Chapter 11
Daisy turned the corner to follow Lila and found the girl waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Daisy stopped and gazed expectantly at the little girl who was staring at her critically once more with her arms folded. Daisy heard the quiet mutterings and movements of Laura attending to Clint in the next room; no help from Laura this time it would seem.
"Do you have superpowers? Like all the rest of my aunts and uncles? Are you an Avenger?" Lila rattled off her questions quickly and with the chipper attitude that you would expect of a child. Daisy just coughed in surprise.
"Uh, yeah I have powers, but none like any of the Avengers," she moved past Lila to start up the stairs, the little six year old trailing after her.
"What can you do? Your uniform looks kinda like Auntie Nat's," the girl moved in front of her to lead the way to her room.
"I can create vibrations and control them. Can even make mini-earthquakes… well not that mini, but…" Daisy stopped after Lila spun around and gaped at her. Daisy stopped immediately so she didn't run over the small girl.
"That is cool as hell," Lila said. Daisy couldn't help but let a huge snort of laughter out at this. Lila sounded so much like her dad it was ridiculous. Daisy looked down at the little girl who was looking up at her like she was a rock star and smiled.
"Where's the bathroom? I can show you a little bit before our story." Daisy grinned wider when the younger Barton smiled like a maniac, not unlike her father, and raced towards a door down the hall. Daisy followed at a brisk walk and met her there. Lila was bouncing up and down from her seat on the top of the toilet. Daisy walked to the sink and turned it on and glanced at Lila, who was already watching entranced.
Daisy focused her mind on the water coming down from the faucet, just as she did back when she was at the secret cabin. She smiled as Lila let out a low 'whoa' at the twirling water coming out of the faucet now. Daisy held it for a few moments longer before she let it resume its normal spray and turned with a grin to Lila.
"Still cool as hell?" Lila just nodded and sprang up, grabbing one of Daisy's gauntleted hands and dragging her back down the hall to another door. Most likely her room. Lila opened the door and darted in, she pointed out several stuffed animals saying that 'Uncle Steve' and 'Uncle Tony' gave them to her. Daisy noticed that there was a small toy bow leaning in the corner. She smirked; this was definitely Hawkeye's daughter.
Lila grabbed a plushie spider and scrambled under the covers for her story. She looked up at Daisy with expectant eyes and patted the edge of the bed. Daisy sat down and looked at the little girl.
"So… a story huh? Do you like one with princesses or…?" Lila wrinkled her nose in apparent disgust.
"Tell me the story of how you got your powers!" Lila pressed her black spider to her chest tighter. "I bet it's full of action and adventure!" Daisy sighed and nodded.
"Okay… lets see." Daisy didn't know if she wanted to tell this story. She had to decide what to leave out. This story had a serial killer father, a creepy flower dress wearing bitch, and the death of her best friend. Nothing a six-year old needed to hear.
"Well okay, so we were on a super secret mission. There was a very scary lady who was trying to get to a, uh, building. I followed her after I took out a bunch of bad guys. I got mad ninja skills, girly." Lila giggled at this and turned on her side. She buried her way into the pillow and continued to watch Daisy as she told the story.
"So I finally found her and she was at this weird circle room with this crazy device that could… turn you to stone!" She said this dramatically and in such a fantastical way that she hoped Lila would take it more of a mythological kind of thing rather than the horrifying reality of what the diviner really was. "Then she released the device and it floated up and then BOOM it shattered and all this mist came out," she smiled as Lila gasped, totally into this story. Daisy might be good at this after all.
"Then suddenly me and the girl both started turning to stone, but it wasn't just stone it was bigger and it was encasing us. Like the way caterpillars turn into butterflies. You've seen that before, yeah?" Lila nodded with wide eyes. "Then we both burst out of the rock cocoons and I started to make everything shake cause I didn't know I had my powers yet, and then we both had to run so the building didn't fall on us!" She spared a glance down at Lila and smiled when she saw her eyes drooping. "Then I had to work on controlling my powers, but I think that is enough story for one night." Daisy reached out to smooth Lila's hair back and smiled as the little girl closed her eyes and basically face-planted into her stuffed spider.
Trying to be very quiet, Daisy stood up and stretched her back out. She moved to the door and closed it quietly behind her so as not to disturb this wonderful child that had accepted her and endeared herself to Daisy so quickly. Daisy sighed as she turned towards the steps. Time to go check on the biggest child of them all.