Chapter 6
After a successful Academic Decathlon practice, Ashley went out again that evening. She stuck to Manhattan, wanting to avoid any arachnid-themed vigilantes if possible after the encounter the previous night. She had not been thrilled when she overheard classmates earlier that night discussing a new vigilante with ‘huge black wings' and ‘magic powers'. It didn’t help that all anyone could talk about all day were the rumours circulating online about her. The internet community had taken it upon themselves to name her, but no one could agree. Names such as ‘Black Phoenix', ‘Dark Angel' and ‘The Eagle' were thrown about by her classmates. The first two were downright cringe-worthy and the last one was a bit too patriotic for her liking. But one name stood out – this name was far less popular, but it was also less tacky, she felt.
‘Pegasus.’
After doing a tour of the island, she landed on one of the tall, luxury apartment buildings on the Upper East Side. It was a quiet night, so rather than focusing on finding things to do, she swung her feet over the edge and perched on the roof, over-looking the city below. The air was clearer and she found it easy to relax. For the first time in weeks, she let her guard down, shoulders sinking as a few stray tears escaped her.
She was well aware that the other kids at school had it a lot better growing up than she did. Especially MJ, whose mum was an absolute joy to be around. But despite the neglect, they were her family and she had loved them. That was something that MJ had never understood, when she had repeatedly asked her to report them to the police or CPS. But in the end, Ashley didn't need to get anyone else involved in order to push her family away. Instead, they had seen her for the freak – the monster – she really was.
Ashley had been twelve when her wings made their first appearance. She had been feeling awful the week leading up to it and had somehow managed to convince her parents to let her stay home (on the proviso that she still did all the chores before they got home from work). Luckily, it had happened while her parents were out. It began with a burning fire rising in her back that had her clawing at the bed sheets. She had curled tightly in on herself, small wails escaping as she wished away the pain. This went on for a few hours before the pain exploded, vision going white as the wings burst from her back. They were larger than her lithe frame and they curled around her protectively. She cautiously caressed the feathers, marvelling at how soft they were. Stroking the feathers helped her to ground herself. After all, a pair of huge black wings had just sprouted out of her back and she was fairly certain this wasn't normal.
The panic started up when she realised that she needed to get rid of them before her parents came home. She couldn’t cut them off – she didn’t want to. They were far too beautiful for that. She was feeling pretty exhausted from the pain and the fever by this point, but she put all of her focus into trying to see if she could force the wings back inside her. It was a long shot, but it worked. The wings retracted painfully, shrinking themselves down to fit inside her. It felt like a heavy weight on her spine.
The T-shirt she had been wearing was definitely ruined, so she quickly shrugged it off and hid it in the bottom of her wardrobe before putting on another one and crawling into her bed. Sleep had eluded her that night, as all she could think about were those wings. In time she learnt to accept them and spent many of her evenings sneaking out of her bedroom window and flying in the night, feeling free as she soared high above the city.
When she was thirteen, her powers made themselves known. She had stayed up later that night, making dinner for her family for the following day so that she could attend Decathlon Practice. She made three portions – as a consequence of attending Decathlon was that she wasn’t allowed a meal that evening. Everyone else was already tucked away in bed, so she couldn’t make any noise. She had a glass of water sat beside the stove while she was cooking a stir-fry. She had accidentally caught the glass with the handle of a pan that she was moving and the glass flew off the counter. Her panic started before the glass had touched the ground. She reached out instinctively to catch it and that was then the purple, smoky tendrils appeared. Her whole body was buzzing, as though there was an electrical undercurrent thrumming under her skin. The smoke appeared to spark with violet energy as it wrapped itself around the glass and brought it back up to rest on the worktop, still full.
She accidentally burnt the stir-fry that night, which earned her the following night locked in the cramped airing cupboard.
Over the next year and a half, she spent time in her room quietly trying to learn how her powers worked and how to control them. She had found out that she could turn a fork into a spoon purely by accident and so she experimented not only with moving objects with her powers but also turning objects into other things – displacing the molecules to create something new. For a while she managed to keep it all under wraps. But then a few weeks ago, it all went to shit.
Her younger brother, Lucas had gotten into a fight at school with another boy. Lucas had wanted to play netball with some of the kids in the class. The school’s netball team was comprised entirely of girls, but Lucas really enjoyed playing it. One of the boys in his class decided to make fun of him as netball is ‘a girl's sport’ and that apparently warranted him being called a ‘fag’. It was heart-breaking that he was being called names like that at the age of ten. The boy had started to push him around, so Lucas retaliated and pushed back. The other boy then took Lucas in a head-lock, which prompted him to bite the other boy to get him to let go. Lucas had been suspended from school for a week.
When he got home from school that afternoon, their parents were still at work, but they had already been called by the school. Ashley had got her brother some juice and gave him a long hug before starting to help him with his homework while the dinner was cooking in the oven. When their parents got home, Lucas told them what happened. They both cuddled him and kissed him on the head, telling him that if it happens again he should tell a teacher rather than fight back. They then sent him to his room to finish his homework and told him he couldn’t play on his Xbox this week as punishment. Once Lucas was in his room, they rounded on Ashley.
“This is all your fault, you stupid bitch!” her mother had shrieked. “You've turned him into a sissy!”
Not bothering to argue, Ashley simply apologised, but her mother was clearly in a very bad mood. She grabbed Ashley by her hair, the roots pulling from her scalp in her mother's grip. Ashley screamed and clawed at her mother's hand. Ashley found herself being dragged painfully across the floor before being thrown against the kitchen cupboards, her head hitting one of the metal door handles with considerable force. For a moment she didn't move, dazed from the blow. But when her mother grabbed her thin arms, nails scratching deep into her flesh, she lost control. The pain overtook her and with a loud scream, the windows in the apartment all shattered. There was a lavender fog surrounding her as the shattered pieces of glass moved around her, providing a protective barrier that had halted her mother from coming closer again.
Ashley will never forget their disgusted faces. They haunted her dreams every night since. Once the energy had dissipated, eyes returning to their dull olive rather than the vibrant purple they had been, her father had been quick to wrestle her into the cupboard, locking it shut and pushing a chair up against the door, despite her cries of “Please dad! Daddy, don’t do this!”
Her brother had let her out the following morning once their parents had gone out. She walked Lucas to school before heading to her own. That was the first day she didn’t speak to MJ, Peter or Ned. The next few nights were suffocating. Ashley got home from school and made dinner and then shut herself in her room, only to find her parents had binned the food she made and ordered in for the three of them. When Ashley came out of her room to use the bathroom, she cowered under her parents’ hate filled glares. She heard the mutterings of ‘freak' and ‘monster’ under their breath and decided the following nights she would shut herself away in her room until morning.
On the fourth day she got home from school, already expecting Lucas to be home as she had stayed late to finish a project with another classmate – Betty if she recalled correctly. When she came home, there was a ‘for lease’ sign plastered to the front door, which had been left open. She swung the door open, and apart from a few empty food packets and the worn sofa, the apartment was bare. She wandered into her brother's room, searching him out, only to find it was completely empty. His Avengers figures were gone along with his clothes, books and the Harry Potter Lego sets he kept on a display shelf above the bed. His bed itself was absent of its' usual Hulk bed spread and the Captain America pyjamas that were usually folded on top of the pillow during the day.
She then wandered into her parents' bedroom, which again was bare. Her mother's jewellery box had disappeared and the large wardrobe was empty. The bed spreads had been stripped and the curtains had been taken down. Lastly, she entered her room, which was just as she had left it. Her clothes were still neatly organised in her wardrobe and the stuffed bear was still sat in the corner of her bed. It had been a gift from her nana and granddad and was decorated with a beautiful red and gold Chinese dress, as one of her favourite films she always watched with them was Mulan. The book she was reading was still open on page two hundred and thirty-seven – A Study of the Medical Applications of Gamma Radiation by Dr Bruce Banner. Another gift from her grandparents.
It was clear to see her parents had taken her brother and left, and it didn’t look favourable that they would come back. So she picked up an old worn duffel bag out of her wardrobe (which she usually used to pack a weekend bag to stay with her grandparents or with MJ). She packed her bear and her books first and then any remaining space was filled with whatever clothes she could fit, although she didn’t have many to begin with. She grabbed the stash of money she had hidden under a floorboard beneath her bed and raided the kitchen for any remaining snacks – she found a couple of packets of M&Ms and a half-eaten pack of rice cakes. She stashed them in her school bag and set off for the camping shop a few blocks away to gather some supplies...
Ashley wiped the last of her tears away when she felt a presence behind her. She already knew who it was by the familiar footsteps and the fact the person wasn’t even slightly concerned at her wings swept out behind her. Part of that was due to the person's blindness, but also by the fact that only a couple of night's ago, he had plucked a bullet from one of the wings.
“Good to hear my advice is being followed.” His tone was low and only held a small amount of snark. Earlier that day he had heard the news reports and he had been fuming to hear Ashley was all over the news. “Why aren't you with your new friend?”
“Not my friend...” she mumbled. She sniffed miserably, the cold air causing her nose to run.
Matt perched beside her on the roof, feet planted firmly on the ground and facing the opposite way to Ashley, whose feet were still dangling over the roof ledge. “I thought I told you to take it easy.” He reached out to her wing, running his hand gently over the feathers. At the motion, Ashley let out a soft whine, finding comfort in the action. Matt was mildly surprised when he could no longer feel bone jutting out from the soft feathers. “Wow, they did grow back fast...”
“I told you so...”
Matt sighed deeply. He could taste the salt tears in the air and could hear the quiet sniffles that Ashley was quite clearly trying to silence. “What are you doing up here?” He kept his voice light, despite how much he wanted to yell at the young girl. The last thing he wanted to do though was to upset her, especially as she was balanced so precariously on the ledge (regardless that her wings were out and would likely catch her before she could fall to a grisly death).
“Do you think I'm a monster?”
The question threw Matt for a loop. This smart and incredibly selfless kid thought she was a monster. Matt's theory was that someone must have told her she was a monster and it was probably a fairly recent thing. Matt had known her for nearly six months now, and though she had always been quiet and reserved, the past three weeks she had been constantly accompanied with an aura of despair. It hung over her like a rain cloud and she was soaked through to the bone. The pair would sometimes joke about between jobs and have a laugh together, but he hadn’t heard so much as a chuckle from her in weeks.
“No kid, I think you're amazing. You're kind and selfless and... special.” He reached up a hand to gently stroke through the black feathers, smiling slightly as he felt her relax into the touch. “Who told you you’re a monster?”
“No-one,” she muttered with a sigh. “It’s just something I think about a lot.”
“Well they’re wrong. And if they see you as a monster, then they don’t know the real you.”
Ashley drew in a stuttering breath. “Thanks.”
Although the gratitude was honest, Matt got the distinct impression that she didn’t believe his words. He felt she needed a distraction from whatever was going on in her head, so he tried to change the conversation. “So, you and the web-slinger, huh?”
“That was a mistake... A big, huge mistake. I shouldn’t have followed him.”
Matt stifled a chuckle. “Hey, you saved a bunch of people yesterday, or so I’m told. Apparently that guy could have easily run into a lot of innocent people. Nobody got hurt – you did a good job.” There was a brief pause. “So, have you chosen a name yet? I hear the internet has come up with some doozies.”
Ashley grimaced, emitting a noise of disgust. “There's not too many original thinkers out there sadly. But I think I found one... Pegasus sounds less tacky than the other ones.”
“Pegasus, hmm? I like it. It suits you – has an air of mystery about it.”
“Glad it meets your approval, Murdock.” The jibe had a light air of humour to it and Matt found himself chuckling. Ashley huffed and turned to look at Matt. She noticed then that he wasn’t dressed in his usual suit, but instead in a shirt, trousers, tie and a heavy-duty rain coat. His stick was resting idly in his right hand. “I should probably head off. Wanna get plenty of sleep before I see Mr Stark tomorrow.”
“Stark?” Matt questioned. His jaw tightened at the name. “Does he know?”
“No… Or at least I don’t think so. A friend of mine has an internship with him. He invited me to come with Peter tomorrow. I was hoping maybe I might impress him enough to at least get a recommendation from him for university applications.”
“I’m sure if anyone can impress Tony Stark it’s you. Please just promise me you’ll be careful.” Matt gripped onto Ashley’s arm tightly. Her breath hitched slightly at the touch, but she didn’t pull away. “Stark is a dangerous man. If he finds out who you are, you could get hurt.”
“I know.” Ashley said simply before sliding off the ledge, falling slightly before her wings kicked in. Matt waited until he could no longer hear the flap of her wings against the cool winter winds that were starting to roll in, before heading back home.
***
School passed by fairly quickly the following day. Ashley’s resolve was starting to crack, as she found herself willingly sitting with her friends at lunch time. MJ was quite glad that she didn’t need to do much cajoling that day. She picked up some fruit and sat at the table beside Ned with MJ and Peter opposite. The four of them were discussing their latest English Assignment – a comparative study into horror literature. They had been studying various works in class, including Dracula, The Call of Cthulhu and The Shining. MJ and Ashley were very excited for the topic and had enjoyed reading the novels, whereas Peter and Ned were trying to see what they could use to bribe the girls for help. So far, Peter had offered to pay for the next ten dates with MJ; and Ned was offering to sell his Lego sets and a kidney to pay Ashley for assistance. MJ had of course accepted Peter’s offer, whereas Ashley had made Ned a counter-offer of a favour in lieu, meaning she could come to him at some time in the future with a favour of her own that he cannot turn down.
At the end of the day, Ashley left her physics class with Peter and the pair of them walked out to the black Audi parked outside the front of the school. Happy greeted the pair with a few grumbles, before he pulled away, praying not to get caught in too much traffic. During the ride, Peter and Ashley began discussing their English assignments. The conversation was started by Peter, who could tell his friend was nervous about going to the tower again, if the lip biting and the way she scratched her arms was anything to go by.
“What books are you focusing on for your assignment, Ash?” Peter asked. MJ had clearly been rubbing off on him, as he was starting to use the same nicknames she would for her friend.
“I was probably going to focus on contextual factors in The Call of Cthulhu, The Shining and Battle Royale, but I’ve already thought about some counterpoints I could make with Macbeth and The Picture of Dorian Grey. I know MJ is planning her essay around the submission of the female character with Dracula and Carrie. Has MJ told you what she’s planning for your essay?”
Peter snorted lightly. “No… She wants me to come up with the premise. She’ll just help me pick out my texts and proof read it for me.”
Ashley nodded in agreement. “That’s what I was going to do for Ned.”
Around twenty minutes later, Happy had pulled into the garage and the three of them piled into the elevator. Ashley had braced herself in preparation for FRIDAY’s loud voice to greet them upon arrival, but was shocked when instead, a series of zeroes and ones came over the speakers. “Why is FRIDAY speaking in binary?” Ashley asked, but was met with a confused look from Happy and a shrug of the shoulders from Peter.
When they arrived at the Penthouse, Tony was nowhere to be found. The whole floor was bathed in red light and at the kitchen counter, Pepper was massaging her temples, desperately trying to rid herself of a Tony-induced headache. Pepper simply pointed towards a corridor to the teens’ left. “He’s down there… Please just get him to fix FRIDAY before I kill him.”
Peter grinned widely and led Ashley down to Tony’s personal lab. The man in question was crouched in a far corner, pulling at some wires. There was a Stark Pad connected up to the mainframe that was running FRIDAY through the whole building.
“Hey, Mr Stark,” Peter greeted cheerfully as he hung his backpack up on a coat hook by the door. Ashley did the same with her own bag and followed Peter further into the room. Tony looked up from the mess of entangled wires he was trying to sort through, sweat dripping from his forehead – he had clearly been at this for a few hours.
“Hey kid – uh, kids – sorry I’m not very organised. I was trying to sort an update for FRIDAY and it’s gone a bit wrong. She’s speaking in binary and she’s tripped half of the security alert system.” Tony let out an exasperated sigh as he stood up, wiping his forehead on a spare towel that was laying around.
“W-We could come back another time if now’s not good for you, Mr Stark.” Ashley’s quiet voice popped up. Tony fixed her with a stare for a minute, before breaking out into a grin; eyes glinting wickedly.
“No need for that! In fact, why don’t you take a look at FRIDAY for me. She could probably use a fresh pair of eyes.”
Ashley’s eyes went wide at the suggestion. Tony Stark was asking her to look at a one-of-a-kind AI that he had built. At first Ashley tried to stutter out a ‘no, I couldn’t possibly…’ before Peter oh-so-helpfully pushed her towards the mainframe.
She took a look at the mess of wires inside. It really wasn’t well organised, but it seemed like a simple fix. The tricky bit was going to be fixing FRIDAY’s code before the wires could be reconnected. She studied the wires for a few moments, before pulling out a blue wire and plugging the Stark Pad in where that wire had previously been connected. She sat the tablet on her lap and looked through the lines of code, which had been meticulously organised. Well, all apart from one area, which had been totally scrambled. The code was beautiful and incredibly sophisticated. Ashley had never had the chance to work with something so enhanced at school – she had only read about it. She deleted the fried bit of code, as it was totally unsalvageable before she began writing out her own code in replacement.
Tony and Peter observed her from a few metres away, both of them staying silent so as not to disturb her. Peter was almost a little envious that Ashley had been given an opportunity to work on FRIDAY like this, but then he remembered that there was no way Tony would ever trust FRIDAY to Peter, especially when his strengths were certainly not in coding. Tony caught Peter’s sharp gaze and sent a mischievous wink in his direction. ‘So, it was a test,’ Peter thought. A test which Peter could see Ashley was well on her way to passing.
Approximately half an hour later, Ashley had reconnected the blue wire she had pulled out, a nervous smile on her face. She glanced up at the ceiling and spoke. “FRIDAY, can you tell me what the time is please?”
“Hello Miss Sampson, the time is now four seventeen pm.”
Ashley let out a relieved sigh when FRIDAY answered. Tony cheered and walked up behind Ashley, patting her on the back for a job well-done. Tony didn’t miss the slight flinch at the touch. “Good job kid. Any chance you can sort out the little security alert malfunction, while I get Peter started up on some stuff?”
Ashley simply nodded in response and turned back to the mainframe. She connected the Stark Pad into a gap where Tony had previously pulled out a mass of wires. She resumed her previous frantic typing in order to fix the broken code, which Tony may have scrambled on purpose. Or at least some of it was on purpose. He meant to break the alert system but having FRIDAY’s language circuits break down was a complete accident which he wasn’t even sure how he had managed. He left Ashley to it before walking over to Peter’s workstation on the other side of the lab.
“So, what do you think Pete? Think she’s got what it takes to join the elite team?” Tony’s suggestive eyebrows told Peter that Tony clearly already thought so and was probably having internship documents drafted up this second. But it meant a lot to Peter that Tony was asking for his opinion.
“Yeah, Mr Stark! Ashley’s crazy smart.”
“That’s what I thought. I was thinking about getting her to help you out with those web shooter upgrades you wanted.”
Peter's eyes lit up at that. It would be a great way for him to tell Ashley that he was Spider-Man, even though the thought of it made him sick with nerves. “That would be great, Mr Stark.”
Tony left him to crack on with trying out some new web formulas and returned to Ashley, who was just finishing up the new code. He hovered behind her for a moment, looking at the code over his shoulder. It looked a little rough around the edges, which could cause a few small glitches, but it looked almost exactly like the original code he installed. When Ashley finished entering the code, she unplugged the tablet and corrected the mass of wiring inside. As soon as the last wire was plugged in, the red light that had bathed the tower switched off and FRIDAY made an announcement over the speakers.
“All systems repaired and fully functioning, boss.”
Tony brought his hands together in a slow clap. “Very impressive Miss Sampson.” Ashley pulled a face at being addressed as such, but she thanked Tony none the less. “Why don't you and I find somewhere quiet to have a chat?”
Ashley paled, anxious that she had done something wrong. As she walked by Peter, who had since donned a lab coat and a pair of goggles, he gave her a thumbs up, but that did nothing to help her nerves. She followed Tony out to the main floor, where Pepper was sipping a mug of coffee as she poured over the penthouse surveillance feed on her own Stark Pad. As Tony and Ashley walked over, Pepper sent the young girl a bright smile, trying to reassure her. She offered a hand out for Ashley to shake, which the young girl did so hesitantly. Pepper noticed how clammy her hands were, likely from the anxiety that she was clearly experiencing.
“Welcome to Stark Industries, Ashley.”