Hiding in the Shadows

Chapter 14 - I Fucked Up

When I awoke the following morning, my first thought was to hack into Peter's file. I dragged myself out of bed and took a shower before throwing on some clothes. So not to be suspicious, I went down to the kitchen to make some food before starting my hacking job.

Once safely back in my room I sat cross-legged on my bed, "all right, (A/I), let's figure out who Peter Parker is, shall we?"

"Of course, (Y/N), closing your blinds, locking your door, and projecting his file," (A/I ) replied as the holographic file appeared before me, my room darkening with the closing of the shades.

"Thanks, (A/I)," I muttered as I began prepping my hacking software.

After a bit more work, I was able to successfully open the file. Suddenly the room was filled with videos of Spider-Man swinging around Queens. My eyes widened as I breathed, "son of a bitch, he's Spider-Man."

I began sifting through all of the information, discovering the death of his parents and uncle, how Tony recruited him, and even that Peter was offered a position with the Avengers, but declined. I was pulled from my research by an alarm sounding throughout the compound, an alarm that sounded a full-wide compound lockdown.

"Shit," I muttered as I wiped the file away. "(A/I), delete everything that just happened and open up my room. I think I fucked up."

Light came back into my room and I ran down to my father's lab, "dad, what's going on?"

"Someone tried to hack my files," he replied, sifting through information, not even glancing up at me.

"Did they get any information?" I inquired, sitting down at one of the lab benches to watch him.

"I can't tell, whoever it was knew what they were doing. I can't figure out what files they were trying to get into or if they succeeded. Which brings me to my next point, I'm assigning a member of the Avengers to stay with you at all times until we get this problem sorted out. Starting with Steve, I'm calling him down here now."

I rolled my eyes, "dad, you know that I can protect myself. I have been training for years, I've even beaten Nat in hand to hand combat. I suspect it would turn out to be me saving Steve's ass instead of the other way around, I can beat him in combat easily."

"Wow, that's hurtful. I did not come out of the ice after 70 years just to be shown up by a teenager," Steve complained as he entered the lab, causing me to turn my head to face him.

"Well, I'm not just any ordinary teenager, am I? Dad, can I please not have a bodyguard?"

He shook his head, "(Y/N), I need to keep you safe, no matter what. Just, don't think of him as a bodyguard. Go do something with Steve or another one of the Avengers, you only need to make sure you have someone to protect you in case things turn ugly."

I huffed, knowing I wouldn't be able to convince him otherwise without revealing what I had done. The only person who was more stubborn than I was was my father. "Alright Steve, we haven't trained together in a while and I feel like releasing pent up anger."

"So you can kick my ass?"

"Naturally," I replied, sliding out of my seat and walking out of the lab, trusting him to follow me to the training room.

I ran up to my room first to change then ran down to the training room, where Steve was waiting, dressed in his normal training clothes. After a brief warm up, Steve and I took the floor, choosing to practice our hand-to-hand combat and exclude any weapons. Having learned from the best assassins in history and knowing Steve's fighting, I knew I was going to win, but I enjoyed letting him get the upper hand every now and then.

"Steve, you must be getting old," I heard a male voice call out as I knocked Steve's legs out from under him and perched on top of him, winning the match. "You keep getting beat by a teenager."

"Will people stop calling me that!" I cried out, helping Steve up from the ground and turning on Bucky. "Yes, I am a teenager, but that does not make me any less capable of anything than an adult. How many adults know how to do half the things I do? How many could survive in the wilderness, regardless of the climate, know a thousand different ways to kill a person, and can invent anything that Tony Stark can and more. You cannot keep using teenager as some sort of degrading term!"

"Woah, (Y/N), calm down, I didn't mean it like that, I was just trying to tease Steve," Bucky defended, both he and Steve looking shocked by my sudden outbreak.

"I don't care what you were trying to do, clearly no one here thinks I'm capable of anything! Otherwise I wouldn't need a bodyguard, but my father thinks I can't do what I've been training to for years! I can take Captain America down with my bare hands, not even mentioning my powers that my dad won't let me use!" I cried out, oblivious to the mists of power surrounding my hands in my anger.

"(Y/N), that's not why your father asked me to watch you," Steve began, placing his hand on my arm. "He knows that you are perfectly capable of defending yourself, but you have to understand that you are the most important person in his life. Why else would he have sent you away with Pepper during the battle of New York, why else would he hide your identity from the world, why else would he hide your powers from S.H.I.E.L.D.? He loves you, (Y/N), and while you're more qualified to join the Avengers than any of us, he can't risk losing you."

"But why? I'm not even his biological daughter. He's lied to me for the majority of my life and has lied about me for the rest."

"(Y/N), you know as well as any of us that it doesn't matter who you're related to by blood. Family isn't always caused by biological relations, the Avengers are a perfect example of that. We love each other, we would die for one another, and, yes, we fight each other from time to time. You are Tony's daughter, but you're more than that. When we were fighting over the Sokovian Accords, you were the one who found a compromise, you are the reason we are still together. You are our family and Tony isn't the only one who wanted you to have one of us guarding you at all times, none of us would be able to live with ourselves if you got hurt in any way."

As much as Steve's speech meant to me, I had to find away to establish distance from them so that I could patrol tonight. Trying to suppress tears, I just shook my head and left the training room, knowing that if I tried to speak they would realize that I was hiding something.

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(A/N): don't you just hate when you hack some files and suddenly your house has a lockdown? Do you think that Tony will discover who the hacker is? I hope you enjoy the chapter!