Daisy Stark

Daisy felt her back slam to the ground. She was sparring with Nat, the freaking Black Widow. It had been a week since she had realized but it still felt weird to think about. Weirder to think about, was the fact that even in hand-to-hand combat, Daisy could hold her own. Sure, Nat still won about 80% of the time, but Daisy was perfectly capable of standing her ground. If the fight was real, Daisy would be able to survive until reinforcements came. That combined with the fact that Daisy still had powers....

Daisy was aware that she could hold her own against her father, and Rodhey as well. even before this training started with Colleen, May had taught her enough for her to be superior in regular combat (them no suits, she no powers.), and when using her powers she could blow their suits out of the sky. But this, the fact that she, when using her powers, could defeat the Black Widow. That was a weird thought. It felt much closer to 'being as good as an Avenger.' then it was when training with Rodhey or her father.

Daisy stood back up again and the fighting started anew.

Daisy nearly limped out of the dojo. The training session had been hard, and if her brain hadn't told her before, her body did now. She longed for some rest, specifically on a chair in the sun. With some alcohol. She said as much to Nat.

‘Mind if I join you?’ the world-famous assassin and Avenger asked her.

‘Why not?’ Daisy responded. The past week they'd also met up outside of the dojo a couple times, she and Nat kept too many secrets from each other to truly be friends, but they were both trying to become friends. This would be a good opportunity to tell Nat that she knew. She didn't immediately tell the Russian that Stark was her father, so that was a slight obstacle, but Nat deserved to know she knew.

They were sitting on a terrace in the sun and Daisy was trying to find a good way to tell Nat she knew, however, Nat had just started a story about a vacation to Italy with her boyfriend. Somehow Daisy doubted that while captain America and Iron Man were fighting, Nat would’ve gone on a vacation to Italy, so she assumed it was made up. Daisy waited until Nat was trying to find a new lie to add to the story before she said it.

‘Nat, you can stop making up fake stories, I know you’re the Black Widow.’

She’d said it. Daisy thanked god, even if she was an atheist, that she hadn’t done anything as awkward as her first encounter with Mike Peterson had been. Daisy still cringed when she thought of it.

Natasha’s face grew more serious. It was obvious to anyone who knew the signs that Nat was assessing whether she was a threat.

‘Don’t worry, I haven’t told anyone, I’m not planning on telling anyone either. I just… recognized you.’

That seemed to make Nat even more suspicious. It probably didn’t happen often that someone looked straight through her disguise. But then again, Daisy had met her during martial arts training, in New York, she was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and she was Tony Stark's daughter. The circumstances were slightly different than Nat, Natasha, was used to.

Nat seemed to get over the surprise. ‘When did you realize it was me?’

‘Last week, it clicked, before that, you just looked familiar, like I’d seen you before. It was kind of a big shock, which is why I didn’t tell you I knew until today.’

Nat wanted to respond, but of course their waitress picked that exact moment to bring their food.

Natasha sighed. Her head was spinning, this woman, younger than she was, had looked through her disguise easily, apparently even within a couple days. It was most definitely impressive. Somehow, Natasha did feel she could trust the woman. Something about her seemed weirdly familiar, even if she didn’t think they’d met before.

She was currently explaining that she probably would’ve figured things out anyways, seeing as she had a picture of Natasha and (probably illegal) access to multiple government agencies. Natasha listened along, she knew enough of tech to be able to follow Daisy’s explanation about how she could find out who Natasha was just with a program to search the internet.

When Daisy looked at Natasha to see if she was still following, Natasha was blown away by her resemblance to Tony at that moment. A split-second later the resemblance had already disappeared, but now Nat could place why certain movements that Daisy did were so familiar.

It was funny, if you saw Daisy sitting like that it was easy to forget that she excelled at martial arts. Yes, Natasha could beat her, but the fact that sometimes Daisy won was already a rarity. Not to mention the fact that she apparently was a master hacker. The Avenger realised she would need to be careful around this girl. The combination of her looking so much like Tony Stark and her seeming like a nervous girl all the time got Natasha to lower her guard. Which was dangerous considering the fact that she was so clearly a threat. Natasha decided to do a thorough background check on the woman opposite of her. Even if she was a good hacker, a faked background always had some holes in it. Daisy might be good with computers, but so was Nat.

Third part: (again, if you are easily triggered you can just read the endnotes, and then this chapter is skippable.) (It isn't very descriptive however, so I doubt it is very much necessary) 

Daisy walked into the compound where she’d been training. In the past week, she’d moved some clothing here as well. Because the Avengers had disbanded, Tony had twice the pressure and often wasn’t home. Slowly Daisy spent more time at the compound often sleeping in one of the guestrooms, cooking in the kitchen there, and even her training sessions with Peter now took place in the compound.

Besides all that. Daisy had to admit there was another reason why she slowly started to move out of the apartment. She had slowly started going after the watchdogs. Her father knew about that of course, it had started to get some slight media attention, and F.R.I.D.A.Y. picked up on it. But what he didn’t know, was that while she was going after them, she sometimes didn’t take her gloves. Or, she only took her gloves when she knew she would need to use her powers a lot. Partially she didn’t take them to avoid people realizing she needed them, the gloves were too recognizable. But also because… She deserved it. Lincoln had died because of her. She deserved to feel the pain for not having stopped him. For not realizing what he was going to do faster.

She didn’t want to bother her father with it. When she had hacked into F.R.I.D.A.Y. she found out that he had been suffering from PTSD and panic attacks in the last years as well. She couldn’t burden him with this as well. She’d ruined enough lives.

Daisy felt numb. The pain broke through it.

However, she had to spare her arms, she had to be in top condition if she wanted to take down the watchdogs. So she started punching the bags.

Peter stood in the doorway of the training room in the compound. He had wanted to train, either on his own or with Daisy. He felt like he needed to be better. So after he had finished his school project with Ned and M.J., he had gone to the compound.

However, he had been standing here for nearly ten minutes now. During all that time, Daisy had been hitting the bag again, and again, and again. By now her fingers were swollen and bloody. He was Spider-Man, he was supposed to help people. But he had no idea how to help people from themselves.

He wanted to call Mr. Stark, but he was afraid that she would only grow more seclusive. It might be selfish, but Peter also realized that if he told her father, she wouldn’t want to train with him anymore. He at least needed to get her attention somewhere else then whatever she was thinking about now.

‘Daisy, hi, I just walked into the compound, wanting to train… But if you are busy?’

Daisy looked up. Peter could see that she’d been crying. But she forced a smile.

‘Oh no, no problem, give me three seconds to get myself alright and then we can spar for a bit.’