From a Witch's Perspective

Chapter Seven: How does one do a secret identity?

I didn't think I'd have the energy to cry myself to sleep tonight.

After two hours had passed, or maybe two weeks I really can't tell anymore; I was sitting by myself watching the boys finish up the last of their training. It was in teams, Spider-Man and Power-Man vs. Iron Fist and Nova. Originally it was Spidey and Nova together but there were some complications due to the fact that Peter would attempt to talk strategy to Sam and Sam seemed to have 'trouble' hearing him.

I wonder if Fury will get mad about the dents that were now decorating the once perfectly smooth steel walls, giving it a homey touch of a wrecking ball gone rouge.

Yeah that happened while Peter was trying to fix Sam's hearing.

Boys.

At any rate, now they were going at each other in a flurry of kicks, punches and flips. It was like a really strange, aggressive dance that was complete with a blue light show provided by Nova. I watched them with a shaking head. How is it that they weren't crawling around and lying about like starfish on the floor? I could feel muscles all the way to my freaking toes!

"I'll never complain about Midtown P.E. again." I muttered to myself.

"This is the part where I tell you that the first day is always the hardest, but I'd totally be lying."

I looked over to see Ava who was standing next to me without her mask and holding a water bottle in each hand. She extended one towards me; my arm slowly worked my hand up into the air to grab the bottle before letting it fall back to my side in exhaustion.

Ava snorted in amusement, I ignored it and said "Lemme guess, because the second day is harder?"

"Absolutely, because today you weren't sore to start with." She replied and I groaned loudly letting my head fall to the side.

Ava sat down next to me and opened her water. I pulled my head back up and glanced at her.

In our sparing session earlier it felt like she kicked my butt clean across the country so I was a little intimidated by her. Course with me I expected to be little of a challenge for the tigress. But even when she fought the boys Ava was fast, strong, and fierce with every move she made.

Basically Ms. Ayala was a certified bad ass. At least in the book of Dwyer.

And it had to make me wonder what she thought about me. It was clear right from the get go that she's probably the most 'serious' about the team, the competitive "get shit done" type, and I was the 'have low self esteem, laugh about it and hope for the best' type.

I cracked open the lid to my water bottle and took a gulp as we watched the boys continue their fight. I waited as Luke threw Peter over his shoulder at Danny who rolled out of the way easily.

"Do I bother you at all?"

Ava turned towards me. "What do you mean?"

"I mean...I'm not exactly the ideal team mate." I tried to explain.

She scoffed and gestured towards the boys with her water bottle. "Well they weren't exactly a dream come true either."

I watched as Peter webbed Sam's pants to make it seem like he had a diaper on and stuck him to a wall. He even threw in a make shift rattle that glued Sam's hands together. Sam yelled curses at Peter but the wall crawling extraordinaire was too busy laughing his mask off.

"True." I nodded and Ava hummed before taking another drink.

We sat in silence for a little while before Ava said "At first I was annoyed."

Yup, here we go.

"But I was annoyed with web head over there too." She nodded to Peter "And I try to see it like this, Fury wouldn't have said anything about you if he thought you weren't something."

I slowly nodded my head as I took this in.

"That and we also got a chance to make our own observation-"

Wait, "Hold up, pump the brakes, observation?" I questioned after whipping around to face her.

She swirled her bottle "Fury told us about you not long after you came to Midtown."

"You guys were watching me?" I asked in disbelief

"Well obviously not all the time, just at school, that's why we're in most of your classes."

I tried to think back; there were a lot of kids in that school which made the classes pretty big too. Most of the time it was like swimming in a sea of faces until MJ came around like a flashing beacon of hope, or maybe it was just the flashing of a Canon camera. Then Harry showed up and well Thompson was already a regular annoyance like a piece a gum at the bottom of my boots.

But I never noticed the others besides Danny, which was hardly his fault, and Luke but that's because I always saw him and Danny together.

"Wow." I said mostly to myself. "Sorry, I didn't see you at all."

"Don't worry about it, that just means I'm good at my job." Ava grinned then said "You really keep to yourself though, besides that girl MJ, I don't really see you with anyone else."

I glanced at her "Well that's what happens when most of them think I make contracts with poor unfortunate souls."

Ava laughed at that and I had to smirk as well. It helped to make light of that situation, I've long since given up on feeling bad about the fact that most people tended to avoid me either because of rumors or just because their subconscious could tell I wasn't exactly normal. People would be surprised on how much their natural instincts can pick up on, but the problem is they usually go straight to fearing whatever it is they notice.

Not MJ though, or Harry. I appreciated and respected them for that.

"Then again Thompson doesn't exactly avoid me either." I thought to myself but decided not to dwell on it when I saw the boys were heading over to us.

"You guys finally lose enough brain cells with all your thrashing?" Ava asked

"Yeah we figured we should stop so that Sam can at least get a C in chemistry." Peter replied smoothly as he pulled off his mask, his hair sticking straight up from the sweat.

"Can't begin to tell you how hilarious you are, Parker." Sam muttered and whipped his head from side to side after taking off his helmet. I watched them with raised eyebrows, even Danny's hair had lost some of his volume when he untied his mask.

Luke however looked pretty smug when he folded up his glasses and simply ran a hand along his head. He caught me snorting at him and said "Take notes Daph, masks and helmets are high maintenance."

"One of the many woes of the hero business I'll take it?" I grinned

"I'm sorry who was it she recognized right away, Mc. Shades?" Sam questioned.

"Mc. Shades?" Peter repeated with a cocked eyebrow.

"Yeah bad hair is a small price to pay for keeping you identity." Ava joined in.

"Whoa now." I said and held up my hands sensing a debate brewing up.

"Speaking of identities," Danny began to say as he parked himself right on the ground diagonal to me with his legs folded neatly and his back perfectly straight.

"Have you thought of how you're going to be protecting yours, Daphne?"

Say what?

"I'm sorry?" I asked widing my eyes at his who were looking at me expectantly.

"You know, secret identity? The costume and mask, the colorful uniform you wear when you run up to the bad guys to punch them in face?" Peter said and came down to sit as well.

Next thing I know they were all sitting in a semi circle with Ava and I and started my first official meeting with the teen supers. Which was basically about what I'm going to wear and how skin tight I'm willing to go.

Which turns out to be not very far.

"I don't think I'm ready to commit my life completely to spandex, no offence." I said glancing to Peter who shrugged "None taken." He replied and popped a baby carrot into his mouth.

Some time during the meeting we decided we needed snacks. I had cheerfully went along with them thinking I could get a nice little bag of chips for my soul that had suffered greatly from the training session but was met with a selection of raw vegetables in plastic bags and a few silver packets of blue berries.

The snack bar at Shield is a compete lie. Know this.

I didn't have the energy to put up a proper protest but I did tell the agent snack manager that I would return with a full scale attack. He said he'd wait for me. But back to costumes,

"I don't really see you in a full body suit anyway." Luke commented and Sam nodded his head in agreement. "Yeah doesn't really speak 'spell caster'."

I leaned back on my hands and tried to think. Who would have thought this would be a challenging moment of my day?

"It's not just her costume, you need a name too." Ava said and I had to resist the urge to put my head in my hands.

"Spell caster is interesting." Danny said and held the open packet of blue berries he had over to me. I smiled softly and took a few, I munched on them as Peter scrunched up his face;

"Kinda plain though."Ava shot him a dead panned expression that could have easily won her an Oscar.

"Yeah okay, Spider-Man."

"She doesn't really cast them though." Luke argued.

"No but she will tie you up and smash your skull into the ground." Sam replied with fake enthusiasm.

I thought back to how I binded Sam's legs to bring him down in our sparing match.

"Spell Binder?" I mumbled and all faces turned to me.

"It does have a certain ring to it." Danny said thoughtfully.

"Yeah it does." Ava nodded.

"Well that settles that, glad to have you around, Spell Binder." Peter grinned and I smiled back at him.

"Well this has been life changing and all but I'm going to have to bail." Sam announced and got to his feet.

Ava got up too "Same here, I gotta review my notes for tomorrow." And I groaned thinking about the fact that school was back on tomorrow at full force.

"Alright well I guess this brings our team session to a close." Peter said and turned to me.

"Your homework is figuring out your costume."

"I'll get right on that." I replied. And by right on that I mean next week.

"I could lend you some shades if you want." Luke offered casually. I rolled my eyes and said "That's okay, bud."

"Your loss." He shrugged and Danny and I chuckled.

Danny finally got up as well and I decided to do the same, dusting off my pink skirt in the process. I frowned down at it.

Yeah I'm starting to see why costumes are so important…

"Here, Daphne."

I glanced up to see Danny with his arm extended towards me, he was handing me the blue berry packet.

"You worked hard today. One must keep up their strength especially when making so many changes." He said with a smile. I flushed from head to toe but managed to take the packet with a small nod of the head.

"Thanks." I said and his smile just brightened.

I hastily said goodbyes to my new team mates and went to deck to hop onto my broom after asking for directions three separate times. It was a shaky take off, I think the lasers' menacing stare down made my broom nervous.

Not that I could blame it.

When I arrived back home the shop was already closed for the day, which was nice because I didn't really want to talk to my uncles right away since things were still a little…awkward between us. I waved my hand over the doorknob to the front door, being careful not to trip the tightly woven security spell that was wrapped around it and the locks.

Once inside I closed the door quietly behind me with a soft sigh and slid to the floor.

What a long freaking day.

I unrolled the packet of blue berries and munched on them as I reflected on the day, wincing to myself as I went over some of the more embarrassing bits. Like the sparring sessions that I was completely and utterly unprepared for. If I kept that up I really was going have a file at Shield that simply says FAIL on it.

And I reminded myself that I only had six months to fix that. Six. Months.

I really needed to get my butt in gear. I tossed another berry into my mouth and surveyed the shop around me, only now taking in its full potential. There were genuine artifacts and decades of information and history available in this room. This gothic themed, slightly intimidating 'thanks to uncle Maverick's poor decorating skills', room.

Then again with his line of business with potions I didn't think interior decorating was something he invested a lot of time and thought into since it will likely get ruined within the next week.

I glanced at the staffs and wands, I wouldn't find any help there since they weren't suited for some one like me. Same goes most other things like the strange eye carved in stone, the questionable small bone hand and wrist things, not to mention the jars upon jars of oddly colored liquids with…stuff…floating in them.

I took a moment to shake from the weird creep feeling that crawled up my spine and turned to the tall book cases. Volumes of leather bound books were either behind glass or sitting in the open on their shelves and their subjects varied. There were herbs, animals, objects, journals but what I was interested in was the spell casting.

I crumbled up the now empty packet and decided to shove it into my jacket pocket instead of throwing it away.

I could feel the carved eye judging me. Like it has the right.

I convinced my muscles to get up and head towards the two shelves dedicated specifically to spell casting and starting pulling out the books gently, I had no idea how old they were. I lowered myself down and sat on my legs with the book open across my knees. I never looked at these volumes, they were more…serious in a way, for people who were seriously studying the art. I have studied spell casting, but not to this extent.

Well, better get started. I snapped my fingers to turn on the lights and sat back to sit cross legged.

Reading wasn't easy, most of the time I had to reread a sentence four times before I finally got what it was saying and some times I just didn't get it at all. They weren't clean-cut like the books I read before.

I started getting horrifying flash backs of every mathematical text book I ever encountered.

Something brushed my arms and looked down to see a fuzzy black head rubbing itself against the sleeve of my jacket.

"Hey, Moon." I said tiredly.

"I got worried when you didn't come up right away." He mewed and crawled into my lap, I started scratching his head softly as I went back to reading.

"I expected you to be flopped onto the ground like a dead fish." He commented.

"I'm not that bad." I said.

At the moment anyway. There was no telling what was to come of me when I wake up tomorrow.

"Is that why you're sitting on the floor instead of a chair? Or your comfy bed up the stairs?" He asked

Oh the stairs… Oh the three flights of stairs.

"Nooohooohooooo." I whined

"Oh yeah." Moon replied.

"It's no good, Moo. You'll have to carry me." I said with a shake of my head "It's the only option."

He scoffed "Shouldn't super heroes have better back up plans than that?"

"Don't even get me started." I muttered and pushed him off of me. He strutted over to the pile of books next to me and hopped on top of them before laying himself down again. I went back to the book in hand, rubbing my left eye as I decided to just start at the top of the page again.

"Magic isn't something you can just cram into your brain over night like science or literature."

I jumped and snapped the book shut to move so I could see around the counter. Uncle Casper was leaning against the door frame with his arms folded. When he saw me he pushed himself to stand upright and slowly walked over to me with his hands in his pockets.

I didn't say anything, just watched him as he moved to read the titles that I had strewn across the floor.

"But you're headed in the right direction." He commented.

Silence stretched on before us. This is exactly what I meant when I said things were still awkward and that was more than uncomfortable for me. I was close to my uncles. I didn't know how to deal with this kind of silence. Moon hopped off his little throne and sat down next to me, I quietly stroked his head.

"Maverick left some alfredo and fettuccine in the fridge." Uncle Casper suddenly said.

I looked up at him and nodded "Cool."

More silence. More petting.

There was sigh from Uncle Casper "Daphne I don't want this to continue between us, your uncle and I care about you very much but somewhere along the way we didn't realize your frustrations, and for that I'm sorry."

I glanced up at him through my bangs.

"But I'm not going pretend that I'm okay with your decision."

I looked back down and scratched behind Moon's ears who purred softly in response.

"However I also won't pretend that you're the first in our family to attempt something like this. We're not going to try and hold you back because we know that will end in disaster."

"What do you mean…?" I asked, as far as I knew the Dwyers kept everything under wraps. Deny everything mystical, magical or supernatural. We don't even risk party tricks. In fact my uncles were considered the rebels of the family for having the shop.

"I mean you're not the first one who wanted more." Uncle Casper replied with his eyes cast to the floor. He was silent for moment as if he was reflecting on something before took a quick breath and looked back at me.

"There are some things we have that… are yours in a manner of speaking." He said and started moving again but this time he walked towards the back of the shop towards the storage area. I stared after him before getting up and following him, moon padded along quietly behind me.

Uncle Casper clapped his hands and the room flooded with light. It looked pretty normal, the usual boxes and crates. I've been in here plenty of times, even helped set it up, so I stood there confused as to what he could have had back here that I didn't stumble/snoop upon.

"Petunia." He called out and I saw the tarantula emerge from behind a jar on one of the shelves.

"Be a dear and grab me the safe's key."

The arachnid slowly crawled away back behind the jar and I briefly wondered if Peter could communicate with spiders. I mean I heard of heroes having powers to sort of control creatures' minds. I wonder if he kinda wiggles his fingers and they just do what he wants.

Hmm.

As I pondered this Uncle Casper knelt to the floor. It was wooden, pine I think, and you could clearly see each board. He traced his fingers around the edges of two of them before prying them up easily with his nails. Underneath them was a flat silver surface and single key hole in the center.

My jaw dropped "You've gotta be kidding me, when did you two sneak that in here?" I demanded.

Listen I prided myself on knowing this house inside out considering how much time I spent in here. I was insulted to find we have a Sherlock looking safe in the freaking floor boards.

"I gotta turn in my deerstalker now!" I complained and uncle Casper threw and exasperated look over his shoulder. Petunia crawled out from underneath the shelf, a copper key balanced on her back, which was actually quite impressive.

I looked down to moon.

"Did you know about any of this?"

He shook his head "As if that spider tells me anything, you can't trust them, they're too wiggly." He mewed.

"Thank you, darling." Uncle Casper told Petunia who presented him the key and slowly crawled away again.

I waited on the very tips of my toes as he unlocked the safe and it opened up on its own. I don't know what I expected, jewels that contained insane amounts of power? A scroll that contained ancient mystical techniques? A new broom?

I wasn't really expecting a kinda dusty, midnight black, piece of cloth?

"What is that?" I asked bluntly and Uncle Casper lifted it out of the safe. He turned and gently set it down on the floor before he started unfolding it. I squatted down to get a better look and my eyebrows shot up.

"Is that a masquerade mask?"

He nodded. "Very close to it. When it was made a spell was cast to keep it preserved in perfect condition and it is still strong today."

I stared at it. It was half a mask only covering the top part of your face. It wasn't exactly a solid mask either like Zorro or something, it was more like metallic vines that swirled and twisted around they eye holes and flared out in long strands towards the forehead. It was mostly black metal except for a few small gems placed in gold along the middle and led down to the open nose part. At it's sides were two long silky looking strands that serve as its ties. Finally as I looked closely enough at it, I could see a layer shimmering softly at it's surface which I was pretty sure was the preservation spell.

It was certainly pretty, actually it was down right beautiful.

But I was beyond confused.

"Why a mask?" I asked.

And more importantly why does it belong to me?

"It belonged to your mother's side." Uncle Casper said and glanced quickly towards him.

We never mentioned my parents. Especially not my mother, I barely knew anything about her except how she died. I never bothered with any other details because I truly believed I didn't need them. Uncle Casper continued on when I didn't say anything

"It was made in Renaissance Italy where witchcraft and such was slightly more… acknowledged and some what accepted. At least more so there than in the rest of Europe."

"And as you already know witches have always been the life of the party." Uncle Casper chuckled for a moment "They were a particular fans of masquerade balls because of the the concept of the masks and many of them adopted them into their craft for disguise." He said and picked it up by it's sides.

I stared at it unblinkingly as it seemed to peer up back at me.

"It's been handed down generation, to generation, to generation and so on until it came down to your mother." He went on and I knew the ending of that sentence. "And now it's down to you."

I didn't know how to feel. In a way I was enchanted, it was a really freaking awesome looking mask, the mask that beat all other masks in my opinion. Then on the other hand I almost didn't want to mess with it, because it was apart of the world that I swore off of.

My parents.

I decided I needed a distraction like yesterday and cleared my throat.

"What about that?" I asked pointing towards the black cloth.

Uncle Casper glanced at it before putting down the mask and picking up the material. He stood up and shook it open.

It was a freaking cloak. A big one too, it would fit Uncle Casper perfectly.

"That is another piece of your heritage." Came the third embodied voice from behind me because apparently that was the theme of the day.

I turned to see Uncle Maverick step into the room and say "It was a popular trend among Witches."

Uncle Casper nodded "Though Warlocks used them as well, even sorcerers. We both have one similar."

"It's big though, who did it belong to, or was my mom really tall?"

And if so why wasn't I given that gene?

"It wasn't your mother's, it belonged to a member of the Dwyer family but they had no need for it so we stuffed it away, we can alter it easily enough to fit you." Uncle Maverick shrugged nonchalantly. I noticed Uncle Casper look at him briefly before nodding again.

"We thought since you're going to out and…fighting…" Casper trailed off so Uncle Maverick finished

"You need to be prepared as the others were when they chose to fight back."

I was completely silent as I took it all in, the cloak and the mask. I did wonder why my mother even had the mask, did she actually use it or was it something of an heirloom? Did she really leave it for me or is it just mine by default?

I took a few short steps over and bent to pick it up. It was heavier than I thought it would be and cool to the touch. It glistened beneath my fingers, the magic that has lasted probably more than ten of my life times seemed to… accept me.

Moon walked over and brushed up against my leg. I looked down at him, he was staring back up at me, not saying a word. I knew though he was silently encouraging me, I could feel it. I smiled down at him and finally turned to the cloak Uncle Casper still had in his hands.

I walked over and held the mask above it, taking in the image of the two of them together before shrugging.

"Well, it's better than spandex I suppose."

Guys, let me tell you… Coming up with an idea for Daphne's costume? The struggle was real.

I had like five different designs over two months, none of which I was completely satisfied with. I consulted other people about what they thought would work and they had plenty of ideas up until the point where I told them she was a witch then they were like "um…"

Like 100 to a 0 real quick.

I tried suits like the full body and masks and I was just was not feeling it, it did not speak witch to me at all. I tried different masks and I could not see that happening especially with her hair (I dunno how Ava does it.) So I had to discard the entire "traditional" super hero outfit and move on and I moved on to the cloak. If you google witches right now or go to your library and pull out books on witches you'll notice one thing they all have in common appearance wise and it's the cloaks or hooded robes.

SO I went okay but then I thought what if the freaking hood falls down? Because you know it'll happen and her cover will be completely blown. So back to masks and I got the idea of the masquerade masks and researched their history which was in Italy and back then witches weren't persecuted as much which I found very interesting and that's basically what I decided was going to happen so yeah. (and it also tied up some other things for the future of this story but that's hush hush ;)

Sorry for my rant! Thank you all for reading, favoriting, reviewing and just enjoying the story! Thank you very much!

I'll see you guys in the next chapter!