Author's Note: Yes Piper has new powers! I own nothing.

8. Discoveries

Dr. Curt Connors wasn't entirely surprised to be called up to Tony's lab level of Stark Tower. Ever since the fall of SHEILD three months ago he had been working with the Avengers to sort through what was left of SHEILD, figuring out what had truly been SHEILD and what had been Hydra. The data mining had been mostly on Tony and JARVIS but Piper had been helping quite a bit too, as had Agents Coulson and Hill. Hill was still sorting through a few of the higher ups that had been Hydra in Washington but she would soon be headed back to Avengers Tower and Dr. Connors had every intention of introducing her to Piper when that happened. So the call up to the inventors main lab wasn't all that surprising. But what he found was a bit shocking.

Piper was sitting on one of the tables, her mask stubbornly pulled down, Ava was curled up in a chair, much like a distressed cat. The other teens were scattered around the room, Luke and Danny had changed into their civvies but Sam was still wearing his helmet though he'd switched to a t-shirt and shorts, which was an odd pairing against the glow that surrounded him. Tony was standing in front of his daughter trying to get her to pull up her mask.

"Piper we can't fix it if you don't show me what's wrong." She shook her head not speaking. Dr. Connors cleared his throat. Tony turned to the door and sighed.

"Doc Connors, great. Maybe you can get my daughter to cooperate." Dr. Connors frowned and stepped forwards.

"Piper what happened?" She shook her head, still refusing to remove her mask. Sam sighed and zipped across the room, close to the ceiling snatching off her mask as he passed. She squawked and both of her hands flew to her mouth. There were tears in her eyes. She didn't look any different. Dr. Connors frowned as he stepped up next to her. He rested his arm against the table and looked her over.

"I hate to say it but your father is right, we cant help if you don't show us what's wrong. Science can't be built on guesses." She blinked at him, then she rolled her eyes slightly at his words, a saying Bruce liked to use and slowly lowered her hands. At first he didn't notice a difference. Her top lip looked a bit swollen, but it wasn't red or irritated like she'd been punched. He pulled a glove out of a nearby box and with some difficulty pulled it on. She twitched like she wanted to stop him but he raised an eyebrow at her and she nodded. He reached forwards and using his pointer finger carefully lifted up her upper lip. Behind her lip but in front of her front teeth sat a pair of white serrated pincer like teeth that most certainly hadn't been there before. There was a small amount of blood there but it didn't seem to be hers and there was a tiny piece of skin still stuck to one of the serrated edges of the right pincer.

"Tweezers please." Danny found them first and handed them over while Tony grabbed a petri dish. Dr. Connors gently pulled the torn skin off the new formed tooth and set it in the dish. Piper wrinkled her nose and the pincers twitched slightly.

"Tilt your head back for my Piper." She did as she was asked and Dr. Connors frowned. "I need a light." Tony snatched up a small light and shone it into his daughters mouth. "Thank you, point it at the tip of the tooth please." Tony did as he was asked, his hand only shaking slightly as the light illuminated the tip of the fangs his daughter seemed to have spontaneously developed. Dr. Connors spotted what he was looking for immediately. There were two small holes at the tip of each wickedly sharp fang. He directed Tony to move the light so he could see further into her mouth the roof of which was slightly swollen. He frowned slightly and withdrew his hand from her mouth.

"Piper I'd like to try something if you're comfortable with it. I have a hunch but I'd need to test it to see if it's true. I don't believe it would hurt at all but first I need to know if you're experiencing any pressure on the roof of your mouth." She nodded. She still hadn't spoken. He frowned.

"Can you talk?" She nodded. "You just don't want to?" She nodded again. He glanced at the other teens. Luke piped up.

"She might be embarrassed, she was lisping when she talked after they ummm came in." He said glancing at Danny who nodded, his eyes were flicking over to Ava though who appeared to have fallen asleep on the chair. Dr. Connors turned back to Piper.

"So pressure. Is there any pain at all?" She shook her head. He nodded and turned to Tony.

"I'm gonna need an extra hand." Tony nodded.

"Just tell me what you need Doc." He nodded and pointed to a medium sized beaker on the table next to Luke.

"That beaker, the one with the large mouth." Tony nodded and grabbed the empty beaker. "Piper please tilt your head back one more time." She did as she was told looking a bit nervous. "Mr. Stark if you'll place the beaker here over the edge." Tony raised an eyebrow but did as he was asked. "Now this may feel a little odd but if you could hold off biting down that would be preferable." Piper made a noise that sounded almost like a laugh. Then Dr. Connors pressed down on the two small swollen patches of skin on the roof of her mouth.

Piper was still freaking out but she only jumped a little as the doctor applied pressure to the roof of her mouth. She felt the new fangs twitch and then the pressure that had been sitting on the roof of her mouth was lessening and a nearly clear liquid was filling the beaker. Soon the pressure was all but gone and Dr. Connors removed his fingers from her mouth. Her dad pulled the now half full beaker away from her mouth staring at the liquid inside it. It would have been completely clear if it weren't for the greenish tint that appeared when held up to the light. Tony blinked at it for a minute before speaking.

"What is that?" Sam helped Dr. Connors pull off his glove and threw it in the bio hazard trash.

"Venom. Not the symbiote, but actual spider venom." Piper's eyes snapped over to him staring at him. He nodded understanding the disbelief in her eyes. "I am quite serious. It seems you've developed not only a set of chelicera, though just the fang portion which is probably a good thing, but a set of fully functional venom glands. I'd love how this happened. Were you exposed to something that you haven't been exposed to before? Further radiation maybe or a severely stressful stimuli?" Piper shook her head. She took a deep breath and spoke.

"No, today hasn't been all that stressful, except for when I found out I glow in UV lights like a bioluminescent spider and the shit that happened on the rooftop, most of which I don't remember." They all glanced over at Ava who was still sound asleep. Piper shook her head.

"All I remember is there was a drum beat following us around Queens, it got really loud then I got a really bad headache and these things showed up! Then everything went white." Luke nodded.

"Yeah and you and Ava went feral on each other." Piper frowned. Dr. Connors nodded.

"How extensively have you tested your mutation Piper?" She frowned as she hopped off the table.

"Not all that extensively honestly. I… I figured out it was the spider after a conversation with Hank McCoy. He did some minor testing." Tony frowned.

"You went to the Xmen before you went to me!" Piper rolled her eyes.

"I mutated overnight and you were in China, who was I supposed to go to?" Tony nodded. Dr. Connors took the beaker from Tony swirling to contents slightly.

"I may see if I can get in contact with Dr. McCoy, to see if we can figure out what's happening to you. For now I'd go about business as usual." Piper frowned.

"And how am I supposed to do that with fucking fangs!" A voice piped up from the doorway.

"Language Piper." Pepper stepped into the room. Piper rolled her eyes and stuck out her tongue at the redhead. But her tongue didn't catch on the fangs, instead they seemed to fold out of the way, up into the gums. Piper blinked and grabbed a nearby Stark Pad. Leaving the piece of tech in sleep mode she checked out her reflection in the black surface. She smiled at herself and blinked the fangs were gone. She sighed.

"Well that seemed to fix itself." Dr. Connors had her open her mouth again as Tony handed the light to Danny who shone it into his friends mouth for the doctor as Pepper spoke to Tony about a meeting he had to be at soon. Dr. Connors frowned.

"They aren't gone, it seems like they're retractable. It's possible they've been there since you were bitten, and some stimuli forced their appearance today. You should see if you can't figure out what happened on that rooftop. I'll see if I can't get in touch with Dr. McCoy and maybe we can figure out what happened and what triggers it, maybe see if we can't find someone who can help you learn to use it properly without the guesswork." Piper nodded and corked the beaker of venom handing it to Dr. Connors.

"Maybe see if you can't find out exactly how deadly that is. I think I bit Sam." Sam shook his head.

"You're not the only one with speed healing web for brains, why do you think I left the helmet on?" Piper rolled her eyes but a smile pulled at her lips, she was glad Sam was going to be ok. Pepper stepped forwards.

"Well I'm glad that seems to be settled, lunch is waiting upstairs. I suggest you all stop up there before you work on this anymore. If you'd like you can stop by and grab something too Dr. Connors we always have plenty of food." Dr. Connors nodded slightly and smiled.

"Thank you Miss Potts but I actually have plans to eat with my Interns today." With that he headed off back to his level, the beaker of venom in his hand. Piper glanced over at Ava who was still asleep as the others began to head out. Danny shook his head.

"Let her sleep Spider, she'll be fine." Piper nodded and the rest of the team headed up to the family level. None of them looked back and saw Ava kneading at the seat of the chair she was curled in, claws shredding leather.