A/N: Sorry for the wait with this one. Trying to do university work during a global pandemic and quarantine will definitely steal your attention. I'm hoping to work on this more frequently from here on out, but my grandmother's health is declining, so I ask for patience, please. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this next chapter!
Chapter Four: Standing on the Edge
Peter led the way back to the bench. Arms crossed over her chest, Maggie kept her eyes trained on the ground in front of her, watching the laces of Peter's sneakers flop all over and gather up dirt and dust. All around them, people were talking and laughing, birds singing their melodies, the water pushing and pulling against the sand at the edge of the lake; bells trilled as bike riders warned pedestrians they were passing by.
And Maggie Stark had never felt so out of place.
She'd spent most of her life cooped up inside, shuffled from one house to the next. If she wasn't at the old Malibu mansion—secluded from the world until the Mandarin had come knocking—she was at the penthouse, hundreds of feet in the air, or at the compound in the middle of the woods.
Being outside with the rest of the world felt almost wrong. She felt like she was breaking some unwritten rule, like any moment, the rug would be pulled out from under her and she'd be carted back to the compound and locked up again.
She didn't resent her father for this, though. Maggie understood, as she got older, that he was just trying to keep her safe, to protect her from the prying eyes of the paparazzi and the public. He probably just wanted to give her a normal childhood—or at least as normal as it could be as Tony Stark's kid. But that didn't mean it was any less lonely.
Maybe that was why Daisy's rejection hurt so much. Maggie had never been able to run down the street and play with her friends from school because she didn't have any. Private tutors weren't exactly the best opportunities to meet new kids her age. And now here she was, living with not one but two kids her age, and she'd already screwed things up. Typical.
Maggie was so caught up in her own head, she almost didn't notice that Peter had stopped walking. She stumbled behind him, narrowly avoiding running into him. He'd turned his head to the side, eyes scanning the trail the way they'd just come, mouth pressed in a thin line. There was a seriousness to his features that hadn't been there a moment before.
"What's wrong?" Maggie asked, following his gaze.
Peter didn't say anything. Bikes and runners swerved around them. A walker in a dark hoodie, who had to be baking in the heat, passed by.
He shook his head. "Nothing. Come on."
At the park bench, Daisy was waiting for them. She stood up as they came closer, grabbed the sandwich bag, and fell into step with them, making sure to stay on Peter's other side, away from Maggie. Maggie tried to ignore how much it hurt.
Peter showed her a few more must-see spots in Flushing Meadows, but she could tell his heart wasn't in it anymore, and she didn't blame him. She could feel it too, that tiny little rain cloud hanging over their heads on that beautiful sunny Friday. She didn't want to say the rain cloud's name was Daisy, but they were both definitely thinking it.
No one said much as they left the park and walked back to the subway station. It was too loud to talk on the train, anyway. There were only a few people on, so Daisy grabbed a seat as far away from Maggie as possible. Maggie tried to ignore how much that hurt, too.
They'd hardly walked into the apartment before Peter was ready to walk back out.
"I swear I wouldn't leave if it wasn't important," he told Maggie, "but I have to go."
"Why?" she asked.
He ducked his head and stared down at the floor. "I, uh, have an internship with Stark Industries."
His eyes darted up like he was trying to gauge her reaction.
"Stark Industries?" she repeated, her brows knitting in confusion.
Peter nodded, smiling through tight lips.
Maggie narrowed her eyes at him. In its seventy-six-year history, Stark Industries had never hired a high schooler for any of their internship positions; they didn't even consider the rare high school applicant. So how in the hell had Peter, who was very obviously still in high school, gotten an internship with the company?
"If you're gonna go, just go," Daisy said, breaking Maggie out of her thoughts. She shoved her leftovers from lunch in the fridge.
Peter stuck his tongue out at his sister and Daisy returned the gesture. He looked back at Maggie, concern lingering on the edges of his features. "I won't be too long."
You won't have to deal with Daisy on your own for that long.
She nodded and gave him a grateful smile.
Grabbing his backpack from his bedroom, Peter waved goodbye before practically running out of the apartment.
And then there were two.
Neither girl spoke for a long time. Maggie got the feeling Daisy was sizing her up, which wouldn't have bothered Maggie if not for the fact that Daisy had a good six inches on her. It looked like she was going to say something, maybe try to pressure Maggie into leaving now while Peter and May were out of the apartment, but she only scowled and stalked off into her shared bedroom, slamming the door shut.
Maggie let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. She looked around the apartment, empty but for the towers of boxes stacked in the den.
Off to a great start, it seemed.
Daisy ignored Maggie for the rest of the afternoon. She didn't know whether to be upset or relieved, so she settled for indifference. It was better than the disappointment waiting to rear its ugly head.
Maggie took the opportunity to finish unpacking her suitcase and setting up the guest room. She didn't really have anything that could add a bit of personal touch to the room other than a framed picture of her, Tony, Pepper, Happy, and Uncle Rhodey, but she hesitated to put it on display. One look and the Parkers would realize who she was immediately, and then she'd be well and truly screwed. So she kept it tucked away in one of the drawers of the nightstand next to the bed for safekeeping.
After she finished in her new bedroom, Maggie decided to explore more of the apartment, though there wasn't much to explore. She looked through each cabinet in the kitchen, trying to memorize where everything was. The den was overrun with boxes that had yet to be unpacked. She was sure it would look much different when it was box-free, but that wouldn't be happening for a while.
With nothing else better to do, Maggie brought her violin into the den and ran through a few scales and drills. If she had free time, she might as well practice, she reasoned, especially since she hadn't touched her violin since before the Accords. When she felt reasonably warmed up and ready, she launched into one of her previous recital pieces, letting her fingers fly across the strings, relying on muscle memory. It felt good to play again, totally and completely uninterrupted.
The piece finished with a flourish. Maggie lowered the violin and bow and let herself relax, coming down from the adrenaline high she got from playing such a fast-paced piece.
"That was amazing!"
She spun on her heel to see Peter standing just inside the door, staring at her with his mouth hanging open. He came into the den and sat with her as she started cleaning her violin to put it away.
"How'd you learn to play like that?" he asked almost reverently. "I mean, you've gotta be like a prodigy or something, right?"
Maggie resolutely ignored the heat creeping up her neck. "I don't know about prodigy, but playing that piece comes with practice. Lots and lots of practice."
"Like days or weeks?"
"Try years," she said. Peter's mouth dropped even lower. "Yeah. My instructor gave me that piece when I was eleven, and I only just got to perform it in last year's recital."
"Eleven?" he repeated, incredulous. "That's insane."
"That's what you get when you stick an only child in an empty house with a dad who wasn't always around," she said. "You learn to find things that'll help pass the time."
She placed her violin back in its case and set it aside.
"Can you play anything else? Other than violin."
Maggie gave him a small smile. "You know, I've never tried the kazoo."
Peter laughed, a breathy thing that made Maggie smile even wider.
"Seriously though," he said.
"Uh, pretty much everything," Maggie said. Peter's eyebrows nearly met his hairline, his eyes wide as saucers. "Like I said, you find things to pass the time." Her fingers drummed against her thigh in an arbitrary beat. "I just like playing music. Whether it's with the violin or piano or xylophone doesn't really matter."
"That's so cool," said Peter.
"What about you?" Maggie asked, trying to steer the conversation away from herself. "Do you play any instruments?"
"I mean, I'm not a prodigy like you," he said, exaggerating the word in a way that made Maggie laugh, "but I'm in the marching band at Midtown. I'm not really good, but it's fun to hang out with Ned at the football games."
Maggie's brows furrowed. "Who's Ned?"
"Oh, that's my best friend," Peter explained. "I'm sure you'll meet him soon, he's always coming over here—or I'll go to his house, it depends. Ned's great. Super funny. Plus he's always got my back."
"Must be nice," said Maggie. She hoped her voice didn't come across as wistful as it sounded to her own ears. Peter's brows drew up in the middle, his bottom lip sticking out in something that wasn't quite a pout. "Having a best friend like that," she added. "He sounds really cool."
"Yeah, he totally is," said Peter. "What about your best friend?"
Maggie considered the question for a moment. She drew in a long breath through her nose and let it out in a sigh, her eyes unfocused as she stared at one of the boxes next to them.
"I don't have a best friend," she said. She wouldn't meet Peter's eyes. "Not anymore, at least."
Peter was quiet, like he didn't know how to respond to that. She could feel him watching her. "I'm sorry," he said finally. "That must have been hard. What happened?"
The ache in her chest from that morning had returned, sinking its clawed fingers into her heart. She looked at Peter, his features shining with a kind of innocence she envied. His life was simple. Normal. So far removed from the superheroes Maggie had known for so long. She couldn't tell him. About Siberia, about the video, about the secret Steve had kept from her. How he'd left her and her father for dead in that bunker.
She let the corner of her mouth quirk up in a sad half-smile. "It's a long story."
She thought he might press her for more, but Peter let the subject drop. Instead, they talked about frivolous things like the weather and Star Wars. Peter nearly had a heart attack when he found out Maggie had never seen the original trilogy and vowed they would have a marathon one day over the summer to rectify this. And again Maggie was struck by how easy it was to talk with him. He would have acted differently, she was sure, if he'd known who she was. Everyone did.
May came bursting through the door with groceries and takeout from a local Thai restaurant sometime later. Peter immediately jumped up to help ease her load. Maggie didn't have anything else to do, so she followed him into the kitchen.
"Hey, honey, how was your first day?" May asked, smiling warmly as she set down a gallon of milk.
Maggie gave her a small shrug. "It was fine."
"Where'd you guys go?"
"Flushing Meadows," Peter answered. He was balancing a gallon of chocolate milk, a box of cereal, a carton of eggs, and a box of frozen waffles in his hands with incredible grace. "And we got lunch at Delmar's."
May whipped around to look at Maggie. "Did you try a sandwich?"
Laughing to herself, Maggie nodded; these people really liked their sandwiches. "It was really good."
"They're better than 'really good,'" Peter said, carefully putting things in the fridge and freezer. "They're godly."
He ducked away as May tried to playfully swat him with the dishtowel, grinning mischievously.
"Do you like Thai, Maggie?" May asked.
"I love Thai!" Maggie replied.
"Good, because that's dinner," she said, and Peter laughed. "I'm not making anything tonight."
"At least we know Thai's a crowd-pleaser," Peter pointed out.
Maggie pulled out a bag of grapes from the groceries and passed them to Peter. "Oh, my gosh, you've never lived unless you've had dim sum from one of the street stalls in Bangkok's Chinatown. Best smelling street you'll ever walk on, I swear."
"Oh, wow, do you travel a lot?" May asked.
"Kind of? My dad does for his job, I usually stay home, though," she said. She didn't mention that her father's "job" was being a superhero and owning the controlling interest in the world's largest tech conglomerate and one of the most successful Fortune 500 companies in the world. "But sometimes he lets me tag along!"
"That's so cool!" Peter said. "I totally want to travel when I'm older. See the world, experience other cultures, all that great stuff."
May grabbed a handful of napkins from the counter and placed them in the middle of the tiny kitchen table; Maggie didn't know if they would all fit. "Ben and I talked about it when we were younger, but we never got around to it. By the time we were able to start saving, we had you and Daisy in our lives, and traveling with little kids would have been too difficult."
There was that name. Ben. Maggie wondered, again, who he was. She didn't want to just come right out and ask. If the night before was anything to go by, it seemed like a sore subject for the Parkers.
May had Maggie divvy up the food while Peter finished setting the table. Daisy sulked out of the bedroom at May's insistence. She sat across from Maggie, and her glare never wavered as she stabbed her fork into her food. It didn't exactly make Maggie feel welcome. Or safe.
"So, Maggie, you're from California, right?" May asked a few minutes after they'd started eating.
Nodding, Maggie kept her eyes on her bowl. Technically, yes, she was from California, but they didn't need to know she hadn't been there since the Mandarin attacked.
"What's it like? Is it sunny and warm all the time like in the movies?" May leaned forward, curiosity filling her features.
Maggie paused for a moment and a wave of homesickness washed over her. She hadn't thought about it in so long, but she missed the salty sea breeze that would waft through her window in the morning, watching the sunset on the horizon, how she'd fall asleep listening to the ocean lapping at the cliff face. How much had her home state changed since the last time she'd been there?
"It's… nice," she said. A small smile played on her lips. "Hot, obviously, but not super humid. I read somewhere it never gets below forty degrees in the winter."
Daisy let out a derisive scoff. "Looks like someone's in for a rude awakening, then. I hope you brought something heavier than that." She nodded toward Maggie's U.S. Air Force shirt, which hung loosely off her frame. "You'll never survive a New York winter."
I've survived worse, she wanted to say, but she stopped herself. Maggie chewed her salad, choosing her words carefully. "I've actually been to New York during the winter before, so I think I'll be okay. But I appreciate your concern."
Daisy stared at her for a second before rolling her eyes and grumbling under her breath, "Whatever, Cali girl."
As the conversation came to a lull, Maggie struggled to find a new topic. That had never been a problem for her before—there was almost never any silence during meals with the team. With so many loud personalities sitting around the table, she had a harder time getting them to shut up than she did trying to find something to talk about.
Just when the uncomfortable silence was getting to be too much, May looked at Peter with a grin and said, "Highs and Lows, go."
Peter was quiet as he swallowed his food, pondering his answer. "For my high I'd say… probably just hanging out with Maggie." The tips of his ears turned pink as he ducked his head, eyes darting in her direction. "It was really great getting to know you today."
"I had fun, too," Maggie said, trying to ignore the heat rising to her cheeks.
Across the table, Daisy rolled her eyes again.
"For my low, maybe just not getting to spend a ton of time at Flushing Meadows," Peter finished. "I mean it was still super awesome, I just wish we could have gone out on the lake or, like, visited the Hall of Science or something, you know?"
"Well, now you know what to do for next time!" said May, smiling brightly. She pointed at Maggie with her fork and the noodles hanging off the end jumped a little. "Your turn, Maggie."
Her brows furrowed. "My turn for what?"
"Highs and Lows," she explained. "It's Parker family tradition. Every night at dinner we go around the table and everyone says one high point of their day and one low point. It's just a fun little game we play so we're not eating in total silence."
Maggie nodded slowly and let her mind wander to the events of the day. A lot had happened in twenty-four hours, and trying to find one high point and one low point proved to be a difficult task.
"I guess… for my high, I'll say visiting Flushing Meadows," she said after a moment. "And also walking through the city, that was fun. But not the subway." She wrinkled her nose for good measure. "That's probably my low."
She wasn't going to say her real low, but a silent understanding seemed to pass between her, Peter, and Daisy, and she thought she saw the corner of Daisy's mouth twitching up in a half-smirk.
If May noticed, she didn't say anything. She launched into her own Highs and Lows, telling them all about how one of her coworkers has been stealing part of her lunch and she had a feeling she knew who it was, but then on her way home she saw a young man propose to his girlfriend in the nearby park and isn't that so sweet, those lucky lovebirds.
"What about you, Daisy, hmm?" May asked. The casual tone in her voice sounded forced. "What were your Highs and Lows?"
Daisy crossed her arms over her chest and said nothing, glaring at Maggie.
Giving his sister a little nudge, Peter urged her, "Come on, Dais, it's your turn."
"I'm not playing if she's playing," she snapped, spitting out the word like it was poison in her mouth.
It didn't take a genius to know who she was, and she tried to keep her expression neutral as she stared down at her food, which was suddenly much more interesting than it had been a moment before.
May laid her fork down on the table with a clang and turned to her niece, exasperated. "Juliette Parker, I don't know what has gotten into you but it ends tonight. Apologize to Maggie. Now."
"It's fine, May," Maggie said out of the corner of her mouth, her eyes fixed on the table. She really didn't want to be the cause of an argument between the two of them.
"No, it's not," May said pointedly. "Ben and I did not raise you to be so rude to a guest, Daisy."
"Well, sorry to disappoint," Daisy shot back, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Guess that's all I do these days, huh, May?"
"I did not say that!"
"You didn't have to!"
A tense silence followed, and Maggie finally looked up as Daisy settled back in her chair with an unpleasant scowl. Peter just shook his head. Elbows resting on the table, May laid her head in her hands and blew out a breath. Maggie could tell she was exhausted and trying not to show it; Dad did the same thing when he didn't want her to worry.
Maggie pushed her green papaya salad around the bowl, her stomach turning at the thought of eating another bite.
"Well, I think that's enough for me," May said. She almost sounded normal, but the faint edge in her voice, the way it wavered just slightly, betrayed her. She pushed her chair back and stood from the table. Taking her bowl and silverware in her hands, she leveled Daisy with a hard look. "You've just earned yourself two weeks of dish duty with your attitude, young lady. I expect more civilized behavior from you tomorrow or you can kiss that phone goodbye for the rest of the weekend."
May put her dishes in the sink and left the kitchen without another word.
No one spoke. Peter looked from Maggie to Daisy, then down at his food, frowning like his soup had done something wrong. Maggie played with the charm on her necklace, the weight of Daisy's glare making her squirm in her seat.
Starks don't fidget, Maggie.
She stopped moving.
Daisy stood up and grabbed her plate. She wouldn't look at Peter or Maggie as she said, "Dump your crap in the sink," and stalked into the kitchen, her ponytail swinging from side to side like the pendulum of a clock. Peter pushed away from the table and rose to his feet, too. Shooting Maggie a tight-lipped smile, he grabbed both his dishes and hers and walked over to his sister, pulling a dishtowel from the cabinet above her head.
Maggie watched them for a second before scooting out from the bench and heading down the hall to the guest room, ready to fall onto the mattress and be done with the day.
Maggie dreamt she was on a road. Gravel dug into the soles of her bare, dirt-caked feet. Trees taller than she'd ever seen lined the road on either side, casting shadows so long they blocked any of the light let through from the canopy of leaves high above her head.
Brows furrowed, Maggie turned to her right, then her left. If there was anything further down in either direction, the thick darkness was hiding it from her, obscuring her view and forcing her to choose a path without knowing what lay at the end. Rude.
With nothing to lose either way, she chose to go right. She stuck to the middle of the road, hands swinging by her sides. As she walked, a breeze blowing in the opposite direction picked up, gentle at first, then stronger and stronger until she was struggling to move even a step further, like she was trying to walk through a brick wall.
The wind disappeared and Maggie nearly stumbled over herself. A strange feeling washed over her. She cast a glance over her shoulder, but the road behind looked the same as it did in front.
An ear-splitting CRACK shattered the suffocating silence. Jumping, Maggie turned forward just as one of the trees on the side of the road crashed to the ground not two feet away. Maggie covered her face with her arm as a wall of dirt and gravel kicked up into the air. But when the dust settled and she lowered her arm, it wasn't a tree in front of her, but a statue—a stone pillar carved in the proud image of Captain America, of Steve Rogers, the traitor.
Another CRACK echoed from the dense growth. Maggie scrambled back as a second tree slammed onto the road right where she'd been standing, and the watchful eyes of the Black Widow—Natasha—stared back at her, magnified a hundred-fold.
A third almighty CRACK! Louder than the others. Closer. Maggie looked up, squinting in the darkness until she could just make out a silhouette growing bigger and longer and faster with each second as her father's stern face raced toward her with all the fury she'd been expecting from him since Germany.
Her eyes went wide, and she took off in a sprint back the way she'd come. The air filled with a crescendoing chorus of CRACKS as trees on both sides fell victim to gravity and met the road below, and the wind roared back to life against her back, propelling her forward faster than her legs could move. She wanted to shout for help, scream at the trees and the wind and her legs to slow down, but her tongue wouldn't move the way it was supposed to.
Maggie was so focused on what was behind her—and on not being crushed to death—she didn't notice that her path was coming to a very quick end. The road dropped off into a giant chasm of black nothingness. She tried to stop herself before she got too close to the edge, but she was carrying too much speed. The gravel gave way under her feet, and Maggie pitched over the side of the ledge, streaking through the air like a bullet into the nothingness as her father's voice echoed around her, calling her name.
Maggie shot up in bed, chest heaving, straining against the weight of her dream. She kicked at the blankets tangled around her legs and scrambled off the bed. Sticky with sweat, she pushed her hair out of her face, taking a few deep breaths as a hand searched the nightstand blindly. Her fingers closed around her glasses and she shoved them onto the bridge of her nose.
As carefully as she could, she pushed open the door to the guest room and crept into the dark hallway. The apartment was quiet this time of night. May's door had been left slightly ajar; the door to the twins' bedroom was closed. The only light came from a small night light plugged into the wall in the kitchen. The shadows from the furniture and boxes in the den crawled toward her across the walls—gnarled claws from the coat rack, the curve of the bottom of the lampshade taking the shape of the grim reaper's scythe.
Maggie made sure to leave the front door propped open before setting off down the corridor. Part of her felt rather silly walking around in her super short pajama bottoms, tank top, and flannel shirt, but no one would be up at this hour, she reminded herself, and if they were, they would probably be dressed just like her. Maybe they would have been a bit smarter and remembered to put on shoes. A sharp right turn and thirty feet later, she tiptoed into the stairwell and took the steps two at a time until she came to a heavy metal door. She pushed on the handle, letting her weight open the door, and stepped out onto the roof of the building.
The concrete stung against her bare feet as she wandered further onto the roof. A distant train whistle, engines revving and roaring, and the odd voice from another insomniac all blended together into a dissonant symphony that Maggie had never been able to hear before at the penthouse. She sucked in a long, slow breath; New York City air had never tasted so sweet.
A warm breeze snatched at her hair and her clothes, and she crossed her arms over her chest. Leaning her head back, she was disappointed to find only a handful of stars set against the inky black sky. Back at the compound, she would have been able to see hundreds.
Maggie tried to ignore the chill that ran down her spine as she watched one of the stars flicker softly. Therapy had helped, but she didn't think she would ever be able to escape the feeling of dread that settled in her bones when she looked at the night sky.
Behind her, concrete crunched under the weight of another body. Maggie spun to face them, legs spreading into a fighting stance as her arms tensed at her sides. A lone figure, tall and slim, stood across the roof, dressed in a ridiculous spandex suit that clung to their skin like glue. In the middle of the suit was a tiny emblem in the shape of a black spider.
"Woah, hey, sorry, didn't mean to scare you," they said hastily. A high voice, muffled by the mask covering his face, but distinctly male, and… strangely familiar. The white, tear-shaped eyes of the mask went wide.
"Who are you?" Maggie demanded.
The eyes shrunk back to the size they were before. He put his hands up in surrender. "It's alright, I'm not gonna hurt you."
"What, circus turned you down?" she said, nodding to the red and blue fashion monstrosity he was wearing.
"No," he replied, and she swore it sounded like he was pouting. He puffed his chest out, as if that made him seem bigger or something, and confidently told her, "I'm your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man."
Ah, so he was one of those. A civilian running around in a Halloween costume trying to play superhero.
Maggie raised an eyebrow, looking him up and down. "Am I supposed to be impressed by that?"
He faltered, then shook his head and gathered himself again. "I guess it doesn't really matter. I was just swinging by and saw you here and I-I wanted to make sure you were okay."
"Uh, y-yeah, I'm fine," Maggie said. "Just a nightmare. Thanks for… checking, I guess."
"Right, good, that's… good."
An awkward silence fell between them. Spider-Man bounced on the balls of his feet, glancing around the roof and over his shoulder. He was an energetic one, that was for sure. He also seemed awfully young to be out by himself so late at night. Maggie had spent a lot of time around costumed crusaders and heroes in her life, she'd never seen anything quite like him before.
"Well, if you're all good, then I guess I'll be going," he said finally, clearing his throat. Was he trying to make his voice sound deeper? Oh, god, he was. Like that would fool anyone with half a brain. He gave her a small salute. "It was nice to meet you, Maggie. Hope I'll see you around the neighborhood again."
Then, with practiced ease, he turned, ran toward the edge of the roof, and leaped over just before the ledge ended, plummeting out of sight. Alarmed, Maggie rushed over to where he'd been standing not a moment earlier. Color her surprised when she found that he had not splattered all over the sidewalk like a red and blue pancake—he was swinging through the air, jumping from one white string to another as they materialized out of nothing. No, not nothing. They came from his wrists. He snapped one of his wrists at a building, grabbed onto the string with both hands, and pulled himself forward with the momentum before letting go to free fall for a second and start the process again.
As she watched him swing off into the night, Maggie was left with one burning question: how had Spider-Man known her name?
