Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“We are the girls with anxiety disorders, filled appointment books, five-year plans. We take ourselves very, very seriously. We are the peacemakers, the do-gooders, the givers, the savers. We are on time, overly prepared, well read, and witty, intellectually curious, always moving… We pride ourselves on getting as little sleep as possible and thrive on self-deprivation. We drink coffee, a lot of it. We are on birth control, Prozac, and multivitamins… We are relentless, judgmental with ourselves, and forgiving to others. We never want to be as passive-aggressive as our mothers, never want to marry men as uninspired as our fathers… We are the daughters of the feminists who said, “You can be anything,” and we heard, “You have to be everything.” ― Courtney Martin

Blood.

A startling amount of blood, even for Poppy, who was used to gore.

She was bleeding from her left leg, where a knife had hit its mark and been yanked out roughly.

The blood had soaked her suit and dripped down into a puddle on the concrete. She'd won the fight, as always, and the criminals were tied up, the civilians all safe.

Poppy had barely been able to drag herself here in the immediate aftermath. The pain was excruciating, but she couldn’t afford to focus on that at the moment.

Pushing down visions of May and Ben's death, and more recent memories of being hurt by her last foster father, she forced herself to think straight. She was fine. She had to deal with this situation by six to make it to school on time.

For the sake of speed, Poppy chose to swing back to her apartment.

It hurt, but not as much as walking would have.

Jumping to the fire escape, she picked the lock on the kitchen window, slipping inside.

Her enhanced hearing picked up the sound of her young sister Morgan’s breathing in the nearest bedroom, and their foster mother, Sarah, a few rooms over.

She dragged herself to the tidy bathroom and resisted the urge to collapse on the floor. Poppy glanced in the mirror, and was almost afraid of what she saw.

Her dark eyes were crazed, her skin ghostly pale. Poppy pulled her mask off, to reveal messy, sweat-stained brown curls.

But it was fine. She’d done this before.

Calm down.

Poppy slipped out of her suit, and the leggings she wore underneath.

It was only then that she saw the full extent of her injury.

It was nasty. Several inches deep, much wider than she would have liked. No mere paper cut.

At least it was a knife, instead of a gun. Poppy thought dryly. Bullets were awful.

Stab wounds hurt like hell, of course, but weren’t lethal to her, not with her enhanced healing.

This one hadn't even hit bone, which was lucky.

Poppy grabbed the first aid kit and lay down on the icy tile floor, lifting her leg against the door. She winced at the movement. The injury was bleeding much less, now, the blood all minutes old.

She soaked a cotton pad in disinfectant, holding it against her skin. White-hot agony shot through her leg, almost as bad as the initial stabbing.

That bit never gets easier.

Struggling to keep her breath steady, Poppy wrapped the injured area in a sterile bandage, and stood up, trying to ignore the pain.

She popped a couple of ibuprofen tablets and ran her suit under the faucet until most of the blood came out.

Lucky that blood doesn't show up on red and black.

Poppy unlocked the door, glancing at the digital clock on the wall. 3:47 AM. Treating wounds always seemed to take longer than it actually did. Poppy was yanked from her thoughts by the sound of sirens. Some civilian had called the police, and they would be getting the criminals now. Another win for “The Amazing Spider-Man” Poppy thought, dryly, grabbing an apple and a bag of pretzels from the kitchen, before stalking to her room.

Crumpling on the bed and closing her eyes, she could feel the odd sensation of her healing factor finally starting to kick in.

Too bad the powers don’t help with the pain. She thought coldly, sitting back up and eating her snacks.

Poppy opened her perfectly-organized white dresser and changed into clean gray jeans and a blue tank top. She needed sodium and sucrose to help replenish her blood supplies. The healing enhancement, like the super-strength, reflexes, and enhanced senses, were the results of a freak accident the spring after her aunt and uncle had died.

She’d been on a field trip to Oscorp.

One of the spiders they had been experimenting on had gotten loose, apparently without the knowledge of anyone at Oscorp, and bitten her, but it had looked like a normal spider, so she hadn’t freaked out. The administrators had given her disinfectant to apply, and let her ice the injury until the school day was out.

It had been Friday when she’d been bitten. She’d felt horrible over the weekend, but chalked it up to seasonal sickness.

She couldn’t sleep either, but insomnia was nothing new.

Perhaps she should have been alarmed that her old scars were gone, but she’d hardly noticed through nausea.

She’d felt fine (if weirdly hungry) on Monday, and gone back to school.

When she got a cut from cooking and it healed in under an hour, she realized that the bite had caused some genetic alterations, but she hadn’t revealed her powers to anyone (Well, anyone except Nick Fury).

When she'd started patrolling (completely legally, mind you, she had permission and training from SHIELD) she became known as “Spider-man”, and Poppy never bothered to correct them. It added to the anonymity. 

Occasionally, she helped the avengers with smaller threats, but for the most part, Spider-man dealt with petty crime, like the one that had taken Ben and May.

Her food finished, Poppy decided to get some homework done.

She'd been messing with her history essay for at least an hour when she was jolted back into the present moment by the sound of Sarah’s alarm.

Sarah turned it off, and Poppy could hear her curse under her breath, then go to the kitchen and start brewing coffee.

The enhanced hearing was a nuisance, sometimes, but Poppy had dealt with sensory overloads from her SPD, so the enhancement didn’t make it too much worse.

She could manage.

She always did.

Rising from her bed, Poppy walked into the small, bright kitchen. The pain in her leg was already dissipating greatly but was nowhere near gone. 

She blinked, and her eyes adjusted almost immediately to the change in light levels from her dark bedroom.

Perks of enhanced senses.

“Good morning, Sarah,” said Poppy, carelessly leaning on the doorframe, hoping the position looked tired, instead of pained., not that Sarah would notice. Or care. 

Sarah’s head snapped up from where she sat at the table, typing on her phone. “Oh, Penelope, I didn’t hear you come in. I’ve got a lot of work at the moment, so don’t get into trouble. You’ve got dance class after school today, don’t you?” Asked Sarah, refilling her coffee mug.

“Yeah, so does Morgan. I'm sleeping at a friend's house tonight, and Morgan’s coming with me.” Poppy said offhandedly.

“Yep. Heads up, grocery delivery comes tomorrow, add whatever you and your sister need,” said Sarah, absently, going back to her phone.

Poppy grabbed a granola bar, eating while playing chess against her phone. (She won before even finishing the bar)

A few minutes later, Sarah left. She didn't say any sort of farewell, but that was normal, and Poppy was used to this sort of thing. Sarah was distant. 

She wasn’t that bad, as foster parents went. She wasn’t abusive, or even really neglectful.

She gave Poppy a chunk of the money she got from the state, and there was always heating and Wifi and running water at the apartment.

Sarah was in foster care for the payment, which was fine. Poppy didn’t need a parent.

She only needed shelter and a legal guardian so she wasn't considered homeless.

Everything else, Poppy could handle without help.

Morgan’s daycare was paid for by the state.

Poppy's school tuition was covered by a full-ride merit scholarship.

Their ballet classes were also partially covered by a scholarship, and the rest was paid for by Poppy’s internship salary. 

Walking back to her room, Poppy opened the grocery delivery app and ordered morgan's favorite juice pops, some snacks, ingredients for a few proper meals. She then went about her usual morning routine, packing her backpack, pulling her hair into a sleek ponytail, and washing her face.

She glanced in the bathroom mirror; her reflection looked significantly better than just a few hours before.

Her leg still hurt a bit, but not too badly. Quick healing was a blessing.

She checked the clock again. 6:08. About time to wake Morgan.

Entering her sister’s room, she shook the little girl gently.

“Morning Em, it’s time to wake up for school.”

“‘M awake,” said Morgan, rolling over and pushing the blankets off.

“Good. Do you want oatmeal, or eggs and toast?” Poppy asked, brushing the little girl's hair out of her face. After a long moment of adorably careful consideration, Morgan decided on eggs and toast.

“Alright little miss, good choice. I’ll get that started while you get dressed and brush your teeth, okay?” said Poppy, rising from the bed.

“Mkay.” Poppy began making breakfast, and Morgan emerged a few minutes later, in a clean t-shirt dress. After the sisters finished eating, Poppy braided Morgan's hair and grabbed both their backpacks, they were out of the house by 6:45.

Chapter Text

No matter where you go, there you are –Confucius

The sun had risen, and it illuminated the dirty sidewalks and the dew-coated cars of morning commuters. The streets were busy, and the horizon was blurred with smog and haze, as per usual, but the city looked far more welcoming now than it had mere hours before. Then again, Poppy had been bleeding badly mere hours before. After dropping Morgan off at preschool, Poppy walked to her usual bus stop and settled down to wait on the metal bench. The bus stop was deserted unless you counted pigeons. She didn’t. 

Poppy pulled her phone out to scroll Twitter and noticed a text message from her girlfriend MJ. 

MJ : hey, how are u? 

Concealing a smile, Poppy quickly tapped out a response. She and MJ had met a few months ago, at the start of the school year. They’d hit it off and started dating quickly, though they had to keep it a secret. Poppy hadn’t come out to Sarah yet and had no intention of doing so anytime soon, given the woman’s negative views on homosexuality, but Midtown was pretty progressive.

Poppy : Gm

Poppy: I'm good ig.

Poppy: hbu?

MJ : yk. same soup just reheated. shitty stuff over the weekend. glad you're ok, you know I worry about you.

Poppy:  Care to elaborate on the weekend stuff?

Poppy: No worries if not

MJ: idk.

MJ took a long time to write her next message. Waiting, Poppy fidgeted, drumming her fingertips on the metal bench. MJ's text came through. It was shorter than Poppy had expected. 

MJ: I miss my dad, tbh.

Poppy: that's fair

(Poppy didn't type "I miss my dad too", but she thought it.)

MJ:  i think i told you already but im visiting him in vermont over spring break

Poppy:  S ounds fun

MJ: pretty good, apparently vermont is really pretty in the spring

Poppy: Yeah but NYC has trader joe's AND the Met

Poppy: Hopefully that's enough to bring you back after break ;)

MJ:  true, it's also got you, which is arguably worth a lot more

Poppy: Yeah

Poppy: I hope so 

MJ: obviously i'm coming back.

MJ: i love you.

Those words made Poppy's heart skip a beat like it was the first time, even though the first time had been months ago. 

Poppy: ily too 

MJ: btw, are you still cool to come over tonight? 

Poppy : Yeah, but only if morgan can come.

Poppy: Sarah's going out for drinks, and i can't just like, leave the child in an empty apt (do not bring up the night thing istg)

MJ :  fine. but poppy. babe. never in the history of the universe have i minded your sister. also she's there for like, 90% of our sleepovers anyway. 

Poppy: F ine thats fair

MJ: anyway. my mom's got a date with her newest boyfriend, so we’ll have the house to ourselves. and I've managed to acquire an ungodly amount of ice cream. 

Poppy: S ounds good

Just then, the bus drove up to the curb.

Poppy: I gtg now

Poppy: I love you again. 

MJ: Love you too. 

Poppy grabbed her tap card and swiped it against the machine at the front of the bus. A bright green “Accepted ” flashed against the screen. Poppy settled into a seat in the back row and pulled out her AirPods to listen to an audiobook. She got off the bus at the closest stop to her school, walked the rest of the way, and arrived ten minutes early. The school day was largely uneventful. The algebra test was easy, as usual. Chemistry went well since she and MJ were lab partners. MJ was, of course, nowhere near Poppy’s level of technical genius, tending instead towards the humanities, but she was still extremely intelligent, and the two worked quite together.

English wasn't as fun, but Poppy sat between Ned and Cindy, which was nice. During study hall, Poppy worked on her science fair project, then read a book called “The Beast Player”. She wasn't big on novels, but Mj was, and Poppy liked being able to talk about them with her.  

After school, Poppy met up in the parking lot with her friend Hannah, who was a senior and had “Adopted” Poppy at the start of the year. 

“Hey, favorite freshman,” said Hannah, grinning and tossing her curly blonde hair out of her face.

“Hey, favorite senior, I'm not a freshman anymore. I'm going to graduate from tenth grade this spring.” replied Poppy with a smirk. 

“Yes you are, because you're fourteen. That's young even for a freshman."

"Technically I am a sophomore though." It was an ongoing argument, and Poppy really didn't even mind, so at this point it was mostly banter.

"Nope, you're absolutely not a sophomore, because 'favorite sophomore' doesn't sound as good. Anyway, are you ready to go?”

“Yeah,” said Poppy. 

“Cool—Don’t try to pay me gas money, kid, I swear to god. Let’s get going so we get there on time. Miss Daphne is teaching today, she’s a stickler for tardiness.” Said Hannah.

Poppy muttered in agreement, and slipped into the passenger seat of Hannah’s stone-gray Mazda. 

Despite Hannah’s somewhat erratic driving, they arrived at the studio on schedule, 5 minutes early. It was Monday, so Poppy had pointe. The class was amazing, as usual. Poppy loved ballet, it was like fighting but without the pain. Even barre work, which was repetitive and by most accounts, boring, was fun. After class, the teacher reminded them that auditions for the next show, Sleeping Beauty, were coming up in a few weeks.

Hannah glanced at her meaningfully, and mouthed “Ask her”. 

Hannah was trying to get her to audition for one of the fairies even though Poppy was only fourteen. Fairy’s were supposed to be fifteen or sixteen, but wouldn’t leave her alone about it “Because you’re already a level five, kid! It can’t hurt to ask.” Begrudgingly, Poppy raised her hand 

“Yes, Miss Parker?” asked Miss Daphne, raising one eyebrow.

“What’s the minimum age for the part of one of the Christening fairies?”

“Generally, sixteen, but the top teacher, Miss Amelia, has decided that any level five with more than two years theater experience is allowed. If you would like to audition for the part, you would be permitted.”

Hannah smirked.

Poppy resisted the urge to roll her eyes, and thanked Miss Daphne politely. 

The class was dismissed, and Hannah cornered Poppy in the dressing room. 

“Are you gonna audition?” She asked.

“Maybe.” evaded Poppy. She hadn’t decided yet. On one hand, it would be fun, and she would probably get the part, but on the other hand, it was a lot of attention.

“You’d be good.” sing-songed Hannah.

“Really?” asked Poppy dryly.

“Yeah, really. You’ve got talent and all the teachers like you. If you don’t get the part, then what do you lose? Two hours?” insisted Hannah.

“I don’t know.”

“So will you do it?” asked Hannah.

“ Fine .” Said Poppy, but she was smiling.

“Wonderful. I’m not letting you go back on that.”

“I know, you never do," muttered Poppy. 

"Yep. Have a nice night, I'll see you on Wednesday.”

Hannah left, and Poppy took an Uber to Morgan’s preschool. It was only 515, but it was already dark. Gotta love winter.

She entered the building and was greeted with the sight of Morgan and a few other kids, sitting and working on some sort of craft. They seemed to be having a good time.

 “Nellie!” called Morgan, running over and clinging to Poppy. The teacher glanced up, but just smiled and went back to reminding the children not to eat glue. 

“Hey Morgz, are you ready to go?” replied Poppy, used to her sister’s enthusiasm. 

“Mhmm! I got my backpack all by myself, and I had a juice pop, and I made a new friend!” said Morgan in one breath. 

“Good job! Sounds like you had a very good day, little miss. You can tell me all about it on the way to MJ’s house.” Poppy was lucky that the preschool let her sign Morgan out, given that she wasn’t an adult, but Sarah was busy all the time and couldn’t pick Morgan up, so it was between letting Poppy do it and having to wait until three AM or something.

Morgan didn’t let go of Poppy's sweatshirt all the way to the uber, and, when they got there, curled up against her sister as much as the seat belt would let her. Morgan rambled on about her day, bleeding between English and Italian, and Poppy listened intently, until Morgan fell asleep, still not letting go of Poppy’s hoodie. 

This sort of clinginess was standard for Morgan, even after short periods of separation. Even though Morgan was fine with being at daycare most of the day, she couldn’t stand being without Poppy for too long. Indeed, the longest Poppy and Morgan had been apart was half a week, when Poppy had helped the avengers raid a HYDRA base.

Poppy didn't like to think about the fear, only about the victory. 

The battle had actually been fairly fast, and Dr. Stark had gotten Poppy quick transportation back to the states, so it had only been three and a half days. Three and a half horrible days. While Poppy was gone, Morgan had behaved well and not made any fuss, but the moment Poppy had picked her up that Sunday afternoon, the little girl had clung to her and begged for hugs. Their foster mother, for her part, hadn’t even noticed that Poppy was literally about to die and Morgan wasn’t home, but that was probably for the best. They arrived at MJ’s house, and Poppy paid the driver, before picking up Morgan, who was still asleep, carefully balancing the little girl's delicate frame in her arms alongside both of their bags. 

Chapter Text

"Babe, I really got thank you that you came through

You a baddie, make me happy, you're my main muse

Lucky me, you're a masterpiece" — WOMAN, Avenue Beat

Poppy carried Morgan to the front door of the large gray brick house, and entered the code, without bothering to knock. Carefully avoiding waking morgan up or dropping either of the bags she was carrying, Poppy headed to the living room, where MJ sat on the sofa, reading something. 

“Hey MJ, long time no see.”

“It’s been, what, almost four whole hours?” said MJ, glancing up from her book.

“I think so,” replied Poppy, glancing at her watch. “School got out at two-thirty, and now it’s almost six. So yeah.

“Wow, that’s a long time. Is the princess asleep?” asked MJ, gesturing at the tiny girl in Poppy’s arms.

“Yeah. I should probably wake her up,” said Poppy.

“You did ,” mumbled Morgan, face buried in Poppy’s shoulder. Poppy laughed, putting the little girl down on the sofa. MJ smiled, eyes meeting Poppy’s for a moment, before addressing Morgan.

“Hey little M. How was your day?” She asked easily. Despite her snarky nature, MJ was actually pretty nice, especially to little kids. 

“It was good! I made a new friend!” said Morgan, sleepiness fading. Poppy sat down next to her sister, slipping an arm around MJ. 

“Oh, that sounds really fun. Do you want pizza? I’m ordering one.” said MJ.

“Yes,” said Morgan instantly. 

“That’s a yes from me too, MJ,” called Poppy, heading upstairs to drop her and Morgan’s bags in MJ’s huge bedroom. 

MJ ordered their usual pizza: Half mushroom sausage, half plain cheese. Pizza was their go-to for sleepovers. The food came quickly, and dinner passed in a haze of laid-back tiredness.

After dinner, MJ pulled a bunch of different ice cream cartons out of the freezer. Morgan had a small bowl of plain vanilla with frozen raspberries, MJ had something chocolatey with a name that was far too long to be legal, Poppy had mint chip because it was objectively the best flavor of ice cream—So fight her MJ, it didn’t taste like toothpaste. 

After dinner, Poppy got Morgan ready for bed, and thankfully, despite her earlier nap, the kid fell asleep before eight. With Morgan asleep, Poppy and MJ hung out in the living room, each doing their own thing. This sort of coexistence without interaction was one of Poppy’s favorite things about her relationship with MJ. Poppy had started a drawing of a butterfly in her notebook and began the shading. MJ finished some homework, then moved on to read a novel. 

After twenty minutes or so, Poppy broke the silence. 

“How did you manage to get that much ice cream here?” she asked. It had been bothering her for a bit. MJ didn’t even have a car. 

“My mom doesn’t care what I put on grocery delivery. She’s not even home, won’t be for a couple of weeks. Something about finance in Europe, honestly I didn’t care enough to listen. But yeah, I’m the only one here, except the cleaning lady four days a week, and my wonderful legal guardian cares about me just enough to let me buy whatever I want.” replied MJ, not looking up from the book she was reading. 

“Parental neglect squad,” muttered Poppy. MJ snorted.

“We could both be addicted to crack cocaine and no one would care.” joked MJ, dryly. 

“I like to think you’d care if I was dying of drug addiction. I’d certainly care if you were.” Poppy responded, glancing up from her drawing to look at MJ.

“Okay, fine.” MJ rolled her unfairly-pretty chestnut-brown eyes. “ One person would care if I died of an overdose. I’d care if you died.” allowed MJ. 

“Eh, that’s better than nothing. I bet my sister would care if either of us died.” reasoned Poppy.

“Yeah, but she’s a kid. Not an adult,” argued MJ.

“Are we adults?” asked Poppy. She didn’t feel like an adult, but then again, she didn’t feel like a child either. 

“May as well be. I dunno.” said MJ, putting her book down and turning to face Poppy. Poppy was once again reminded of how fucking pretty MJ was. She nodded and considered going back to her drawing. But MJ was right next to her, and no one was around to see them… Poppy wanted to kiss her.

“My sister’s asleep,” said Poppy. She wasn’t sure how flirting was supposed to work, but if MJ’s smile was any indication, her girlfriend had caught on.

“I’ve noticed,” replied MJ evenly.

“It’s just us, mi Reina.” the Spanish nickname, my queen fell from her lips almost without thought. 

“Oh yeah?” challenged MJ, slipping an arm around Poppy.

“Dammit, Michelle. I’m trying to flirt with you,” said Poppy, 

“And I’m enjoying your attempts, Penelope,” said MJ, smirking. 

Eh, fuck it. “Can I kiss you?” Poppy had never been one for social cues anyway. 

“Yes,” said MJ. Poppy could hear the barely contained laughter in her voice. 

“Consent is so hot, ” said Poppy. MJ nodded, and leaned towards her. 

There lips locked, MJ’s slender arms and Poppy’s muscular ones holding each other in a close embrace. MJ's lips were soft with vanilla chapstick. They'd kissed a few times before, but the magic hadn't faded.

They sat there for several minutes after the kiss parted, foreheads resting against each other. They didn’t need words, both being fluent in silence. Eventually, Poppy spoke, pulling back. 

“I should patrol. Try to get some sleep, yeah?” she said.

“Yeah. Be back by four?” asked MJ, her usual semi-indifferent mask slipping to allow worry through.

“I’ll do my best.” Poppy could promise nothing more, and MJ understood. 

“That’s all I can ask for.” Though Poppy hated to burden her girlfriend with worry, she never kept secrets. MJ knew everything and stayed anyway. 

a final kiss on the cheek and Poppy climbed out the window. Patrol was pretty normal. Four muggings, two attempted sexual assaults, a bar fight, a couple of thefts, and a lost teenager who only spoke Chinese ( God, Poppy was thankful that she’d learned it.) Poppy was back at around three-thirty and barely changed out of her suit before collapsing into bed. She didn’t usually need any sleep, since the bite, but early March in the Bronx was still cold and prompted at least an hour or so of hibernation. 

Poppy awoke at five AM and wore some of MJ’s clothes. Actually, they might have been her clothes that she had left at MJs at some point. They stole each other’s clothes quite often since Poppy was only an inch taller than MJ, and the two had similar frames. Honestly, it was sometimes impossible to tell where one wardrobe ended and the other began. But they liked it that way. When she woke up around six, MJ suggested smoothies for breakfast, which oddly enough did not end in disaster. Morgan’s preschool was on the way to the bus stop from MJ’s house, so they all walked together.

Chapter Text

“Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void but out of chaos.” ― Mary Shelly

After an insufferably boring school day, Poppy bid farewell to MJ, and caught the subway to Stark Tower. The subway was crowded, as per usual, but Poppy was able to get a seat. Which she promptly gave up to a pregnant woman holding a toddler, because fuck, that person needed it more. Poppy pulled her phone, and was about to text Ned and MJ, when she remembered that they had AcaDec practice. Damnit. Poppy herself had been on the AcaDec team last year, but she’d quit when she moved up at ballet and had to take more classes, much to the disappointment of her teammates. She still showed up to cheer the team on at competitions though, and was listed as a backup in case they ever urgently needed someone to fill in, because everyone knew that Poppy Parker was a certified genius. 

A “Jesus christ what the fuck is up with that girl? How does she know that?” level genius. 

She didn't brag about it, but everyone knew, because she got the best grades and teachers always praised her. 

No one really minded Poppy, though, because she wasn’t a teacher's pet, and she was nice enough, despite being introverted. 

Intelligence was a safe trait to base her entire persona round, and her reputation for being “smart as fuck”, was what had landed her the Stark Internship, because the principle had only offered the test to a few students. 

That had been a few months ago, back in October, and she had passed, beginning the internship once a week. 

She’d done well enough to be invited by the lab head two additional days a week. For a normal person, an internship on top of dance and school and parenting and being a fucking comic book vigilante would have been overwhelming, but Poppy welcomed the busyness. Empty hours meant too much time to remember, which she didn’t want.

Anyway, it wasn’t like there was something other than work she could do. Sleep had been ripped away. Poppy loved everything she did, she loved dance and Morgan and reading and some school stuff and MJ and her internship and being spiderman, and no, she was not overwhelmed at all, obviously It was fine, she was fine.

The subway ground to a halt, and Poppy walked briskly to Stark Tower. The air was cold, and refreshing, but she was grateful when she entered the warmth of the tower. Hibernation was not in her time budget. Poppy scanned her badge, swiped her pass on the elevator. She nodded to acknowledge the other woman in the elevator. The woman smiled, and went back to her phone conversation.

Poppy resisted the urge to fidget. She hated elevators. The feeling of being trapped was oppressive, and she was unreasonably relieved when the doors slid open on the 8th floor, and she could step out of the elevator. She was greeted by the familiar sight of her team's R & D lab, in all of its glory: White walls tinted cream by the yellow lights, team members working at desks on computers, and ironwood tables cluttered with bits of machinery. 

“Hey Parker, did you finish those plans?” Called the head technician, Jessie, not looking away from her screen, which was covered in a chaotic mix of spreadsheets, blueprints, and fuck-knows-what-else.

“Yep, I’ll forward them to you now.”

“Great. I’m leaving at six, and Dylan’s gonna take over. Do me a favor and help Lex and Cody with prototype 17 when you’re done?” Jessie’s ruby-red hair was frizzy, and empty coffee cups littered her desk. If Poppy had to guess, the woman probably hadn’t slept in a couple days. 

 “Sure.” replied Poppy, already halfway to her desk.

Poppy plugged her laptop into the desktop computer at her workstation, and reviewed the document a final time in full resolution, before submitting it to Jessie’s official folder. The plans were for a new portable battery charger, based around a mixture of solar power and Starkium. The team had been working on the designs for a while, and Poppy had been the one to create these particular blueprints.

Normally, interns, especially high school interns, would not be trusted with such responsibilities, but Jessie apparently thought Poppy had potential, and the team was overworked enough to welcome her help. 

Poppy had been working on the designs for the past few weeks, and, plans submitted, moved on to a different aspect of the project; The chemical formula necessary to protect people from Starkium, which was  radioactive. She headed over to one of the messy iron tables, where Lex stood, typing on a holoscreen. Lex had numerous tattoos and short, coiled, electric blue hair which was pinned back just enough to not be hazardous while working in a lab. 

“Oh, Hi Poppy. Help me out here? Cody just left, and this is kind of a two-person job.” said Lex.

“Sure. Want me to take over the mixing or the notes?” asked Poppy.

“If you could just take notes and keep an eye on the machinery, that would be great.” said Lex, grabbing a beaker.

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Cool. I’m adjusting the tungsten to silicide ratio by one unit of metal.” Lex informed her.

“Got it. I’ll make a note of that and bring the heat up.” replied Poppy, editing the formula to account for the update. 

“Wonderful.”

They settled into a comfortable working rhythm, and the minutes passed easily.

Lex was Poppy’s favorite person to work with. She was smart, smart enough to have two phds in her mid twenties, but wasn’t stuck up about it, and was overall pretty chill. Honestly, she was a bit of a role model for Poppy, though the two were technically coworkers. Lex left on a coffee break, and Poppy glanced at her watch. It was almost six, Dylan would be arriving soon to take over from Jessie. 

Sure enough, a few minutes later, the door opened, and in walked Dylan, along with… Tony Motherfucking Stark. Cool. 

No one in the lab seemed surprised or concerned in the slightest, not even Lex, who sat back down at the table and resumed her work as if nothing was going on.

That made sense, actually, as it was fairly likely that Dr Stark had shown up in this lab before, and this was just the first time Poppy had been there. The founder of SI was generally pretty involved in the company, despite no longer being CEO, and knew all the lab heads pretty well.

Indeed, Dr Stark just nodded to Dylan and went to discuss something with Jessie. Poppy's enhanced hearing picked up on their conversation, and she could have sworn she heard her name mentioned, but she forced herself to focus on the task at hand. Whatever Stark was there for probably wasn't a big deal, and Lex needed her to be taking notes. 

After a few minutes, however, Stark stopped talking to Jessie and walked towards the table where Poppy was working. She didn't look up, only sensing his approach through vibrations and sound. Poppy resisted the urge to flinch at having a man so close to her. Not every adult male is Tyler, dumbass. Calm the fuck down. Hell, she wasn't even sure she was the one he was talking to, Lex seemed more likely. He would probably just talk to Lex and leave.

But no, Stark addressed Poppy. “Are you Penelope Parker? The one that designed the most recent plans for the compact solar-radiation powered charger?” 

“Yes, I am, Dr Stark.” Poppy’s voice was measured, and betrayed none of the confusion she felt. She had no idea what he wanted, but Poppy was nothing if not professional. 

“I'm promoting you.” What?

“Care to elaborate?” She said carefully. Professionalism. Always professionalism. 

“I'm promoting you to work with me directly. It’s great what you’re doing here, for sure, but it’s not the best use of your abilities. The new position will come with salary increases and all that, obviously, and if you’re willing to pick up extra paid hours, you can see this particular project to completion with your current team.” He spoke with a carelessness that Poppy envied, gazing at her over the top of his sunglasses, clearly amused. Who the hell wears sunglasses inside, anyway?

“Thank you, sir. How is this going to affect my schedule?” She was still confused. Then again, Tony Stark had never been a predictable man. 

“Depends. Are you here full time?” He asked casually.

“No, just three times a week. Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, sir, I'm in school.” Her confusion had not diminished.

“Really, that's young. Cool. Here’s the plan. Finish up here today, and come to my personal lab on Thursday instead. I’ll email you, or ask Pepper to do it, and we can work out the logistics. Sound fair?”

“Sure, thanks.”

He nodded, and left the room. 

What the fuck. 

Chapter Text

“Will I be something? Am I something? And the answer comes: You already are. You always were. And you still have time to be.” ― Anis Mojgani

The next two days passed in a blur of routine overwhelm. It was for the best, being busy. One thing, then another, and another. No sleep. No breaks, really. Except ballet. 

Poppy went to school and to ballet, took care of Morgan, ignored her foster mother, was ignored by her foster mother, worked on homework and patrolled as spiderman. She was busy enough that she didn’t even think about her conversation with Tony Stark until Thursday afternoon, on the subway. Then, though, she couldn’t stop thinking about it. In an attempt to take her mind off things, she texted her groupchat. 

GeniusBallerina (Poppy): We should hang out this weekend. 

SandDoesn’tLikeYouEither (Ned): YESSSSSSS

Scary_Saphic (MJ): Damn, chill out loser

SandDoesn’tLikeYouEither(Ned): We haven’t had the whole gang together in forever

A_Literal_Cryptid (Cindy): No offense, I love hanging out as a group, but didn’t we meet up last week?

Scary_Saphic (MJ): ^We absolutely did

GeniusBallerina (Poppy): What’s your point

A_Literal_Cryptid (Cindy): Idk just that it hasn’t been that long even tho it feels like it

IllegallyBlonde (Betty): Kk but I also wanna hang out again this weekend. Brunch sound good?

A_Literal_Cryptid (Cindy): What the fuck are we, Betts, the kardations?

SandDoesn’tLikeYouEither(Ned): Wait what

GeniusBallerina (Poppy): Are they well known for brunch?

IllegallyBlonde (Betty): Probably. But they don’t own it or some shit

A_Literal_Cryptid (Cindy):  Other people, in fact, also eat brunch, I admit that. But still. It sounds too fancy. 

GeniusBallerina (Poppy): This feels a bit off-topic, folks

Scary_Saphic (MJ): You don’t say

IllegallyBlonde (Betty): Whatever. I only suggested it because I know for a fact that at least two of you NEVER wake up 10AM on the weekend

A_Literal_Dragon (Cindy): Damn, you don’t have to call us out like that

SandDoesn’tLikeYouEither(Ned): Yeah I feel attacked

IllegallyBlonde (Betty): Actually maybe three out of five

IllegallyBlonde (Betty): Poppy?

GeniusBallerina (Poppy): What?

IllegallyBlonde (Betty): When do you wake up on the weekends?

GeniusBallerina (Poppy): I don’t sleep. 

A_Literal_Cryptid (Cindy): Sure

Scary_Saphic (MJ): Legit tho she actually doesn’t. It’s weird. 

IllegallyBlonde (Betty): What about you, MJ?

GeniusBallerina (Poppy): Unlike the rest of us, I think Michelle actually has her shit together and wakes up at a reasonable time

Scary_Saphic (MJ): That I do.

IllegallyBlonde (Betty): Fine. So MJ, Poppy and I could go to breakfast. But I'm not in the mood to third wheel

Scary_Saphic (MJ): actually I don't want to go somewhere at the crack of dawn. Because I'm not weird. 

IlligallyBlonde(Betty): Therefore, we should meet up at a later time, say 10:30 AM. This way, I'm with Cindy instead of just MJ and Poppy, and we hear about the latest guy Ned has a crush on.

SandDoesn’tLikeYouEither(Ned): You say that like I have a lot of crushes. im insulted

A_Literal_Cryptid (Cindy): *cough cough* Alex *cough cough*

Scary_Saphic (MJ): don't forget Jason

GeniusBallerina (Poppy): also Mike

IlligallyBlonde(Betty): Plus Chris. And Harry. And Ryan.

SandDoesn’tLikeYouEither(Ned): First of all, those were all in middle school except Chris.

SandDoesn’tLikeYouEither(Ned): and he was from fourth grade, Betty, so leave me alone.

SandDoesn’tLikeYouEither(Ned): Second of all Alex isn't a guy.

SandDoesn’tLikeYouEither(Ned): third, fair.

A_Literal_Cryptid (Cindy): omg

GeniusBallerina (Poppy): lets try to get back on topic

SandDoesn’tLikeYouEither(Ned): fine

A_Literal_Cryptid (Cindy): ugh

A_Literal_Cryptid (Cindy): ok

IllegallyBlonde (Betty): Thank you, Poppy. They never listen to me

GeniusBallerina (Poppy): ofc!

IllegallyBlonde (Betty): So are we doing brunch on sunday? Does that work for everyone?

Scary_Saphic (MJ): Yeah

A_Literal_Cryptid (Cindy): Kk whatevs

GeniusBallerina (Poppy): Mhmm

SandDoesn’tLikeYouEither(Ned): Yeah that’s cool with me

IllegallyBlonde (Betty): Finally. I have to do everything. 

GeniusBallerina (Poppy): We love you Betty!

IllegallyBlonde (Betty): Thanks. Love you too Poppy. 

IllegallyBlonde (Betty): Not sure abt the rest of you losers though

A_Literal_Cryptid (Cindy): Bett we r literally together. 

IllegallyBlonde (Betty): hmm

A_Literal_Cryptid (Cindy): you literally invited me, this morning, to the formal next week. 

IllegallyBlonde (Betty): Fair point. I do love you.

SandDoesn’tLikeYouEither(Ned): Get a room

A_Literal_Cryptid (Cindy): fuck u 

Scary_Saphic (MJ): Bruh

IllegallyBlonde (Betty): ikr

And, here was her stop. Poppy tapped out a quick text. 

GeniusBallerina (Poppy): as enjoyable as it's been to watch this chaos unfold, I gtg. see y'all on Sunday! 

All four of her friends responded with farewells, but Poppy barely noticed. 

Though the conversation had, in fact, provided the effect of taking her mind off things, it lasted only for a little while.

Leaving the subway station, Poppy walked to Stark Tower quickly, her mind already buzzing with anxiety. 

Dr Stark had emailed Poppy with the promotion details and the password to his private lab yesterday. He had apparently notified the staff as well, since the front-desk woman didn’t bat an eyelid at the fact that a teenage girl was asking directions to Tony Stark's lab. She followed the directions given to her by the woman at the front desk, and entered the huge, unfamiliar room, only to have her senses flooded by blue-white lights, reflective surfaces, and the roar of machinery and rock music. Yep. Right lab. The man himself was standing in front of a large steel table, which was completely covered in a mess of mechanical parts. 

“Oh, hey kid. You’re not late.” he turned away from the holoscreen

“Yeah. I don’t make a habit of it, sir” Bordeling rude. But not quite. Poppy had to figure stark out, and until then: casual formality. 

“That makes one of us. Sit down. Also, drop the sir, it makes me sound old, and anyway, we’re equals here” 

“I’m sorry, what?” Poppy sat one the leather couch he gestured to, and tried to make sense of that statement. 

“You’re one of maybe five people that can even compare to my technical intelligence. Interestingly, now two of them are teenagers.” What. 

“Who’s the other one?” Curiosity got the best of her, briefly, though Poppy could guess at who it might be. 

“Princess Shuri of Wakanda, she’s brilliant; honestly might be smarter than me, in certain fields. Prince T'Challa is close, but he’s more into politics. The only other people that can compare are Bruce Banner and Hank Pym. And, from what I can tell, you.``

It was off putting to hear the leading geniuses of the twenty first century listed and then be compared to them, but Poppy was nothing if not adaptable. If Dr Stark legitimately thought she was that smart, then she’d just have to try not to disappoint. Dr Stark sat at his desk, and regarded her with apparent interest. 

“So tell me about yourself; what do you do beyond designing exceptionally high-quality blueprints?” 

For a moment, Poppy suddenly forgot who she was, but recovered quickly. “I go to school at MidTown high, and—” 

"Damn, I thought you were in college."

"No? I've submitted some applications, but it's still a ways of." explained Poppy. 

“Fuck. How did I not realise that?” 

“I don’t know. I’m old for my age, I guess. Anyway, aside from school, I do ballet, and sometimes volunteer work.” She didn’t elaborate. 

“Jeez, kid, when do you sleep?”

“I don’t.” Poppy deadpanned. She wasn't fond of lying, even though this was kind of cheating, because Dr Stark smirked, clearly thinking she was joking.

“Yeah, me neither. Don’t let Pepper hear you say that though.”

“Got it.”

Introductions complete, they moved on to business. Apparently Dr Stark and Dr Banner were trying to re-design the arc reactor, and Dr Stark had decided that Poppy’s designs for what was basically a mobile charger would be helpful. Poppy didn’t question it. Whatever.

Chapter Text

The world should have protected you, but you have been asked to protect it. What an honor. What an injustice. -Beverly Toegold, Not Another DnD Podcast

Poppy had a rule not to leave school, ballet, social gatherings, or Morgan for spiderman, and thus usually didn’t patrol during the day, but brunch was over and Morgan was still at her friend’s birthday party, so Poppy had a couple hours of free time, and no homework with which to fill it. She’d honestly been looking forward to some peace, maybe some time to read… but that didn’t happen. Parker luck was brutal, and Poppy’s crippling sense of responsibility was strong, so when she heard news of an alien attack in Manhattan, she was there. 

Predictably, so were the Avengers. Actually, the only one in sight was Ironman, but it was a safe bet that at least a few others were in the area. Iron Man was fighting half a dozen weird insect-squid creatures at once, and while it he could definitely handle it, the fight would be faster if Poppy helped, so she swung off the skyscraper she was on and webbed two out of three of the aliens attacking Ironman.

“Hey kid where’d you come from?”

“The Bronx '' she signed, flipping backwards and kicking an alien hard, dodging just in time to avoid being hit by Ironman’s repulsor shot. 

“Hey, stupid quips are my thing, don’t go stealing my gimmick on top of my color palette.” he said, wrestling one of the aliens to the ground.

“Sorry, I didn’t know you owned jokes and the color red.” Another two, down. Spiderman’s no-killing policy did not extend to aliens trying to destroy everything.

“Wow, spidey, that’s cold..” Stark said, roughly grappling with the alien attacking him and shooting a repulsor ray at one of the three currently attacking Poppy.

“Whatever” Poppy formed the sign and webbed the alien’s arms together in a single smooth motion.

IronMan took out two more, Poppy webbed another, and… that was it. Anticlimactic, much? 

Ironman hovered above the torn grass, and addressed her, giving a lazy salute. “That was fast. The team and I are gonna regroup. Thanks for the help, spiderling. Fuck, okay, apparently Cap wants a quick word with you—nothing hostile, just logistics. He's in charge of this shitshow. Do me a favor and swing down here so we can talk for a minute?” he gestured down to the evacuated park, where Poppy could see Captain Rogers, and a fuck ton of alien carnage. 

She nodded once, and swung down easily. Not being able to talk was one of the most annoying parts about having a secret identity, but she was used to it. Besides, knowing sign language was helpful both as Spider-man and Poppy.

The widows were who knows where, and Ironman had flown off, so it was just Captain America that approached her, and since she was in the suit, Poppy found it relatively easy not to flinch. 

“Alright. Listen, you were extremely helpful today, and you’ve been great the times you helped in the past, especially with HYDRA. The team appreciates it significantly, of course, and if I recall you said you’d be available as backup again. So that’s what we’re asking for. We’ve got a lead on this guy, calls himself the vulture, powers unknown, illegally dealing shield-level-threat weaponry. Under most circumstances, we’d be clear for something this small but Rhodes, Barton, and Lang are all out of the country, and Barnes and the Maximoff’s are unfortunately still… incapacitated.” 

Incapacitated , of course, was the polite way to say ‘Fucking brutalized and a bit mentally unstable’. Sergeant Barnes had only recently been cured of the mind control HYDRA had used on him for decades, and he’d just returned from Wakanda a few weeks ago. 

The Maximoff twins, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, who had also only recently been rescued from HYDRA, were A: In recovery from the fight in Sokovia, and B: Still seventeen for another few months, and thus not legally allowed to be SHIELD agents/soldiers/whatever the fuck the avengers were. Sweet irony. Poppy was only fourteen, but of course, they didn’t know that. Hell, they didn’t even know she was a girl. 

Realizing that Captain Rogers was, in fact, still talking, Poppy forced herself to focus. 

“—And since it’s not really hulk-level, it's just me, the Widows, and Stark.  We need reinforcements; I know you do your own thing, and I’m not trying to recruit you full time, just this once. It won’t be seriously dangerous, and we’ll do our best to keep your identity secure. Are you up for it?”

Poppy nodded, and signed. “Ok, when?”

“We’ll let you know. Likely within the week.”

Right. She had given them her spider-man email, they would contact her when it needed to happen. Poppy nodded, and signed “See you later.” 

She knew she’d be there to help no matter when it happened, because it wasn’t every day the fucking avengers asked for backup, but Poppy did feel a twinge of guilt about leaving morgan to fight supervillains. Morgan deserved a good sister, and Poppy wasn’t enough. Had never been enough, really. She couldn’t even keep Morgan fully safe from Tyler… but there were other people that needed help, too, and the whole fucking point of being Spider-man was to make the world better for everyone , including Morgan, and…and she was back at her apartment now. 

It was almost time to pick Morgan up. Poppy’s afternoon was free, thank fuck, and maybe she could be a good sister for today. Hell knew Morgan deserved it. A small, traitorous part of Poppy’s mind felt worry as well as guilt, but she pushed it aside. 

There was no time for fear. Only thought and action, thought and action. Always.

Chapter Text

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”  — African proverb

Morgan’s daycare was open from seven in the morning, to six pm in the evening. Actually, on Poppy’s clock, it was eighteen in the evening, because she preferred military time, so fight her, MJ, but same point.

Anyway. 

Usually, Poppy would drop Morgan off at 7:15 or so, and pick her up at either 5:15, on ballet days, or six, on internship days. This meant Poppy was only around for Morgan for about an hour in the morning and two or three hours in the evening. But on weekends, Poppy’s commitments ended before lunch time, and she could spend the whole afternoon with her sister. It was impossible to tell which one of them loved weekend afternoons more, but they both preferred Sunday afternoons to any other time of the week, because even on Saturdays, sometimes Poppy would have rehearsals. 

The day she helped ironman fight aliens, Morgan hadn’t even been at daycare, she’d been at a playground for a daycare friend’s birthday party, and when Poppy got there, she barely had time to register the chaos of yelling children and messy party decorations before Morgan ran over latched onto her leg, saying nothing. Poppy picked her up, and whispered sweet Italian nothings to her, and was actually able to calm her sister down just enough to say goodbye to everyone, while Poppy thanked the birthday boy’s mother, and collected the party favor goodie bag with Morgan’s name on it. 

The poor kid was still clearly overstimulated, though, so Poppy set aside plans of going somewhere interesting for the afternoon. Who thought it would be a good idea to have a huge party for preschoolers? If Morgan had been a less good natured child, she might have been difficult, but as it was, she was just quiet, her social battery having evidently been drained. That was fine. Poppy decided that she should at least ask for Morgan's input on what to do next, though she suspected Morgan was probably in the mood for lunch and some quiet time. 

“Okay, princesita, where do you wanna go now? It’s a little cold outside, so we can either go to the library, get something to eat, or we can go straight back to the apartment” Poppy couldn’t make herself say “home”, but Morgan didn’t seem to notice.

“I want... I want a cheeseburger.”

“Alright, I’m pretty hungry to. What do you say we get say we get some burgers and then we go play at the statue park?” offered Poppy

“ That sounds fun. Dylan’s party was really noisy. ” Morgan had slipped into Italian now. Poppy followed suit, and they spoke Italian the whole way to get lunch from their favorite street vendor. After lunch, for no discernable reason, Morgan seemed dead-set on only speaking Spanish, which continued until they got back to the apartment, when they switched back to Italian. This was a common enough occurrence. 

Their mother had been Mexican Jewish, their father Italian, so Poppy had grown up with all three. By the time morgan was old enough to speak properly, they’d been living with Ben and May, who were both italian, so they spoke italian with their aunt and uncle, english to most people, and spanish with each other, The line between the three languages had blurred, and it was not uncommon to speak all three in a single conversation, or, as morgan was doing today, switch rapidly between languages. That was one of the things Poppy was proud of, keeping their parents' cultures alive by speaking their languages. Their speech wasn’t even limited to three languages, though. 

Poppy was taking Latin for her foreign language, and also spoke some Chinese and ASL, because of spiderman. Those languages too seemed to have rubbed off on Morgan, and both sisters frequently forgot  a word or phrase in one language only to remember it in another. 

Back at the apartment, Sarah was, of course, gone, so Poppy read aloud to Morgan while the four-year-old colored, until it was time for dinner. 

Both sisters were in the mood for comfort food, so Poppy made mac & cheese, and they ate in comfortable silence. With dinner over, Poppy let Morgan pick a movie. She picked a studio ghibli film, and fell asleep, curled against Poppy, in twenty minutes flat. 

Poppy carried Morgan to bed, tucked her in, and started on her homework. She finished at around ten pm, and killed some time scrolling twitter before Sarah finally got back, and she could go on patrol without leaving a defenseless baby child alone. All in all, she’d spent a solid ten hours with her sister (though Morgan had only been awake for the first seven), and loved every minute. Morgan was amazing and wonderful and deserved all the good things, and Poppy did her best, even if that meant only weekend afternoons. 

Though Poppy felt bad about not spending more time with Morgan, this was how it had to be. Except for the ballet. 

It was pretty selfish, really, to keep dancing. It just took time away from Morgan, and patrol, and other important stuff. 

Morgan needed Poppy on weekends, and it was selfish of Poppy to go to rehearsals instead. 

Maybe she could have justified it to herself with the scholarship argument, but Poppy wasn’t even going to college in person, her permanency plan involved online college. 

There was no good reason to keep doing it, except that Poppy loved it. She loved the feeling of flying, loved the grace with which she could move, loved using aspects of the dance in her fighting, loved the long rehearsals, the beautiful costumes, and most of all, the sense of normalcy, because it was such a rare experience. 

At school and SI, she was a genius, a prodigy, whatever.

At home, she was everything to Morgan and nothing to whichever foster parent they happened to be staying with.

As spiderman, she was super-human. A hero.

But at ballet? She was just a normal, fairly-good dancer with great form and a nice sense of rhythm. On the better side of the school, sure, but not the best, or the worst, or the most of anything . 

Just a normal, skilled ballerina, the sort of person that was excellent, but not outstanding. It was heavenly. Honestly, she could justify doing ballet instead of spider-man, because the dance helped with fighting, a lot. Since Poppy was there on a full scholarship, she didn’t even have to worry about money. The only bad part was that it took time away from Morgan. Which was… bad. Poppy felt guilty about it, and yet…she didn’t quit. 

Once or twice, though never very seriously, Poppy had considered what it might have been like if Morgan hadn’t been born. 

Poppy loved her sister more than anything, but it was really fucking hard , sometimes. 

It was hard to be responsible for birthday and hanukkah gifts, food, nightmares, everything involved in caring for a tiny person, on top of being spiderman, and taking AP classes, and the internship, and rehearsals, and having a social life, and trying to heal from trauma without therapy (or any help at all, really). 

It was hard, and there were nights when Poppy couldn’t even focus on schoolwork, too consumed with stress, or visions of death and pain and blood. Those were the nights when she really, really missed sleeping. Though the powers hadn’t totally prevented her from falling asleep, they did prevent her from staying asleep, and also from ever getting properly unconscious. 

She could never get out of light sleep, and, even on the rare occasions when sheer exhaustion or slight hypothermia forced her to sleep, when she awoke quickly and unpleasantly, whether from nightmares or from being startled awake by sudden sounds (which were horribly amplified by her super-hearing), she could never tell. 

All in all, it was probably  better that she couldn’t sleep properly (especially because if she needed sleep, she wouldn’t be able to patrol or do homework all night), but still. It would have been kinda nice to have a real break from everything. Just once . Maybe it would have been easier to be alone, to at least be able to have a nervous breakdown without the fear of freaking a tiny child out. 

No. There was no point thinking like that. Morgan’s absence wouldn’t have helped at all, and Poppy’s situation was pretty good, all things considered. 

Really, she was in a similar position to a lot of single working parents, only easier, because she didn’t have to worry about electric bills or rent or even food, because her foster parents were required to provide that. 

Morgan was young, too, not even five years old yet, so she was content, because Poppy was reliably there every morning and every evening, and Morgan liked daycare well enough, so it was okay, at least for now. 

But Morgan wouldn’t be little forever, and eventually she’d have soccer games or piano recitals or god knows what, and Poppy would… try to be a good sister. A good parent. Follow the plan. Make it work. Poppy knew her Permanency plan inside and out. 

Not the vague, idealist one given to her by her social worker, but her real one, the one that couldn’t fail. The plan that would keep Morgan safe. The plan that allowed for patrol and ballet and accounted for the fact that really, Poppy’s main purpose was to keep Morgan safe, keep her happy, and give her the childhood she needed.

Because sure, Poppy’s life was hard, but Morgan deserved the world, and Poppy planned to give it to her. Morgan wouldn’t have to worry about switching between foster homes, because Poppy would work hard enough to afford an apartment. Morgan would have a Bat Mitzvah, and a person to come to with school problems, and everything that Poppy didn’t have, because that was the point of Poppy’s life. 

———————————————————

Poppy swung from building to building on autopilot, since there was nothing to do, really. She stopped a couple muggings, but that was it.  It was a quiet night because of the alien attack, so there was no one around. She landed on a skyscraper and sat there, waiting. Normally Poppy would have just gone home, but she’d promised Deadpool that they’d patrol together tonight, and he would undoubtedly freak out and possibly kill people he suspected of harming her if she didn’t show up. Wade was fun like that. 

Speak of the devil (thought of the devil?) (Not daredevil, (he was still in chicago doing some important thing), the christian devil was the one in the saying, but Poppy was Jewish, and it really didn't make very much sense) Fuck. Nevermind. Wade was here on top of the building, somehow. Poppy didn’t question it. 

“Hi spidey. I brought chimichangas because there’s no one around committing crimes.” He did that a lot, bringing food, especially since he’d found out that Poppy’s metabolism was sped-up. 

“Thanks DP, how’s the uh, murdering, going?” Asked Poppy, sitting down and grabbing a paper-wrapped chimichanga from the bag Wade handed her. 

“Y’know how it is, people do bad things, other people pay me to kill them, I end up killing both… usual business. I killed a rapist on my way here, that’s why I was late.” said Wade, sitting down next to her on the roof.

“Sounds lovely.” Poppy couldn’t really think of anything else to say, not being especially experienced in mercenary work.

“Yeah, it was lovely—For me, not for him, but he completely deserved it. It wasn’t super lovely for the woman he was assaulting either, but she’s fine now and I gave her all the money in his wallet so it’s fine.”

“That seems pretty fair, I guess. ”

“This is why you’re my favorite spiderman, you’re just chill about my career choices. A lot of them try to stop me, Spider-Gwen even fu— fricking , attacked me. Fricking. Sorry spider-baby” said Wade.

“I’m in highschool, I’ve heard worse, Wade.” Hell, she said worse on a daily basis. Maybe even hourly.

“It’s the principle of the matter , webs.” explained Wade, looking scandalized.

“You literally kill people for a living.” Poppy pointed out.

“Okay, and? I’m not going to swear in front of a baby. ANYWAY, before I almost accidentally did, I was explaining why I prefer you to the last couple spider-men I’ve hung out with,” said Wade. Poppy had no fucking idea what he was talking about, but said nothing, because A: This was deadpool and he never made sense, and B: she was still eating the extremely good mexican food he’d brought. 

“Most of the peter’s always try to stop me, except that british-actor one from the universe where Thanos won… he just very politely asked me to please not, and then I feel bad, you know?”

“I’m sorry, but I absolutely the fuck do not. Who’s Thanos, anyway?” Poppy vaguely remembered the Greek god of death having a similar name, but was otherwise lost.

“Big purple grape, absolute fucker, terrible guy, ours died. Anyway, you’re in my top 5 favorite spidermen, even though you aren’t technically a spider man .” Wade was the only person who had met Spiderman before meeting Poppy Parker that knew her identity, and that was only because she’d gone to his place after being shot. He’d been extremely helpful, and super chill about finding out her gender, too, being significantly more concerned with the fact that she was a teenager. 

“Who are your other top five spidermen?” asked Poppy, grabbing another chimichanga. Wade didn’t make a ton of sense, but damn, he had good taste in mexican food.

“Two of them are guys I slept with, one was basically just me and had no problems with killing people, and the other one was a cartoon pig. You’re the only one I’ve mentored though, so I hope you feel special.” said Wade. 

“I—you know what, sure I do feel special, I just also feel very confused.” admitted Poppy, pulling her mask back on. 

“Good! How’s your boringly-murder-free existence going?” Inquired Wade

“Eh, it could be worse. School’s easy, dance is great, I’m still not old enough to drink.”

“Could you even get drunk with your weird spider-powers?” asked Wade, interested.

“I’m not sure.” said Poppy honestly. She’d had wine for religious holidays when she was little, but never enough to get drunk. 

“I’m torn between being extremely curious and extremely sure that you should not try because you might die and that would suck for both of us.” said Wade. 

“I’m not planning on trying it anytime soon.” said Poppy. She had no intention of dying. 

“Probably the best move, spidey. I’ve got some places to be, you should go home, do… something. I don’t know. Just don’t sit on the edge of this building looking depressed, okay?” said Wade looking genuinely concerned. 

“Okay. I’m going home. Bye, thanks for the food.” said Poppy, slipping the hood over her head and flexing her wrist to shoot webs.

“Any time webs, see ya.” said Wade, waving. 

And Poppy swung back home, arriving way to early to get ready for school. Another three hours of time to kill, oh joy. 

Chapter Text

“I’m not a soldier 

but I’m fighting

Can you hear me through the silence?”—We'll meet again, Laura Brehm

Somehow, despite regularly fighting criminals and aliens, Poppy was a bit nervous about ballet auditions. She tried not to show it, of course, but she was a little on edge when she and Hannah arrived at the studio that Wednesday, and the older girl noticed. Before they could get out of the car, Hannah reached over, squeezed Poppy’s shoulder gently, and said “You’ve got this, kiddo.”

“I-I don’t know if I do.” replied Poppy honestly.

“Do you trust me?” Asked Hannah, green-gray eyes gazing intensely.

“Yeah.” mumbled Poppy. It was true enough; Despite her driving habits and lighthearted nature, Hannah was pretty reliable.

“Okay, and I trust you, so by extension, you’ve gotta trust yourself, alright?” Hannah sounded pretty serious, for once.

“I can’t find one,” said Poppy. “But I’m sure there’s a flaw in that argument.”

Hanna smiled.“ There’s the snarky Penelope I know and love. If you can’t find a flaw in my argument, there’s probably not one, because you’re a genius. I’m not gonna wish you luck since you don’t need it because you’ve got all the skills and talent you need. Ready to go inside?” she asked.

“I think so, yeah. Thank you.” said Poppy, opening the car door. 

“Anytime, sweetheart.” replied Hannah. 

Hannah’s pep talk calmed Poppy a lot, and the warm up helped as well, so by the time her name was called, Poppy was ready. 

“Number 5, Penelope Parker. Christening fairy. Please perform a piece of classic repertoire ballet from our selections, en pointe.” Called the administrator.

Poppy walked onto the dance floor, no longer nervous. 

She performed a variation of The Snow Queen’s dance, short and sweet. 

The lack of music didn’t even matter, she’d practiced this dance hundreds of times, since she'd been the understudy for the Snow Queen in The Nutcracker. Now it was just her and the dance, and the three minutes went by in a blur of spins and jumps and pirouettes. 

She was almost out of breath by the end of it, and curtsied once before leaving, not even bothering to observe the teacher and administrators reactions. This was it. Class had been canceled because of Auditions, and now… Poppy was done. 

The senior auditions had taken place on Tuesday, so Hannah had watched Poppy’s piece and was waiting for her in the dressing room when Poppy got there. 

“You fucking aced that piece, kid, Felicity   was impressed.” Felicity was also a senior, and the only level eight at the entire school, having been dancing since she was four. 

“You’re gonna get the part, and I really hope you’re ready for the rehearsals.” continued Hannah, pulling her coverups on. 

Oh. Fuck. Rehearsals. Poppy hadn’t even thought of that. Morgan… no. There wasn’t time for this right now. Because Poppy’s phone had just buzzed, with the ringtone she used for her spider-man account. Wonderful timing. Absolutely magnificent. Actually, there was no point in jinxing it; the situation could probably be worse, and at least she’d been able to finish the audition. She could worry about how well she’d done later. Right now, Poppy had to leave. Quickly. 

“You’ve got a ride back home, right?” asked Hannah, zipping her bag up.

“Um, yeah, I do.”

“Great, bye! See you Saturday, miss about-to-be-a-christening-fairy.”

“Yep, thanks!” Poppy’s voice sounded calmer than she felt. 

She left the studio and checked her phone. In the few minutes since the first notification, an entire conversation had played out. She read through it quickly. 

Captain America : We’ve got a location and confirmation of presence, engagement tonight, convene at the tower as soon as possible for further instructions.

Brown Widow: What does that even say? I learned English so I could understand Americans, that is not english. 

Ironman: That’s military-talk, not english.

Brown Widow: But what does it say? We are not soldiers. Say it in english.

Black Widow: I’m with her.

Hawkeye: It means that we know where the guy is and we’re attacking his base tonight, so everyone needs to show up at the tower pretty quickly so we can figure out a plan.

Black Widow: Thanks. 

Spider-Man: I’ll be there in twenty. Two questions though. One: Where exactly in the tower am I supposed to go? Two: Approximately how long is this going to take? (I’d like to inform my SO how long I’ll be gone.)

Ironman: I’ll meet you at the top balcony, you can’t miss it. I don’t actually know what the plan is, so ask Cap about the other thing. He’s the one in charge. 

Black Widow: Tony he’s literally on this group chat.

Captain America: Spider-Man, it shouldn’t take more than ten to thirty hours. Also, the team has completely given up on professionalism, so brace yourself. 

Spider-Man: Thanks. 

Poppy took the subway back to her apartment, called MJ to let her know what was up, and was about to hang up and text Morgan’s daycare to let them know that Morgan would be staying overnight, when MJ spoke again. 

“ Wait. Is your sister going to stay overnight at daycare? I can pick her up if you want, she’ll feel safer at my house. I-I don’t want it to be like last time, if it…” She trailed off. 

“Okay, that’s… that would be great, MJ. You know the address, yeah?” Poppy said, trying to sound casual. 

“I do.”

“I’ll text them so they’ll let you pick her up. Thanks for this, babe.”

“Of course. It’s something for me to do, anyway.”

“Yeah. Love you, bye.”

“Love you too.”

After the call to Morgan’s daycare and a brief conversation with Morgan herself, Poppy left the apartment. She swung to the avengers tower in four minutes flat, and sure enough, there was Ironman, suited up in 

“Hey Spiderling. Follow me, I think the Widows are already inside with Cap.”

“ Ok .” She signed. 

“Oh, that reminds me, we use comms on missions, but your secret identity is a thing, so I got you a voice modifier attachment.” he said, handing the comm to her. 

Poppy nodded, and inspected the device.

“There is a tracker, and also you should know that there’s a panic button if you’re about to die.” 

“Thank you, sir.” she said, voice modifier now in effect. The mechanical sound of her words was almost startling. 

“Jesus christ, drop the sir, we’re friends , spider kid.” said Iron Man.

“Right. Sorry.” 

They entered the conference room and saw that Captain America and the Widows were indeed there, fully suited up and ready to go.

“Spider-Man. Thanks for joining us. Quinjet leaves in five, we’ll review the plan on the way, but it’s nothing complicated.” 

The plan was, in fact, very simple. Cap and the widows handled damage mitigation, Ironman and Spider-Man engaged directly with the vulture.

It was a plan that couldn't fail, and it didn’t, except for one little thing. Poppy avoided being crushed by broken pillars, (which was, by the way, a shit plan on the vulture’s part, to break his own fucking warehouse). IronMan had to help her a couple times, but she helped him as well, and as usual, they worked well together. The vulture was secured quickly, with fairly little trouble, because five against one was an easy fight.

The man was unconscious but not dead. The only issue was that with the collapsed pillars, the air was full of rubble, and now Poppy couldn’t breathe. 

Since none of the avengers were nearby, all working on investigating the warehouse, she took off the mask, just to avoid suffocation. 

Just then, the familiar buzz of repulsors appeared behind her. 

Fuck.

Chapter Text

"If the men find out we can shapeshift, they're going to tell the church"-Contouring, Sailor J

“Parker?” Ironman lowered hovered just above the ground and flipped the helmet up, staring at her. 

“Yep.”

Poppy cursed herself, pulling the mask back on purely for comfort. This was only a minor setback, she had a contingency plan. For once, IronMan seemed at a loss, so she spoke instead.

“No one will believe you if you say anything, I’ve got allies, and I don’t want to fight, but I can’t let this get out. I’ve got people to protect, and if you threaten me, I’ve got ways of putting a stop to it.” Her voice sounded mechanical, and she was glad, because otherwise it might have betrayed more emotion.

“Who said anything about our wanting to reveal your identity in the first place? Honestly kid, I’m mostly just impressed. Can the team know?” he asked.

“Fine. Not the public though.” Stark was the worst one anyway, the others may as well know.

He nodded. “Let’s get back to the quinjet and figure it out from there.” A moment later, Captain America's voice came over the comms. “Avengers, report.” 

“The documents are secured, undamaged, but my sister inhaled a lot of smoke, obtaining them in the fire. She passed out a couple seconds ago, still hasn’t come back, though the poisoning shouldn’t be anything close to lethal.” That was Black Widow, somewhere in the rubble. She sounded calm, but the type of calm that could be faked.  The Widows had been charged with finding evidence of the deals, for legal purposes, and any plans for weapons that could cause issues if not disposed of safely.

“Get her back to the jet, I’ll meet you there, I’ve got the vulture detained, unconscious from the fall. Stark, report.” Captain America again.

“Spiderling and I are heading back, no serious injuries, the vulture's weird wingsuit is completely disabled.” Said Tony quickly. It had been extremely annoying to break the wingsuit while dodging a collapsing and burning warehouse, but the actual technology was no match for Spider-Man or Ironman individually, let alone the pair together. They arrived back at the quinjet, and Poppy was reminded of the issue. No, not an issue. Minor setback.

“Nice work team, that went faster than expected.” said Captain America.

“Also more unpleasant than expected.” said Brown Widow, her thickly accented voice tinged with fatigue. She’d pushed her chair so far back that she was almost lying down.

“Yeah. Why the hell did this place catch on fire? Metal isn’t supposed to be flammable.” said Black Widow, cleaning a knife. 

“Grease fire. Next time we’re on a mission, I’m giving everyone gas masks.” Said Ironman, stepping out of the suit. 

“That would have been great on this mission so I didn’t have to faint getting those stupid documents.” said Brown Widow, cleaning a knife.

“Hindsight is twenty twenty. Let’s be glad it wasn’t worse.” said Ironman—Well, now he was Tony Stark, really.

“You’re not the one who passed out.” muttered Brown Widow.

“True. I am the one that just found out the spiderlings identity though, and we should deal with that.” 

“You’re right. We should. I’m Poppy, nice to meet you all.” said Poppy, taking her mask off. If one avenger knew, they may as well all know, so she could at least be dramatic and cool about the reveal. Besides, the stakes were pretty low.

“Damn, nice job with the multi-layered disguise, spider-man.” said Black Widow, smirking. Okay, that seemed safe. Good. One down. Poppy glanced at the others. Tony looked bemused. Brown Widow looked bored. Captain Rogers looked... tense? Not angry, probably. Poppy elected to respond to Black Widow's comment. 

“Thank you, Miss Romanoff. Honestly, it wasn’t intentional, the press just started calling me that, and I was like ‘wow, okay, no point in correcting them. Also, spidergirl sounds immature, and that’s what they would call me.” explained Poppy, honestly. She kept her voice steady, even casual. No point in betraying her anxiety, (which she wasn't even feeling, by the way, because she was not scared of the avengers, because they were good and the fact that she was in an enclosed space with two adult men was not scary at all, because she was fine.)

“Sexism. Wonderful.” Brown Widow muttered dryly. 

“Yep.”

“Ironic that of all the people to be under the mask, it’s someone I already know.” mused Stark.

“Wait, how do you know her?” asked Black Widow, suddenly on edge. 

“She’s my intern.” said Tony, as if it was obvious. 

“Your intern?”

“Yeah, I’ve mentioned her before, so’s Bruce. This isn’t new information, Nat.” he said impatiently.

“I recall you mentioning an intern, but from what I remember, she was in highschool.” said Black Widow, venomously. 

“I’m sorry, you’re a minor?” asked Cap, really more surprised than he should have been, because Poppy didn't look much older than her real age

“Yes.”

“Jesus. Okay. I’m sorry for involving you in potentially life-threatening missions, we actually do oppose child soldiers.” he said, and Poppy couldn’t read any emotions beyond shock. Hmm. Safe for now.

“I know, I chose this. But if you try to stop me by exposing my identity, I’ll die a hell of a lot faster than the job can kill me right now. Spiderman has enemies, enemies that could go for my friends, could go for my family.” she said. Really her only blood family was Morgan, but they didn't need to know that.

“You’re misunderstanding here. we’re not going to expose your identity to anyone, because despite our opinions of child soldiers, vigilante business is different. We all have reasons for why we do what we do. If you've kept this up this long, I see no point in trying to convince you to stop. Generally, the avengers have no interest in interfering with spiderman. It’s just a problem of you facing avengers-level threats. Even still, there is no world in which we are revealing your identity.”

Natasha raised a finger. “Actually, I’m going to be completely honest with you, Spider-Girl, we do have to tell Fury, and he might have an issue with it, because child soldiers are extremely fucked up.” said the spy, apologetically. 

“It’s not an issue. Fury already knows,” responded Poppy, truthfully.

“ What? ” That was Stark. 

“Yeah, he’s known it for a while; I told him before I started,” explained Poppy.

“And he was fine with it?” said Natasha, her voice bordering on venomous. Releasing that it did actually sound like she was a child soldier, (black widow’s all-time least-favorite thing), Poppy hurried to clarify.

“Fury’s a family friend. Owes my mom a couple favors, but can’t really do anything important for her, so he’s paying it back to me, it’s not—he doesn’t send me on missions, he just helps me with stuff.” Mary and Richard Parker had been top shield agents, and had died on a mission when Poppy was nine and Morgan eleven months. Fury had gone to the funeral, and checked on Poppy and Morgan every couple months since their parents death, (though that had changed to meetings at least every other week since Poppy had become spider-man)

“Riiiiiight. So he’s ‘helping’ you, by letting you fight crime in spandex?” said Stark sarcastically. Poppy pushed aside the mild annoyance, reminding herself that from his point of view she was a child soldier, and that was a valid thing to be angry about, so she would just have to go into more detail about the reality of the situation. 

“Fury helped by setting me up with some training, keeping my identity secure, and letting me do my own vigilante thing without recruiting me to SHIELD. Also, it’s not spandex, actually, it’s nylon and kevlar. Fury actually helped with that as well. He said he didn’t have a problem with me fighting crime, but he would have a problem with me getting killed, which is .. honestly fair.” Fury was the first person Poppy had gone to after she’d gotten the powers. 

“That was not what I expected,” said Black Widow.

“Yeah me neither. Fury never struck me as a kid kinda guy.” said Captain America

“Fury likes Clint’s children.” Brown Widow pointed out. 

“Everyone likes Clint's kids, they’re wonderful.” said Black Widow

“Tony’s not usually a kids person either,” Added captain Rogers

“Yeah, anyway, Fury knows, he and I have an agreement” concluded Poppy

“Alright, spider-man. You keep doing your thing, we’re not going to get in the way, though I’d love to work with you on webslinging-related tech projects if you’re ever interested." What. "A new suit, for example, not that there’s anything wrong with yours, but nanotechnology tends to be better for bullet resistance.” He continued. There was a playful edge to his voice.

“Great, thanks. I might take you up on that.” said Poppy.

“I hope you do. I haven’t had anything fun to build since finishing Cap’s boyfriend’s new prosthetic arm.”

“Damn, Tony, you don’t have to out him like that.” said Black Widow dryly. 

“Nat, everyone here knows Bucky and Steve are dating, except the kid.”

“If it helps, I’d guessed that they were together,” said Poppy.

“How? It’s not like Barnes is very well known to the public…” said Black Widow

“Sure, but I knew he was alive, and that they were ‘ Inseparable on schoolyard and battlefield’ . Historians just don't like admitting that not everyone is straight.” said Poppy. Casual. 

"It's not even like you and Tony were never... together, Rogers," said Brown Widow. 

"'Lena. Child. Right there." Captain Rogers sounded tired.

So. Anticlimactic identity reveal. But it hadn't been a disaster. 

Chapter Text

"You can put your strength down. I’m sitting here with you at your kitchen table. You don’t need to say anything.” — Prompts for the broken hearted

The fight itself had been brief, but it was past three fifteen AM by the time the quijet landed at the Avengers tower. It was four-thirty by the time Poppy got home (stopping several crimes on the way), showered, had a panic attack, showered again, and finally checked the time. 

Way too late to pick Morgan up, and dammit, today was an internship day, so she wouldn’t see Morgan for hours, and she was a terrible sister, and what if something happened and — wait. No. Morgan wasn’t at daycare. She was with MJ.

MJ who had probably not slept tonight, remembering the last mission Poppy had helped the avengers on overnight. 

But the Avengers no longer seemed interested in her now that they knew her age, which was… fine. It would have been better to have kept her identity secret, of course, but at least they had reacted somewhat reasonably. And no one else knew, which was good. The avengers kept to themselves, a tight-knit, isolated team, and they would not expose her identity. 

The fact that they no longer wanted her help since she was a child was mildly disappointing, but understandable. The alliance was over, for the time being, though Poppy might eventually join SHIELD as an adult.

She focused on the fact that this meant MJ wouldn't have to worry as much about missions. Sarah was on a work trip again, so Poppy left the empty apartment and went to MJ’s house, not bothering to knock or anounce herself, even though MJ was probably still up. Poppy made her way through the dark house, which looked like an interior design show room. As predicted, MJ herself was awake, sitting at the kitchen table, head down, both hands curled around a cup of coffee. Poppy didn't think about how many cups of coffee MJ had probably gone through already. 

“Hey M, it’s me.” she said, sitting down across from her. 

“Fuck you.” MJ said quietly. 

“I’m sorry.” MJ was hurt, and it was Poppy's fault. 

“Yeah, so am I, flower.” said MJ, voice ragged. 

“Is the baby asleep?” Poppy diverted. This conversation wouldn’t be fun, and she didn’t want Morgan to see it. 

“Yeah, passed out at seven last night, totally bought my explanation of what was going on. She’ll be thrilled to have you home this morning.” MJ’s gaze remained fixed on her coffee. 

“Are you not happy to see me?” Poppy teased lightly. Sarcasm was safer, for the hard talks. 

“I am, you know I am. I just—I can’t stop thinking about the last time you left, and you said you’d come back and then you almost didn’t and—” MJ finally, looked up, eyes red-rimmed from tears. Fuck.

“Yeah, I remember, breathe, M, it’s okay, I’m here now.” Gently, she guided MJ to the sofa, and sat next to her, close enough to feel the other girl's heartbeat. MJ’s eyes were closed, breathing ragged, and Poppy knew there was no point in talking to her, the important thing was just being there. MJ was caught up in the memories, the pain. 

Poppy, too, remembered the whole ordeal in poisonously vivid detail. She remembered the fight with hydra in January, barely weeks after winter break. She remembered how she’d thought she was going to die. She remembered her phone conversation with Morgan, and then with MJ, who’d been babysitting her. Like tonight. Fuck, this was triggering for Poppy too, and it had been worse for MJ. The half-repressed memory came for her full force, and Poppy was too tired to fight it off. 

“Hey Morgz, how are you doing?” 

Breathe in. 

Breathe out. 

Relax. 

For Morgan.

If the shit hit the fan, Morgan deserved her last memory of Poppy to be a good one. Really, Morgan deserved so much better than this, but Poppy couldn’t give her what she deserved, because HYDRA was HYDRA, and Poppy was stupid, and—No, focus .

Breathe.

For Morgan. 

“Good! I drew a bunny.” Morgan had been obsessed with animals recently, leaving her geology phase behind. Poppy didn’t let herself be upset that she might not see her little sister's next fixation. 

“Awesome. I’m sure you did a great job, I’d love to see it when I get back.” She didn’t let herself say “If I get back”. Morgan needed her to be strong. This was the only way. 

“Mhmm! You’ll be home soon?”

“I hope so, mi cielita. I’m doing everything I can, I promise. Can I talk to MJ?” 

“Sure.”

“Thank you, sweetheart. I love you so, so much, always.”

Morgan giggled. “I love you 4000, Nellie, here’s MJ.” Poppy could hear the smile in her sister's voice, and had to swallow a sob. Those would be good last words, at least. Objective A, complete.

“Hey. Poppy.” MJ’s voice was quiet, soft. 

“MJ?”

“Yeah. Is it bad?” 

“Yeah, MJ, listen, this fight is insane, and I—I might not come home. I want to talk to you, which is sort of selfish, I guess, because I wanted to hear your voice, but there’s also a couple of things I need to tell you, okay?”

“Okay. I’m listening. Morgan can’t hear you.” Good.

“I-I just want to say I’m sorry, for everything I’ve done wrong, and let you know that I forgive you for the mistakes you made, and thank you, for everything you’ve done right, because you do so many things right, and I really appreciate that, so much more than I can say, because you're amazing and wonderful and our relationship is one of the best things in my life. And I, I'm doing my best to win and, to, get back, get back to you, and, if I don’t win, you can deal with it however you need to, and I promise that I won’t be angry, but I need you to know that I tried, that I’m trying, even if it doesn’t end how it should.” 

She sucked in a ragged breath, torn between wishing she could talk to MJ forever, and wanting just to be done with this call and get killed by the fucking winter soldier or the maximoff twins. No, not yet. There was more to say. MJ was waiting for her to continue. Poppy forced herself to go on. This was the hardest part. Apologies were hard, sure, but this? This was impossible. Poppy said it anyway.

“I-I want to say that I love you, and I’ve only said that to a couple people, but I do love you, and I owe it to you to talk properly, and alive, one last time, and I need you to give Morgan to our foster agent, and give her some of my old stuff, please, and I hope you’ll be okay, and mint chip ice cream is still the best, but if you need to cope by eating your weird carmel one with the stupidly long name, that’s okay too, because I love you, and—” 

She cut off with a sob. Fuck. This was too hard. MJ’s voice, calm but with a note of pain that only Poppy could have recognized. 

“Nell, please breathe. Do your best, I’ll be okay, and I’ll keep Morgan safe for you, promise. I trust you to do what you need to do, even though you like ice cream that tastes like toothpaste.”

“It does not.” Somehow, it was the banter that stuck, not any of the heartfelt shit. Then again, it was better that way, maybe. 

“Agree to disagree.”

“Yeah.” MJ’s voice was barely more than a whisper. Poppy knew that she was trying to be strong enough for both of them, but fuck, they were teenagers, and this was too hard, and… fuck.

 “I have to go now, I love you, M.”

“Love you too, Poppy.”

And it had been fine, in the end, because the Maximoff’s had turned out to be under the influence of mind control, and they snapped out of it before doing too much damage, thanks mostly to Black Widow being observant, and Hawkeye’s parenting skills. But Poppy had thought she was going to die, and MJ had been scared, and stayed with Poppy anyway, even though she could easily have just broken up with her, because they’d only been together for five months. They’d been closer since then, too, having a shared trauma on top of all their individual ones. But it was still awful, and Poppy could only guess how MJ had felt, and no one could have blamed her for leaving, because it was fucking stressful to be a vigilante’s SO. And Poppy probably shouldn’t be in a relationship with MJ, not when both their (admittedly neglectful), respective guardians were homophobic, but MJ was MJ, and they were best friends, and without each other, there was no one. 

Poppy had known Ned since elementary school, and Jacob and Betty since middle school, but Poppy couldn’t be close with most of them, because while they had been worried about movie release dates and algebra tests, she’d been worried about keeping Morgan safe from their foster parents.

While they spent their generous allowances on ice cream and action figures, Poppy had spent her hard-earned pocket money on boxed mac n cheese and frozen vegetables, and still went hungry to keep Morgan well fed. 

MJ…MJ was more like Poppy than she was like the others.. Her parents divorce and her mother’s drinking problem had forced her to grow up, and while Poppy really wished that stuff hadn’t happened to her, it did make MJ possible to relate to. They’d both been through some fucked up shit, and they still had problems, but now they could deal with issues together. And right now, that meant sitting on MJ’s couch at five-fucking-AM, both silent. In the quiet, with nothing to distract her, other memories swirled around in Poppy’s mind, blurring together. 

She was eight, sitting at the hospital and waiting for her mother, keeping herself occupied reading science papers, and then holding her baby sister for the first time, and swearing to always protect her. 

She was nine years old and just learning of her parents death, sitting in Uncle Ben’s living room, holding a not-yet-walking Morgan, desperately wishing for someone to help her. 

Poppy was ten, coming home excited to tell her aunt and uncle about moving up to level three at dance, only to realize that Ben was still at work and May was passed out on the sofa, whether from cannabis or sheer exhaustion, she hadn’t been able to tell. 

A part of her was still stuck a week after turning eleven, yanking a barely walking Morgan away from the muggers that killed Ben and May, still flooded with horror at her first sight of death. Shielding Morgan from bullets and knowledge, answering social workers, handling everything with more courage than she felt. That part wished for a quiet place alone, to scream and cry and punch a pillow. 

Another part, twelve and a half, and numb with terror, hiding a toddler Morgan in a closet after singing her to sleep, wanted to take her sister somewhere safe and leave everyone behind, and never be around anyone with a drink again, but instead stayed rooted to the floor, putting up with slaps across the face and broken glass embedded in her arm, reminding herself that it was for Morgan.

Then there was Poppy at thirteen, no longer shocked or afraid, used to the harsh realities of the world by then, glad she and Morgan were no longer with Tyler. She’d had almost three months of reprieve before being bitten. That part wanted to just not have the powers anymore, because this was too hard, and she didn’t want any of it, not when she’d just gotten safe. 

Now, at fourteen, she was a nesting doll of each year, each month, each day. Every experience and emotion and desire washed over her again, like wave after wave after wave, and she was close to drowning.

Breathe in.

Breathe out. 

Smile. 

For MJ.

For Morgan. 

It was fine. Her fourteenth year of life had gone well, so far. 

Poppy didn’t think about fifteen.

But she thought about sixteen, and getting her high school diploma, and enrollment in community college, and buying her own apartment with her SI salary and graphic design freelance work. Sixteen would be good. Would be safe. 

Permanency plan.

Just keep going, follow the plan. 

Focus.

Mj's breathing had steadied somewhat, but not fully, and Poppy dragged herself out of the flashbacks. The last thing her girlfriend needed was to have to calm Poppy down right now. 

Poppy was not about to be killed on a HYDRA mission.

She was not being hit by Tyler.

She was not bleeding out on Deadpool’s floor, or throwing up in the bathroom alone, terrified of the powers. 

She was not in a social workers office, being questioned by too many people. She was not being stabbed by glass or knives or frigid cold.

She was not in any danger. She was fine. 

Fuck, weird timing, but Poppy really hadn’t noticed how many traumatic events she’d been through, but none of them were happening right now. Breathe in. Breathe out. Relax. Repeat. Poppy tried to think of better memories. Memories of her parents when they were alive, memories of every dance recital she'd ever been in, memories of Ben and May, nowhere near perfect but always doing their best, and her favorite memories, memories of time with MJ and Morgan, being happy together. Poppy remembered the conversation, back in late october, when she and MJ had been dating for a couple weeks, and MJ had asked to make it official. 

“Hey Nell?”

“Yeah?”

“Wanna be my historical close friend?”

“Sure. You mean like “roommates” and “colleagues” and “confidants””

“My thoughts exactly, Poppy.”

“I’ve never had a girlfriend before.”

“Same, first time for everything I guess.”

“Cool, are you out?”

“I’m willing to be. ”

“Same, but not to my foster parents.”

“Okay. If you tell my mom about this, I’ll fight you and win.”

“Fair enough.”

Poppy kept her focus on the good memories, and keeping her breathing steady. MJ and Poppy stayed there for a long time, and at six thirty, MJ finally spoke. 

"Let's go wake the princess up. Also, I'm making pancakes for breakfast and you can't stop me."

Poppy smiled. "I would never think to try. Also, the avengers found out my identity."

"You're kidding." 

"I'm not."

"What are you going to do about it?" asked MJ bluntly.

"Nothing. Fury knows." Poppy reassured her. 

"Oh, right, nevermind. When are you meeting with him again?"

"This weekend." said Poppy. In truth, she'd only just remembered that herself.

"That'll be fun." said MJ sarcastically. 

"Super fun. I'm gonna wake Morgan up, you go... make pancakes on a school morning. I'm not going to question it."

"Good." said Mj, tossing her hair and heading to the kitchen. Poppy pretended not to notice that MJ's eyes were bloodshot from tears and lack of sleep. MJ pretended not to notice the new scrapes and bruises Poppy's skin was sporting after the fight with the Vulture. There was no point in mentioning it. Shit was hard, but they were together, and safe, and that was so, so worth everything.

Chapter Text

“But I’ve never seen the Icarus story as a lesson about the limitations of humans. I see it as a lesson about the limitations of wax as an adhesive.” ― Randall Munroe, What If?

Poppy entered MJ’s room, to the sight of Morgan curled up on the trundle bed, clutching one of Poppy’s hoodies. Her heart twisted painfully. 

“Time to wake up, princess.” she said softly. 

“MJ?” mumbled Morgan, face still hidden in the fabric.

“No, little miss. It’s Poppy, MJ’s downstairs.”

“Nellie?” Morgan’s little voice stung Poppy in a way she couldn’t explain. 

“Yeah, it’s me.” she soothed. 

“Missed you.” Morgan grabbed at Poppy’s leg, still partially asleep. Poppy sat down on the bed, gently pulling Morgan upright beside her. 

“I missed you too, but we gotta get ready to leave soon.” said Poppy, stroking her sister's hair. 

“No. Wanna be with you, ‘m cold” she mumbled into Poppy’s shirt.

“Honey… I’ve got school and work today, but we can watch a movie tonight, if you want. How does that sound?” asked Poppy.

“No, wanna be with you, too cold, wanna sleep.” Morgan lay down again. Fuck, the kid wasn’t usually this fussy, unless… damnit. Morgan was sick. 

“Okay, baby girl, let’s see if you have a fever, okay?”

“Mkay, don’t want you to leave.” mumbled Morgan.

“I’m not leaving, I promise.” Poppy didn’t think about how many false promises she herself had been given. This was about Morgan. 

Poppy held a hand to her own forehead, then Morgan’s, and, yep, the little girl was burning up. Great, wonderful, amazing timing there. Morgan was burning up with fever, and Poppy hadn’t been there all night while her sister suffered, and, and it was–It was pointless to worry about it now. 

Okay. 

Game plan. 

Panic rules. 

Morgan was hurt, that was bad, Poppy had to help. 

She grabbed a thermometer from MJ’s bathroom. Held it up to Morgan’s forehead, Morgan didn’t even acknowledge anything, just shivering. 102.1 degrees. Okay, not hospital-dangerous. Just… bad. Poppy wanted to hug Morgan close and comfort her sister, but she had to be practical.

It was a school day… fuck. 

Okay, Poppy could ditch school just once, bullshit some excuse, they were forgiving with foster kids. Sarah’s signature was easy to forge, given that Poppy had never used the woman’s real signature, instead faking it on every paper ever. 

Okay, good plan, get Morgan back to Sarah’s apartment, ditch school… fuck, what about the internship? She’d deal with that later.

For now, Morgan was the most important thing. Poppy didn’t think about how to get Morgan back to Sarah’s apartment. No way in hell was she taking her sick sister on public transit, but it was a long walk… fuck. 

“Alright, cielita, I’m gonna go downstairs and get you some medicine to help that fever. I’m not leaving you, okay?”

Morgan said nothing, and Poppy couldn’t tell if it was the sickness or just the emotions making her nonverbal, but it hardly mattered, and it was all Poppy’s fault, and… Morgan lifted her arms in a wordless request to be picked up. Morgan needed comfort. 

Poppy carried her sister downstairs and set her in a living room chair. Morgan whined at the loss of contact but did nothing else. Fuck, she was sick. Just then, MJ walked in from the kitchen, holding a plate of waffles. 

“Hey, babe, what’s up with you?”

“Just stressed, Morgan’s got a fever, and I’m not taking her to daycare, which means I need to ditch school, and go back to our foster mother’s apartment, only I’m not quite sure Morgan’s up to being outside for that long, and—” Poppy cut herself off. Better to say nothing than to betray the depths of her panic. 

“Hey, breathe. Chill. I’m sure as fuck not going to school after last night, and the baby’s in no state to go anywhere, clearly. She was okay when I checked on her at like 2AM, it’s probably fine. Here’s my brilliant plan: You both stay here, and we all take a rest day.” said MJ.

“Okay, Em, that’s… fair… thank you.” Poppy sighed. 

“Any time. Not like I want to be alone right now either, not after… anyway, Ghibli movies and comfort food?” asked MJ. 

“Yeah. That’s a good idea.”

“I have all the best ideas. Such as making waffles.” MJ replied, shoving a plate of waffles at Poppy. They sat in the living room, entangled with each other so that all three heartbeats became a single steady thrum. 

Safety. 

Family. 

Comfort. 

Calm. 

Morgan didn’t eat anything, but Poppy managed to get her to drink water and juice, and the fever didn’t seem to get worse. 

 It was after lunch that Poppy realized the risk of being there with MJ.

“Wait, what if Morgan gets you sick–” she was cut off. 

“Poppy. Penelope. Nell. Babe. Love of my life—” started MJ

“This relationship is the first time either of us has ever dated anyone.” Poppy pointed out.

“So what?” challenged MJ. 

“So maybe that’s a bit excessive?” teased Poppy.

“Not in the slightest, babe. And technically, it’s not my first. I dated a boy in middle school, but we broke up when we both realised we were gay–Remind me to tell you that story at some point.”

“I think I might have heard it already. Was that Henry? The one that transferred back east?” Poppy vaguely remembered the story, from a conversation on her second or third official date with MJ, when they’d discussed their "queer awakenings"

“Harry, but yeah, getting back to the point, because dear god you have ADHD, Nell—” said MJ

“And you don’t?” Poppy interrupted, which might have actually been proving the adhd point.

“I’m not diagnosed—” MJ began. 

“Yay parental neglect. But we both know you still have adhd.” interrupted Poppy, again. Yeah, this was definitely proof of ADHD, whatever. 

“Oh, fuck off.” bantered MJ.

“Watch your language, Em, there’s a baby .” retorted Poppy.

“She's asleep.” Morgan was, in fact, asleep, and had been for hours. 

“Fair enough. And you do have adhd.” said Poppy.

“Yes, I do, and someday I’ll get diagnosed and treated, but for now, we have to suffer the consequences of both being unmedicated neurodivergents, such as roundabout conversations.” said MJ

“Yeah.”

“So, as I was saying before we went on six consecutive tangents–” continued MJ

“You were counting ?” interrupted Poppy. MJ glared at her playfully. 

“ Yeah , I was. So, like I was saying, I was already in close contact with Morgan last night, so if I get sick, there’s nothing to be done about it.” 

“Okay, good point.” 

They stayed on the couch, together, MJ against Poppy’s shoulder, Morgan curled up sideways with her head on Poppy’s lap. 

Thankfully, Morgan’s fever broke an hour or so after lunch (sandwiches for Poppy and MJ, a popsicle for Morgan). 

Poppy debated whether or not to go to her internship. 

On one hand, Morgan was sick and needed comfort. On the other, the fever had broken and Poppy really shouldn’t just ditch one of the most powerful men on the planet. But also, Poppy couldn’t take Morgan to daycare, or back to the apartment.  Poppy’s debate ended abruptly, when MJ looked up from her book. 

“You’ve got work today, right?” asked MJ

“I-Yeah, I do.” said Poppy.

“I’ll take care of Morgan, it’s only a couple hours.” said MJ, not asking.

“You’re amazing and wonderful and I love you.” resplied Poppy. 

“Wow, be honest for once won’t you?” teased MJ.

“Oh, sorry, you’re terrible and absolute scum” said Poppy sarcastically. 

“Hmm. You too, beloved. Anyway, you should get ready to infiltrate the business place of the rich.” said MJ. 

“Lovely idea.” 

One last forehead kiss, and a hug, and Poppy left. 

The subway ride to the Avengers Tower was boring, and stressful, and Poppy was glad to reach her destination. She made her way to Dr Stark’s private lab. 

Despite the awkwardness the first few times Poppy had been there, she’d grown familiar with it, and the loud rock music and scent of motor oil was now as normal as the atmosphere of her old lab, which she only visited once a week. 

Dr Stark himself was still… difficult to understand, but she’d settled on the tentative theory that he was just really-fucking-weird but also cool, kind of like Wade. At any rate, he wasn’t a threat, and he didn’t even scare Poppy that much, not anymore (Not more than all adults did, anyway). 

The Russian former-spy leaning casually against his work table, however, was startling. But since Dr Stark was nowhere to be seen, Poppy had to figure that out somehow. Besides, if Black Widow wanted to kill her, Poppy would know already. 

“Excuse me, Ms Romanoff?” Poppy kept her voice steady. It was harder than usual.

“What—Oh, spider girl, . You’re here for your science thing with Tony?” She looked bored, but not angry. 

“Yeah.”

“Cool, he’s in a meeting right now, it ends in like 20 minutes.” Black Widow informed her, cleaning a knife. 

“Thank you, Ms Romanoff,” said Poppy. 

“Enough of that.” she waved the knife, not threateningly, just casually. As one does. 

“Sorry?” Enough of what? Being polite? Speaking english?

“Don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate you being polite, but given the situation, we don’t need formalities. Call me Natasha.” she said.

“Okay, if you don’t mind me asking, Miss Natasha, why are you in here right now?” Politeness. Professionalism. Respect. 

“Jesus, no, just Natasha, hell, call me Nat, but don’t be polite, the only people that address me formally are either insufferable, or out to kill me. Bad associations. And I’m waiting for my boyfriend, who is currently absorbed in a project, to be finished so we can go to dinner.” she said easily. 

“Oh, where is he?” asked Poppy. 

“Right over there, in the chem lab. Working on something that I don’t understand, even though he’s tried to explain it to me like fifteen times.” she rolled her eyes.

“Oh.”

“You know Bruce, right?” asked Black Widow–Natasha. 

“We’ve worked together a couple times, yeah.” Dr Banner and Dr Stark worked on a lot of the same projects, so Poppy had met Dr Banner while working with Dr Stark. 

“He’s mentioned you. Tony talks about you a lot, but he talks about everything. Bruce was impressed, clearly, and that’s rare, in our line of work.” said Natasha, wryly.

Poppy was unsure what she was supposed to do with that information, or how to respond, so she settled for a smile and a nod, and left to help Dr Banner 

He greeted her politely, and explained the project he was working on. Poppy mentioned that Natasha was waiting for him, and offered to finish wrapping up the project while she waited for Dr Stark. Dr Banner accepted her offer, and left. Poppy finished Dr Banner’s almost-completed project, returning to the main lab and screwing around for a few minutes before Dr Stark entered, looking entirely undisturbed by her presence.

“Hey Parker, long time no see, did you sleep at all?” he asked easily. 

“Not a bit, Dr Stark,” said Poppy easily.

“Would it kill you to call me Tony?” he shot back. 

“No, probably not, sorry.” God, how was she supposed to be professional while calling people their first names?

“Don’t apologize, it’s fine. Try to get some sleep tonight, if you can.” Said Stark. Unconcerned by her recently revealed identity. Nice. 

“Hopefully I won’t, the powers don’t let me fall asleep unless it’s passing out from hypothermia, which I have no desire to do tonight.” replied Poppy honestly. 

“Your spider powers prevent you from sleeping?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine without it though.” said Poppy. 

“That’s… convenient for a vigilante in high school.”

“Yeah, it works out pretty well, with AP classes and all that. Sleep would be hard to fit in my schedule.” And I could never do it anyway, because everytime I try to sleep, I see red. But she didn’t say that. While she was struggling to figure out what to say next, Dr Stark spoke. 

“So what other powers do you have? SHIELD’s got files on you, they’re restricted to everyone but Fury and Maria, so I’m intrigued.” Poppy was pleasantly unsurprised by the fact that Director Fury had kept her files a secret.

“You could easily hack into the files and find out.” Poppy pointed out.

“Yeah, but that’d be inconsiderate, especially given that I can ask you.” said Dr Stark, and his reasoning was pretty sound. 

“Hmm, fair enough. Enhanced senses, faster reflexes, a healing factor, enhanced flexibility and super strength, and web glands.” she rattled of the main ones, not bothering to note the weirder powers, like how she fucking glowed with radiation.

“Wow, impressive mix. What about the “spider sense” people are always on about?” asked Dr Stark, seeming genuinely interested.

“I just sense vibrations really acutely, it’s part of the enhancements, not anything weird.” explained Poppy.

“No offense, but that’s still weird.” said Tony, raising an eyebrow. 

“True.” admitted Poppy. 

“So, let’s get to work on this thing before capsicle or Pepper come to talk me into taking a break.”

“Okay, I had this idea yesterday, about the reactor, and I think we should consider organic shock absorbers.” Began poppy.

“I’m listening.” responded Dr Stark effortlessly. 

The work flowed from there without difficulty, despite Poppy’s outside stress, and oddly, Poppy realized that she felt… not “comfortable”, exactly, but maybe “at ease” in the lab. Hmm. Odd. Still, she was glad to go back to MJ’s house, and Morgan, in the evening.

Chapter Text

On Saturday, Poppy had an early morning dance class. She didn’t have pointe, and it was only an hour long, so she was looking forward to an otherwise empty Saturday, when she saw the cast list posted in the dressing room. Right. Cast list out this weekend. Cautiously, Poppy skimmed the list until she came to the christening fairies. Her name was not there. She wasn’t even an understudy… that was fine , though.

Poppy’s friend Alice, a junior, was the canary fairy. Good for her. The other part Poppy had been hoping for, the fairy of grace, had been given to a senior. Actually, everyone except Alice was a senior, so that made sense. The fact that Poppy herself wasn't a christening fairy was to be expected, older girls with more experience deserved the parts more. They were older than Poppy, even if they were the same level, and had, by virtue of being alive longer, also been dancing longer. Poppy just hadn’t been good enough to get the part, and she would have other chances, anyway. 

In order to figure out what she had been picked for, she scanned the entire cast list for her name, and was about to give up and decide she must just not have been chosen for anything, when she glanced at the top. 

Lilac fairy: Penelope Parker

Understudy: Hannah Mills

What the everloving fuck. 

Before she could process what she’d just read, Hannah walked in. 

“Hey favorite freshman, have you seen the cast list yet?” she asked. 

“Yeah, I–um, I’m sorry.” said Poppy 

“What’s wrong? You’re the lilac fairy! I’m super happy for you!”

“Sorry you didn’t get the part…”

“Are you kidding me? Honey, I’m carabosse. That’s my dream role! The only person better than you is Felicity, and she’s Aurora , Amy’s thrilled with being the fairy of grace, and Nora’s injury means she can’t be en pointe anyway, so she’s happy for you. It’s okay to be proud of yourself.” 

No, it wasn’t, because Poppy had ruined someone else's chances of a good role, and everyone was going to hate her for it, and they would be right, and—Poppy didn’t realize she was hyperventilating until Hannah squeezed her shoulder. 

“Hey, kid, chill out. You’ve got this, it makes sense to be nervous but you aced the audition, and I’m sure you’ll be just as good at performing, okay?”

“Yeah, okay.” said Poppy. She wasn’t nervous about the performance, not really. She was angry at herself for stealing someone else's role, and worried about finding childcare during rehearsals. But Hannah didn’t need to know that.

“Great. Do you have a ride home? I can drive you if not.” said Hannah, pulling her back to the present. 

“Um, yeah. I’m gonna take the bus…” said Poppy. 

“No you aren’t. C’mon, let’s go.” insisted Hannah.

“Thanks, but I’m staying with a friend right now, I don’t want to make you go out of your way–” The last thing Poppy needed was to inconvenience Hannah. 

“Does she live in the bronx?” Hannah asked quickly.

“Yeah, but—” Poppy began. 

“Cool, then I have time. Did you eat breakfast?” interrupted hannah. 

“No,” admitted Poppy. “I didn’t have time this morning” 

her enhanced metabolism was torturous, and she’’d only eaten a handful of peanut m&m’s and a granola bar. Not enough food. 

“Hmm. You need food, you can come to starbucks with me and the squad. Amy and Nora are waiting in the car, let’s go.” said Hannah, slinging her backpack on. 

“I don’t know if–” Poppy started, but Hannah interrupted her. 

“My treat, and it’ll still be faster than six different buses and a bunch of walking. C’mon.”

Poppy finally gave up, and went with Hannah and her friends to get coffee and bagels, shooting a quick text to MJ that she would be back late. MJ didn’t respond, probably still asleep. It was only eight AM. On saturday. 

Right. Normal sleep schedule of non-dancers. Breakfast was pretty fun. Hannah’s friends were nice, and actually very chill about Poppy getting a “better” part. Though whether that was because of any personal merit, or the fact that they were all seniors with busy schedules and college applications to worry about. 

When Poppy finally returned to MJ’s house, she was greeted by an enthusiastic not-quite-five-year-old running at her.

“Buenas días, sirenita” she greeted offhandedly, shaking her hair out of its bun. 

“Buenas días” Morgan sing-songed.

“Why are you still in pajamas, honey? 

“MJ said I can because it’s saturday.” Poppy wasn’t even surprised. 

“Oh?” asked Poppy.

“Mhmm!”

“Alright, but we’re going to the park later, so you should go get dressed.” said Poppy. 

“Fiiiine. MJ’s in the kitchen.” Morgan informed her, running upstairs. Poppy didn’t bother to reprimand her for running in the house. MJ didn’t care. 

Poppy dropped her bag in the living room and headed to the kitchen, where MJ stood whisking something. 

“You good?” muttered MJ. 

“Yeah, why?” said Poppy, settling at the table. 

“You’re late, and the cast list was supposed to come out today but you haven’t texted me about your part.” said MJ, offhandedly. 

“I got coffee with some ballet friends, I texted you.” replied Poppy. 

“Oh yeah, Hannah’s people?” asked MJ

“Yeah.”

“Sounds fun, she's nice. Hopefully you’re still hungry though, because I’m making french toast.” MJ said. 

“Why, exactly, are you making french toast, my beloved?” asked Poppy. 

“For the vibes, Poppy”

“Did you and Morgan do anything fun while I was gone?”

“We slept in like reasonable people, instead of waking up at six am on a saturday. In case you haven’t noticed, it’s nine thirty. Many people are still asleep. Morgan had the decency to wait until eight forty five to wake me up, and we’ve just been vibing.”

“Touchè”

“Are we speaking French now?” asked MJ, in french.

“No, but I could.” answered Poppy in mandarin.

“Ugh. Just because you can speak seven god forsaken languages does not mean you can’t just speak english. Showoff” said MJ, flipping the toast over. The conversation dissolved into banter, with Poppy answering in Russian, and continuing to annoy MJ with different languages, until Morgan returned, dressed in day clothes, and decided, to speak exclusively Italian, solving the argument completely (MJ was still annoyed, though, because she was only fluent in English, Spanish and French, Italian was new-ish). 

The morning passed in a multilingual haze of MJ’s cooking and Morgan’s renewed energy, all signs of yesterday's sickness gone. 

The march weather was fair, and Poppy’s internship had been canceled since Dr Stark was on a business trip, so the trio left Mj’s house and spent the day enjoying New York city. Ice cream was eaten, parks and museums visited, laughs shared, and movies watched. It was the best day Poppy could remember in years, not out of any particular grand merit, but because nothing was horribly wrong, and she was safe, together with the people she loved.

It had to end, though, and it did, on Sunday morning, when MJ’s dad came to take MJ to Maine for spring break. 

Poppy and Morgan went back to Sarah’s apartment and had a quiet day. Sarah was out, probably at her boyfriend’s place. 

Poppy arrived back from a particularly nasty patrol at around two AM. Sarah was asleep, as was Morgan. Poppy changed out of her suit and headed to her bedroom to finish some homework. And there was Nick Fury, sitting on her neatly-made bed, looking impatient. 

“Penelope.” he greeted curtly. 

“Director Fury.” she acknowledged. Poppy was not looking forward to this conversation, but there was nothing to be done about it. 

“You’ve been up to some interesting things.” Fury began. 

“You could put it that way. I contacted you already,” she answered silkily, sitting down at her desk. 

“I got the memo, your identity was revealed on an avengers mission.” Fury said. He was not one to beat around the bush. Which Poppy appreciated, for the most part. Clear expectations. Clear communication. Currently, though Poppy had to explain away a failure. 

“Not publicly. It’s my choice to make, though the circumstances could have been better.” She said, choosing each word deliberately. 

“The choice may be yours, but the problem becomes mine when the team complains to me about recruiting children. Romanoff gave me a hell of a time.” His words were annoyed, but his tone was that of amusement. Still, Poppy thought it best to play safe. 

“I apologize.” she said stiffly.

“Don’t. You handled it well, and the team was satisfied with my explanation. They would, doubtless, have found out eventually, given your work with Stark, and the assistance you provide with lower-level threats. The situation is under control.” said Fury calmly. 

“If there are no pressing issues, then why did this warrant an in-person discussion?” asked Poppy, suddenly suspicious. 

“I do, actually, care about my god daughter's lives outside of vigilante work. How’s your sister?” Ah. Right. 

“She’s… she’s good. Starting kindergarten next year, but it’ll probably be too easy for her. You know she’s in chapter books now? Several hundred pages, the stuff they market to fifth and sixth graders. It’s amazing.” said Poppy. 

“Because intelligent Parker children are completely unheard of?” deadpanned Fury. 

“No, not really. But she still impresses me.” Morgan was one thing Poppy found easy to talk about. 

“Indeed. And your foster home?” prompted Fury. 

“Fairly stable, for now,” answered Poppy, honestly. 

“For now?” questioned Fury. 

“I don’t expect anything to last. But we’re fine at the moment,” said Poppy carefully, shuffling some papers. "Perseverantia omnia vincit."

Perseverance conquers all things. 

“Good mindset. Besides the Latin, how’s school?” Conversations with Fury often felt like an interrogation, but Poppy was used to it. 

“Same as usual. Teenagers are annoying, the topics being taught are generally interesting, but the incompetence of the staff and teachers can be irritating,” she said. 

“Your opinions haven’t changed since the last time we spoke.” Fury said wryly. 

“True. But my grade has. I’m a sophomore now.” Said Poppy. 

“Good for you,” replied Fury, not unkindly. 

“It is. I’m graduating next year.” And then getting emancipated, and out of the fucking foster care system. 

“And your extracurriculars?” asked Fury. 

“Good. I got a good part in the next ballet performance, and–” Poppy started. 

“What’s the part?” interrupted Fury

“Lilac fairy. We’re doing Sleeping Beauty,” said Poppy, caught off guard, for once. 

“That’s a good one. You’re on the younger side of high schoolers, too. Congratulations.” He sounded sincere, and probably was. 

“Thanks. I’m going to assume you know about my internship with Dr. Stark–” Poppy continued, trying to regain partial control of the discussion. 

“Yes. Tony has mentioned your contributions numerous times.” Fury said brusquely. "The man never shuts up, but he's mildly less annoying when discussing the work you two do together."

“Oh. Well, that’s been good as well,” said Poppy lamely. 

“Good. Other than Friday morning’s... slip-up, how’s spiderman doing?” he asked. 

“Fine. Deadpool and I patrol together sometimes, but I have yet to kill anyone.”

“That’s an achievement,” said Fury, nodding. 

“Not killing anyone, or not getting killed by Deadpool?”

“Both, technically. Though I'm somehow not surprised that Deadpool hasn’t killed you.”

“Why not?” asked Poppy, looking up.

“You… have that effect on people.” said Fury, gesturing vaguely. 

“Hmm. Okay. I got stabbed in the leg a couple of weeks ago–” started 

“Penelope. ” 

“I know, sorry. But it healed in under twenty hours! My school performance was not affected, and I skipped patrol the next day.” she said defensively. 

“The fact that you don’t see any other potential problems with getting stabbed is mildly concerning, but alright,” said Fury. "Continue."

“It was a spur of the moment thing and not that deep. I’ve had worse–” Poppy continued. 

“And now we’re going to move on from that before I’m forced to confront how horribly I’ve failed to protect Richard and Mary’s daughter.” Fury interjected smoothly. “When’s your performance? I’d like to be there.”

“Oh, um, last three weekends of April.” Poppy hadn’t been expecting him to ask. Being director of SHIELD was a fairly demanding job, and not the sort of thing one took time off of to see high school ballet performances of kids that weren’t even yours. But Fury did whatever he wanted. 

“Great, let me know when tickets are available. If all goes well, I won’t see you for another few weeks. Bye.”

With that, Fury just… left the apartment. She wasn’t even surprised. Fury was like that. Poppy opened up her laptop to figure out her schedule for the week. It would be rough without MJ, but Poppy would be fine. Everything would be fine.

Chapter Text

“Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family: Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.” — Jane Howard

After Poppy’s eventful weekend, the empty days of spring break loomed threateningly on the horizon. 

Sarah was back from her business trip, but not around much. 

And Sarah’s apartment, though upscale and well-furnished, was sterile and cold and suffocatingly not home . 

But the temperature had dropped again, just when the weather was warming up, so with school out, Poppy had nowhere else to go.

Morgan, at least, thrived on the extra attention from Poppy, and Poppy was happy about that.

No. 

Though Morgan was wonderful, taking care of a kid was just the tiniest bit difficult, and during the long hours while Morgan slept, Poppy couldn’t sleep. Because of course she couldn’t, because of the stupid spider bite. And rehearsals were starting, and Poppy had no idea how she would deal with childcare during rehearsals, and she was a terrible sister. 

Breathe in. Breathe out. Calm down. 

With MJ gone in maine for an entire week without cell service, Poppy couldn’t really connect with the rest of her friends. The squad was fun, but everyone besides MJ and herself was…well, they were children. Kids. Poppy and MJ were a unit, and now Poppy was alone, and… she could admit (just to herself), that it was going to be a really hard week. 

And with so much free time, it was hard not to remember, not to succumb to the dark thoughts that lay filed away in the deepest corners of her mind. And it was harder without MJ there to help.

Poppy was alone.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Focus. 

Poppy had been in difficult situations before. She would figure it out. 

In the end, the week was better than her pre-dawn worries predicted.

Help came from three unexpected places. 

The first was Hannah and her friends.

Poppy was worried about child care during rehearsals. She was fourteen, and a tiny little part of her felt angry that she had to worry about childcare while still being legally a child herself, but anger wasn’t productive, and it certainly didn’t change the fact that she needed a childcare plan. Late-night rehearsals and full-day weekends would be impossible. This anxiety had been present since the cast list had come out, but only grew as rehearsals became closer. 

It was solved, however, by Hannah, in a conversation after monday’s class. 

“Hey, favorite freshman, you’re worried about your sister during rehearsals, aren’t you?” Curse Hannah and her perceptiveness. 

“Yeah.” Poppy admitted, unlacing her pointe shoes. “My mom works weekends.” Foster mom, really, but Hannah didn’t need to know that. Hannah also didn’t need to know that Sarah absolutely would not take care of Morgan even if she wasn’t busy. 

“Well, I've got some great news,” said Hannah pointedly. 

“Oh?” asked Poppy, unlacing her other shoe. 

“Yep. Amy and Nora’s families hire the same babysitter to take care of all their little siblings, splitting the cost. And I talked to the babysitter, and she said she’s fine with taking care of another kid, for an additional two bucks an hour. So you can talk to your mom, and let her know that she won’t have to worry about childcare on the weekends.” Hannah explained. 

“Thanks, Hannah, that… that helps a lot.” said Poppy, looking up. 

“I know, right? I’m amazing and wonderful.” Hannah tossed her daffodil-colored hair, still stiff from being in a bun for so long. 

“You are. Know what else is amazing and wonderful?” asked Poppy, pulling a hoodie on.

“The products and services that support this podcast?” Hannah deadpanned.

“No–What does that even mean, Hannah?” It was probably a reference to something, but Poppy didn’t know what. 

“Clearly you don’t listen to Behind The Bastards. You should. It’s honestly a travesty that you don’t.” Hannah said, looking at her with fake-seriousness.

“Noted.” said Poppy.

“Awesome. Wait, I’m driving you home today, so we’re gonna listen to it, and then you’ll get the joke.” said Hannah, zipping her bag.

“Fair enough.” replied Poppy.

“What were you saying though?” asked Hannah, standing up.

“Oh, yeah, I was saying that aloe vera gel is great for pointe shoe blisters.” said Poppy, falling into step beside Hannah. 

“It’s the best, Poppy. I told you. Anyway, you’ll need it, rehearsals start Thursday night, and it’ll be brutal.” Hannah clicked her car keys once, twice.

“I’m looking forward to it.” said Poppy.

“Honestly though, same. Except the blisters.” said Hannah, opening her car door. 

Poppy got in the passenger's seat. Hannah turned on her podcast, and for the ride back, they only talked to make jokes about what the podcasters were saying, and… it was nice. And Poppy could almost forget the dark thoughts that she’d long ago tucked carefully in the shadowy corners of her mind. 

(And now that Hannah’s group had unanimously decided to make her part of the clique, rehearsals became survivable, and on the rare occasions when Hannah couldn’t drive her, one of her friends was always willing.)

The second thing that helped was Team Red’s long-awaited reunion. 

Monday night, when Sarah was home after work, Poppy went out to find that Matt Murdock had finally returned from New Jersey or LA or Cincinnati or wherever he'd been. 

With Daredevil, patrols became infinitely better. 

Poppy didn’t really mind patrolling by herself, as the solitude could be nice (sometimes) and she was strong enough to take most things, but it was harder, and maybe a little lonely sometimes. When Deadpool showed up, that was great, and he helped a lot. It was nice to work as part of a team, though their moral codes were different enough that it was hard to work together. 

But Matt was in a gray area between spider-man’s no-kill policy and DP’s literally-kills-for-a-living deal. They all got along, and their powers complimented each other’s. 

So the trio could work together easily, and, working together, comfortably take on things that would have been challenging for any of them individually. It was extremely efficient. 

(The group dynamic was fun, too.)

There was a lot of banter between daredevil and deadpool, and Poppy usually was content to listen to them, only chiming in occasionally to comment on the relative merits of coffee and tea or white chocolate vs dark chocolate (Matt and Wade had extremely strong, highly contradictory views on food, and media, and pretty much every other insignificant thing). 

More often than not, these conversations happened while stopping kidnapping attempts or arms deals. And on patrol, Poppy didn’t have to think. Things that were nearly impossible to manage when she was alone were easier to handle when with a team. 

The third thing was her internship with Dr Stark. It was… well, it was good, overall. 

Though sometimes Poppy questioned whether their relationship had crossed a line from professional to personal. 

The thought had crossed her mind, more than once, that Dr Stark’s intentions might be… unsavory. But it didn’t seem likely. 

Poppy knew all too well what the gazes of men who wanted something looked like. Stark wasn’t like that. Though they mostly talked about the projects they were working on, occasionally the conversation strayed, and Poppy found herself talking about school, or what colleges she was interested in, or academic paper’s shed read recently, or, rarely, more personal things, though she was hesitant to go into details about her homelife or background.

Dr Stark respected her distance, but was still friendly.

It was good. (That didn’t mean she stopped almost-flinching when he moved too fast, or spoke too loud, or seemed to be in a bad mood, or carried the faint scent of liquor the day after a gala. Deep wounds are slow to heal.) 

Work on the arc reactor finished Tuesday, and now it was thursday. Dr Stark had made no mention of her moving back to her old lab now that the project was over. 

Poppy took it in stride. 

At the moment, she was in the billionaire’s familiar lab, screwing around with machinery, uncertain what she was supposed to do. 

When she’d asked Dr Stark, he’d helpfully replied “I don’t care, kid, make something cool. Try not to blow my lab up. I’ll let you know if I need help with this.” and gone back to working on the hardware of Mark whatever-number. Cool. Poppy had free reign of an extremely high-tech, expensive lab, and no instructions or suggestions. 

So she settled for making a circuit board, but really small, and really light, and really flexible. 

Like a scrap of paper. 

The idea wasn’t new, and she had close-to-finished blueprints in her mind already, so the design was easy. The only issue arose when she was trying to weld it. She couldn’t find the tool. Probably best to ask Dr Stark rather than break his lab trying to find the tool herself. 

“Excuse me, Dr Stark, where's the… thing?” Fuck, what was the word?

“What?” he asked, not looking away from mark fifty-fuck-thousand. 

“The… thing.” she said lamely.

“What thing?” he stayed facing the suit, so Poppy couldn’t see his expression, but he sounded amused. Okay, amused was better than angry. She could work with this. No point going back now, she may as well try to explain herself better.

“The thing, the thing with the—blue, metal thing,” That didn’t seem to clear things up. What was the English word? Welding… metal… metal… fire tool. She knew it in italian, spanish… hell, she could even remember the chinese word, but not the stupid english word for the stupid tool, and now she was taking up someone elses time. “ La soldadora , saldatòre, hàn jī…Lo– oh, sorry, the um, welding thing.”

“Soldering iron?” he asked, still not looking up. 

“ Yes! That thing. ” Poppy barely noticed that she was speaking Italian now. How the fuck had she forgotten that word? Stupid multilingialism. 

“What the hell was that? I didn’t know you were bilingual.” Dr Stark actually stood and turned to look at her. He looked… surprised. Interested. Not angry. 

“Multilingual, actually. I’m only fluent in four, but I can carry a conversation in a few others.” she explained quickly. 

“Really? Which languages?” again, genuine interest. From an adult. An adult that wasn’t a vigilante. God, this felt weird. 

“English, Spanish, Italian, ASL. A bit of Mandarin, too, but I’m only barely conversational, and I can't write it. I'm taking Latin at school, but I can’t really carry a conversation, only read and write.”

“That’s impressive. You speak Italian fluently?”

“Yes.” she suppressed the urge to add “sir”. It seemed to annoy Dr Stark, though she still wasn’t sure why. 

“That’s convenient. I prefer it, so if you speak fluently, we can use that in the lab. It’ll confuse Bruce.” he said. 

“Okay.” she managed. What?

“So what do you need a soldering iron for?” asked Dr Stark. 

“Oh, um, I’m trying to make a circuit board.”

“That’s fun. Any special gimmicks?”

“The goal is something that could be integrated into clothing or armor, so I’m trying to make it light and flexible.” Poppy explained.

“That would be good for your suit.”

“Maybe. Not sure what I would use it for though.” she said honestly. 

“Right, you play old fashioned. I respect that, but let me know if you ever want an upgrade. Soldering iron’s are in the middle drawer on the far left, next to the screwdrivers. You’re gonna want one of the small ones for a circuit board.” he said, turning back to his project.

“Okay, thanks.” Dr Stark’s impressive collection of soldering irons were in the promised location, and Poppy was able to finish her circuit board ten minutes before she was set to leave. 

Dr Stark got bored of whatever he was doing, and came over to check on Poppy. 

“You finished that circuit board?” he asked.

“Yeah, here.” She held the device out. Dr Stark took it, turning it over carefully. After a long moment, he nodded, and handed it back to her. 

“Impressive. Nice work,” a pause. “You should stay for dinner. Stave managed to corral the whole team into being here for the week, and I’d love for them to meet you.” he said casually, walking back to his desk. 

“I thought the entire team lived here?” The question slipped out unbidden, but Dr Stark didn’t seem annoyed. 

“No. Seems like it though. Cap and Barnes have an apartment, so they’re in and out, but Steve’s here a lot for avengers stuff, and Barnes follows him like a puppy. The Barton family, plus the Maximoff’s, live on their farm, but they’re here pretty often.” he explained.

“What about the others?” There were a lot of avengers. 

“Rhodey is actually in the military, not a SHIELD agent, so he does legitimate normal work as Iron patriot instead of screwing around attacking aliens. Scott shows up occasionally, but he’s got non-superhero priorities.” said Dr Stark patiently. 

“Wait, so who does live here?” she asked, confused. 

“Natasha and Bruce do, theoretically, but they disappear sometimes. No one really knows what Yelena’s deal is, either she’s here, or she isn’t. Really it’s just me, Bruce, and Pepper, consistently, but the others show up at different times. All of that to say, most of the team is here tonight, and you’re welcome to stay for dinner.” he said.

“I–Sorry, I’d love to, but I can’t. I’ve got family plans.” Granted, that family consisted only of a four-and-a-half-year old sister, but still. 

“What about tomorrow?” he asked.

“Dance.”

“Oh. Thursday night?” 

“Rehearsals.” Eight PM to midnight. Brutal. How the hell did normal people that needed sleep survive extracurriculars and school? 

“Friday?” asked Dr Stark

“Ballet, then studying.” Actually, patrol with team red. 

“Damn, kid, you’re busy.” he chuckled.
“Yeah.” It’s better like this.  Less time to think. 

“How’s your schedule on saturday?” 

“I have to take care of my little sister that evening.” And every evening, but Poppy didn’t need to mention that part. 

“Oh, I didn’t know you had siblings,” said Dr Stark.

“Just the one, and she’s almost ten years younger than me.” replied Poppy.

“Is she as fun as you?” he questioned.

“More so.” Poppy replied, truthfully.

“Great. You can bring her to dinner, if your parents are cool with it. Should be child friendly, since Clint’s bringing his little gremlins. It’ll be good for them to have playmates.” he turned back to his screen.

“That should work. Thank you for the invitation, Dr Stark.” said Poppy politely. 

“Hey kid?”

“Yeah?”

“Call me Tony.”

Chapter Text

Thursday night, after rehearsals, Poppy got Morgan from her babysitter, and they went home. Sarah was at her boyfriend's house, and the evening was normal. 

Mostly. 

Poppy decided, since the weather was cold, to try sleeping. (She didn't need sleep, per se, but it helped to clear her head sometimes)

That turned out to be a horrible idea. 

She woke up in a cold sweat, and it took 

Her mouth was dry. (Dry like it had been from blood loss that night)

To distract herself from the terror and phantom pains, Poppy checked her phone.

00:17. It was Friday, then. Just four more days until MJ would get back.

But today was Friday. March 28.

Poppy's half-birthday, which her family had always celebrated instead of her birthday, because it fell during spring break. 

One of the seemingly endless anniversaries of anguish. 

It was a stupid day to care about. 

Poppy didn't even celebrate her birthday anymore. Birthday's weren't important, and she was supposed to be over this.

She should’ve patrolled, really, or stayed home, but Poppy found herself pulling on a jacket, grabbing pepper spray, and walking towards the cemetery. At midnight. 

If you asked her what happened on the walk to the cemetery, or what her thought process was, or what the hell she was doing, Poppy wouldn't have been able to answer. She just walked, and then she was there, staring at her Aunt and Uncle's grave. 

One good thing about dying with your spouse, Poppy thought bitterly, was that you could be buried together. 

Reilly. 

Benjamin. Beloved husband, brother, uncle, friend. 

May. Beloved wife, colleague, aunt, friend. 

Remembered with love.

“Hey uncle ben. I–I’m not going to say sorry, because you’d say I have nothing to be sorry for, and then we’d bicker about that. But I’m going to say thank you. For everything. I–You’re fluent in silence. I don’t need to tell you, do I? You understood when you took the time to listen. And when you didn’t listen… Well, I’ve mostly forgiven you, I think, because it wasn't your fault. You did your best, and it wasn’t perfect, but it was amazing anyway."

A long, shaky breath.

"So… I'm not sorry, even though I am, and I’ve forgiven you, and... I hate this. Why do I have to talk?

"THis is hard. Fuck. Okay. Thanks, for everything, and you can… you can figure out the rest.”

She sat there for god knows how long, trying to find more words, but none came. That was alright. Ben would have understood. That thought absolutely did not hurt Poppy in the slightest. And she didn’t wish for him to come back. She was fine. It was fine. She’d accepted his passing. That was supposed to make it okay, right? Right? Fuck. Next to Ben’s grave was May’s, white marble, stark contrast to the shadowy grass. She started speaking Spanish, caught herself, and began again in English. 

“Hi May, I–this one’s hard. I’m still mad at you, a little, I don’t know if it ever stops. Does it?” There was no response. Of course there wasn’t. 

“I-I know you were trying, always, even when your best wasn’t good enough, and I’m grateful, for that, I am!” Poppy failed her attempts not to sound defensive. Suddenly, it was hard to breathe, and she was eleven years old and so angry at everything, and– and then it passed. And she was tired. But fine. She turned to the gravestone again, and this time, spoke Italian.

“I… I should tell you some things, probably. You deserve to know." She would know, if she'd stayed. That was completely unfair, May had been killed. Maybe it wasn't unfair, because if May hadn't needed drugs, then they wouldn't have been on that street in the first place. 

Fuck. Keep going. 

"Your brioche recipe is still Morgan’s favorite, and mine. I’ve made it for her a couple times, and it’s not as good as yours was, when you were… when it was a good day, but the recipe is good, even though I can’t match you. I’m not you, aunt May, and I… I don’t know. Maybe that’s for the best." 

"I want…I want to say thank you, for those Hanukkahs, even though it wasn’t perfect. You didn’t have to do anything, you could have… could have tried to make us atheist like you, and I know it was hard for you and Ben, but I–it helped. It helped a lot, it helps me now, even. You tried, and I’m trying, and that’s okay. I hope you’re happy, now, wherever you are. It’s… life isn’t fair, I know that. But still. Just… Thank you, for trying, and… I–I know that it was hard and imperfect, but dysfunctional families are better than no family, and I wouldn’t trade the time with you and ben for anything. Bye.``

Poppy had never been good at talking to May. She shouldn’t have expected it to change with death. They were too similar. Too different. 

Poppy forced herself to stand, and walk to her parent’s grave. 

Parker

Mary 

Beloved wife, devoted mother.

Richard 

Beloved husband, father, brother.

Forever in our hearts.

There was a star of David, and a vine-like pattern going all around the edge. The gravestone was made of deep gray rock, almost black, though it shone polished in the sunlight. It was pretty, and it had been expensive, Poppy knew, and it was a better burial than many people got. But it had felt cold. 

(Cold like the air on the day of their funeral.)

Twin black flags with white SHIELD logos graced each half of the grave. Reminding Poppy that her grief was invalid. Her parents had died for something good, something more important than her. They had saved countless lives. It had been their choice to make. But still. The coldness of the grave had always felt wrong. 

The first time Poppy had visited their grave after the funeral had been almost a year later, with Ben. And it had been a warm day in spring, like today would be, when the sun rose, but the grave had felt cold. 

Cold, cold, cold, cold. 

Empty. Wrong. 

So Poppy had done what she always did when things were wrong: She fixed it. She’d only been ten, but she’d saved up her money, done hours of research on her laptop made from salvaged parts, and bought some seeds and pots to grow them in. It was a slow process, but she’d grown two plants in her bedroom. One for each gravestone. (She’d been planning to take the plants to the graveyard in June, her parent’s anniversary. Ben had told her sooner was better. She’d listened,  thank god, and the potted plants hadn’t been in her apartment when Ben was shot.) The graves didn’t feel as cold anymore, but still. Still. Now, Poppy had in her bag a few stones, painted by Morgan. 

They were colorful, depicting birds and flowers and sunlight and happiness. Morgan didn’t understand that sadness, yet. She’d never known their parents. But ignorance was bliss. If Poppy had her way, Morgan would never know the pain. Besides the flags, the plants, and now, the fresh flowers and brightly-colored stones Poppy had just placed, the grave had two other things decorating it. 

The lanterns Poppy had bought four months ago with her first paycheck from SI (God, that seemed like yesterday and a million years ago.), and a few coins. The coins were placed neatly on the tombstone, pennies, nickels, dimes, a few quarters. It was a grave-language of soldiers. 

SHIELD agents weren’t soldiers, that was the whole point. But the message the coins left was the same as it would’ve been, had Poppy’s parents been soldiers. The message of “ I knew this person. I trained with them. Fought next to them. I was there when they died. I’m here visiting their gravesite. I want their family to know that I remember. ” Poppy’s visits never overlapped with those of whatever agents left the coins. But the knowledge that other people had known her parents, and were grieving them, even now, provided some comfort. 

Poppy had come, she told herself, just to bring fresh flowers, to remind herself of the fragility of human life, to remember her parents and aunt and uncle, to remember good times, to remember that they were at peace now. 

Today wasn’t the anniversary of their death, and it wasn’t a birthday or an important holiday or anything else missable, so really, Poppy shouldn’t be upset. And she wasn’t. (She was).  

Her father’s grave, first. She sat down, leaned against the side of the tombstone. (Didn’t cry)

“Hey dad, it’s uh, it’s been a while. I…I’m doing okay, and Morgan’s good, and I– God, what would I say to you?…I’m gay, you should know that, do you? My girlfriend is great and I–I think you’d like her, her name’s MJ, she helps me, a lot, with Morgan, and listens to my science rants and I listen to her history rants. I talk about you with Morgan, sometimes, but she doesn’t remember you, and maybe that’s for the best. But she reminds me of you, a lot, and Mamà, and it’s… it’s hard, you know? She loves blueberries, like you do-like you did, and she’s got your eyes, not Mom’s, even though she has mom’s hair. Your knack for drawing, too, though she’s still working in crayons.” a strangled laugh. Poppy hardly recognized the sound as coming from herself. 

“I don’t draw anymore, really. Not as much as I used to, anyway, but I’ve drawn you, a few times. I wish I could show you. I–I miss you, a lot, but I’m… getting over it, I guess. That’s what you’d want, right? Seems the least I can do to give it to you. Guess I got your pragmatism, huh?” a pause. 

“Morgan’s an idealist, though, like mom. Balance, maybe. I… I hope you like the flowers, picked them myself, didn’t buy anything, just thought you’d… want to see the springtime. Oh, you… you’d be happy about this, maybe, hopefully. I’m the lilac fairy in sleeping beauty, like… like I wanted when I was little.”

Poppy’s mouth was suddenly horribly dry.

“Purple's a good color. Your favorite. Mine, too, these days. All-black gets old fast, even if it is tactical. Morgan’s favorite changes periodically, but she’s been loving green recently. She’s amazing. So much like you and so much like herself and… fuck. I miss you. I—I love you, papà.”

Poppy stared blankly at the grave for several minutes. 

She didn’t say ‘why did you leave?’ or ‘Did you not care?’ or ‘ I wish you’d cared about your children more than your job ’ 

Anger didn’t help. It wasn’t productive, it didn’t belong. Anger wasn’t strength, it was weakness. 

Poppy could remember, when she was ten, and eleven, being angry, all the time. 

At her parents, for caring about that stupid mission more than they cared about her, about Morgan, about family.

At Uncle Ben, for working so much and only taking them in because of his brother, and for leaving. 

At Aunt May, for either being high or at work almost all the time, and then dying and leaving them alone.

And maybe, a little bit at Morgan, for making everything harder (Her anger at Morgan was only because, without her, Poppy could have, would have, given up.)  

But mostly, Poppy was angry at herself. (That was the only anger that hadn’t faded with time.)

Poppy eventually gave up trying to think of something to say else to her father and shifted her focus to the next headstone. Mary Parker. Poppy’s mother. (not Morgan's mother, though, not properly, because she’d left.)

(Left and never came back)

(Ever)

Her mother’s grave was one that Poppy had visited most frequently, but it had still been over a month since the last time. Poppy started in English. 

“Hey. I miss you, Mom–Dad, too, and aunt may and uncle ben, all of them, of course. 

But you… you were my everything, you know? Morgan’s still perfect. I'm trying to teach her some prayers, but it’s hard, because I barely remember how to read Hebrew, but I’m trying to remember. 

I–I don’t wish you’d come back, not anymore. I used too, but there’s… there’s no point, and I know you’d want me to move on, but fuck…I–I don’t know if I can do this. I love you. That’s in present tense on purpose, never past tense, never ever ever.” Poppy choked back a sob. She was speaking Spanish, now, Poppy realised, vaguely. She couldn't remember switching languages. Did it matter?

“You died for something good, and I really hope there’s something after, something for you." a long, shaky breath.

"But if… if that was it, and the universe is evil, and you don’t get any heaven, even though you deserve it, I–I’m keeping your legacy alive, I guess, and that’s sort of like immortality. Is that what you’d want, mamà?” a pause, almost as if Poppy was expecting a response. But she wasn’t, and no response came.

(No response would ever come again)

(Mary Talia Parker was gone, gone, gone.)

(Forever.)

“I still draw, sometimes, even though I stopped playing the piano. I’m not an artist like dad and Morgan." 

(She had been, once.)

(Poppy used to draw often, and play piano, and dance as art instead of exercise. But now, Poppy was only science. And that was good. She didn’t have extra resources to spend on music or sketchbooks. Science was safety. Cool, detached, and it would be her path to financial stability. Soon. Leave the art to Morgan. Let her draw with crayons, and play piano for fun. Let her be. Poppy wasn’t an artist. Not anymore.)

Poppy kept talking to the cold, dead block of stone that was the only tangible memory of her mother

"I’ve sketched you, a lot, and dad, and… and things that remind me of you. I have some of your jewelry; some for me, some for Morgan, when she’s older, and won’t break it immediately. I’m remembering you, always, and I do this… I do it for justice, and Morgan, and MJ, and so many other other reasons, and those all matter a lot, but I do it… because of you, even if it isn’t for you, even… even though it can’t save you, you know? I…I hope I’m making you proud, mamà.”

Poppy didn’t know how long she sat there, except that when she finally stood, the sky had turned from midnight-indigo to predawn gray. Okay. Pull it together. Poppy was fine, grief was survivable.

She didn’t cry on the way back to Sarah’s apartment, just took off her coat, pulled out her laptop, and lost herself in work.

Poppy didn’t patrol that night. 

And she didn't sleep again for a long, long time. 

Chapter Text

“And if happiness should surprise you again, do not mention its previous betrayal. Enter into the happiness, and burst.” ― Mahmoud Darwish

It was five AM, now, still Friday. 

Every minute felt infinite.

Every minute felt like nothing at all. 

Poppy took a deep breath, and closed her laptop. Time to be a person. Hunger tugged at her conscience, so she stood, and walked to the flavorless kitchen. Poppy’s enhanced senses picked up on the faint smell of liquor, but it would have been almost imperceptible to a normal person. 

Sarah was awake, surprisingly. She didn’t acknowledge Poppy’s presence immediately, though Poppy couldn't tell if that was because the woman hadn’t noticed, or because she didn’t care. 

Either was plausible, neither was pleasant. 

“Good morning.” she said, grabbing some protein bars. 

“You’re awake. Morning, Penelope.” she said absently, not looking up from her phone. “Eating, again, I see.” her tone was biting, now. Poppy didn’t respond. What was there to say?

“Why are you up so early?” said Sarah, finally. 

“I had rehearsals last night, just catching up on homework now, because I won't have much free time tonight.” and also because Poppy had been almost continuously awake for the past few years, but her foster mother didn’t need to know that. 

“Oh. Fine. I don’t care what you do after school, but don’t leave your sister here. Kyle’s coming over today, I’d prefer it if you both stayed out as late as possible.” Kyle was Sarah’s boyfriend. Usually, Sarah went to his place, but he’d come to the apartment before. Poppy had met him once. He seemed like a fine man on the surface, a wealthy businessman in his late thirties. 

She didn’t like how he looked at her, but that was alright. She’d had worse, and Kyle wasn’t focused on her. 

Everything was fine. 

Well, except for one thing. 

“I have work tonight, should I take Morgan with me? Her usual babysitter is busy.” said Poppy, only half hoping for any help with this dilemma. Kade, the babysitter Poppy had found to take care of Morgan while her preschool/daycare was closed, had apologetically texted Poppy yesterday evening, saying that their mother had planned a surprise trip to Boston. 

“I don’t care, Parker, do whatever you want, just don’t leave her here for me to deal with. I’m going back to sleep.” With that, Sarah left the kitchen. 

“Okay. Bye.” said Poppy flatly. 

Well, fuck. She didn’t know what response she’d been expecting, really. 

Okay, time to plan. 

She pulled her phone, promptly got distracted by no fewer than five Emails, but finally managed to open the calendar app. 

All day: Lex’s birthday (SI), MJ out of town, spring break, phone bill due

00:00—04:00 Patrol if possible

4:15—05:45 Work sesion

05:45—06:00 Break

06:00—07:30 Work sesion

07:30—10:40 Slow morning with Morgan

11:00—13:00 Ballet

13:15 Pick Morgan up from Babysitter Olivia 

13:30—15:00 Lunch & Chill with Morgan

15:00 Babysitter Kade arrives to pick Morgan up

15:13 Subway to Stark Tower

15:30—18:00 Internship

18:10—18:40 (Roughly) Subway back to apartment

18:45 Babysitter Kade brings Morgan back

19:00 Quick dinner & reading time

20:00—20:30 Put Morgan to sleep

20:30—20:45: Break

20:45—22:45 Work sesion

22:45—23:00 Patrol Prep

23:00—04:00 (Saturday) Patrol with TR

The schedule absolutely did not account for Kade being on a surprise weekend trip with their family. Poppy gritted her teeth, and typed out an Email to Dr Stark, scheduling it to be sent at ten, when business Emails were acceptable to send. 

Good morning, Dr Stark. Unfortunately, due to unexpected childcare issues, I won’t be able to make it to the internship today. Apologies for the late notice. Thankfully, this is a one-time occurrence, so things should be back to normal for Tuesday and onward. I’m 

Looking forward to dinner tomorrow, and apologies again for the inconvenience,

Penelope T Parker

Poppy read over the email several times, perfecting all the punctuation, and tried to stop thinking about it. Morgan was the most important thing, everything else was second. (She tried not to think about how if MJ had been there, everything would be better. Mj was not there, and would not be until monday night. Less than four days.)

Email dealt with, Poppy moved on to homework that wasn’t due for weeks. 

The clock kept ticking, Poppy kept working. Then Morgan woke up, Poppy made breakfast, and the two of them ate in comfortable silence as Morgan fully shook sleep off. Breakfast finished, Poppy started reading a book on rainforest ecosystems aloud to Morgan, while the younger girl drew remarkably life-like birds. 

“When dense forestation covers such a large amount of land—” Poppy’s phone started ringing. She pulled it out. Incoming call from Dr Anthony Stark (Business)

What did he want that couldn’t be communicated via text? Unless it was to yell at her. That seemed likely. In any case, Morgan was looking at Poppy expectantly. 

“Sorry, cielita, I’ve got to take this. You keep drawing, okay? I’ll be right back.” said Poppy, apologetically. Morgan nodded, but looked disappointed, apparently enthralled by rainforests.

Poppy stalked to her bedroom, and took a deep breath to calm down. The phone kept ringing. 

Poppy answered, finally, bracing herself to be yelled at. (it didn’t seem in character for Dr Stark, but most adults yelled sometimes.)

“I’m sorry about not being able to make it today, Dr Stark,” she started “but the circumstances are out of my control and—”

“Kid, chill, we’re all good.” he interrupted. “But, if your parents are fine with it, you and your sister could come over tonight instead of tomorrow. She could hang with the barton’s while we work.” he offered. Poppy couldn’t think of a response to that. She’d been ready for anger, and it took a moment to recalibrate. (Also, he’d said “parents” They really needed to have that conversation at some point, but Poppy didn’t want to be pitied. And anyway, it was too hard to explain)

“Or you could come early tomorrow if that’s easier. I’ve got something I'd like to work on with you.” continued Dr Stark, unaware of Poppy’s internal turmoil

“Oh, um, tonight should work, if I can bring my sister.” managed Poppy.

“Okay, great, see you then.” He hung up. 

Cool. 

“So, Morgan, remember how we were gonna go to dinner with some of my… coworkers, tomorrow?”

“Mhmm! There’s a girl my age, and her name is Lila, and your guy that you do science work with is there.” said Morgan, clearly proud to have remembered all that.

“Yes, that’s right, honey. Well, I just talked to Dr Stark, my boss, and he said it would be better for us to go over tonight, instead. So after I get you from Olivia, you’re going to come with me to work, and be with Lila and her family, instead of getting picked up by Kade. Sounds good?”

“You’re not gonna be with Lila?” asked Morgan, tugging at a lock of dark-brown hair.

“I’ll be with Dr Stark, doing work like normal. Think of Lila’s family as a different babysitter, okay?”

“You have work, and then dinner?” asked Morgan 

“Yes, we’ll both stay over for dinner after I’m done working.”

“Okay,” said Morgan “But I wanna be with you.”

“I know, sweetheart, but I still have to work. We’ll be together for dinner, promise.”

“Fine.” allowed morgan.

“Thank you for having such a good attitude.” praised Poppy “Should we finish this chapter before we get ready to go?”

“Yes!” said Morgan, all traces of annoyance gone. 

So the girls went about their morning. Poppy had rehearsals today, of course, but they were brief, so the sisters had some downtime before leaving for Poppy’s internship. At two forty-five, they took the subway, and Poppy kept Morgan entertained with a game of twenty questions in spanish (Poppy did her best to ignored the whispers, heard all too loud in her enhanced hearing, that they should “speak english” because “this is america”). Poppy also got a few weird looks entering Stark Tower with her preschool-age sister, but she had an ID badge that allowed access to Dr Stark’s private lab, so it didn’t really matter. 

Morgan stayed half-hidden behind Poppy as they came into the lab. Poppy gently squeezed the tiny hand that held hers in a death grip, a silent way to say “ I know you’re scared, but I promise it’s okay.”

“Hey Parker, long time no see.” said Dr Stark, turning his music down. 

“Good afternoon, Dr Stark—” greeted Poppy.

“Tony.”

“Tony. Thank you again for inviting us, this is my younger sister, Morgan.” Morgan waved silently, and mumbled something in italian, but didn't look up from the flor. She wasn’t good with new people, but Tony, thankfully, took it in stride. 

“Hi, Morgan. Clint’s daughter is excited to meet you, she hasn’t shut up all day, not that anyone minds much. You two should come get acquainted with the team, though Poppy, you know most of them.”

He led them out of the lab, up into the penthouse. Poppy had been in the penthouse once before, when she’d let slip that she’d skipped lunch, and Tony had semi-aggressively suggested taking a break to eat. 

The room the elevator let them out on, a brightly-lit living room, managed to somehow look immaculate and lived-in at the same time.

On one of the chairs, sat master archer and avenger  Clint Barton, AKA Hawkeye, wearing worn-out jeans and a shirt that left the tattoos covering his right arm exposed, scrolling on a phone.

Morgan stayed hidden behind Poppy, who hung back, always wary of new adults. (Especially men. (Especially near Morgan.))

“Hey Barton, guess who I brought?” called Tony, unaware of Poppy’s nervousness. 

“Fury’s most recent adoptive murder daughter?” asked the man, deadpan, not looking up.

“Close, but we’re trying to keep that under wraps, katniss.” Barton did look up, then. Dr Stark continued. “This is Penelope, who you know, and her sister Morgan, who you do not know. Morgan and Lila are about the same age, I thought they'd y’know, get along well.” Tony gestured vaguely. He did that a lot.

“Great. Nice to meet you, Morgan, and nice to see you again, Poppy.” he nodded to them, then addressed Stark “The kiddos are with Nat in the den.”

“And Laura?” asked Dr Stark– Tony.  

“She’s home with the twins. Pietro’s having a hard time.” explained Mr Barton, tiredly. “Not a full relapse, but he’s …struggling. Separating him and Wands is a lost cause when they get like this, so Laura stayed to make sure Red doesn’t freak out too much.” his voice was hushed, speaking just to TOny, but of course, Poppy heard it loud and clear (along with pretty much everything else in the building)

“Good move.” said Tony “Anyway, kids, this is Clint Barton, better known as Hawkeye.”

“Yeah, see you at dinner. If you need me, I’ll be trying to find Yelena in the vents.” Said Mr Barton, casually removing a vent cover. 

“You’ll fail.” shot back Tony. 

“I know.” said Mr Barton, a little breathlessly from hoisting himself up into the vent. He disappeared. Tony seemed unconcerned.

“Okay, kids, let’s go find Natasha.” he said, clapping and turning back to them. 

They left the spacious living room, and entered a smaller, cozier room, seemingly well-suited for movie nights. A little girl about Morgan's age, Lila, presumably, sat on the floor building something with Legos. A boy who looked to be about eight or nine sat on a sea-green couch with Ms Romanoff— Natasha , who wore her signature black leather jacket. 

“Hey Nat. I brought guests.” Said Tony. Natasha glanced at them. 

“Hello, Poppy, Poppy’s sister. Nice to see you.” she said, waving. “Also, Tony, Cooper needs help with his science homework. I’m not stupid, but I cannot handle math in english.”

“Where's Bruce? Can he not help?” asked Tony, unimpressed. 

“Giving a lecture at MIT, you know that—Oh, playing dirty, Cooper?” said Natasha

“I would never.” deadpanned the boy. 

“Okay, Cooper, I'll help you with whatever it is over the weekend.”

“Thanks,” said the boy. “It’s physics.”

“Fun. Anyway, Morgan, Lila, you two should get acquainted, Nat, don’t give any of the kiddos knives, and that should be it.”

“Cool.” Said Natasha. “Dinner at six.”

“Great. Poppy, let’s go see if we can get some actual work done.” said Tony, turning to leave. 

Morgan finally let go of Poppy’s hand, and Poppy squeezed her shoulder, gently, with a few words of whispered encouragement in spanish. 

Walking to the Poppy’s enhanced hearing picked up on Morgan’s conversation with Lila. 

“Hi.” said Morgan.

“You’re Morgan?” asked the little girl, jumping up from her legos, leaving pieces scattered 

“Yeah?” asked Morgan, a little warily.

“Hi! I’m Lila, and this is my big brother, Cooper.” said the girl

“Hey.” came the boy’s voice. 

“I have been WAITING. ALL WEEK, and Daddy said you weren’t coming until TOMORROW, which would be UNFAIR, buuuut now you’re here so it’s ok.”

Morgan said nothing back, probably signing something. Lila presumably signed back, because then came the sound of four little hands building legos. Perfect. Poppy felt a surge of pride that Morgan had made a friend so easily. She was a good kid. 

Poppy entered the lab at Tony's heels, and Tony pulled out a hologram. “This,” he said. “Is the new and improved arc reactor design, which we have been working on for weeks.” 

Poppy knew that. She'd already seen the blueprint. Hell, she’d stared at it for hours.

Stark pulled off his jacket, revealing the glow of his arc reactor. But it wasn’t the normal design, it was the new one, the one on the blueprint, hexagonal and streamlined. Tony flicked the surface. 

“This arc reactor is now the only thing keeping me alive, and it would not have existed without you. I’m not, uh, great with this stuff” he gestured vaguely. “But I wanted to thank you, for your help, and offer you a gift in return. I know you’re in some risky situations, with your… vigilante activities, and I’m not here to stop you, but it is worrying that you’re doing these things mostly unprotected. So I’m offering to help you build a new superhero suit, if you’d like. I wanted to just make one for you, as a surprise, but Pep suggested that you’d want to have some control over how it works. So what do you say? Wanna upgrade spiderman?” he asked.

“I—I don’t know if I can accept that, I don’t um, have the resources to afford the materials needed—” And if she did, she wouldn’t spend it on spiderman related stuff. 

Poppy couldn't explain this to Dr Stark—TONY, however, because he interrupted her, looking exasperated. 

“Kid. Kiddo. Poppy. Favorite mentee. I have billions of dollars, and the highest-tech lab in america. I’m not making you pay for safety, this is a gift, one hero to another. Do you accept it? Quick warning, if you don’t accept, I can’t promise I won't just build a new suit for you.” he said, gaze intense. 

“I accept. Thank you, Tony.” said Poppy, quietly. 

“Yes! Progress. Thank you for finally using my first name. Wanna start designing?”

“Sure.” Fuck it. It might be nice to not be as easy to stab. 

“Great, let’s go.”

Despite Poppy’s initial discomfort at feeling selfish, the lab, filled with the sounds of music and machinery, was one of the few places that could put her at ease. And she was as excited for this project as any other, ideas and designs and jokes flowing easily. 

After a few hours, they were interrupted by Lila running in, half-breathless.

“Uncle Tony!” she called.

“What’s up, little miss? You ditched Natasha to come hang in the lab?” joked Tony, glancing at the little girl over 

“No, uncle Steve said it’s time for dinner, Auntie Nat’s coming too in case you don’t listen to me,” said Lila.

Sure enough, Ms Romanoff came into the room a second later, looking bored. “Tony. Dinner. I won’t stop Steve from killing you if you’re late.” she said, then turned to leave. 

“Fine, Nat. What did you do with the other kids?” he asked

“Morgan and Cooper are in the dining room already. As is everyone else.” she called. 

So they left the lab. 

Dinner, consisting of salmon, garlic bread, and roasted vegetables, had been made by Steve Rogers and James Barnes. They were, according to Clint “The only people besides Laura and Bruce that can be completely trusted in the kitchen since Tasha forgot to convert farenheit to celcius.” 

Conversation was sparse but comfortable, with Natasha and Sergeant Barnes conversing in russian, Morgan and Lila signing at each other about legos, 

“So, Poppy, how old are you? Fifteen?” asked Mr Barton, after a long silence.

“Close enough.” replied Poppy politely. She wouldn’t be fifteen for a few months. 

“Oh?”

“You’re off by a couple months, I’ve got an august birthday.” clarified Poppy. 

“Oh, cool, what day?”

“The twenty-seventh.” the cube of the number three. Poppy’s favorite number. 

“You're a virgo.” this from Sergeant Barnes

Everyone looked at him in confusion

“Why do you know that?” asked Natasha

He shrugged “I’m not sure. Probably from a mission. I remember a lot of useless stuff.”

Natasha smirked. “Don’t you have like 500 digits of pi memorized?”

“Yes, but I did that on purpose.” he said. 

“That’s weak, Barnes. I’ve got seven hundred and fifty.” said Tony

“Why do either of you have any digits of pi memorized?” asked Captain Rogers, unimpressed.

“I just had a lot of time to kill when I was recovering in Wakanda.” Sergeant Barnes said, shrugging again.

“I made a bet with Rhodey freshman year of college.” Tony explained. “Everyone does dumb shit in their twenties.”

“Language, Tony, there’s multiple five year olds at this table” said Captain Rogers—Steve 

“‘M not five yet, I’m four'n a half.” said Morgan indignantly, then went right back to signing with Lila.

“Furthering the point,” said Steve. 

The night wore on, with no one seriously fighting, or getting blackout drunk, or anything like that. It was a new experience for Poppy, but she liked it. At around 8pm, though, Poppy remembered that she needed to get Morgan home and put her to bed. Sarah and Kyle be damned, four year old’s needed sleep. (She was, however, just a slight bit worried about riding the late-night subway with Morgan.) It would be fine. 

But then Dr Stark– Tony , insisted on driving them back. Morgan, despite her tiredness, was in a chattier mood in the car, and Tony seemed both amused and impressed by how many languages she cycled through. 

“I’d love to meet your parents.” he said as the car pulled up to the apartment

“They’re dead,” said Morgan sleepily. “‘S jus’ Sarah, an’ she’s busy.” Curse the inherent impossibility of preschoolers understanding the need to not say certain things. 

“What?” asked Dr Stark, glancing at Poppy through the rearview mirror. 

Poppy winced, and forced herself to reply. “Our parents passed away several years ago, and our guardian is not currently home.” Sarah, of course, was home, but she was probably very drunk. 

“I’m sorry to hear that.” he said flatly. 

“It’s not a new loss.” Poppy shrugged. 

“Still hurts,” said Tony quietly. 

Poppy nodded, for all the good it did in the dark. “Yeah. Still hurts.” she whispered. “I–we should go inside. Thanks for the ride.”

“Of course. By the way, you’re welcome to come over again tomorrow, if you’re free again.”

“That sounds good, thanks.” said Poppy, unbuckling Morgan, who was mostly asleep. 

And Tony didn’t drive off until they were inside.

Chapter Text

Sometimes, Life’s a Bitch and then you keep living. -Diane Nyugen, Bojack Horseman (Nice While It Lasted)

Saturday was good (until it wasn't).

It started out well. At midnight, Poppy was patrolling with team red. 

Spider-man prevented a robbery of a pub, which put Poppy in an awkward situation, because the barkeeper then offered her a drink, and Poppy had to decide what excuse to use. Any true option would reveal something. She could admit she was underage (not a good move), or lie that she was pregnant (an even worse move). She ended up claiming an allergy (which was sort of true; spiders can’t tolerate alcohol.)

Other than that, though, patrol was good. (When she mentioned the conversation, Wade found it extremely funny. Matt did not. Both made sure, several times, that she hadn’t accepted the drink.)

It was a pretty slow night, with plenty of margin-time leftover for banter, food, and a long conversation on a random fire escape. It was nice. It made Poppy remember that sometimes trust was okay (just not usually). 

When the sun rose, and the team split up, Poppy had a few quiet hours to herself. (Saturday was good until it wasn't).

A few hours of work on the digital files of suit designs Tony had sent. A text conversation with a friend in a different time zone. Perfect morning. 

Morgan woke up in a good mood, several minutes before Poppy had been planning to wake her up. 

Sarah was home, so they went out for breakfast, and it was fun. (The restaurant was not as good as MJ’s cooking, but still.) MJ would be back soon. Not even three more full days. That was doable.

Poppy had rehearsals for the same scene, again, which would have been a bit annoying, but Hannah’s friends were great, and Saturday was one of the days where they had a live pianist, and anyway, Poppy loved ballet, so it was okay. (Saturday was good until it wasn’t).

After rehearsals, when the sisters reunited, at the park, Morgan was still full of smiles.

“Look at my braids, Nellie! Livvie did them. She's so fast at it!” Morgan exclaimed, jumping off the swingset and spinning around to show Poppy her hair, which was woven into two intricate fishtail braids. 

“That’s great, little miss. I gotta go talk to Olivia real quick. You keep playing here, and I’ll be right back. Okay?” 

Morgan nodded and kept swinging. 

Poppy walked over to Olivia, who was scrolling absently on her phone, glancing occasionally at the playground to make sure Morgan was okay. She looked up, hearing Poppy’s approach. 

“Hi, thanks so much for watching Morgan again. How was she today?” asked Poppy.

“Oh, she was great, she has been all week. Normally preschoolers are a handful, so I was a bit nervous to take four at once,” she laughed quietly, “but your sister’s great. She taught the other kid’s a bunch of words in sign language, and it’s like they have their own secret code now. I'm lucky I picked ASL as my high school language, or I’d be totally lost.” Olivia smiled. 

“Yeah, that’s Morgan. She’s a little leader when she gets comfortable in a group. I’m glad she was well behaved. Here’s what I owe you.” Poppy handed the woman a twenty. “I’ll see you Monday night?”

“Yep.” a pause, like she was considering something “Hey, if you don’t mind me asking, why are you picking your sister up instead of your parents? Everything good at home?”

“We’ve just got one, and she works a lot,” explained Poppy. It was the nicest way to describe their current situation without  outright  lying.

“Oh, sorry.” apologized the babysitter.

“It’s alright.” Poppy waved it off.  

“Well, have a nice day,” said Olivia awkwardly.

“You too.” Poppy smiled reassuringly and went to collect Morgan from the playground. 

“Heads up, we're going for dinner again tonight,” Poppy said as they walked to the nearest bodega for sandwiches.

“Is Lila there?” asked Morgan, gazing up at Poppy with bright, chocolate-colored eyes.

“Mhmm, she’ll be there,” said Poppy

“Awesome! Also, guess what?” said Morgan excitedly.

“Hmm?” asked Poppy, internally a little bit nervous as to where this was going.

“One of your friends has a metal arm!” Said Morgan.

“Mhmm, I know,” said Poppy, still unsure. Morgan didn’t seem to be scared, at least. 

“It’s awesome! I wanna know how it works.” Ah. Morgan was just a tech nerd. 

“You can ask him tonight, and he might be willing to tell you. But you have to respect if he says no, okay?”

“Okay. I’ll ask him.” Morgan said solemnly.

Lunch was great, and after, with the warmer weather, they were able to spend the rest of the afternoon outside. 

It was nice. (Saturday was good until it wasn’t.) 

Dinner with the avengers was great too. (was it weird that Poppy had gotten used to knowing world heroes so quickly?). 

Sergeant Barnes— “You don’t need to call me that, you’re Stark’s friend. I’m Bucky.”—  Bucky , was extremely patient with Morgan, and explained most of the functions of his prosthetic arm, to an awe-struck Morgan (the questions got highly technical, he redirected her to Tony)

Dr. Banner was still gone, but Natasha’s sister Yelena was back from wherever she’d been. Dinner was great. (Saturday was nice until it wasn’t)

Tony asked them to stay after for a movie. They did, though Morgan fell asleep almost immediately. It was nice. Tony drove them back. It was nice. Saturday was good until it wasn’t. 

Poppy should have kept her guard up, probably, instead of accepting that she was happy and things were good. 

Because when they got back to Sarah’s apartment, the good went away. 

Morgan was still asleep, thank god, when they entered the living room. Poppy had detected the scent of liquor. And she’d heard Sarah’s half-lucid ramblings to herself. But she’d expected what usually happened on the (reasonably rare) nights when Sarah came home wasted; a mess, maybe a little yelling, and r Sarah to pass out on the sofa. This was not to be. 

When Poppy walked in, Sarah started ranting about how she was “out too late” (Poppy didn’t have a curfew), and “getting pregnant with your fuckin boyfriend”

It took everything in Poppy not to flinch. 

Sarah wasn’t Tyler. 

Sarah might be angry, but she wouldn’t get physically violent, and Poppy had survived much worse than some yelling. 

Breathe in. 

Breathe out.

Relax. 

Explain. 

“No, ma’am, I was at dinner with some friends. I don’t have a boyfriend.” Both were technically true. 

“Oh, you’re a dyke, huh? The lord doesn’t condone homosexuals, and I’m a follower of Christ, so I'm not allowing you inside my home another god damned second," said Sarah. She said something else that Poppy didn't catch. Well, she  heard  it. Of course, she did. Just like she heard,  literally every other sound in the building.  But she didn't process the words. Couldn't. Didn't even want to. Sarah's voice was slurred, but she knew what she clearly was doing. Intoxicated adults  always knew  what they were doing. They did it on purpose. Even if they gushed false apologies later, they did everything on purpose. 

But there wasn't time to be upset about Sarah. 

Instead, Poppy had to focus on keeping morgan safe, which, ironically, now meant keeping her in the same room as their foster parent, instead of getting her out. 

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but you can’t do that right now—” Poppy began. 

“I can do whatever I want, and this is my property. I want both of you gone now.”

“Our things are—”

“Get whatever's so very important, but  get out of my home.  ” she said, voice dripping in acidic venom. 

Somehow, thank fuck, Morgan stayed asleep in Poppy’s arms, worn out by the long day. 

The argument continued. Sarah knew literally nothing about MJ. She assumed Poppy was with someone from ballet, maybe?

It was like slow motion. 

It was like a time-lapse.

Poppy was barely listening. 

Her mind wasn't in that apartment.

She honestly didn't know where her mind was. 

It was moving fast. 

Morgan stirred but didn't wake. Good. She didn't need to hear this. 

Poppy could hear her own voice saying something to Sarah. Sarah responded. The argument continued. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Poppy didn't realy know the final thing she said to Sarah. But the words tasted like ash. Sarah gave them five minutes to be out. (Poppy wasn't sure, looking back, how she'd even known that. What had Sarah said? Did it even matter?)

Morgan still didn’t wake up, somehow. Poppy didn't know anymore if that was a good thing. 

The situation with Sarah was no longer reasonable. 

Poppy knew when to quit (Spider-man didn't, of course. But Penelope Parker knew all too well)

 THe foster home had been getting worse for a while, really. Poppy had just been distracted. This was just the culmination. It hadn't started out that well, but that was life. So was this. Life sucked sometimes, that was fine, Poppy could deal. Hell, this wasn't even that bad, compared to some of the things that Poppy had dealt with. The worst part was that it reminded her of all those things. 

Poppy wasn't even surprised. She searched for what she was feeling and drew a blank. It didn't matter anyway. 

Instead, she found herself walking to her room. Packed everything important. Sarah wasn't safe. That was fine. Morgan's possessions, and a few other important things, went in Poppy's other bags. 

Foster kids knew how to live light. 

At least it wasn't trash bags, this time. Perks of working for SI.

Poppy had played this game before. 

She wasn’t scared. 

Wasn’t surprised.

She moved automatically. Packing was finished with, and Morgan was hadn’t even fully woken up. Good. 

Sarah had given her five minutes, and in actuality, it had probably taken at least seven, but Sarah was drunk enough that she hadn’t noticed. So Poppy carried her sister, and the entirety of their material possessions, neatly packed into unassuming bags, out of the apartment. She didn't say anything to Sarah while leaving. She didn't check if they were locked out.

Penelope Parker knew when to quit.

Because unlike spider-man, Penelope Parker had someone in particular to protect. 

Morgan had been out cold through Sarah’s yelling, but she stirred as they left the warm apartment for the slight chill of the evening air. 

“Go back to sleep, princess. You’re good, I’ve got you. We’ll be okay.  Prometto .” (Poppy would do anything to keep that promise.  Anything. )

Morgan did fall back asleep, sort of. In any case, she probably wouldn't remember tonight. Good. 

Poppy walked to a random starbucks. Morgan stayed asleep. Or at least she was pretending to sleep. Either way, fine. 

No one took any real notice of them. Why would they? It was just a couple girls waiting to be picked up by their parents. No one knew what they actually were. No one could see that their semblance of stability had just fallen apart. Poppy wasn’t sure if she liked that. Poppy ordered a black coffee, barely even registering the bitterness. 

She then pulled her phone out from the pocket of her faded jeans, and called their social worker. She barely remembered to speak english as she explained what had happened, voice monotone. 

She woman said a lot of things. Things like “someone else is picking you up, sweetheart. and "I know you’re scared, honey", and "You’re so brave." and "Everything’s gonna be okay." and "He’ll get there in half an hour." Poppy said a few things back. She couldn't remember what. It didn't really matter. 

Perhaps she should have felt something then. She didn’t know what, though. Anger? Hurt? Sadness? Shock? Horror? Grief? Something huge and important and powerful and alive, surely. But Poppy felt none of those things. 

Instead, as the happiness of the last few weeks shattered into sharp, colorful glass shards on the barren, icy ground, she went into survival mode. People talked about fight or flight (or the new ones, freeze, and fawn). Poppy didn’t know what it was that carried her through the evening, all the way to the trim social worker's false-safe gray car. But it wasn’t anger, happiness, or anything warm.

But when, in the backseat of an unfamiliar vehicle, the fight/flight/whatever reaction finally left, it left Poppy cold. Not uncomfortably cold, per se. Just… definitely not warm.

 It just was. 

She just was. The cool night air had seemingly seeped into her very being, painting her soul the color of ice. 

Ha.

Poetic.

 In any case, whatever this feeling was, it was cold. It was grim determination, perhaps. Or complete acceptance of the fact that life kinda sucked. Poppy wasn’t upset. She didn’t have the privilege of turning her broken glass pieces into a shank and slicing everything to bits until it felt better. 

No. Instead, she carefully melted each piece of used-to-be-happiness into pragmatic, efficient, productive…not-feeling. 

The end result was, continuing her analogy, a glass bottle, to keep this experience in. She’d done the same thing with each experience that she hated to think of. Melt the broken pieces. Forget them into something with which to store the memory, and move on. 

(Sometimes, of course, the lid came off.)

But that was fine. 

She shoved the escaped feelings back inside and screwed it back on, tightly. 

It was a  good  system, and she had no intention of changing it. At some point, of course, she had to deal with the feelings. But things have to break, sometimes, for the things inside to come to light. For now, Poppy was left with her latest glass jar. Latest convenient tool to store the things she didn’t have time for. She placed it on one of her many, perfectly organized mental shelves. And she left it there, next to the dozens of other memories. Memories from the other nights that broke her to think about for too long. 

And they arrived at the beige apartment of a middle-aged woman with curly red hair, a bright, friendly smile, and, clearly, very little experience with children over the age of two. She spoke to Poppy like she was made of broken glass, insisted on carrying in their bags, and fussed over everything. But Morgan was okay. And… so was Poppy. Because she had to be. Because if she wasn’t… well, it didn’t matter, because she was.  She was   fine . Completely, 100% fine. As per usual.

Chapter Text

Pressure like a grip, grip, grip and it won't let go, whoa Pressure like a tick, tick, tick 'til it's ready to blow, whoa Give it to your sister, your sister's stronger See if she can hang on a little longer Who am I if I can't carry it all? If I falter—Surface Pressure, Encanto Soundtrack

Poppy stared at the blue accent wall of the otherwise beige room she and Morgan were sleeping in. Well. Morgan was sleeping, anyway. The sound of her soft breaths, the slow rise and fall of her tiny chest, and the small weight of her, curled against Poppy’s side, were the only things keeping Poppy stable. The numbness was firmly gone. Poppy, for all her brilliant vocabulary, couldn’t put words to the emotions she had then. But that was alright. It didn’t matter that much, as long as they didn’t slip out. Poppy needed an outlet, now. Ideally, a productive one.

Really, she wanted to patrol, but that wasn’t an option. She hadn’t figured out the security of this house yet. She probably wouldn’t need to, this placement wouldn’t last long. Poppy tried and failed to pull back memories of earlier in the night. Her mind was full of smoke. She needed MJ. 

Poppy and Morgan kept to the small bedroom they’d both been placed in. 

Poppy was just grateful she and Morgan had a room to themselves. It wasn’t that bad. MJ would be back soon, focus on that. 

But the house reminded her of things. 

Of fear. 

Of blood and darkness. 

Fear fear fear fear anger fear loneliness.

No. 

Calm down. 

Deep breath in, deep breath out. Focus on hard facts. Think about what MJ would say if she was here. (MJ wasn’t here)

Hard facts. 

Morgan and Poppy were no longer with Sarah. 

They were also not with Tyler. 

They were in respite care, again. The woman’s name was Julia, and she didn’t seem the type to hurt. At least not with blades or fists. Hopefully. 

Hurting with words was a hard “maybe”. Soon, hopefully, a new, slightly less temporary placement would be found. Placements for siblings were hard, though, as were placements for teenagers, so it would take a while. They might go to a group home. That would be shit. Poppy didn’t know how she was going to manage school and work and ballet and spiderman and social activities and morgan, and everything was collapsing and hurting and wrong and—no. 

Fuck. 

Poppy was really bad at getting over a panic attack, without MJ. 

Breathe in.

Breathe out. 

Relax.

Poppy tried again to list facts. That was how MJ talked her down from panic attacks. It didn’t work without MJ there. 

It was fine, though. MJ would be back soon, Poppy just had to keep the really important stuff functional until then. 

None of this mattered, except Morgan, who awoke with a start a few minutes later. 

“Where are we?” She sounded more confused than scared. Good.

“Respite care. Go back to sleep, cielito.” Poppy tried to keep the edge out of her voice. 

“Why?” asked Morgan suspiciously. 

“Sarah’s place isn’t safe anymore. You’re a bit too young to understand, still. But I got all our stuff, including Circuit and Pixel, so it’s okay,” a pause “Go back to sleep.”

Morgan stared at Poppy, her dark eyes shining in the dim lamplight. 

“Are we gonna be okay?” Her voice was hesitant. “Yeah,” Poppy said, a little breathlessly. Her mouth was suddenly very dry. “Yeah, baby girl, we’ll be okay. We were okay last time, right?” 

“Mhmm. Was scary though.” Morgan said, hugging a pillow. 

“I know, baby, I know. It’s okay to be scared, but I promise we’ll be safe.” 

“Okay. Can I have Circuit and Pixel?” 

“Sure thing, honey. I’ve got them in your bag.”

Poppy stood, and rummaged through the bag, and pulled out Morgan’s stuffed koala, circuit, and knitted giraffe, Pixel. Morgan loved The only ones Morgan owned. Because Poppy was terrible at this nd couldn’t even get a job good enough to buy any more stupid stuffed animals for Morgan, and—Poppy was ripped bag to the present by Morgan’s terrified voice. 

“Nellie? Are you okay?”

Poppy’s head snapped up in the way that used to give her vertigo, before the bite.  

She forced a smile. “Oh. Yeah, I’m fine. Here’s your plushies.”

“Grazie” murmured Morgan, as she hugged the toys to her chest. Almost a minute passed before she spoke again (Poppy counted off all fifty-seven seconds).

“What’s gonna happen now?” Asked Morgan. It was a vague question. But not really. 

“We’re here for tonight, and then maybe we’ll go to another respite care place, then we’ll have a new foster placement.” explained Poppy patiently. She barely kept the edge out of her voice. 

“Like Tyler or like Sarah?” asked Morgan softly. 

Poppy’s breath caught in her throat. “Not like Tyler. You remember Linda and Danny?” The elderly couple had been the best foster parents Poppy could remember. She wished they were there now.

“Mhmm. Miss Linda gave me Circuit for Hanukkah.” It was the only Jewish home they’d ever stayed at.

“We’ll maybe go with someone like Sarah, just for a little while, and then, when Mrs. C can find someone else like Linda and Danny, we’ll go with them. But we aren’t going back to Tyler, or anybody like him. I promise.” said Poppy, squeezing Morgan’s shoulder. She would do anything in the world to keep that promise. 

“Okay. But if… if we go with someone like Sarah, what if they turn bad, like Tyler?”

Poppy didn’t say “ he was bad from the start, you just didn’t know, because I kept it secret to protect you .” 

Poppy didn’t say “ Sarah was bad too ”

Poppy didn’t say “ Pretty much everyone is bad .”

She wanted to, almost.

But she didn't.

Instead, she said something kinder but, just as true. “If that happens, I’ll protect us, and we’ll leave. We’ll run away, so fast nobody can catch us, and we’ll go somewhere safe. Somewhere with no Tyler, just juice pops and sunshine and nice people, okay?” 

“People like your work friends?”

“Yeah. Yeah, maybe people like them.” Poppy said softly.

“But no Tyler?” questioned Morgan

“No Tyler. Ever.” said Poppy, with maybe a little more force than necessary. 

“Good.” Morgan hugged her stuffed animals a little tighter. 

“Yeah.” Poppy whispered. 

There was a long pause. 

“Nellie?” came Morgan’s voice.

“Hmm?” 

“Tell me a story?” asked Morgan. Oh. Fuck. Okay. Poppy tried to pull a story from the chaos of her mind. 

It worked, after a few moments.

 “Close your eyes, and listen.” began Poppy, pleasantly surprised by how steady her voice was. “Far away, deep in the lush woods of a land where people were scarce and magic was common, lived two sisters. The elder one, Rose Red, was as strong and prickly as her namesake. The younger sister, Violet, was quieter, soft-hearted and sweet-tempered. She had a bright mind, and lovely, silky brown hair.

Regardless of their differences, they loved each other very much and were as close as sisters could be, being the only ones left of their family; their parents had passed away when Violet was barely more than a baby. One day, as they tended their cottage garden, they came across a raven, injured by a fallen log.” 

Poppy went on to describe how the heroines saved the crow, who was really a great dragon, cursed by a sorcerer, and went on a magical journey. Morgan fell asleep just as the characters were traveling through a cave, full of stalactites and bioluminescent mushrooms. The story of the sisters in the forest was one that Poppy had made up several years ago, initially as a school project, but it was now one of Morgan’s favorites.  

With Morgan once again asleep, Poppy’s mind wandered to places she wasn’t fond of.

Nothing was okay. 

She and her sister had been kicked out of a mostly stable placement, and now they might go to a group home, which would be hell for Morgan’s sensory issues, and hell for Poppy’s nightlife. 

Poppy couldn't do this.

She had to do this. 

Group homes were fine. She'd figure something out. She had to. Failure wasn't an option. 

If it had just been her, of course, Poppy would have been fine.

Vigilantes stuck together (even though technically, Poppy herself wasn't a vigilante). Crashing at one of Deadpool’s apartments for a couple months would have been fine.

Hell, if it had just been Poppy, she could’ve stayed with any number of friends, faked an ID and stayed at a hotel, or just accepted the fact that group homes sucked and gotten through it. But that wasn’t the situation. 

The situation was trash, and Poppy was stuck, and—No. Nope. Not doing that. 

Breathe. 

Panic rules. 

Calm down, figure out what’s going on, what needs to change, and how to achieve that change. Keep it together, keep Morgan safe, keep her okay. Okay.

Panic rules. 

Step 1: Calm down. 

Deep breaths. 

Focus on something other than the panic. 

Think of a song, a color, whatever. Just don’t let the feelings become overwhelming. The mind controls the body, not the other way around. Keep it like that. 

Breathe in, breathe out, relax, repeat. 

Good. 

Step 2: Assess the situation. 

They were in respite care. It was Sunday morning, about three AM. They had been kicked out of their foster home. 

For a brief moment, Poppy herself wondered if this was even real. She felt this way in so many memories, perhaps this wasn’t even real. 

But no, that couldn’t be it. All her worst memories smelled like alcohol. Or blood. Or both. A few smelled like disinfectant. None of them smelled like floral air freshener and paint. So the situation was that this was real, and Poppy was in respite care, and MJ was gone, and—fuck. Breathe. Move on. 

Step 3: what to do about it: Poppy couldn’t really do much. Placements for siblings were hard. Placements for teenagers were even harder. Placements for people like Morgan and Poppy? Rare, to say the least. But Poppy didn’t control that.

Morgan was safe. Poppy would do anything to keep it that way. 

Anything. 

Morgan was the most important thing. All Poppy could do was manage her own life, and keep Morgan safe. That was doable. Morgan was little. 

(Morgan wouldn’t be little forever.) No, someday Morgan would be old enough to realise how fucked up everything was. Someday Morgan would be hard to hide Spider-man from, harder to hide the realities of the world from. Hell, enough about the future, Poppy wasn’t doing great now. She was doing her best, but that wasn’t enough. Morgan needed more love, more attention, more resources, more stability than Poppy could provide. Poppy couldn’t even keep Sarah happy enough to let them stay. 

She was a horrible sister, and she was an even worse vigilante, and she was lucky that MJ was gone, because she was probably a horrible girlfriend as well. 

Those pleasant thoughts stayed with her. 

And then, stupidly, someone nearby decided that now was the PERFECT time for fireworks.

Gunshots. 

Hand on the gun.

Finger on the trigger.

Press. 

Bang.

Too loud.

Too loud even before the enhancements.

Too loud even before the blood.

Gunshots.

Bullets.

Screaming.

Blood.

May's blood.

Ben's blood.

Poppy's blood, covering Wade's obnoxious green carpet.

Deadpool's own blood, even though he healed in a matter of minutes.

Blood. Blood. Gunshots. Cold.  

Shots, knives, and liquor. Red. Blood. So much blood. Hot and sticky and EVERYWHERE and she was dying, again, again, again, and there was nothing but anger, anger, anger, anger. No, get a grip. Deep breath in. Slow breath out. Relax. Smile. 

Everything was fine. 

Nothing was really fine.

Everything HURT. It hurt so, so, so, so much. 

She couldn't do this.

Poppy couldn’t sleep, fucking  obviously, so she maneuvered her arm to grab her backpack from next to the bed, and pulled out her laptop. 

She lost herself in work, trying to block out the images her mind kept helpfully supplying. 

She thought about contacting Tony. 

She knew he was almost definitely still up. 

She wrote six different emails. 

She didn’t send any of them. 

Poppy didn’t need to inconvenience someone as important as Tony goddamn Stark, even if he did seem to care about her, at least a little. 

Poppy knew better than to let herself trust people, count on people, depend on people. Relationships with adults were, fundamentally, unsafe. Bad ones were dangerous because they could hurt you. Good ones were dangerous because either you could hurt them, or they could leave, and hurt you that way. 

Wade was different, of course, because he got something benign but tangible out of interacting with Poppy (amusement, maybe, or human interaction, or fulfillment in an immortal life that poppy could only guess probably sucked sometimes). Anyway, Wade wasn’t normal, and he and Poppy were… friends, maybe? Wade called it mentorship (semi-ironically). That would have made more sense if Poppy had needed more help, and if Wade had been a bit less… murder-y. 

But their relationship included something that could be called love, in the way you love eccentric family members. It was definitely more than an alliance, anyway. Hannah and the other seniors were the same way. Friends. Platonic love and a little bit of protectiveness. But they weren’t adults. Fury was an adult, and he was good, definitely, but he was also more like a teacher than a parent. Tony should be like that. Poppy didn’t need a parent. 

Things were better, safer, alone. 

And Poppy was fine, really. 

She was alive, and Morgan was alive, and they weren’t on the streets. That was lucky. Poppy could look after herself, and her sister, it was fine, she didn’t need help. She was okay. (She wasn’t. Nothing was okay.)

Whatever. It was fine. It wasn't fine. Nothing was fine. Fuck. 

Chapter Text

“I need a father. I need a mother. I need some older, wiser being to cry to. I talk to God, but the sky is empty.” ― Sylvia Plath

Penelope Tamara Parker was smart. Not bragging, she just was. She’d learned to read at three, understood algebra 2 in the first grade, and read research papers like normal kids read fairy tales. 

She wasn’t just a STEM kid, either; Poppy could spout poetry with the best of them, play Chopin and Bach, Vivaldi and Mozart if you gave her a piano She could dissect the subtext and themes of Shakespeare's Othello, and map the similarities and differences between virtue ethics and utilitarianism, and do it all before lunch, (which she could make herself from scratch).

Even outside of school, she was good at pretty much everything. A talented dancer. A valued member of a semi-popular friend group. Great at chess. Great at drawing, when she used to do that. Good enough at graphic design to make more than double the New York State minimum wage doing freelance work, when she had to. 

Poppy spoke more languages than there were nuclei in carbon, and had saved more lives as spider-man than there were countries in the UN. She could, of course, tell you the number of nuclei in any element, and name every country in the UN. 

Poppy was an actual, real-life Mary-sue. 

She was also gay, neurodivergent, and almost certainly traumatized. So, not really perfect. 

Poppy was perfect. She had to be. 

And she’d failed anyway. 

After the night in respite care, Poppy and Morgan had been picked up by Mrs. Craigson and taken to her office. There, they sat on a squishy green sofa in a too-warm room with childish decorations, while the social worker made call after call after call. 

Poppy did her best to keep morgan entertained, but the five-year-old was… having some big feelings. She didn’t act out or even cry, but she wasn’t quite her usual bubbly self. Then again, how could she be? Poppy had failed to keep a placement stable. 

After Poppy’s third failed attempt at initiating a word game, inspiration struck. “Hey, cielita, do you wanna read a book on my phone?”

Morgan looked interested. “Okay.” there was a spark of curiosity in her eyes. “What book?” 

“Any book you want, princess,” said Poppy.

“Hmm. Magic of reality?” she asked hopefully. 

“Good choice. You wanna read it, or listen to me read?” Give her choices. Make her feel in control. 

“You,” Morgan said instantly. "You read."

“Okay, should we start at the beginning?” asked Poppy.

“No. The atoms part.” Morgan knew perfectly well how atomic physics worked. It was just a comfort book, at this point. But Poppy wasn’t going to deny her sister that comfort. 

“Good choice,” she said simply. 

So Poppy began to read, quietly, to her sister, about what the smallest thing in the universe is, and how scientists theorized it, and then, that chapter finished, about why night and day happen. 

At around 2 pm, when they were nearly finished with the book, Mrs. Craigson announced that she’d found a placement. So they got in her car and drove to the foster home. 

The house was decorated with paintings of white Jesus and big, blocky letters spelling out things like “faith” and “live laugh love”. 

It also already had three other children in it: two foster kids, rowdy twin boys that Poppy pegged to be around seven or eight, plus the couple’s own baby, another boy, almost two.

Just enough kids that the house was chaotic and overwhelming, but not technically a group home. 

Morgan went mostly nonverbal the minute they stepped inside and saw the man, who, admittedly, was just a tiny bit reminiscent of Tyler, in both appearance and personality. 

The woman, (who, in a cruel twist of irony, was named Sarah, though Poppy was expected to address her as “Mrs. Whitney”), was… fine, compared to some. 

Better than Tyler. Worse than Carter and Riley. Overall, roughly on par with other Sarah. 

She was nice on the surface, and the house was cleaner than Other-Sarah’s apartment, but new-Sarah also insisted on family dinner that night, complete with saying grace, using silverware, and making homophobic comments. She didn’t drink any alcohol, but the man did. Both adults talked about how nice it would be to have girls to help with the chores. 

Poppy’s answering laugh and agreement felt faker than styrofoam. But if new Sarah and her husband noticed, they didn’t mind. 

She did clear the table. And loaded the dishwasher. And put up with Mrs. Whitney’s comments. 

And “you’ll be such a good bride, sweetie” 

And “your sister’s so good, too, girls ought to be seen and not heard, you know, she’s such a polite little thing”

And “keep an eye on the baby while I put the boys to bed. It’ll be good practice for your own boys, someday, of course.”

Poppy watched the toddler play with expensive racecar toys, while morgan sat a few feet away, staring at nothing. Poppy wanted to go to her sister, but this was the sort of household where prioritizing anything other than what the parents wanted was unacceptable. 

Poppy wasn’t stupid. She knew what the situation was. She even hoped, that first night with them, that it would be… not good, of course, but fine. 

It was clear that what the Whitney’s wanted were a babysitter and some oh-wow-you’re-such-a-saint-for-housing-foster-kids points.

It wasn’t ideal, but it should have been safe. Safe-ish. It wasn’t, though, because as good as Poppy was at faking and acting and pretending, Morgan was still very much a child.

A brilliant, amazing, compassionate, wonderful traumatized child, but a child nonetheless.

Poppy could have made it work, probably. 

But Morgan said something to Poppy in Spanish, and the woman scolded her harshly for speaking a “heathen language in front of my baby”. Morgan responded with a quiet “My mama wasn’t a heathen. She spoke Spanish. Don’t be mean.”

Mr Whitney, who had just entered the room, exploded. And Morgan heard every word of it. Well, not every word. Whether by order or by Poppy's own choice, they left the house, with only their backpacks.

Poppy didn’t want to remember the details. 

They sat on the curb in the dark for twenty minutes, before their social worker came to get them. Fuck, poppy was getting deja vu. At least last time ( yesterday ), Morgan had been asleep. Now, she was crying.  

Poor kid felt responsible for them losing this placement, obviously. It wasn’t her fault people were stupid. In the backseat of the car, Poppy stroked morgans hair, and whispered soft reassurance, in Italian, not Spanish. Morgan calmed down, and muttered a few things back, mostly just “I’m sorry” in four different languages. Still, though, she was at least talking now. 

Poppy reassured morgan, in Italian, that this wasn’t her fault, and it was okay, and Morgan was still safe, loved, and good (god, poppy wished someone had said that to her, like ever). Mrs Craigson glanced back at them a lot but said very little. What was there to say? 

The sisters didn’t have a place to stay, because they’d been kicked out of two different homes in the span of twenty-four hours. That still felt wrong. But… it was technically true, 

Saturday night around eleven PM, the incident with Sarah. Now, it was Sunday evening, eight-thirty PM. Poppy vaguely realized that MJ’s flight would be landing soon. That was good. What wasn’t good, though, was that Poppy and Morgan had nowhere to live. 

Poppy needed to find a new plan. Fast.  

She considered her options. Actually, a lot of the consideration was just wishing that MJ was there. No, not wishing. Wishing was unproductive. Except—Yes, actually it was wishing, as much as Poppy hated to admit that, even to herself.

It wasn’t FAIR. 

Fuck, that thought felt childish. 

But it was true. Poppy missed MJ. 

MJ was having fun in Maine, and it wasn’t fair to MJ to want to take that time with her family away, but Poppy missed her, and she was on a plane right now, and it had been a plane crash, technically, that had killed Poppy’s parents, and what if something happened to her oh god what if—no. NO. Calm the fuck down. Now. 

Breathe in. Smile. For Morgan, who was breathing, raggedly, in the car seat beside Poppy. 

Breathe out. Stay calm. For MJ, when she got back. 

Breathe in. Smile. For Mamá and Papá. Make them proud. 

Breathe out. Stay calm. For Ben and May. It’s what they would want. 

Poppy’s panic had faded by the time they arrived back and the social worker’s office. She turned to Poppy before getting out of the car. She ignored Morgan entirely. 

“I’m sorry, honey, but we can’t find you another placement for tonight. You’ll have to spend tonight here. Really sorry about this, I know it’s hard. Not your fault, but people don’t want your sister’s behavioral issues. You’re being so brave, and we’re all working very hard to find you a place to stay.”

My sister is literally right here and can hear you, and she doesn’t have behavioral issues, foster parents are just dicks sometimes. Poppy wanted to say. But that wouldn’t actually help Morgan. 

Instead, Poppy smiled politely and said “It’s alright. I understand. I’m sure Morgan understands too. Quick thing, though, we left in a bit of a rush” Understatement of. a fucking lifetime. "So we didn't get all our things.

Poppy and Morgan were put in an empty room with two cots and no windows. Poppy and Morgan talked, for a while. Or rather, Poppy talked, and Morgan listened, for the first half of the conversation, then Poppy talked, and Morgan signed back, then they both signed. 

They didn’t discuss the day, at all. 

They’d done that in the car, and now they were leaving this behind them. 

It was Poppy and Morgan against the world, but Morgan knew that she had Poppy to protect her, and Poppy knew that she had Morgan to keep protected. It wasn’t so bad. Only seventeen more months until Poppy’s sixteenth birthday. Seventeen months until emancipation. 

When Morgan fell asleep, still in day clothes, Poppy lay down beside her on the same cot and pulled her phone out of her backpack. 

She’d used her phone a few times since last night, of course, for calling social workers and keeping Morgan distracted, but Poppy had forgotten, in the chaos, that she was not only a sister and a ward of the state. She was also a dancer, a student, and an intern. 

She was reminded of these other roles in the form of forty-three notifications. 

Six were school slack messages about homework. Okay, that was fine, Poppy was still on track to finish assignments on time. 

Seven were emails; Four from teachers asking where she was, one from Fury, two from her dance teachers about missing rehearsal. Fine. She could explain her absence from school as due to switching foster homes, write off the rehearsal and daycares absences as due to a “family emergency”, and tell Fury what had actually happened. She composed responses to each email and set them to deliver at 9 AM Tuesday morning. Perfect. 

The remaining sixteen notifications were texts. 

The first five she read were from Hannah. 

Hannah Today 09: 23 Today Hey, favorite freshman, where you at 

Hannah Today 10:14 Kid 

Hannah Today 11:09 Poppy 

Hannah Today 12:41 Oh my god text back 

Hannah Today 14:03 Literally what happened

Hannah Today 15:19 Call me 

Poppy used the “family emergency” thing again with Hannah and promised to be there next week. 

Eight notifications were from her group chat with the squad. 

Betty, Cindy, and Ned had also each texted her individually; Ned had five times, Betty two, and Cindy once. 

MJ had texted, from her dad’s phone, that her flight had been delayed and she wouldn’t be back until late Monday morning. The text was the specific type of stilted which meant MJ had dictated it to someone instead of typing it herself. 

There was a coded text from Matt, checking on her, and three from Wade. 

Penelope Tamara Parker was smart. Not bragging, she just was. But it didn’t take a genius to see that there were still five notifications left. All under the contact Tony Stark.

Well.

Fuck. 

Chapter Text

"If you're going through hell, keep going." —Winston Churchill 

The first text was from Saturday night. 

Dr. Stark Saturday 22:37 Hey kid, are you inside safely? 

Given that he’d dropped her off literally right outside the apartment, one would certainly think so. 

But he’d checked anyway. That was… weird. It was nice. Both. 

Dr. Stark Yesterday 10:26: I’ll see you tomorrow for the internship, yeah?

Dr. Stark Today 15:12 Hey, where are you? We were planning on meeting today to work on your suit, right?

Dr. Stark Today 16:03 It’s fine if you can’t make it today, just let me know.

Dr. Stark Today 19:48 not trying to be creepy, but I’d really appreciate a text back.

Poppy allowed herself a moment to relish in the fact that an adult cared about her, at least a little, despite not being obligated to even in the slightest. 

It was nice, but he moved on quickly.

Focus. 

Good morning, sorry for the late response. Life has been hectic. Long story short, my sister and I are in the system, and we had some bad luck with foster parents. Quite honestly it's a whole mess. A lot of things are up in the air right now and I'm not sure when I'll be able to get back. 

He responded in two minutes flat. 

Jesus fucking christ. We're good, but also what the fuck. I can get involved if you want, the tower's got a lot of extra space, we'd be thrilled to have you. 

There. A blatant offer of help. The air rushing into Poppy's lungs tasted sweeter than honey.

Tony fucking Stark was on her side, and everything was going to be okay. 

He had offered help half a dozen times in the past, although in the name of pride Poppy had always declined, keeping things vague and impersonal. 

Enough of that. 

Poppy typed up a message back. 

That would be appreciated. Here's my social worker's contact.  

The message was marked read, and Dr Stark sent a tapback thumbs up, which was mildly hilarious given the circumstances. He didn't write anything back, but that was okay. Tony Stark was a lot of things, but Poppy had learned that he wasn't really a liar. Not to the people he cared about. 

And by some amazing, wonderful twist of fate, Poppy was one of those people. 

Despite Poppy's reluctance to trust adults, Dr. Stark was... well, there were some adults Poppy trusted. Occasionally.

Team red, for example, was okay, because Wade had literally save Poppy's life, as had Matt, and no one did that for people they didn't like. 

Wade called it mentorship (semi-ironically), which would have made more sense if Poppy had needed more help, and if Wade had been a bit less… murder-y. 

Poppy sort of thought that Dr. Stark was the same way. He was kind, and did his best. He was a hero, but more than that, he was a decent fucking human being. 

He would be here 

If he didn't she would figure something else out. 

And yet.

A few minutes later came the buzz of repulsers. Poppy heard it blocks away. 

He landed just outside the building. 

Poppy left the room, checking that Morgan was asleep, and walked downstairs, and out the door.

It was a wonder no one stopped her from leaving. 

It was a wonder no one cared enough to stop her. 

It was a wonder she wasn’t surprised.

Dr. Starks armor had retracted by the time Poppy was outside. 

“Hey, kid.” He sounded tired. “Just messaged your social worker, but she didn’t respond, so I tracked it. I thought this might be a better conversation in person, hope you don’t mind.” A bit of his usual bravado.

“Where’s Morgan?” he asked, heading for the entrance. 

“She’s upstairs.” Said Poppy, following the man inside. 

“Okay, you go talk to her, yeah? Let her know that you’re both coming home with me,” he said as they stepped into the building. 

What.

(Poppy was experiencing a weird amount of deja vu from that day, months ago, when the internship had originally been offered. Dr. Stark operated on a whole other realm of understanding.)

“I’m sorry, Dr. Stark, I don’t think I understand,” she said carefully. 

“I’m getting temporary custody of you. This whole situation is ridiculous.” His words were fast, tone assured. This was Ironman talking, not Dr. Stark.

“You’re okay with staying at the tower, right?” he asked quickly. This was Tony. 

“Yeah.” Poppy had no better option. She hadn’t expected help, really, and certainly not… this kind of help, but she was grateful. 

Any chance at keeping Morgan out of a group home was worth taking. 

Stark Tower was huge, there was plenty of space. They could stay out of the way until another option became available. It would be fine. 

“Great, get your sister ready.” at her hesitation, he continued “We'll talk in the car, yeah? I just want to get you both out of here right now.” 

Poppy nodded, still wordless. 

He smiled, but said nothing, walking away. 

Okay, Poppy could do this. 

She walked upstairs and grabbed their backpacks. Their other stuff was still at the Whitney’s house. It was fine. Poppy had her suit, her phone, her laptop, and her mother’s star of David necklace.

Morgan had her two favorite stuffed animals, her favorite book, and her drawing stuff. 

Everything else could be replaced. 

Poppy woke morgan up, and whispered to, cajoled, comforted, hushed, and made promises to the girl until the both of them were dressed, and downstairs. 

Dr. Stark greeted them in the fluorescent-lit waiting room of the office. 

“Signed and official. Happy’s bringing the car.” he looked at them more carefully. “Is that all your stuff?”

“Most of our things are still at our last foster parents' house.” Explained Poppy

“Damn it. Okay, is there a plan for you to get it back?” he asked

“No.” Poppy was too tired to be polite. Dr. Stark seemed to understand that. It had been a hell of a night. Not Poppy's worst, but still. 

“Do you want to go back and get it yourselves, or have me send someone?” 

“Thank you, Dr. Stark, but you don't need to—”

“Of course I don’t. I’m doing it anyway because I want to.” He said, waving her off. 

“Also, you really need to start calling me Tony, I thought we were making progress there.” a smile. A pause. “So, what do you want? It’s getting a bit late for the little miss to be up.”

“I don’t want to go back there,” said Morgan, suddenly.

He nodded. “That settles it. I’ll send someone, we’re going to the tower right now. C’mon, Happy’s here.” 

They left the building. Poppy was carrying Morgan, and both their backpacks. Dr. Stark wisely did not offer to carry their bags, which Poppy appreciated more than she could express. 

Indeed, he said nothing, except “Here’s the car.”

It was a familiar, subtly-expensive black car parked outside. 

A few days ago it had been Dr. Sta—Tony, driving. Now, it was his head of security, Mr. Hogan. 

Poppy sat in the back, Morgan next to her. Oddly, Tony got in the back with them instead of the front seat. Morgan was sitting next to him. There was a man, next to Morgan, and Poppy had no way to prevent something from happening, and it would probably be fine, but Tyler had been fine, at first, and who knows, and fuck, fuck, okay. 

Fucking breathe. Tony wasn't going to do anything. 

Morgan probably wouldn’t give him anything to get upset about anyway. 

It would be fine, she wasn’t even going to talk much at all, probably. 

And she didn't, for several minutes. 

Then, because traumatized little kids were unpredictable creatures, she did. 

“You shouldn’t be ironman,” Morgan said suddenly. 

Poppy glanced at Dr. Stark, more on instinct than anything else, to see if he was angry, ready to de-escalate, but he just looked at Morgan curiously. 

“Oh yeah? Why not?” he asked, in that way of sounding interested that so few adults mastered. I

“‘S not iron. It’s gold and titanium. No iron.” muttured Morgan.

“So you think I should be gold-and-titanium-alloy-man?” he asked

“Yeah,” said Morgan, giggling. "i's better.”

“Hmm." TOny looked thoughtful. "It’s a little late for rebranding, but you’re right, that would be more accurate. There’s some iron, though, if that makes it better.”

Morgan scrunched up her face in consideration. "Mm. Kinda."

He nodded. “Well, that’s good.” he looked at Poppy. “We’ll be there in a few minutes. You and I have a lot to talk about." Poppy pointedly ignored the twinge of worry in her chest. Dr Stark—Tony, was safe. He continued. "It's been a hell of a night though, so I'm thinking it would probably be better to talk in the morning?” 

"Okay," said Poppy. "That works." She was... well. Not fine. But she was safe, fucking finally.

Chapter Text

Poppy had been on high alert the entire ride to the tower, but stepping out of the car, she was hit with a blast of cold air. Of course, the higher levels of Stark Tower were generally cold. Poppy knew this.

Shit.

Poppy had about twenty minutes, absolute max before she’d shut down.

Stupid fucking hibernation. Stupid fucking spider DNA

Calm down.

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

Smile.

Focus on Morgan.

The child in question looked asleep, but she wasn’t.

Her heartbeat was too fast to really be sleeping. She might have been pretending so that Poppy would carry her. That really wasn’t necessary, because Poppy would have anyway; More likely, it was to avoid talking to anyone.

Poppy would also have preferred to avoid talking, but that wasn’t an option for her.

Really, Poppy wanted to curl up and sleep for a long, long time.

If she wasn’t careful, that would happen.

She hadn’t slept in… no, she’d slept on Thursday. Time was stupid.

Poppy didn’t need sleep.

Breathe.

Instead of doing any of the things she wanted, she shouldered her backpack and carried Morgan with one arm, and Morgan’s bag with the other.

She thanked Mr. Hogan profusely for driving and remained composed when he responded with a blunt “It’s fine. Call me Happy. Tony’s gonna show you your room. Goodnight.” and left.

She tightened her grip around Morgan and ignored the discomfort in the enclosed space of the elevator.

She walked quickly through the fancy hallway, keeping up with Tony.

He pointed to a door near the end of the hall “That’s my room if you need anything, and the guest room is right here” he opened a door.

Poppy’s breath caught in her throat when she saw the room.

It was fucking huge, with two full beds, an unblocked view of the NYC skyline, and actual fucking hardwood floors. Poppy… really should not have been focusing on how expensive the room was. She should have been focusing on whatever Dr. Stark—Tony, was saying.

“—get you a better room tomorrow, obviously” Poppy would have been happy with anywhere quiet that had a warm bed for Morgan and a solid internet connection. Focus.

“—only guest room with two beds on this floor, and I want to make sure you can both find whatever you need, the bathroom’s over there, again, and you saw my room, right?”

“Yeah, two doors down on the left,” said Poppy, setting the begs down and repositioning Morgan in her arms. 

Tony kept talking. Poppy tried to listen.

“—far as food goes, there are some snacks in here if you’re hungry tonight, but for tomorrow, Steve’s probably going to make breakfast, so you could eat in the kitchen ” he paused. “If you don’t want to eat with everyone that’s fine too—not that everyone's here, because the Bartons are gone, and so’s Yelena, and Pepper’s conference ends tomorrow, so it’s really just me, Steve, Barnes, Nat, and Bruce— but again, you don’t have to come to the kitchen, just let me know and I can—” he stopped rambling, suddenly, and looked at her.

“Shit. I’m overwhelming you. Sorry about that.” He said quietly.

Poppy was unused to adults apologizing. It felt weird.

Tony turned to go. “I’m gonna back off now and go to bed. Come get me if you need anything. Or tell Jarvis and he’ll wake me up. Whatever you want.”

“You’re good for now though?” he asked, hand already on the door.

“Yeah.” Poppy said, nodding even though he couldn’t see her.

“Good.” he turned back to her. “This whole situation is… I don’t know what to call it, but it’ll be okay. We’ll figure everything out tomorrow, alright?”

“Yeah. Thank you.” Poppy whispered.

“Of course. Goodnight, sleep well,” he said, closing the door.

“Goodnight,” Poppy called after him.

Deep breathe in.

Deep breathe out.

Focus.

Morgan was still pretending to be asleep. She didn’t want to deal with everything that had happened in the last… forty-eight hours, now?

It wasn’t the worst weekend they’d had, but it was the first really bad one that Morgan had known.

If Poppy was the sort of person that cried, she would have.

But she wasn’t, and she didn’t.

Instead, she “woke Morgan up”, and got her changed into the sleep clothes Poppy kept in her bag (the only other clothes they had, at the moment. But that wouldn’t be for long. Not if Tony really intended to get their stuff back)

Morgan was cooperative as Poppy got her ready for bed, but didn’t respond verbally to anything in any language.

With Morgan finally in bed, Poppy curled around her, giving no thought to the other bed.

Several silent minutes passed.

Well, “silent” wasn’t exactly the right word.

Poppy heard a lot of sounds.

Morgan’s breathing and heartbeat, as well as her own. Tony, who was in his room, typing something. Machinery buzzed over everything, but Poppy could still make out several other heartbeats. Other team members in the penthouse.

Her enhanced hearing was, as per usual, both a blessing and a curse.

It was good, knowing that she’d sense most threats well before they came close enough to hurt Morgan, but at the same time, it was hard to put up with the sound, all the fucking time.

At least she didn’t hear anything from outside. The tower was probably sound-insulated, on top of being huge. Normally, Poppy could hear things from blocks away’ dogs, cars, babies, screams, gunshots, music, everything.

Not being able to hear the sounds of new york didn’t let Poppy forget them, but it was still nice.

It was really nice, and Poppy was having a hard time staying awake. Morgan was safe, literally right there, so the emergency part of It wouldn’t hurt to take a nap, right? She was so, so, so tired, and it was cold in here, but there wasn’t a visible thermostat, and Morgan was fine, so it should be… fine.

It wasn’t fine.

Poppy didn’t last even ninety minutes before she awoke. She bit back a scream.

Nightmares.

Again.

Fuck.

Poppy’s hands were sticky.

She looked at them. They were bloody from where her nails had sliced skin.

Blood.

There was always blood in her nightmares.

Blood and she was lying on the floor, regretting the alcohol she’d drunk to “dull the pain” of the bullets, and Deadpool was talking, saying something she didn’t understand because everything hurt.

Fear.

It was night, and it was red. And it was cold.

Too much blood. What had happened? It was her own blood, staining Deadpool's carpet… or was it dripping from her arms on Tyler’s linoleum? Did it matter which it was? Was Morgan okay?

Fuck. It was cold.

Blood.

Uncle Ben’s blood, red, soaking through his light-blue button-up shirt, and May’s blood on her bright yellow sweater that ben had just bought her for Hannukah two stupid months ago, and now it was ruined, and why did that matter what mattered was the fact that everything was ruined and they were dead, and Poppy kept Morgan’s face against her neck, so the two-year-old couldn’t see the blood, but there was blood, and Poppy was sprinting now because it was too late, and they were dead and they would never come back. And she was running, running, running.

But she was standing still, because, with Tyler, movement meant more punishment.

And she was hyperventilating in Wade’s bathtub while he swore and muttered and fished a bullet out of her leg.

And someone was mad, and she had to do something, fast, or everything would be horrible, but it already was, and everyone was dead. Poppy wanted to be dead too because it was too hard to be alive and she was just done. Only she couldn’t die, because she had to keep morgan safe, and—

No.

No.

Breathe.

Deep breaths—It didn’t work. She couldn’t breathe.

The air was cold and thick, and she couldn’t fucking breathe.

The room was huge, and she could keep Morgan safe, and it should all be fucking perfect.

But Poppy couldn’t fucking breathe, and the white sheets were stained with her blood because blood stained everything poppy had ever touched and she couldn’t breathe.

She needed to get out and do something. Poppy really should stay with Morgan, but she couldn’t breathe. Morgan was fully asleep. Deep sleep. Poppy would be back before she woke up, she always was.

Poppy could not afford for Morgan to see this.

The panic, the fear, the pain.

The weakness.

Morgan needed Poppy to be strong.

Or at least to give the illusion of strength.

Silently, Poppy stood, slipped her shoes on, and made her way to the doorway.

The door didn’t make a sound as she opened it.

Poppy let out a breath, finally, as she stepped into the hallway. It was a little easier here, but she needed… She needed daytime, warmth, and movement.

Because all she could think of right now was night, and cold, and being frozen still, and not moving, and needing to move, wanting to move, but not being able to because that would make it so much worse and—

“Hey, what are you up to?”

Poppy spun around to face whoever it was, apology already on her lips, hands already prepared to become fists. Whatever had to happen.

Her eyes met the cool, steady, slightly-concerned gaze of Natasha Romanoff.

Fuck. Poppy couldn’t breathe, she shouldn’t be here, why had she left the bedroom, she shouldn’t have, that probably wasn’t allowed, everything was ruined, and it was her fault and—

“Breathe, spider-girl. It’s okay.” her voice was silvery. Calm. Not angry yet, Poppy could keep her not angry, probably. “You’re safe, everything’s okay.”

Poppy nodded, but breathing was still hard.

“Do you know any breathing exercises?” she asked suddenly.

Poppy shook her head. Her deep breaths probably didn’t count.

“Hmm. Okay. Want to learn one?” she offered, sitting down on the carpet a few feet away. Poppy hadn’t even noticed her come closer.

“Sure.” Poppy managed. It couldn’t hurt.

“Breathe in for four counts.”

One. Two. Three. Four.

“Good, hold for seven,” she instructed calmly.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven.

“Breathe out for eight.”

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.

“Good. Again,” said Natasha.

In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight.

In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight.

In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight.

“So why are you out here? Can't sleep?” Poppy could never sleep. She didn’t say that. She didn’t say anything, just nodded.

Natasha smiled conspiratorially. “Neither can Tony. Or me. Or James, some nights. Welcome to the club, it’s a lot of fun.”

“Thank you, again, I’m sorry—” Poppy tried

“Chill.” She wasn’t smiling anymore.

Poppy swallowed and nodded again. The silence stretched. Natasha looked at her. She didn’t seem to be angry. Of course, she was a good enough spy that she could easily fake not being angry, but Poppy couldn’t think of why she would do that. Finally, Natasha broke the silence.

“You’re a dancer, right?” She sounded so casual.

Poppy tried to imitate her tone. “Yeah. I, um, I do ballet.”

Natasha smiled. “I know. Fury was bragging about you the other day. You’re one of the sleeping beauty fairies, right?”

“Yes. I’m the lilac fairy, but I don’t know the pieces very well yet. Rehearsals only just started.” said Poppy.

“Hm. You’re welcome to stay in here in the hallway, it’s a nice hallway and close to Tony’s room, I get that. But there’s a dance room on my floor if you’re interested. You could practice your piece, or we could just hang out for a little while.”

“Oh, um, yes.” Poppy hated the way English tasted tonight. “I would be interested. Thank you.”

She smiled. “Great, let's go.”

They took a flight of stairs down, instead of an elevator. Neither one acknowledged it, but Poppy was silently grateful.

Natasha led her through another hallway and into a large, brightly lit room with a marley floor and mirrors on the walls. There were a few yoga mats rolled up in one corner, and ballet bars pushed against the walls. Poppy was flooded with a cocktail of jealousy and relief.

She turned to look at Natasha. The older woman smiled, softly.

“I love this room. It’s great for this sort of night.” she sounded like she understood.

“Yeah, it’s… it’s amazing. Thank you.”

“Of course. Now, do you want to start a warmup? I have extra shoes you can borrow.” Natasha offered, gesturing to a box in the corner, near some rolled-up yoga mats.

“Yes. Thank you.” Poppy said.

This was something she could do.

Warmup.

Barre exercises.

Glisser. Plier. Relever. 

The movements fit like a second skin, and breathing and thinking became easy again. 

A knock came at the door. 

Poppy’s head snapped up, proper butterfly stretch technique be damned.

“Hey, Tasha, is Poppy in there? Her sister’s looking for her.”

Chapter Text

It had been a shitty night. A shitty… couple of days, honestly. 

Poppy had left the guest room in a panic, been swept away and comforted by Natasha, and forgotten about Morgan. 

She wasn’t allowed to do that. She was responsible for Morgan. 

The sisters had always been close. When Morgan was born, Poppy (Penny, back then), had been elated to have a little sister, and, at nine years old, taken great pleasure in helping her parents take care of the baby.

Granted, she’d also been glad that her parents had been forced to stay home for a few months solid instead of leaving all the time for work. And when they did leave for work again, they came back, and came back, and came back, then… anyway. When the sisters had lived with Ben and May, Poppy had been more of a parent to her sister than either relative was (it wasn’t their fault, of course; Ben was busy and May was dealing with her own shit). Regardless, Poppy was Morgan’s guardian, more than anyone else was. And she’d forgotten. She’d prioritized her own stupid anxiety over her baby sister’s well-being, and Morgan had woken up James Buchanan Barnes to help find her. 

Morgan had been crying, the adults had been calm, and Poppy had very maturely not had another panic attack. 

Now, Poppy and Morgan were sitting in the guest room, “getting ready”, and Morgan hadn’t spoken since Poppy had set her down on one of the beds. 

“Hey. Firefly.” started Poppy. Morgan looked up, eyes still red. “Sorry about leaving last night.” she continued. 

“It’s okay. I was just scared,” said Morgan, as usual, more comfortable in Spanish. Her voice was so quiet, though that Poppy probably wouldn’t have been able to hear Morgan’s words without her enhanced hearing.

 “I get that. It’s okay to be scared, sweetheart.”

 “You’re never scared,” said Morgan, still in Spanish. 

 Poppy breathed out. Slowly. She smiled. Switched languages.  “I am, though. Sometimes. I had to leave last night because I was scared.” 

“Scared of what?” Challenged the girl. 

“Scared… scared of a lot of things.” Poppy glanced at the window. The digital clock hanging above it read 6:41 “Things that aren’t scary any more, but… used to be.” 

Morgan gazed at her through narrowed eyes. “Like Tyler?”

 “Yeah, baby girl. Like Tyler,” said Poppy softly. 

Morgan relaxed, a tiny bit, and said, still quietly. “I get scared of him too, sometimes.” A long pause 

“I love you,” said Morgan. “

“I love you too. So much. Always.” Poppy pressed a kiss to morgan’s forehead. “How about we go down and get breakfast? Are you hungry?” Morgan had problems with food, sometimes, especially after bad nights—

“Yes. I want food.”

Poppy had to ask the tower AI, Jarvis how to get there, but the girls made their way to the Avengers' clearly-expensive-but-also-weirdly-homey kitchen.

Natasha and… James? (Poppy was unsure of how to address him) were sitting at the dark-wood dining table, but otherwise, the room was empty.  Food was laid out on one of the counters; eggs, toast, sausage, fruit, and some sort of pastries. 

Poppy stood frozen for a moment, unsure of exactly what to do. 

“Help yourself to whatever you want,” called Natasha from the table. “We’re really not formal about food, Bruce and Tony aren’t even up, Steve only just got back from his run, I don’t even know where my sister is.”

Poppy hesitantly made her way over to the food, making sure Morgan was served and seated before getting her own food. 

Morgan was okay. 

Poppy was okay. (No, she wasn’t, MJ was gone, and they’d lost two placements in less than twenty-four goddamn hours and it wasn’t fair —) 

Poppy forced herself to re-focus on Morgan. Morgan was sitting in the chair next to her, close enough for Poppy to to protect her. 

The tiny almost-five-year-old was talking to one of the world’s greatest assassins ever. 

For his part, the man was listening with apparent interest to Morgan’s little-kid explanation of how birds predict the weather. 

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out. 

Relax. 

Smile.

Poppy stole a glance at Ms. Romanoff— Natasha , and the woman looked back at her, subtly signing “ You ok? ”. Poppy nodded. She was fine. She had to be fine. Last night had been… weakness. 

Poppy knew all too well that there wasn’t time for weakness. 

There was also no time to hope or fear, or be hurt. There was time to think, time to act, time to comfort and protect and perform. That was it. 

The margins between life and death, safety and danger, wellbeing and agony, held no room to forgive mistakes. She’d learned that a long time ago. Always make the right choice. There was no other option.

Poppy was safe. She knew she was. Morgan, too, knew they were safe, clearly. She was talking animatedly like the past two days hadn’t even happened. Morgan was… she seemed… she was happy. Morgan was happy.

Poppy was happy for her, really, she was! A little jealous, maybe, but happy. Morgan was adapting. And happy. 

Poppy was… worried, about when they left, which would be soon. Tony had said he only had two days of custody of them. 

This was temporary, like everything, but Morgan was so, goddamn happy… it was weird. It hurt for more reasons than Poppy could focus on long enough to untangle. She missed her meds. She missed sleep. She missed MJ. She missed feeling safe. Intellectually, Poppy knew she was safe, even though she didn’t feel safe, but soon she wouldn’t be safe, because they would be with a new, maybe-dangerous placement. 

It was weird. 

It was a lot. 

It was scary. 

Poppy was tired.

She registered Mr. Barnes walking over to the sofa (a sofa, in the kitchen, what the fuck ), and she didn’t freak out even a little bit , when Morgan got up to follow him.

“Hey, kid, you’re up early.” Said Tony, walking in. 

“Yeah.” Words were still… not easy, not when they were meant for anyone but Morgan.

“She had a rough night,” said Natasha. “Think we’re doing a little better now though?” the last part was a question, directed at Poppy. Which meant Poppy had to respond. 

“Oh, um. Yeah. I’m fine. Sorry.” Managed Poppy. 

Natasha coughed, not-subtly “Tony. Conversations need to happen.”

Tony sighed. “Right. Yeah. I—We should… yeah. Pep’s getting back today.”

“ Thank god .” said Natasha, turning back to face Poppy “In the meantime, do you want help unpacking?”

“Thank you, but there’s, um, not a lot to unpack.”

“Right. Sh—Heck. Give me the address and I can go get the stuff myself if that works. I don’t want you to have to go back there if it's upsetting” said Tony. He seemed… almost as uncomfortable about everything as Poppy herself was. 

(That realization was perhaps more comforting than it should have been.)

“Yeah, that would be good. Thank you. Really.”

“Any time, not a big deal, kid. See you soon.”

After Tony left, there was relative quiet for a few minutes before Natasha spoke again. 

“Tony’s bad at feelings, but you two are gonna have to talk at some point. He cares about you a lot. And even though I obviously don’t know the specifics of your situation, we’re all willing to help, okay?” she looked so genuinely caring it made Poppy feel really fucking weird, but she was supposed to talk. 

“Okay. I—Thank you.” Fuck, why did talking have to be so impossible?

“Of course.” Natasha smiled. “Do you want to go back to the dance room?"

Panic rose in Poppy’s chest. She had to be responsible and take care of Morgan, but she had to be polite and accept the offer, but Morgan, and what was she supposed to do, and it wasn’t safe, and — Words.“I—I don’t—I’m sorry—Morgan…”

“Hey, no, it’s okay, I get it.” Natasha cut her off. “I’m an older sister too. It’s okay. You’re okay. We can stay here. Do you wanna talk about last night, or be distracted? We can also just do quiet if that’s easier.”

“I, um. Can you talk?” Poppy hated how goddamn difficult it was to form sentences, but again, Natasha was patient.

“Sure. Let me think, oh, yeah. Pepper’s coming back today—you probably know who she is—she definitely knows who you are, tony brags about you to everyone—” What . “—So you’re gonna meet her, which should be nice. I think the powers she got from the Extremis serum are kind of like your spider powers—You’re also my little sister now, by the way, because you have a spider-themed superhero name, and I’m obligated to adopt you, anyway, Pepper’s great, she’ll probably be able to get Tony to, you know, actually, talk to you about stuff so you can get help—”

Poppy realized how many things she might have to talk about. Things they didn't know yet.

She didn't like lying, she was just... guarded, by nature.

And a lot of things could stay secret. Skip, for example, could remain secret, he was in prison already; it didn’t matter anymore.

Tyler… she would have to talk about Tyler. Poppy's relationship with MJ could stay secret, it was the other girl’s choice how much she wanted people to know. May’s addiction could stay secret. The bullets and the night at Wade's apartment could stay secret. Really, everything to do with Penny could stay secret, and everything to do with Spider-Man could stay secret. Hell, a lot of things that were just normal “Poppy” could stay secret. There wasn't even any need to come out. She wasn't revealing that much stuff, probably. She just had to talk a little bit about both Sarah’s and maybe Tyler. She could do that.

She was going to have to. 

Natasha had stopped talking, at some point, so now the loudest sound was Morgan and Mr. Barnes’s conversation, which had shifted to the topic of carnivorous plants. 

Morgan was safe. 

Poppy was safe. 

Morgan was happy.

Poppy was… not completely not-happy?

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Poppy loved MJ and Morgan more than anything or anyone else in the world. But her love for each of them was fundamentally different. 

With Morgan, Poppy was the caretaker, and Morgan was the child. Poppy made rules, when necessary, and Morgan listened. Poppy’s job was to take care of and protect morgan, Morgan’s job was to just… be Morgan. 

MJ was different. 

No matter how much Poppy loved MJ, or how much she wished the best for her, MJ was her own person. She was functional, autonomous, and completely capable of making her own choices, her own mistakes, her own calls. 

Poppy and MJ were partners, sweethearts , lovers. 

MJ was the moon on a clear night, kisses with lips still sticky from syrupy waffles, soft grey hoodies, verbal sparring, warm blankets, and braiding each other’s hair. 

She was silver jewelry, comfortable silence, lingering hugs, cat-eye sunglasses, info-dumps about random hyper-fixations. 

She was… not Poppy’s other half, per se, but more like… more like chocolate and strawberries. Both good on their own, but way better as a combo.

And right now, MJ was standing in the doorway of a Stark tower guest room.

They locked eyes. 

“Nell.” she breathed.

“Hi,” whispered Poppy. 

Poppy stood, and both girls crossed the carpeted floor immediately. They met halfway.

Poppy’s heart skipped a beat as MJ’s arms wrapped around her neck. 

Poppy pulled the smaller girl close. 

Tony cleared his throat awkwardly. “Miss Jones, it’s good to meet you, you’re welcome to hang around here for a couple of hours if you want. Or you girls can go somewhere together, just, uh, let me know where you’re going because I’m… legally responsible for you, Poppy.”

MJ nodded into poppy’s shoulder. “Likewise, um, sir. Thanks for… letting me into your tower,” she said. 

“Any time, kid.” Poppy could hear him smile. “I’m gonna go grab a coffee. I’ll be in the lab later if you wanna join me, Poppy. And don’t worry about Morgan; Steve and Bucky aren’t doing anything this afternoon, and she seems pretty happy with them.” 

He left, closing the door behind him. 

MJ's loose curls brushed against Poppy’s neck as MJ pulled back, slightly, arms still wrapped around Poppy’s neck. Every soft curve of her body was familiar. 

“I had a hell of a time finding you,” she said softly.

Poppy snorted. “Yeah…I bet.”

MJ kept talking.“‘Cause I thought you’d be at Sarah’s, like you were before, but—”

“She kicked us out.” interrupted Poppy. 

“I know,” said MJ, simply. 

“I don’t want to know how you found that out.” sighed Poppy. 

MJ took a deep breath, and went back to talking, almost frantically now. “Okay—Fine, the point is that I went to Sarah’s place, right? and then your dance studio and school, and I asked the others but they didn’t know where you were, and—fuck. I missed you. I couldn’t find you. But I did, and… are you okay?”

Poppy let out a breathless laugh. “Yeah—Yeah I’m—I’m okay. I missed you too, M.”

“What… do you want to talk about it?”

They both knew what the “It” meant without having to say it out loud.

“I… it wasn’t great, but I don’t feel ready to talk about it yet. The basic overview is that Sarah kicked us out, we got another placement, and they kicked us out too, so now… we’re staying here. For… some amount of time, I’m not sure.” she explained. 

“Okay. That’s—that’s shitty,” said MJ simply. 

“Yeah. It is. But what are you gonna do.” Poppy shrugged. 

“I don’t know, Nell. I just… I love you.”

“I love you too.”

They stared at each other for a long moment. Poppy gently guided both of them to the foot of a bed, and asked “Did you have fun in Maine?” The question was as much curiosity as an obligation

“No. It was shitty and I don’t wanna think about it,” said MJ testily. 

“That’s okay,” Poppy started “I just—“

“Sorry. That was rude.” MJ sighed, deeply. “I’m just… I didn’t have a great week.”

“Hey, no, it’s okay. I get it. If you need to vent, I can listen, or we can do something else, take your mind off things…? Or… I’m okay if you want to leave” 

Poppy would absolutely not be okay if MJ left, but if that was better for MJ, then fine. 

“No, don’t… I don’t want to leave. Not when I just got back.” she said. She sounded delicate, like one wrong move from Poppy might shatter her into bits of glass. 

“Okay, it’s okay, I’m right here. Wanna talk about it?”

“I— I don’t know, Nell. It’s… it’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid if it’s hurting you. C’mon, Moon-glow. Talk to me.” Poppy brushed a stray lock of hair away from MJ’s face.

“ Fine. It’s… it’s my dad—I—he’s doing his best, I think, maybe, and I’m not in half as bad of a situation as you are, obviously. But his fiancé—who he proposed to without telling me , Nell—his husband has two little kids, and they… they’re like, cute kids, too, but it’s like… I’m just visiting, which I was, obviously but they have their own family without me, you know?”

A long, shaky breath. 

“And I… I don’t know, except that I had this stupid idea that when I was with my dad, it would feel like home, because my mom’s house isn’t home, except when you’re there, and I… my dad and I were pretty close when I was little, and I’m just stupidly bitter that he moved on. He’s got his life, and my mom never wanted kids, so I… I don’t have either of them. And I missed you.”

That might be worse. Poppy could at least remember all her parental figures fondly enough. 

MJ couldn’t do that, because she had parents, real, living, breathing parents, who just… didn’t want her. 

“And it’s stupid because my Mom is nice enough, she never even yells at me—” Never even talked to her, more accurately. “But my dad’s… I don’t know…I thought he was different, Nell. He says he loves me.”

“Love isn’t all words,” Poppy said softly.

“You’re right, it’s one word.” MJ deadpanned. 

“Damn it, M, I’m out here trying to be romantic and you’re killing the vibe.” Really, it was the most comforting thing she could have done. MJ was naturally snarky, that was her nature. That was one of many, many things Poppy had grown to love about her. 

“Oh… sorry? I still love you.” offered MJ.

“It’s okay. I still love you too.” Said Poppy. 

MJ smiled.

A few moments passed.

“I really, really missed you,” said Poppy. “So much.”

MJ’s arm tightened around Poppy’s shoulders. Quick heartbeats matched up to the millisecond.  

Poppy tapped against MJ’s waist, twice. Their code-way of asking permission; two taps meant something like “may I?” or “kiss me?”, when starting cold. 

MJ tapped twice against Poppy’s shoulder blade. As a response, two taps meant something like “do it” or “I’m down.”

MJ could also have tapped only once, for “no”, or three taps for “not right now”, if MJ wanted to initiate once she felt ready. 

Both MJ and Poppy had been… nervous when they started kissing, that they might violate each other unintentionally. Because each girl had days, sometimes, when lips touching theirs brought back bad memories. They both used the code to say no or to wait sometimes. It was an easy way for them to check in, to make absolutely sure that they both wanted the same thing. But today, MJ had said yes.

Their lips brushed. 

Poppy’s hands found the other girl's waist and neck, pulling her closer, closer, closer. MJ’s lips were smooth and soft and tasted like honey-mint chapstick. 

Kissing MJ was the opposite of butterflies. 

Even their first kiss hadn’t been fluttery. It had been heaven , of course, but they’d known each other for three months already and been close friends almost since that first day. 

Poppy had initially met MJ at her worst and been blown away by her strength , not her beauty. 

They had shared dreams, fears, hopes, plates of food, and hundreds of comforting embraces before ever sharing a kiss. 

They’d become one another's shoulders to cry on before ever using the word “girlfriends”.

They’d met up to “hang out” a dozen times before calling it a “date”.

And they both liked it that way. 

So the kiss wasn’t fiery. And it didn’t give Poppy butterflies. 

Instead, it settled something in her, something deep and primal. 

It was warm and slow and sturdy. It was safety. It was intimacy of both mind and body.  

It was perfect.

They stayed entwined, foreheads pressed together, long after the kiss parted. They’d melted into each other like ice cubes in a glass of water; stuck fast. 

MJ’s skin was smooth, and her hair, in a low bun, was both textured and soft against Poppy’s fingers. Poppy opened her eyes, finally, but didn’t pull away. MJ’s eyes were like crystalized honey, like every sweet thing. and summer rain and stargazing.

When they finally parted, MJ spoke.

“Do they know? About… you and me?” her voice would have been barely audible, without the powers. 

Poppy shook her head. “No, of course not.”

MJ bit her lip. “Oh,” she said. “I thought we…I just…it’s—that’s okay. You don’t have to come out.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean what I said, Poppy. It’s fine. You don’t have to come out. I get it, I was closeted once too.”

“No, I—Are you okay with me telling them?”

“Yes, Poppy, if this is—If you want—I’d like you to.”

“Okay. I—I'll tell them. Soon. Once I… soon.”

“I get it. No pressure. Just… your safety is more important, but if and when you feel comfortable… I don’t like being a secret, you know?”

“Yeah.”

A long, long silence, just holding each other. 

Three knocks on the door, followed not by a turning door knob, but by Natasha’s voice. 

“Hey, girls. I don’t want to interrupt, but Steve and Bucky made lunch. Poppy, Morgan’s wondering where you are. Poppy’s friend, you’re welcome to stay for lunch if you want.”

“Okay. Thank you. We’ll be right out.”

“No worries.” 

Footsteps walking away. 

Poppy and MJ looked at each other.

“Are you—Are you staying?” asked Poppy

“I—I can. If you want me to.” MJ said nervously. 

“I do,” murmured Poppy. 

MJ leaned into Poppy’s touch.

Five raps on the door, sounding more like the slap of a flat palm than a closed fist.

Poppy recognized the heartbeat, of course. The door opened, revealing a not-quite-five-year-old in pink leggings, a blue-and-grey t-shirt, and an unbuttoned purple coat. 

Morgan . By herself. 

“MJ!” she called out, delighted.

“Hey spitfire, long time no see,” said MJ, delicately extracting herself from the embrace.

“Yeah!” Morgan’s face clouded over, suddenly. “Bad things happened. But it’s good now, and it’s better because you’re back. Nellie missed you, right?”

“Yeah, princess, I did.”

MJ smirked. “I guess the entire parker family is just so dependant on me that I should never leave again, huh?”

“Mhmm!” said Morgan, as usual, completely unaware of MJ’s sarcastic tone. Well. She was only four. It was, Poppy knew from the hundred thousand million parenting books she’d read, developmentally appropriate for children not to even start understanding sarcasm until five or six. 

The three of them headed to the kitchen. It was only the three of them, as well as Natasha, Steve, and Sergeant Barnes, since Pepper and Tony were both working.

Lunch was an… interesting affair. Natasha and Steve had made chicken tacos, with the various components just sort of set-out to be assembled. Poppy sat between MJ and Morgan. On Morgan

Morgan ate quickly and then spent the rest of the time talking to everyone at the table. Sometimes stringing words together nonsensically, often switching languages even faster than she switched topics. 

After lunch, MJ, Morgan, and Poppy all went back to the bedroom and hung out for half an hour, not doing much of anything, really. They talked. They cuddled. They played word games. 

Eventually, Morgan got bored and asked Poppy if it would be okay for her to leave and help with dinner. Poppy said yes. 

And MJ stayed. She stayed until the sun was setting, just a little bit before dinner. The girls stole one more, lingering kiss before she left, promising to text Poppy as soon as she got home.

————————————————————————

One of the biggest downsides of the spider bite was how quickly Poppy got hungry. 

She’d eaten a lot at dinner, but that had been at six-thirty, almost three hours ago. Now, barely forty-five minutes after Morgan had fallen asleep, Poppy was so hungry it hurt. 

And this time, she didn’t have the coldness or the panic to distract her. She didn’t feel quite safe enough to eat her stash of emergency food, so she went to the kitchen. Natasha had said she was welcome to pretty much all the kitchen food, and it was fine for her to make oatmeal or a PBJ if she wanted.

Really, the entire team all seemed fine with her existing in the tower like she was one of them instead of Tony’s random charity case. Which was… weird, but Poppy was frankly too hungry to question it at the moment. 

She entered the kitchen, having found it without needing to consult Jarvis this time. 

Immediately, though, she saw Steve Rogers, sitting at the table with a sketchbook and a pencil. 

Okay. Hmm. How to proceed… God, Poppy’s relationship with this guy was weird. 

He’d been one of the heroes she’d idolized as a kid, and also interestingly connected to her birth father via Peggy carter. 

Then he’d been her sometimes-vague-ally sometimes-boss sometimes-coworker as spiderman. Now… something like an extended family member or some shit, now? She was supposed to call him Steve, which made things both easier and harder. Poppy didn’t know what to do. But he was in the kitchen, and it was more his kitchen than her kitchen, obviously. 

Before she could say something (Apologize? For… something?), Steve spoke.

“Can’t sleep?” he asked, looking up briefly from his sketchpad

“Yeah. But that’s… that’s normal for me.” Poppy said evenly.

“Right. Buck’s the same way. So’s Tony. I’m not usually, but sometimes shit happens.” 

“Yeah.” Poppy managed. She decided to go forward with her plan of making instant oatmeal. A few minutes later, having made some, she sat at the table across from Steve. He glanced up.

“Whan you’re done with your food, you’re welcome to join me. I have extra paper.” he gestured to it.

Poppy just nodded. She finished her food, dealt with the dishes, and sat back down.

Steve slid a blank piece of paper and a pencil across the table. Poppy was still deciding what to draw when he spoke again. 

“Who was the girl earlier?” he asked. “—You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, I’m just curious. You two seemed pretty close.” he didn’t even sound judgemental. 

“She’s, um, my—We’re together. She’s my girlfriend.” Poppy managed, looking up from her beginning-of-a-drawing.

He chuckled. Smiled. “Nice. That’s cute. How long have the two of you been together?”

“Couple months—I—are you….fine with… it? With me being… lesbian?” 

“I mean, I’m bi,” he said nonchalantly. 

Poppy met his gaze. “What?” this was… not exactly news, but rather a confirmation of something Poppy had kind of suspected since first studying WW2 a few years ago. 

“Yeah, so’s Bucky—I think. He’s still figuring that part out. He had a couple of flings with girls back in the day—I’ll spare you the details, but we couldn’t be open about this stuff back then, and it’s hard to separate platonic from romantic sometimes when society’s telling you who to love.”

A deep sigh. Poppy flinched inadvertently. 

The man continued. “Anyway, you’re fine. We all support you. Despite what, ah, certain people might think, I’m actually very progressive. You’ll fit right in, by the way: I don’t think a single person in the entire family is straight, except maybe Laura, but that’s not my business.”

Poppy blinked. 

This was… interesting. 

“Buck actually had a theory that you and her were like me and him.” said Steve “Are you okay with him knowing?—Totally fine if not, by the way.”

“Yeah, that’s… um, that’s fine.” If he didn’t care, Poppy didn’t care. Well. Not that much. 

“Okay. You can tell him, or I can just let him know he was right.” Steve said. 

“I…I don’t mind either way.” Said Poppy, and it wasn’t even a lie. She had a hunch that Morgan might have outed her already. The price of trying to raise Morgan not to fear other people’s opinions meant the Poppy herself often hard to deal with the backlash.

But that was okay. 

“Cool. We’ll see what happens. No pressure, kid.”

What happened, was that Sergeant Barnes himself entered the kitchen a few minutes later.

“Steve?” he called

“Hey, Buck.” 

“I thought you were asleep.” 

“Not anymore, punk.” 

“Stark’s kid can’t sleep either.”

Sergeant Barnes looked at Poppy. He didn’t look upset, just… inquisitive. “You—Is it something to do with the spider bite, or is it nightmares?”

What.

“Sergeant Barnes, sir—”

The man winced. “Just Bucky’s fine. And I’m—I’m not trying to be judgemental, yeah? I have PTSD, and I get nightmares. I might be able to help.”

“Okay. Um, Bucky. I—I don’t need sleep, because of the spider bite. I could—I don’t know if I’d have nightmares—” that was a blatant lie, but it was fine. It didn’t matter anyway. “Just panic attacks, occasionally.”

He nodded. 

“Yeah. Pietro gets that, sometimes

“I have ADHD,” said Poppy impulsively. Then, before she could think too hard about it “So does my girlfriend.”

Bucky’s expression stayed neutral but interested “MJ? The girl from earlier?”

“How—how do you know that?” asked Poppy, though she could make a pretty good guess. 

He looked apologetic. “Your little sister told me.”

“Oh,” said Poppy, not sure what else to do. 

“Yeah. Sorry. I wasn’t trying to find out.”

“I get it. She’s five.” Poppy paused. “I’m, um, not out to anyone else though, so if you could please, um—if you could just not—please don’t say anything.”

“Secret’s safe with us, Bronx,” he said quietly. 

“Thank you,” said Poppy. She kept sketching. 

“What are you drawing?”

“A Ferris wheel. The one at Coney Island,” said Poppy, holding out her half-finished sketch.

Mr. Barnes—Bucky took it, after exchanging a long, unreadable look with Steve. 

“This is really good,” he said after a long moment, handing it back. 

“Thank you.” 

“Yeah. Reminds me of Stevie’s work.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah. It’s… I mean this nicely—You’re a lot like he was when he was younger..” 

“God, Buck, you’re right.” Steve laughed. 

“What?” Poppy was, once again, confused. Being compared to Captain America by his Boyfriend (husband? Were they married?) was… weird, to say the least. 

Bucky smiled. “Steve was a lot like you, back in the day. Not just the hero thing or the art thing. Down to the trauma. You’re like him in other ways, too. Your “best friend” situation, for one thing. That’s what Stevie and I were, for a while. God, I can’t believe they only legalized gay marriage seven years ago. It’s fucking stupid.” 

“Yeah.”

“You know I used to be the same as you in another way, too.”

“What d'you mean?” asked Poppy, suddenly on edge. 

“I never used to accept help. Ever . Bucky used to offer all the time, but I’d never take it. I thought “I can get by on my own”. And I was right. I could. But you know what?” 

“What?” 

“It fucking sucked . I didn’t need the help to survive, but I needed it to be okay.”

He sighed. “I—Tony hopefully said this already, but speaking as the theoretical leader of this whole thing: you’re welcome for as long as you need. It’s gonna be okay, alright?” 

“Yeah. I—Thanks. Thank you. ” Poppy found herself saying Thank you here even more than Sorry . It was a pleasant change.

Chapter Text

“Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you'll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you'll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.”

 — Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things

It was past midnight when Steve and Bucky—Poppy was  allowed  to call them that, it  wasn’t  weird—went back to sleep. 

They’d said Poppy could stay in the kitchen, or go wake Tony or Pepper up if she wanted, or just go back to her room. 

She walked back to the guest room quickly, even in the dark. The night vision was a random but useful thing to have gotten from the spider bite. 

If only it could have fixed panic attacks. 

Still half-distracted by thoughts of the conversation in the kitchen, Poppy opened the door without paying much attention. 

It was only when the door opened, noiselessly, and she stepped inside, that she noticed what was wrong. 

Both beds were empty. Morgan was… Morgan was gone. Not there. Not on the floor anywhere. The bed sheets—still stained with Poppy’s blood from last night, lay in a tangle on the ground. 

And Morgan wasn’t there. 

(Gone, gone, gone. Hospital florescent lights. Stressed adult voices saying things Poppy wasn’t expected to understand.) 

Morgan wasn’t there, and it was Poppy’s fault, and she had to—Morgan was —

Focus, Parker.

You’re not fucking helpless.

Realistically, Morgan was safe. Hiding somewhere in the oversized room, or another part of the tower. The worst possible case scenario was that they would get in trouble, but even then, they wouldn’t get kicked out immediately. 

Probably. 

Hopefully. 

Tony had acted like that was the case earlier, right?

It didn’t matter.

Nothing  mattered except finding Morgan. 

Poppy couldn’t afford to freak out. That wasn’t an option. 

Deep breathe in.

Deep breath out.

There is no room to panic.

Calm the fuck down.

Find Morgan. 

Find Morgan, and everything will be okay. 

Poppy was spider-man. She could do this. She had to. 

Having calmed down enough to focus on her senses, Poppy was greeted with the sound of muffled sobs coming from the bathroom, accompanied by a faint, tenderly-familiar heartbeat. 

Morgan. 

Poppy was across the room and opening the door in half a second.

Morgan was curled up on the ground, crying.

She’d been like that the night at Tyler’s house, too. 

But they weren’t with him anymore. It was safer here. 

That was a full year ago. 

So why the hell did Poppy feel like it was happening right now? 

She should be over it. It wasn’t a big deal. Her mind couldn’t even picture it. 

But her body remembered. 

Poppy’s heart remembered perfectly, though, beating a mile a minute. 

Her lungs could recall every hitched breath, every second without enough oxygen, and the bitten-back sigh of relief when it was “all over”, knowing that there still wouldn’t be rest. 

Her fingertips remembered the jaggedness of dried blood, the stickiness of fresh blood, and the coolness of her glass phone screen as she’d called 911.

Her eyes still felt the harshness of hospital fluorescent lights—Remembered the sight of Morgan, laying on a clean white hospital bed, small, silent,  unmoving.

Poppy’s muscles remembered the stiffness of sitting for hours in a plastic chair in the emergency room.

Some deep, primal part of her remembered the sheer panic.

That had been the hardest part, maybe. Penelope Parker was not the type of person that panicked. 

She was not delicate, volatile, or sensitive. Years of living in the real world did that to someone.

She couldn’t afford to panic. She knew that. But when it came to Morgan, it was so, so hard to stay calm.

Breathe in. 

Breathe out. 

Next move, next move, next move.

Poppy steeled herself, walking over to where Morgan lay, still crying. The little girl hadn’t moved since Poppy had opened the door. 

Sitting cross-legged on the icy tile, Poppy pulled Morgan onto her lap. Morgan sniffled, opened her eyes, and held on to Poppy’s hoodie with tight little fingers. She didn’t say anything.

Poppy did her best to get regulated again.

Breathe.

Calm down. 

For Morgan. 

Poppy had to do… something. Not the same thing as last time. Morgan wasn’t bleeding, but Poppy kept remembering the metallic scent of blood, and Morgan’s face was wet from crying, and Poppy was—she couldn’t. 

Don’t think.

Don’t think.

Don’t think.

“Girls? Are you in there?” Came a sudden voice from the hallway. 

The tone was hardened by… something. Panic? Anger? Oh, shit, someone was angry, and Poppy had to fix it help Morgan, keep Morgan safe, had to—had to fix this, had to do something, but she couldn’t fucking breathe and—and “Are you both okay?” 

Poppy tried to calm down, she had to fix this, apologize, something with words. What was that thing for breathing—breathing, she couldn’t, that was a problem, and Morgan was still crying.

Don’t think about it. 

“I’m coming in. I’ll leave if you want me to, I just want to make sure you’re both safe.” The bedroom door opened. Footsteps coming closer. And Pepper Potts was standing in the doorway, strawberry-blonde hair untied, clad in grey leggings and one of Tony’s t-shirts that Poppy recognized from lab days. She looked concerned, but not angry. 

She seemed to take stock of the situation, and after a moment of silence, spoke quietly.

“Is one of you hurt? Sick?”

Poppy shook her head. 

Pepper nodded in understanding. She sat in the doorway, not moving any closer, which Poppy was grateful for. 

"Okay. Do you want me to get someone? Tony? Nat? It’s all going to be okay. Deep breaths. Focus on my voice.” a few more moments passed like that. “Doing any better?” Pepper asked softly.

Poppy nodded. “

Pepper cut her off gently. “You’re fine, honey. You have nothing to be sorry for. I’m not upset. Do you want me to go wake Tony up? I know you know him better than you know me.“ 

“No, thank you,” said Poppy hastily, shaking her head. Tony rarely slept anyway

“Okay, what about someone else?” offered Pepper. 

“No, it’s—it's fine.” Poppy managed. Morgan was silent, now, apart from the occasional sniffle. Poppy didn’t even know if she was still all the way present or disassociating. 

"You know Nat pretty well, right? She's better than me at this stuff, and probably awake right now. I can text her."

"Okay

Forcing herself to stand, Poppy moved to carry a still-mostly-limp Morgan out into the main bedroom. 

Pepper stepped away to make space. She stood next to the bed, in a way that would have been awkward for anyone except Pepper Potts.

Poppy made her way over to one of the beds, sitting and leaning against the foot of it. She positioned Morgan so the almost five-year-old’s head was on Poppy’s chest. The arrangement meant that Poppy could feel the softness of Morgan’s hair against her neck, and Morgan could feel Poppy’s heartbeat, grounding both of them.

Breathe. 

Calm down .

When you freak out, Morgan freaks out.

Don’t let her know that you’re scared right now.

Be strong.

It was a little easier to be calm in here than in the bathroom. 

Fewer reminders. Poppy glanced at Pepper. Pepper’s gaze pointed at Morgan, a nonverbal  “I’ll wait. Deal with that first.”

Poppy was infinitely grateful. 

Morgan’s crying had died down a little already. Poppy whispered sweet Spanish nothings to her and held Morgan's tiny hands in hers. 

Morgan shifted, suddenly, and met Poppy’s eyes. 

“ You left me alone again. ” she sounded more anxious than accusatory. The little girl’s voice, speaking Spanish, was delicate in a way it never was in English. Mother languages had that effect, Poppy supposed. She didn’t know what to say. 

“Stop going away at night. Please? ” Morgan asked, still in Spanish. Something about her tear-stained face and scared voice shattered Poppy’s soul into a thousand pieces.

And whose fault is that she’s upset Parker? Yours.

No, there wasn’t time for blame, not yet. It was Poppy’s fault , though, and—

Fucking FOCUS.

Keep Morgan safe.

“ I’m so, so sorry, sweetheart. I shouldn’t have left, especially not again. I didn’t mean to be gone as long as I was, but I’m still sorry for scaring you.”   Poppy followed Morgan’s lead and spoke in Spanish; it was their preferred language between themselves, and she didn’t want Pepper to overhear too much. 

“ Don’t be sorry. You’re the best.” flattery from Morgan always felt oddly undeserved. “But I had a bad dream about when you were gone and he—he got mad— ” (Poppy didn’t ask who “he” was. She didn’t have to.) 

“— And then I woke up and you were gone and I got more scared. ” finished Morgan. “ Where did you go ?”

“ Just to the kitchen to grab a snack, ” said Poppy

“ Oh. ” Morgan paused, then, “ I’m sorry for scaring you, too. ”

“ It’s okay. It’s not your fault. ” It was Poppy’s fault. “ Do you want me to wake you up next time I go somewhere at night? You can come with me. ” 

Poppy shoved down the bitter part of her that resented not being able to go anywhere without Morgan. 

They weren’t even codependent, they just got triggered by stuff sometimes. They could be apart, just… not with the nightmares. And nightmares made since, after this past weekend. 

Of course, nightmares were also why Poppy couldn’t sleep, so—but it was fine. Poppy was fine. 

Next move.

Don’t think about it. 

Just keep going.

Morgan really shouldn’t have been awake at—Poppy glanced at the clock—a quarter to one in the goddamn morning. The preschooler was already tired, and with the fading adrenaline, she fell asleep in minutes. Poppy should have been over it, but she felt so fucking fragile. 

Don’t think. 

Poppy stood from the bed, and, glancing at her left hand, realized the cuts from last night were already gone.

Fucking hell. 

Poppy appreciated her healing factor, but it was also… it was just weird to not have any evidence of things that had hurt her. 

It took just a few hours for tiny stuff like paper cuts, scrapes, and most bruises, to heal, and a few more for the scars to fade without a trace. 

Less than ten hours after the initial injury, smallish things like light knife gashes, bullet grazes, badly swollen bruises, and most natural burns, were faded, the scars vanishing in another day or so. 

It took a day or two for medium things like bullet grazes, minor bone fractures, and ripped ligaments or tendons, to heal, but those too vanished without a trace quickly enough. 

Even the really bad things, like shattered ribs, injuries sustained from alien technology, the worst of the worst acid burns, and bullets that pierced important tissue, only took three or four days to heal. 

Nothing could give Poppy a scar for longer than a week or so. 

Mostly, the spiderman suit protected her from bigger injuries anyway. But nothing was perfect, accidents happened. 

And even though her skin stopped baring the marks and feeling the pain, Poppy felt all of it.

But it never stayed. 

She knew Wade had a lot of the same issues, which offered some comfort, but not much.

It just meant they were both in pain all the time. 

The biggest difference between his healing factor and hers was that his injuries left scars and hers didn’t. 

Each version came with unpleasant side effects, though Wade had it worse than Poppy did.

He often hated the way he looked because of his scars, a constant reminder of every problem he’d ever faced.

Poppy sometimes hated the way she looked because of her  lack  of scars; every inch of perfect, never-sunburned, rarely-scared-or-bruised skin was a reminder of how  invalid  all her pain was. 

Because the things that caused it didn’t  last , not the way they did for normal people.

The stuff Tyler had done had all been  gone  just days after the spider bite. Like it had never  happened . 

Like Poppy was making everything up. 

But she  wasn’t , and  Morgan’s  back was still littered with scars, and Poppy still awoke from nightmares screaming. 

She still  felt  the glass shards in her arms, still flinched away from men carrying bottles or wearing brown leather belts. 

The physical impermanence of everything haunted Poppy in the middle of the night, if only during those rare times when nothing else was haunting her first. 

It was also hard just to separate things that used to hurt, from the things that were hurting now.

Everything just  hurt , all the time. 

But Poppy was used to it. 

She was used to pain, it was a predictable consequence of spending one’s nights swinging into crime scenes and taking on upwards of five opponents at once. 

She just wished some of the scars would  stay  long enough for her to be sure everything was real, and that she wasn’t exaggerating how much it had  hurt. 

But that was being selfish, petty, and unproductive. 

Snap out of it. 

Pepper’s waiting for you. 

Morgan’s asleep already, just get this conversation over with now. 

Poppy made her way over to where Pepper was sitting, half surprised that the woman shifted to make space for her, 

“I can tell you what happened, now, if you need me to,” Poppy said quietly. 

“Okay. That would be good. I want to help.” Pepper said. She sounded sincere. She also wasn’t treating Poppy like a thing made of jagged broken glass, which helped. 

Poppy nodded. She could talk about Tyler. It was fine. She pulled away from her body, just a little bit. Not too far to come back, but enough that she wouldn’t cry or get angry.

“It’s—it’s over,” Poppy started. “And kind of stupid. I just—I don’t know.”

Pepper looked encouraging. “You’re okay. You can tell me, I won’t judge. God knows I spend plenty of time with traumatized superheroes.” 

“It wasn’t a Spider-Man thing.” Muttered Poppy. Spiderman stuff was somehow easier to talk about. 

“Oh. I’m sorry for assuming.” There was that weird sincerity that everyone here seemed to possess. 

Focus.

Steady breathing, steady words. 

Don’t think, just get it over with. 

Like digging a bullet out.

Easy. 

Painful. But easy. 

Poppy took another deep breath. “It’s okay.” she smiled, still sort of far away. Further, now. “It was a while ago.”

Breathe. 

“Morgan and I are in the system, and there are—a lot of placements are good. But, ah, sometimes—sometimes… foster parents aren’t great,”

Pepper stayed silent. 

Keep talking.

Don’t think about it. 

“We, um—Morgan and I were in an… abusive situation last year.” managed Poppy. 

Pepper’s expression shifted ever-so-slightly. “What do you mean by abusive?” she asked, still calm. 

Poppy bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. 

Fuck it. Now or never, Parker. 

One more deep, shaky breath. 

And Poppy started talking. 

Chapter Text

“You don’t have to be positive. You don’t have to feel guilty about fear or sadness or anger. You don’t stop the rain by telling it to stop. Sometimes you just have to let it pour, let it soak you to your skin. It never rains forever. And know that, however wet you get, you are not the rain. You are not the bad feelings in your head. You are the person experiencing the storm.”  ―   Matt Haig, The Comfort Book

“The—the man we were with—” Poppy didn’t say foster father.  Father was too pure a word for the man that was Tyler Haynes. “He, um—he drank. A lot. And he’d be drunk when he came home, and, he’d hit me, beat me with a belt, break beer bottles on my skin, and sometimes… do other stuff,” said Poppy. She didn’t meet the woman’s eyes. Instead, she kept talking, recklessly. 

“I let him do it so he’d leave Morgan alone.” 

Keep talking. 

Don’t think.

“One afternoon, he got back early, and Morgan was home already and I wasn’t, so he—he hurt her instead, and—”

Don’t think about it.

Don’t freak out.

Just finish talking.

“When I came home, he was blacked out, and I couldn’t—couldn’t find her, for a while."

Fear. Panic. Terror.

There weren't any words quite sharp enough to capture the sensation that Poppy had felt. 

She felt the ghost of it as she forced herself to keep talking

"And then when I did find her, she was bleeding, a lot, locked in the bathroom, and I—I called the police, and Morgan got taken to the hospital, and—” Poppy cut herself off.

Breathe.

Don’t think about it.

“And um, we didn’t go back to live with him, and the other placements have been better.” Poppy took a deep, jagged breath in an attempt to steady herself. She tried her best to ignore the traitorous sting of tears. The glassy haze of disassociation had faded as she spoke, and Poppy felt the absence painfully. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” she finished.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Relax. Repeat.

“That must have been really horrible,” said Pepper, her voice pulling Poppy out of her thoughts. “I’m sorry that those things happened, and I can promise that nothing like that will happen while you’re here.” 

Poppy nodded. “Thank you.” 

Deep breaths.

“Are you still feeling triggered?” asked Pepper after a few seconds (it was six seconds. Poppy counted)

“A little bit,” said Poppy, semi-honestly. She was feeling significantly more than a little bit triggered, but she wasn’t about to say that. 

“Do you want me to try to help, or just leave you alone?” it sounded like a genuine question, not the sort of question adults liked to use where there was one answer they wanted and one answer that would lead to yelling.

“I—I’d rather not be alone right now if you don’t mind,” Poppy said honestly, then rushed to continue. “—I’d be fine if you want to go to bed though, really, it’s not a big deal” 

Poppy searched Pepper’s expression for annoyance. She found nothing except softness. “I wouldn’t be sleeping regardless. I’m still on Beijing time, so it feels like the early afternoon for me even though it’s midnight here.” she paused. “And I really do want to help. I know you don’t know me that well, but Tony talks a lot about you.”

Poppy wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Or what to say. But she didn’t have to say anything, because, after a moment, Pepper kept going. “You probably already know some breathing techniques—” Poppy knew exactly two, and one of them was from Natasha, literally yesterday. “—but Tony and I both do better with sensory grounding, usually. Do you want to try that?”

“Sure.” Poppy still felt jagged and breakable. 

“Okay. It’s called the five-four-three-two-one method.” Pepper explained. “The first part is five things you can see.”

“Am I supposed to say them out loud?” asked Poppy, unsure.

Pepper shrugged. “You can if you want to, but you don’t have to.”

Poppy chose not to. Five things. That was easy. 

The hardwood floor, the rug, Morgan’s sleeping form, the skyline out the window, and the door to the closet. Her heart kept beating too fast.

“What’s the next part?” Poppy asked.

“Four things you can touch,” said Pepper.

Okay. Textures. The fleece lining of the midtown tech hoodie that Poppy shared with MJ, the sturdiness of the floor under her feet, the softness of the mattress, and the silky duvet cover. 

Tyler’s house hadn’t had any rugs, just scratchy carpet, and beige-brown linoleum. Poppy wasn’t at  Tyler’s house. 

“Is the next one hearing?” Poppy inquired next. 

“Up to you, really,” Pepper answered patiently. "But yes, usually."

Okay. Hearing. Morgan’s breathing, a few feet away; Poppy’s own heartbeat; and the low, strangely comforting hum of the tower itself, strangely different from the usual high-pitched buzz of machinery. 

The next thing was two things she could smell. Poppy could smell a myriad of things all the time, since the bite, but she usually did her best to ignore it. New York wasn’t known for smelling nice. Especially not in the Bronx. 

Focus.

Two things. 

The most prominent scents were clean sheets and Pepper’s citrusy perfume. 

Not the scent of blood and alcohol. Not like the bathroom at Tyler’s house.

Poppy wasn’t at  Tyler’s house. 

“I think this is helpful,” Poppy said quietly. “What’s the last one?”

“One thing you can taste.”

Poppy turned her attention to what she could taste. 

Blood.

Blood, and cold, and— damn it , this had been  helping , but now all Poppy could fucking taste was  blood . She winced and tried to focus back on the feel of the bedsheets and the low-pitched sound of the tower.

Don’t think about it.

Poppy did her best to hide her sudden discomfort. Pepper must have sensed that something was off, though, because she reached into one of her pockets and produced a pack of gum.

“I should have given you this already,” she said gently. “Sorry for forgetting.”

“It’s fine. Just—just blood,” Poppy grimaced, but took the piece of gum Pepper was holding out. 

The taste of mint was helpful. 

Poppy wasn’t at Tyler’s house. 

She wasn’t.

“Thank you.” Poppy said. Two words couldn’t express what she felt. No amount of words in any language could express what Poppy was feeling; it was too big, too complicated, and too broken. 

“Of course, “said Pepper. “Sensory grounding is easier for me than most people, but you’ve got enhanced senses too, right?”

“Yeah, I do,” said Poppy. “I—I didn’t know you did.” 

“Thanks to the Extremis serum I do,” said Pepper flatly.

“I didn’t know you had that.” Poppy said, caught off guard. 

A dry laugh. “I was, unfortunately. Tony gave me an anecdote, which is… why I’m not dead, but he wasn’t fast enough to prevent a few things from becoming irreversible.” she sighed lightly. “So now, my body temperature constantly runs about four degrees too hot, and I have to live with the memories, but I also heal faster, plus super senses and fast reflexes. So it’s not a huge problem.” She shrugged again. “And hopefully I can help you more since we share some of the same issues.”

“Yeah. I—yeah.”  Eloquent, Parker.   “I really do appreciate it.” 

“Of course” Pepper smiled. “And, Poppy?” 

“Yes?” 

“Thank you for telling me, about all of that.” Poppy tensed up in spite of herself. “This kind of thing is hard to talk about. It’s really strong of you to address it like this.” 

Poppy nodded silently, unsure of what to say.

"You have a lot of people who care about you, and we'll figure this out. "

Pepper stayed at Poppy's side and the two of them watched the sunrise. 

And, watching as the sun flooded the new york skyline with rosy blush, Poppy decided to let herself hope.