Prosperous In Battle

11: Penelope And Owen

"Your daughter tells me I'm wrong 50 times a day," Tony informed me. I was in the office doing research for a mission. Tilly was back in full swing. She was annoying Tony, studying for finals, babysitting for Morgan. Though that wasn't an easy transition, she had never been around an actual child before. She couldn't comprehend why She was crying. Or moaning. But she got the hang of it. We explained to her why she was crying, which seemed to do the trick. "Not my fault I raised a genius," I say with a shrug kind of smug my little girl could outsmart Tony Stark.

Tilly and Yelena are like two peas in a pod. Yelena is older than her but she doesn't act it. No, not at all. Definitely the 'cool' aunt. Meaning she's a child. Peter and Tilly argue almost every day over absolutely nothing. Peter was annoyed yesterday because she used too much salt on her chips. Tilly told him to grow up. Tom told her to. She said she did. And it went on through the whole of dinner. It was safe to say everyone was ready for bed after.

"Papa T?" Tilly called coming into the room with her eyes glued to the Ipad screen, she dodged every obstacle in her way without looking up. "You need to do 12 bug fixes on your new arm attachment. You'd literally blow your arm off." She tells him handing the Ipad over. Tony looks over his work. "How's it going?" She asked sitting on my lap. I rested my head on her shoulder running my fingers through her long hair. "Making progress," I tell her, she looks over my work. "Can we watch a movie tonight?" "Sure." I smiled at her she shot me a cheesy grin. It's nice that she still wants to hang around with me. You know she's older now and before we'd spend all our free time together, I thought now she was older she'd want her space but she's just as cuddly as she was before. Only with me though. She doesn't really like anyone else touching her. Her face would flash with panic and then she shrugs them off with a cold glare warning them not to do it again.

She's also been getting awful nightmares, Yelena's always there but sometimes it's hard to bring her back to reality. Everything they did to her playing on repeat in her head over and over. It was tormenting her. Wanda went into her mind once to see what she was seeing and she looked ale as a ghost when she stopped. She never said what she saw, she just told me to hold her. I assumed it was bad for her to react that way. I asked her for days what she saw but she refused to tell me.

"We have a final... Now." Peter comes in out of breath from running. "I turned that in 30 minutes ago." His face fell. "How? It's a 2 and half hour test." "And it was easy." She tells him in a duh tone. "The girl has brains." "I'm smart too." "Sure you are kiddo." Tony patted his shoulder. They leave the room.

"There's an underground system in this part of town. It's a little gross down there but it could get you from one side of town to the other undetected." She informed me. "Yeah?" She nodded, she typed on my laptop bringing up the map. "See. Just be careful of the rats." She climbs down from my lap. "I love you," I tell her before she closes the door. She smiled. We haven't got to the I love you too stage yet. But she shot me a smile before closing the door. Hey, at least she's calling me mum. We're making progress with her.

Progress is progress.

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I set up the film for me and Tilly to watch in the main lounge. Wanda was cleaning up from dinner and everyone else was doing their own thing around the compound. "Finally, you took forever," Peter says when she comes into the room. He was sat on his phone waiting for her. "Sorry, finding something to wear in this place is hard than surviving a war." She says coming into my view. I smiled then frowned, they weren't PJ's... She was in a black strapless dress and an oversized jacket that I think was Buckys. She had a pair of her black boots on which was a staple to every outfit she wore. (Outfit above)

"Where are you going?" I asked confused. "Oh shoot." She says looking at me. "Sorry, mum I completely forgot." She says. "Peter invited me to this party at his friend's house." "MJ's," Peter confirms. "It's okay... Go have fun." "No, I can stay... Just give me a minute to change and-" "Go." I tell her. She was willing to go to socialise. I was not standing in her way of doing that. "Are you sure?" "Positive... We'll have a movie afternoon tomorrow." She nodded. She came and gave me a hug before she left.