. Arrows? The whole description was very familiar and I couldn't help but find myself hoping very, very hard that our spies were not who I thought they were.

That hope was horridly shattered when I was unnecessarily spotting Matt as he lifted some basic hand weights, keeping up our charade. The doors to the gym opened, and in walked the two people I had never wanted to meet in a situation where I had something to hide. Aka: never in my life.

Black Widow and Hawkeye, armed but in low profile civilian clothing.

Matt froze, still using his age-old act of a normal blind guy. I thanked whoever was listening that he had years of practice and could do that act in his sleep. "Hebi? Did someone come in?"

I looked over at him, having to use every ounce of my training to keep up a poker face and appear normal. I allowed a small bit of my nerves to show through, since that would be normal for any civilian to just randomly see two avengers, but I made sure I wasn't tense or acting robotic. My sheer panic needed to go unnoticed.

"Yeah, Hawkeye and Black Widow," I replied, letting some awe slip into my voice. I kept my eyes on them, letting my eyes widen in what I hoped was seen as awe and shock and not the horror it really was. Matt froze, not having expected that. How could he? He didn't know their scents and he couldn't recognize their appearances because he was, well, blind.

The redhead smiled at me disarmingly, and I turned to help out Matt when I saw him trying to put his weights down by himself. I made it look like I was just making sure he wasn't going to smash his own toes, when really I was doing my best to hide our shared nerves.

"Hey. Sorry for just popping in," the woman said smoothly. I didn't believe her amiable tone for a second. She was trained much more thoroughly than I was, her friendly tone could be completely faked and I wouldn't know for sure until it was too late unless I kept my guard up. So I did.

Once Matt's weights were safely on the ground, both of us straightened and I "led" Matt over to them. He smiled back, just as charming and disarming as Natasha's smile. Neither of them faltered.

Matt held out his hand. "Hello, I'm Matthew Murdock. Is there something we can help you guys with?"

It was Clint who answered, the man shifting and taking Matt's hand firmly. He also seemed completely relaxed and friendly, which just set alarm bells in my head.

"Actually, yes. You see I ran into this group a while back during one of my missions for SHIELD, not long before the Avengers were formed almost nine years ago. They were pretty scummy, kidnapped children and experimented on them. I was trying to track them down, but the New York and Loki incident distracted me. I just recently reopened the case."

My veins felt like they carried ice water. They knew. There was no reason for them to approach us talking about Dryad if they didn't. I stayed silent anyway, hoping against logic that they didn't. That I was wrong.

"You see, back then I managed to hack into their personal files and—"

"I'm sorry, mister Hawkeye, but what does this have to do with me and my daughter?" Matt interrupted, channeling his Lawyer persona as he stood straight and rigid and no longer easy to win over. Sometimes I thought that the lawyer Matthew Murdock was scarier than Daredevil. This was one of those moments.

Clint smiled, and met Hebi's eyes evenly. His eyes were somehow warm and cold at the same time, open but guarded. I had no idea what their play was.

"What Clint is trying to say," Nat spoke up. "Is that we know only one girl survived the group's experiments. Clint managed to get an updated look at her right before the Ultron disaster, but once again that mess distracted him and he forgot about Dryad for a moment."

It took everything in me not to react at the group's name, but Matt hadn't been through the same training I had. He stiffened and raised his chin slightly at the namedrop, making my stomach drop. His reaction would be more than enough to confirm the two super spies' suspicions. Sure enough, Romanov's stance relaxed slightly and her lips turned up in a triumphant smirk.

"I see you recognize the name. Do you happen to know that your daughter Hebi is the same girl he saw in the personnel pictures? Her name was even listed, albeit we had to go through layers upon layers of code in order to access it. Hebi Teal. Kidnapped by the organization at age six, escaped at age twelve, trained as an assassin for the years between. Off the radar until now," she nodded towards me, and then her eyes connected with mine. I met the gaze evenly, no longer keeping up the charade of the normal daughter. My back was straight, and I did not waver despite the weight of her stare. I felt Matt's hand on my shoulder, but ignored it.

"Did you know?" Clint's voice asked my dad softly. "Before you adopted her? We've done our homework on you too, Mister Murdock. You're an amazing lawyer, and we know there's nothing shady going on with you. But even a bleeding heart like yourself wouldn't just randomly adopt a homeless girl— though I must admit, the lies you gave CPS about knowing her mother were really good. She help you with that?"

"I knew," I swung my head over to Matt when he said that, my eyes wide.

"Matt!" I hissed, scanning his face. "What do you think you're doing?!"

"Telling the truth, Hebi. Two avengers aren't going to scare me, and if they wanted to arrest you or me or both us, they would have by now," he said with his head tilted towards mine before turning back to the two assassins. "Yes, I knew. I found Hebi after she had taken down a few armed thugs late at night who were from Dryad and trying to kidnap her again. She wants a normal life, she wants to be a biochemist, and I'm helping her with that. She doesn't deserve to watch her future go down the drain because of something done to her against her will," he told the two avengers firmly.

"What about Boa? You helping her be a vigilante while she's at it too?" Clint asked, his posture still relaxed and voice friendly. I turned my gaze to him, analyzing his face. He flicked his eyes from Matt's face to mine, smiling when he caught my stare. It was a face I wanted to trust. I furrowed my eyes, not trusting how kind he seemed.

"Boa?" Matt asked, tilting his head as if he was confused. Natasha snorted.

"Yes, Boa. We decrypted all of the files Dryad had on her, we know her abilities are snakelike. And low and behold, not very long after you adopt her a snake themed vigilante shows up? That's not a coincidence. What do you have to do with Daredevil?"

Oh fucking— something was in our favor at least! I felt relief try to bubble up, and smothered it. They didn't know Matt was Daredevil!

"Daredevil saved my life," I answered before Matt could. He furrowed his brows and frowned, but let me take the lead. "On several occasions. But living on the streets isn't exactly the best condition for being a vigilante, I had to worry about my own survival first. After Matt took me in, I decided someone had to watch that idiot's back before he got himself killed and since he had always helped me without asking, I figured to even the scale," I made sure I spoke slowly, distrust clear in my tone. I didn't need them being suspicious of how easily I was shared information. I paused for a moment, looking between Matt and our two interrogators. "I ran it by Matt. For a blind guy he's pretty observant, so I knew I wouldn't be able to sneak out without him finding out pretty quickly," that made their eyebrows raise, impressed. Good, they were only thinking about how impressive it was that a trained assassin couldn't sneak under his radar. Impressive, but not superhuman. I could deal with that. We both could. "It took weeks, but he eventually agreed. All I want is to keep Double D from dying, I owe him that much. If I get to throw some lowlifes into prison at the same time," I shrugged. "Bonus."

"What about Matt? Why did you choose to go live with some stranger?" The Russian woman shot at me next, and I sighed. Sometimes I asked myself that same question, still.

"Daredevil trusts him," I answered. "He keeps up with Matt's cases, the guy is a bit crazy about justice after all. Since Double D trusts him, I decided to give it a shot," I couldn't help the nostalgic grin that came over my lips. "I didn't plan on staying over a week. Somehow the guy managed to convince me to become his ward. Let me tell you, no offense Matt, but a blind lawyer doesn't exactly intimidate me physically. But sometimes the Lawyer Matthew Murdock is even scarier than the Devil of Hell's kitchen, and I never like being on the wrong side of an argument with him," I shook my head, and Matt snorted.

"Are you serious?" He asked disbelievingly, an eyebrow raised. I gave him a deadpan glare he couldn't see.

"Yeah, I've been to your trails. Do you even see your— oh wait," I let my voice turn impish at the end, starling a laugh it of both Matt and Clint, though Natasha remained unmoved. That was fine.

Thankfully, the redhead seemed satisfied by my half-truths. Clint was the only one with more to say.

"And you're okay with her risking her life at night fighting criminals? If she was my kid, I'd be scared to death about her getting hurt," he managed to sound sympathetic. That made me wonder if he actually did have kids, before shrugging the thought off. No way, how would an avenger like him juggle superhero duties with a family?

Matt's grimace was one hundred percent real, and I was reminded of his original vehement denial when I asked to go on patrol with him. "Hell no I'm not happy about it, but despite what Hebi says, she's pretty good at arguing herself. Then when she snuck out without my permission one night and I woke up without her in the apartment, I realized I couldn't just keep telling her no," he crossed his arms, and grunted. "So I set up ground rules and make sure to yell at Daredevil if she ever comes home wounded. The system's worked so far."

Yessss! The lying lessons I've been giving him worked out. It had nothing to do with us working that exact story out in case someone outed one of us. Absolutely not. And it had nothing to do with my paranoia. Nope.

Clint and Natasha shared a look with a suspiciously sympathetic smile, and I tilted my head. "Yeah, kids will do that, sneaking out," Clint agreed. "Well, that's all we want—"

"Nope," I interrupted, crossing my arms and standing tall next to Matt. "Why did you just walk in here and out pretty much all my secrets? Do you really think we'd just let you leave without explaining yourselves? We deserve to know why two strangers suddenly know about me being Boa."

The two avengers shared another glace, slightly apprehensive and amused at the same time. They communicated seemingly silently for a moment before Clint finally sighed.

"You see, when one of our favorite kids comes home and starts boasting about his new badass friend with hearing aids that seemed to pop into his life far too conveniently, we get suspicious. And when we get suspicious, we get worried," the archer spoke slowly. I furrowed my eyebrows, utterly confused for a long moment before—

"Peter?!" I couldn't keep my shock out of my voice, and felt all the muscles in my face relaxing in surprise. "He said his family was high profile, but— but the avengers? Is that why he got all weird and sentimental about me choosing Bucky as my favorite yesterday? Holy fu—"

"Hebi."

"—dge. Holy fudge."

Natasha let out a long sigh, rubbing her forehead. "We owe Barnes an apology. Damn it. To answer you, yes. Peter was adopted almost two years ago, Tony scouted him as an intern because of a project he did that blew him away. When Peter's last living relative died only a couple months after that…" Romanov trailed off, and Clint finished the explanation for her;

"Tony decided to look after the kid so he didn't go into foster care. It's kinda hilarious how quickly they went from guardianship to full blown adoption, but those two are inseparable now. And having a Stark going to public high school would attract too much attention, so we kept his last name as just Parker. So don't go blabbing, yeah?" I saw the threat even in his gentle eyes, and glared at him.

"Okay, I know I was trained for the better part of my childhood to only look after myself and to kill, but Peter is my friend damn it! Obviously I'm not gonna go around telling everyone his secrets, shit, even I'm better than that," I growled out, and the archer relaxed and beamed another smile at me.

"And having a vigilante going to public school would attract just as much bad attention. So," Matt took over, glaring sightlessly at the two. "There are tons of privacy violations going on right now. I'm not a lawyer afraid of taking on the Avengers if I have to in order to get pay back for my daughter."

Natasha smiled. "We'll get along just fine," She drawled easily. "We won't even tell the other avengers, Clint and I like having secrets anyway. Feel free to come visit Peter at the tower sometime, we'll tell everyone your background check checked out. But hurt Peter at all, and you won't like dealing with us."

"I hear it's a great view underwater at the Raft these days!" Clint added happily. "But we like you, so let's avoid that yeah?"

"Yeah." I agreed, letting myself relax as they left. Matt and I went to sit down at the edge of the boxing ring, silent as we let what just happened sink in.

"No bugs," Matt spoke up after a few minutes. "I don't sense any electrical currents other than the usual, so we're free to talk. They're out of range."

I sighed, falling backwards onto the ring. "Fuuuuuuck. I have to meet Peter in two hours at school so he can help me with mechanics. How the hell am I supposed to act normal?"

"The same way you were able to lie to the faces of two super spies," Matt retorted without mercy. "With the poker face you spent years learning. Honestly, you would have fooled me a couple times there if I hadn't been in on the truth. What the heck?"

I chuckled humorlessly. "Oh, dear Matt. Don't you know the only way to lie to someone you can't lie to is with the truth?"

—*—*—*—*—*

Clint and Nat arrived back at the tower at eight thirty in the morning and saw Bucky sprawled out on the couch watching TV. Sam was reading while laid out on the other sofa. The super soldier looked up when they came in, raising an eyebrow.

"So? How'd the whole spying-on-a-minor thing go?" Bucky asked easily.

"Wait, What?" Sam asked, setting down his book to look at the two spies incredulously. "You did what?"

"Don't worry about it birdbrain," Nat answered easily, going to grab herself a soda. "And you were right, Bucky. His luck is just really strange."

Barnes snorted. "Told you."

Nat and Clint shared a glance. No need to tell him about how Clint had instantly seen the similarities between the girl who was Peter's newest friend and the sole survivor of Dryad's experiments, which he would have noticed earlier had he been watching the hologram with everyone else. Or how they had spent a solid hour using Stark's decryption tech to get the girl's name from Dryad's secret database just to make sure they were right, because a ten-year-old's face wasn't identical enough to her fifteen-year-old face so they needed to be certain.

"I wonder how Peter will react when he finds out he isn't the only teenaged vigilante," Clint whispered to Nat while they were alone in the kitchen. The redhead smirked at him.

"Oh please, you know he'll be over the moon. But he'll have to figure it out on his own, we want to be friends with Murdock and not enemies. I have a feeling he'll be a really important lawyer one day, and the Avengers don't need any more influential people against them."

—*—*—*—*—*

"So," I said as Peter showed me the basics of circuitry and how to avoid shorting things out. I watched his hands carefully as I spoke. "Black widow and Hawkeye paid my dad and I a visit this morning."

Peter lost concentration, accidentally poking the wrong thing and shocking himself. He hissed, drawing his finger back and sticking it in his mouth. "Rewwy?" He asked around his hurt finger. "Mo way!"

"You were visited by two avengers?" Ned asked, looking up from his own more advanced project with wide eyes. "Why? Did they threaten you? Oh my god do you have to move now?!"

"What?" I looked at Ned with my eyebrows furrowed in what I called the "are you stupid?" Face. "Of course not. You weren't kidding when you said your family is overprotective dude," I aimed the second half of what I said back at Peter, who was still staring at me. "Apparently me showing up randomly and having so many classes with you made them suspicious, so they decided to talk to me and my dad in person. And me being the wonderful genius I am," I put a hand dramatically over my chest. "I put two and two together and figured that they were some of the high-profile family you were talking about in Monday. They confirmed it, threatened me not to ever tell anyone on pain of death, and invited me to come over sometime."

"Oh my god I am so sorry," Peter blubbered once he got his finger out of his mouth, looking at me apologetically. "They can really crazy sometimes. I hope they didn't scare you or your dad too badly, they wouldn't actually hurt you unless you, like, tried to kill me or something drastic like that. Which you obviously won't do because you don't even get physical with Flash and he pisses you off on purpose."

My face twisted at the mention of the bully, who seemed to like to target me for having stood up to him for Peter. But from what Ned and MJ had told me, Flash was usually bullying Peter nonstop so I was okay with his ire being directed towards me if it meant that my innocent friend got a break from it.

"Trust me, the only thing keeping me from punching that idiot sometimes is the knowledge that I would get the Disappointed Look from my dad if I did," I told my friend, wrinkling my nose in a very real grimace. Matt's Blind But Disappointed Glare was horrible, it made even my inner ruthless assassin cringe with shame. The only time I had had to face it in its full glory so far was back when I put a guy in a coma for trying to rape a girl, I probably would have killed him it wasn't for Matt. He was very disappointed in my use of excessive force, though he was just as disgusted and angry at the man as I was. "But don't worry Peter, I like them," I admitted with a small grin. "They don't take shit and they don't talk shit. Do you think Black Widow will train me if I ask?"

Not that I needed it, but it was what Peter probably expected me to ask. After all, I made a big deal about liking martial arts so he probably expected me to jump at the chance to train with one of best fighters in the world. And yeah, the thought did make a little excited. Just a bit.

Peter smiled widely. "Maybe if you can successfully fix the laptop I've been teaching you to repair by next week, I'll ask her for you. But if you break it even further, then you'll have to wait until you can properly deal with electronics first."

"Deal."

—*—*—*—*—*

They took this chapter from me. The characters hijacked it. Holy crap. Okay, let's move on, lol!

See you next chapter~