ILLICIT AFFAIRS

Chapter 4

Listen to: Girls like Girls - Hayley Kiyoko & Ta reine - Angèle

***

If you were honest with yourself, you knew that what you had done at the club days prior wasn't exactly the kind of behavior that Tony or Steve approved of; honestly none of the Avengers. So, the next day when you woke up to your dad incessantly knocking on your door, you were aware it wasn't a good thing. Tony's face twisted as he watched your body covered in bruises and your tired eyes when you opened the door, with the complete knowledge that he had seen the news and that the news clearly had not been so good with you.

You hadn't obviously caught anyone, so that presented a problem from a PR point of view because at least that way you could twist the news and tell them that barely destroying an entire building had a good reason. But since it was supposed to be a secret mission it was so much harder to justify to the public. Moreover, some of the news outlets obviously linked the fact that there was a possible connection to the Maggia family, which completely blew out the cover you had and the element of surprise. The Avengers had to release a statement explaining it had been part of aid to the NYPD on a drug raid, which still affected the Maggia family but not that much. Nonetheless, The Daily Bugle had been implacable with you, you had even had to send a cease-and-desist to make J. Jonah Jameson stop the defamation against you since he had published that you were a threat to society.

You figured you had a good rant coming your way, you were aware that you deserved it but you also knew you didn't have many other choices to get the information you had now gotten or to escape after getting the information. It seemed only logical considering that you had been caught by one of the most dangerous men in the Maggia family / Kingpin circle but none of the Avengers saw it the same. Harley and Wanda were the only ones that hadn't been scolding you or giving you the disappointing looks that you received from the older Avengers, and you appreciated that from them immensely. Peter had also tried to be by your side as much as he could, every day since the undercover mission disaster after he got out of class, he would head to Stark Industries and share a chat and coffee before you both got to work or before he had to leave for studying or to see Gwen.

You were always beyond thankful for it, they were the only ones (with Pepper) who actually managed to make you forget that Tony hadn't addressed the whole thing since you had opened that door the day after, which upset you even more that he wasn't even trying to make the effort of listening to you. You preferred Pepper's approach to the whole thing, considering she was basically your mother: Pepper said what she thought and she wasn't afraid, she was direct and after telling you what was on her mind, she would still listen. She had told you off and you knew that every piece of word that came out of her mouth was the truth: "You could've killed more people" "You could've gotten Peter's identity revealed" "You could've been kidnapped" "You could've died" "Can you imagine if Kingpin was there?" "Is this really how we raised you?" "I know Morgan's only one and a half but can you think of the example you are giving to your little sister?" But after it, she had taken the time on hearing your reasons and what you had discovered. She knew how serious it was and how upset you were, so she ended up telling her assistant to cancel all the dates and decided to spend the rest of the day with you and Morgan watching old Disney movies to make you feel better as you ate popcorn and laughed when Morgan bopped her head to the music.

Nonetheless, the only thing Peter and you had left out of the whole thing was that Black Cat had been somehow involved in it. Instead, you had decided to fabricate a story that you got a lead from your deep research and was simply trying to know more information, finally intimidating one of The Architect's minions into telling you everything. Peter hadn't been so sure about why you wanted to keep Felicia a secret since she had agreed to help you but you had begged him to stay silent, telling him that they wouldn't trust the information given at first. You had to be sure that they would be ready to fight Kingpin before revealing Felicia's secret and that she was counting on you.