"And what can I do for you, Antonia Parker?" She asked. She probably thought I was weird for saying my full name to her. Now I was regretting trying to do this right now. Why couldn't I have gone with a more natural way to do this? However before I could say anything, I couldn't help but notice that my spider sense was tingling. A man with solid black hair and white eyes came in through the door and started to throw things. What the hell was going on? This was not a good time for this. All I knew was that I had to act.
"Get down." I told her as I came behind the counter to help her.
"What are you doing? What's going on?" She asked.
"I don't know." I replied as I got up and caught the object and threw it back at the man. It seemed to knock him out.
"How did you do that?" She asked.
"I was lucky." I said. "Are you okay?"
"I think so." She replied. She was obviously scared, since she didn't remember any of the things that she had been through with me. I knew that even though I had come by to talk to her, it was no longer a good time and I needed to leave before the cops showed up since I was still a person without any identification.
I got up and I ran. I would have to take the back ways back to the hideout. You know it part of me wondered that maybe I should bring someone with me the next time that I go out, but I still wasn't sure that I completely trusted them yet despite the fact that they were currently the only ones who knew about my secret identity. I hadn't even told Mrs. Stark, which I probably should have.
The one place that I knew that I could go was back to the hideout. I wanted to talk Tandy, Kate, and Tyrone about what happened. Maybe they would be able to help me figure out exactly what had happened. I wasn't even sure if I could explain it because it was unlike anything that I had ever seen before. The person looked like they were possessed or something. It was something that I wished that I could talk to Stephen about since he knew a few things about demons.
For some reason, I wanted to tell Tandy more than Kate and Tyrone. It wasn't that I trusted her more than the other two but being around her felt different than it did with them. Maybe it was because Tandy was the same age as me, even though we were all supposed to the same age.
I headed back to the lair, wondering if anyone would still be up. Then I realized that it was only 9:00 and figured that of course they would. The better question would be if they were still there. Part of me thought that I should be trying to figure out what exactly had happened, but I didn't even know where to begin there.
"So how did your thing go?" Tandy asked.
"Well I got confirmation that Tony Stark is definitely my father." I answered.
"I thought you were going to a coffee shop." She commented. It was at that point that I noticed that she was in a nightgown and it was one that gave a good view of her breasts. I blushed a little. "You can look if you want. I was looking at yours."
I turned my head away in embarrassment.
"I went to the coffee shop before I got scared and went to Mrs. Stark and she did the DNA Test. I'm pretty sure that I got the job that I was going for, only I'm not going to be paid now." I explained.
"What do you mean?" She inquired.
"Well since I'm Morgan's sister, I don't think it would make sense to ask for money to take care of her." I stated.
I mean I probably could ask for money, but I didn't really need it. The more important thing would probably be asking for helping setting up my identity. I also needed to figure out what the hell happened at the coffee shop. Why did that person look like that and suddenly change after they were knocked out. It was almost like they were mind controlled or something. If there was a new villain in the city, I would have to deal with that. Maybe it was something that I could ask for help with.
"Have you heard anything about people committing violent acts in the city while looking like they're possessed or something?" I asked. Maybe they knew something and could help me figure out what was going on.
"Kate said that she saw something like that but they weren't doing anything." Tandy remarked. "Why? Did you see something?"
"After I was done with Mrs. Stark, I went back to the coffee shop but before I could say anything, this person came in and started attacking suddenly." I said.
"That sounds crazy. Did they say anything?" She asked.
"No, it was like they were in some sort of trance." I remarked.
"What kind of person would want to make people cause random chaos?" She inquired as she took a seat next to me. For some reason, I felt comfortable around her, even more so than I did around Kate or Tyrone. "Do you want to go check it out?"
"I don't think we really have any leads and it's also kind of late." I pointed out.
"Yeah I guess it is." She admitted. "We should probably start to get ready for bed. Do you know what time you need to be up in the morning?"
The two of us started to head to the bathroom at the same time, which caused us to crash into each other. It was at that moment that I saw a look of horror on Tandy's face.
"What happened to you?" She asked.
"Wh…What do you mean?" I stammered. It seemed like she had seen something somehow.
"I have the power to see people's hopes and dreams when I touch them, but I didn't want to do that with you, but I didn't see anything. That usually only happens when someone has been broken." She explained.
I'd never heard anyone describe me like that before. I didn't think of myself as broken. Sure, I had experienced a lot of hardship as a result of being a superhero, but I didn't feel like I didn't have anything left.
"I'm not broken." I replied. "It's not that I don't want anything in my life, it's just that I'm afraid of losing more people and I don't want people to find out about who I am. Too many people found out before it caused me to have to erase everyone's memories of me in order to fix it, but even that caused some things that I didn't want to happen."
"You can't be afraid of things that might happen." Tandy replied. "I've been where you are. I've even lost my powers because someone managed to manipulate my mind but I got out of it. Tyrone helped me out of it and we'll do whatever we can to help you too."
At that moment, she kissed me. I was surprised at first. It felt wrong because of MJ, even though MJ really wasn't my girlfriend anymore. It took a second but I did kiss her back. I couldn't even say why because I didn't know her and I didn't know her like I did MJ. Kissing her made me things in places that I had never felt anything before especially since I didn't have them before.
"Am I interrupting something?" Kate interrupted. I don't know what the point of asking a question like that is when you obviously know the answer. The two of us blushed and broke apart from each other.
"We were just…" I replied before I struggled to get a good answer out.
"Making out?" Kate guessed which caused both of us to blush even more.
"I should get ready for bed." Tandy remarked as she hastily walked away. It was then that I realized that Tandy's bed was in the same room as mine. We would probably need to talk some more.
"So I can't say I saw that I coming." Kate commented. I thought about trying to distract her from the fact that I had just kissed Tandy. I felt like I needed a distraction from it. I couldn't believe that I had done it. Yes, she had kissed me first but I reciprocated it.
"So where did you go?" I asked.
"I was investigating the track suit mafia and get this: I ran into Hawkeye!" She said. You know I had never seen anyone look so excited to meet Hawkeye before. He really wasn't the most popular Avenger and none of the kids in school ever really seemed like they were interested in him.
"How did that go?" I questioned.
"Well he knew about the Tracksuit Mafia and he was the Ronin because his family died during the Blip. Now we're going to work together to defeat them." She gushed. I hoped that I had been able to successfully distract her. Also if she was going to be doing that, she probably wouldn't be able to help with the mysterious black and white mind controlled people. I wasn't sure if that was something we needed her for or not but probably not.
"Okay…I'm going to go bed now." I responded, hoping that I had successfully distracted her.
"Have a good…wait a minute we're not done talking." She replied. Damn it.
"I can't now. I'm really tired." I declared before I ran off to my room.
I had to use some makeup removing wipes because I didn't have time to go to the bathroom. It was about a minute that Tandy walked into the room.
"So that happened." She remarked.
"Tandy, I don't think I want to start this right now. I just got out of a relationship and the girl doesn't even know that I exist." I declared. "It's kind of soon for me."
"Okay. I can respect that." She replied. "I'm not going to be jealous even though I am just a little. Was that who you were going to see?"
"Yes." I responded.
"Well just know that I would never forget who you are." She said. "Can you get the lights?"
The following morning, I had three bowls of cereal before I went to the Avengers Tower. I couldn't help but wonder if I should mention anything about the incident last night. Did I want the Avengers to get involved with this? I wasn't sure. New York was kind of my turf, even though I wasn't an Avenger anymore.
I hoped that I was prepared because I didn't really know how to take care of a kind. I wished that I could have been around more when Morgan was born but I had a good reason for that.
"So, what do you need me to do?" I asked.
"I really just need you to keep an eye on her and make sure that she eats." Mrs. Stark replied. "I know this will be hard for you. I'm going to work on getting you some paperwork today. I want to ask you: are you interested in changing your name?"
I hadn't thought about that. To be fair, I didn't even have a middle name.
"I think I would rather keep my mother's name." I started. It also served as a tribute to Aunt May. I already had his first name and that was enough.
So one thing that Morgan wanted to do was watch TV. I could only imagine what it would be like to be her and not have any responsibility. Of course, there was no way I wanted to be a girl as young as her. Being like this was already bad enough. After we were done watching Frozen, I decided to ask her something.
"So what do you want to eat?" I asked Morgan.
"Can we get some McDonald's?" She questioned.
"Does your mom let you eat McDonald's?" I retorted.
"Sometimes." She answered. I had to text Mrs. Stark to confirm that it was okay for her to go there. I couldn't even remember the last time I had been to McDonald's even though it was a great place to get the amount of food that I needed for cheap. I had found that they had kiosks to order from because I probably would have felt bad ordering all of the things that otherwise. "Wow, you really eat a lot."
"I have to because of my superpowers." I explained.
"What's it like having superpowers?" She asked.
"I don't really know to explain it." I admitted. I wasn't even sure if we should be talking about it, but we were the only ones in the PlayPlace, so I assumed it was okay. I wasn't really sure how I could explain superpowers to someone who didn't have them, since I wasn't really that good at doing it with Ned or MJ. "It's kind of hard."
I could tell that being a big sister wouldn't be easy, especially considering the large age gap between us. Morgan was part of a different generation than me, one that didn't have to live through some of the horrible things that had happened and would probably only learn of Thanos in school, if they mentioned him at all. Would they talk about how half the planet's population disappeared for five years? I don't know but that would probably be better. I didn't think the bad people would be gone forever. You couldn't just erase all evil from the planet because doing so would most likely have unforeseen consequences and it could also bring about a new evil.
The two of us were leaving, I couldn't help but sense someone and hear someone's voice calling out to me.
"Hey, it's Antonia, right?" Mr. Li said.
"Yeah." I replied. I was a little bit surprised that he remembered me to be honest. Did he remember everyone that went to his shelter? That seemed like it'd be impossible. "Hi, Mr. Li."
"Who's this?" Morgan asked as she looked at the man.
"This is Mr. Li. He helped me out a few days ago." I told her. I then turned to him. "I don't really have time to talk right now. I need to get going."
"Well I'm glad to see that you're doing alright right now." He told me.
I couldn't help but think it was a little weird to just run into him, but I supposed that we weren't too far from the shelter…okay we were, but maybe he had some errands to run in the area. I just knew that I needed to get Morgan home.
The rest of the day was fairly uneventful and it gave me some time to think. I wasn't sure where I was in my feelings. I knew I needed to tell people what happened to me, but I was scared what would happen if they didn't believe me. I was also scared of what would happen if they did believe me. What would they say about me messing around with magic when I obviously shouldn't have. I was directly responsible for Aunt May's death. I wanted to tell MJ the truth but I was pretty sure that she wouldn't believe me. I wanted to tell Tandy, Tyrone and Kate, who I felt there was a greater chance of believing me but I knew that they would think of me differently. I wanted to tell Mrs. Stark, who may even be able to talk to Stephen to get this fixed but then I was afraid that things would change again. I didn't know if I wanted things to change again. I wanted to be a guy again, but not if there would be more repercussions as a result of it happening. I also really needed to figure out what had happened earlier.
After Mrs. Stark got home, I went back to the hideout. I knew that this was something that I needed to do, but it would have to wait until everyone was back, even though part of me just wanted to tell Tandy. I was pretty sure that I was falling for her, which scared because I was definitely not supposed to and I would be risking everything by telling her what had happened, but I didn't want to lie anymore. So once all three of them were back, I knew what I needed to do. I needed to say the words.
"I have something that I need to tell you." I declared.
So a lot happened in this chapter. First, Mr. Negative is in full force and caused problems between Antonia and MJ, but there's also the other problem in Tandy, who Antonia likes more than she's willing to admit. What's going to happen when she tells her secret? Please don't forget to review.