Unexpected

Princesses and Balls

"Miss Penny! Help me with my tiara please!" Lillian called out to me, waving her 'tiara' that was simply a headband that looked like golden laurel leaves.

"Sure." I smiled, strolling over to her and placing it on her head at an angle, trying to make it into a type of circlet as she adjusted the sleeves of my dress that she was wearing. She was standing in my maroon dress that I had bought while out shopping with Steve to get his suit. It was cinched around her waist with a long ribbon, the hem coming down to her ankles though it rested around my knees when I wore it. She also had a long silver necklace with a turquoise stone placed in it. "There you go!"

"Lemme see, lemme see!" Lillian raced to the bathroom, trying to take a look at herself in the mirror, though she was too short to get a good look before twirling down the hallway and humming an off-key tune like some sort of little ragamuffin princess.

"I can't get it to work..." Ana whined a bit at my side, trying to buckle the belt of my pale blue summer dress. He fingers fumbled and the golden bangles clattered at her wrists as she worked at the belt that wound around her twice.

"I'm looking for a special word..."

"Please?"

"Okay then." I bent down and quickly slid the belt through the buckle. In the back of my mind I hoped beyond hope that she wouldn't end up ruining the lace of the dress.

"Can I wear that too?" Ana asked, pointing over my shoulder.

I quirked a brow at her, turning my head to see what she was pointing at inside my open jewelry box, "Which one?"

"The pearls!"

Grams' pearls.

"Not those."

"Why not?"

"They're very special. How about this instead?" I quickly stood up and grabbed a golden chain with a heart-shaped pendant.

"Ooh! Pretty!" She reached her hands out for it before pulling it over her head. I smiled at the little hodge-podge girl. How long had it been since I was a little girl playing dress up? With my job with S.H.I.E.L.D., going undercover seemed like a grownup version of the game with a lot more danger added into the mix. Anna shook her hands, grinning at the sheer amount of clanging, tinkling noise she could make as the metal bangles clinked against each other. Suddenly she stopped, looking me up and down with an almost cartoonish skepticism, raising one hand to scratch her chin in a very un-princess-like fashion, "You're hair's too long to be a prince."

I'd beg to differ. I knew two princes to one degree or other and both of them had had long hair. Not that I could tell Ana that.

Since I was obviously the tallest and oldest of us, I'd been voted to dress up like a prince, which meant that I was now in one of my button up shirts that was tucked into my skinny jeans. Along with my button up 'boy shirt' as the girls called it, I was wearing my brown boots and had my throw blanket from my futon tied around my neck to create a cape. I had tucked my necklace under my shirt when Lillian had claimed that boys don't wear jewelry, so now I was as makeshift of a prince as they were ragamuffin princesses. Sighing, I assented to Ana and pulled my hair back into a low ponytail, "Is that better?"

"It'll do! Now we need to be off to the ball!"

The ball was simply the girls twirling around my living room, splaying out the skirts of my dresses as they spun to Disney songs being played from my phone at full volume. Every now and again one or the other would come up to me and curtsy saying "How do you do, Prince?" or "Lovely ball isn't it, Prince Charming?" to which I would respond, lowering my voice to sound more masculine, and kneel down on one knee, taking their hand in mine and placing a kiss upon it. This would send the girl giggling and twirling away again.