9

Chapter 9: Reporter RecruitmentNotes:

It's pumpkin spice season, and I am a basic bitch.

Chapter Text

May packed the last of the dishes into the last of the boxes. Resting her hands on her hips she looked around the apartment. It was all packed up, nothing but boxes. There was satisfaction at everything being done. Some melancholy at leaving a place that had been home for the last two years. Shaking it away she turned to where Daisy was picking up another box. "Don't take more than one box!"

"Fine." Daisy grumbled while turning around, only a single box in her hands.

She sighed, shaking her head. Honestly these kids. May picked up one of the lamps and walked it out into the hallway. "Ned honey be careful, lift with your legs!"

"Got it Mrs Parker." Ned chirped, though his voice was tight as he hid how out of breath he was.

May knew better than calling a teenage boy out on pretending to be tougher than he was. But as the elevator door opened she saw a solution so she didn't have a teenager passing out from trying to act tough. "Liz, while I'm taking this down could you get some water out and make sure everyone has some before they go for another box?"

"Sure Ms Parker." Liz replied, looking a bit relieved not to be carrying more boxes herself.

May smiled, Peter's friends were good kids. And moving to the new house was going to take half a day with a small army of teens and the girls. As she carried the unfortunately heavy and unwieldy lamp out to the truck she spotted Darcy marshalling some of the decathlon team. "I've got Liz getting some water out for everyone upstairs."

"Oh sweet." Darcy blew a bubble of gum as she took the lamp and started wedging it into the truck. "I was thinking Indian take out for everyone when we get everything to the house? Like don't get me wrong pizza is nice but I'm getting tired of it."

May noticed the very interested looking teenage boys. "Daisy can take one of the kids to go pick it up."

"Or I could?" Darcy gave her her best puppy eyes.

She snorted. "Which one of you has only had her arm out of a cast for a month? You can carry boxes. Nice try."

Darcy's eyes snapped to a teenager who was setting a box into the truck. "You look at the boobs again and I'll tase you in the balls you twerp."

The kid, Flash or something like that physically cringed, his face turning bright red.

May bit back her amusement. "Well I can see you've got things handled."

May was exhausted as she looked around the house. It was a cute two story four bedroom. The wainscotting was so nice. She wrapped an arm around Peter's shoulders, with her other arm she hooked Daisy and yanked her over. "Well, looks like we're home."

"Do we have to finish unpacking tonight? Cause I am so tired." Peter didn't fight her hold.

Daisy shuffled, clearly unsure on whether she should eel out of May's grip or lean into it. "Uh.. it's very nice."

"Come on, we have to at least make up our beds." May winked at Darcy who was biting her lower lip to keep from cackling. These were her kids and they were good ones.

////

Darcy yawned as she made her way to the shipping container they'd made their 'secret' base at the empty shipping yard. She cringed at how perky Peter was as he sipped from his mug of coffee. "I need you two to kidnap a reporter for me." She held out a piece of paper with the address written on it. "Her name is Amira Ahmed and is a foreign war correspondent. She's stateside at the moment, so we need to grab her now."

"...why am I kidnapping a reporter?" Daisy asked, only slightly slowing down as she cleaned her tranq rifle.

Darcy rolled her eyes while grabbing the shitty coffee pot and pouring herself some. "Because someone needs to interview you, she cares about the truth and doesn't care about the danger reporting the truth could put her in. And I mean more politely ask her to come with you, then blindfold and bring to someplace. I haven't figured out where yet. And cooperative. You're a sledgehammer Daisy."

"Why can't we just knock on her door and ask?" Peter looked between the two of them wide eyed.

Darcy paused. "That is...we could do that too."

"Why was kidnapping your first choice?" Peter squeaked.

Darcy hummed considering that as she drank some of the sweet, sweet caffeine. "Too much time with Tony. He's got such a god complex."

"Do you need us to punch him or something for you?" Daisy offered, she was clearly properly amused now.

She scoffed at that. "Please no. It's not even that he's an asshole. He's gone and decided the entire weight of the security of the world weighs on his shoulders. So he sees Sokovia as his fuck up, which it was. But then he sees Rogers, Wanda and co in Lagos as proof they're not any better than him. So obviously they all need to be reigned in since they can't be trusted. And apparently no one on the team thought to like...talk to him. They all just fight about freedom or consequences."

"That's bullshit." Daisy paused, shooting Peter a look. "Don't tell Aunt May I said that."

Peter smirked into his mug. "Sure."

"I'm watching you." Daisy elbowed him.

Darcy dropped a very fat folder on the crate table. "And could one of you drop this off with that reporter Christine Everhart. She's a shark and letting her loose on General Ross sounds fun."

"That would be kinda great actually." Daisy nodded. "She's that bitchy one who tried to do an expose on Stark right?"

Darcy sat down on one of the crates. "Yup, she's a super bitch. Pretty sure she boinked our dad"

"Ew." Peter's face scrunched up in disgust. He faked retching...or maybe was actually retching.

Daisy's nose was scrunched up. "I miss when I just had to worry if my dad had murdered people by tearing them into pieces. It was much simpler. And other than the murder I really liked Cal."

"Uh…" Peter patted her shoulder awkwardly. "I'm sorry your murder dad wasn't your real dad?"

Darcy silently mouthed a few choice words. She was not touching that with a ten foot pole. Her sister was a bucket of angst triggers. Like holy shit. "So anyways, we're unleashing Everhart on Ross, and we attempt to befriend inspiration to all little girls and awesome war correspondence Ahmed."

"Can I keep doing trick videos? Cause I'm living for the views. I hit a hundred thousand hits on my video of backflips and stuff. Like so many hits. It's kinda really awesome." Peter had taken to the whole short videos of various 'cool shit'.

Darcy shared an amused look with Daisy. "Yeah you can keep up your videos kid. You're doing good, though you might be invited to host the X-games."

Peter practically vibrated at the thought, a squeak of excitement escaping his lips.

"So what are you two idiots working on today?" Darcy asked while grabbing her assigned paintball gun. She was getting to be a really good shot.

Daisy's eyes lit up with the kind of glee that only came from horrible adrenaline junky ideas that were void of common sense. "Well Peter launching me at those wasps as pretty cool. So I figured, can it work the other way around?"

"Oh that is really cool." Peter grinned. "Loser has to wear a princess tiara."

Daisy cocked her head to the side.

Darcy sent a text to Aunt May, they were going to need the first aid kit after this.

////

Amira Ahmed stared at the three people standing on the other side of her door. It was possibly the most bizarre thing she'd ever seen. In the bright red and blue suit was Spiderman, weird goggle things blinking at her, a...box of donuts in his hands being brandished. Next to him, in full superhero glory was Quake, holding a bottle of sparkling cider? And squished between them was a pretty hipster making jazz hands.

She shut the door.

"What the fuck."

She opened the door. It hadn't been a mirage.

"Can I help you?" Amira finally asked. Maybe someone had slipped her drugs?

Pretty hipster adjusted her knit cap and held out her hand. "Darcy Lewis. Mind if we come in?"

"Sure?" Amira stepped to the side, her hands suddenly full of donut box and sparkling cider. Her surprise...guests? Bustled on into her apartment. Spiderman made an 'ooo' sound. She cleared her throat.

Quake's eyes tracked the apartment noting every entrance, exit and several objects that Amira had never thought of as possible weapons before. Her attention flicked back to her. "Sorry for barging in."

"This is a very nice apartment." Spiderman gave her a thumbs up. "Like so nice. Is that an Ironman bobblehead?"

Quake whacked his hand before he could touch the Ironman bobblehead. Her smile way too cheery. "So war correspondent? No worries about being kidnapped?"

"If it's the only way for the truth to get out." Amira replied slowly. She set her...gifts? down on the kitchen island. "Why are you all here?"

Pretty hipster, Darcy apparently, cleared her throat. "Look I have to deal with these two idiots and they have no idea how to handle the press. And talking about the reality enhanced beings face is dangerous. It will put you on the radar of some really powerful and totes scary people. But everyone is so busy being scared of enhanced peeps they're missing the bit where enhanced beings are incredibly vulnerable to unethical individuals and organizations. I think, and Quake agrees, you're the sort of person who won't care about the danger involved in talking about the US government illegally imprisoning, experimenting on and murdering people."

"Oh." Amira's eyes narrowed as she looked at the three people in her apartment. Because she didn't know a lot about Spiderman, but he wasn't Inhuman. Too many abilities, which that implied things. Not to mention anyone with eyes could tell he was young. And Quake? She was visibly young as well, not to mention it was public knowledge she was former SHIELD. "Would it be alright if I record this?"

Darcy looked like the cat that ate the canary. "Not today, but I can guarantee interviews with both of these dolts. And once you're in with them, they can get you in with others like them."

Amira nodded. "May I take notes then?"

"Of course." Darcy sat down in the middle of the couch, Quake and Spiderman bookending her automatically. The three of them squashed in a way that gave away how secure they felt around each other. It was fascinating.

Amira pulled out her notebook, always in her back pocket, and sat down in the armchair in front of the couch. "I won't just write what you want me to write."

"Of course not." Quake scoffed. She smiled genuinely for the first time since she'd entered the apartment. "I looked up your work, big fan. I mean I was part of the Rising Tide back before SHIELD black bagged me."

Amira's pencil began to move. "You were Rising Tide? The cyber terror organization?"

"I was a teenager, and I helped shut down parts of the organization after I signed up with SHIELD. They recruited me for the computer skills, powers came later. But I definitely believe in transparency when possible." Quake's voice was sincere.

Amira could work with that, it was probably the most transparent anyone in or out of SHIELD was ever going to be. "Alright, what are you willing to talk about?"

"I'm kinda new to this whole thing?" Spiderman volunteered, his voice nearly cracked. "But Quake's been helping me and I think we make a pretty cool team. I'm just helping out in Queens and Brooklyn right now. And helping the Avengers with Swarm was really cool! But I don't know much. It was way too easy to get bulletproof fabric for the suits though. Like concerningly easy."

Darcy spoke up. "When you record talking to the kid he gets a voice a changer. He's the only one out of the three of us with a chance in hell at keeping his identity actually private in any meaningful way and we'd like to keep it that way."

Spiderman nodded at that.

"We can do that." Amira agreed, it was probably the showing of the most common sense since this whole thing had started. And protecting what had to be a teenager from everything was good.

Quake bit at her lower lip. "I can talk about my time at SHIELD up until Hydragate. It's all on the web if you know where to look anyways. Some about Inhumans, my current arrangement with SHIELD."

"Why are you in New York?" Amira prompted.

She nodded hesitantly. "Yeah, I guess...yeah the manhunt means they had to declassify some things. But I can get you in contact with the world's foremost expert in Inhuman biology. A couple of Inhumans who worked with SHIELD...I don't know if they'd be ok with talking to you on the record."

"Oh! I bumped into that Daredevil guy last weekend. I could probably give him your number." Spiderman chimed in, one of his legs was bouncing.

Amira could see the gold mine of sources and access that was being handed to her on a platter. It was the golden goose and she wasn't going to be stupid enough to scare them off. Which meant not kid gloves, but a certain level of care when asking them questions. "What do you know about the US government funding for illegal experimentation and or targeting of enhanced beings?"

"About that." Darcy set a usb on the coffee table. "Quake has access we can't explain to you for legal reasons. And let's say I have an in with Stark's lawyers."

Amira took in Darcy. Everything about her said unthreatening hippy. But… "I need more than that."

"I guess I should introduce myself properly. Keep in mind if you want to have access once the news breaks I expect you not be the one breaking the news. But I'm Doctor Darcy Lewis, I work with Doctor Jane Foster. My doctorate is in mechanical engineering, but my undergrad degree is in political science. And the reason these two idiots use me as their backend support is because I'm Tony Stark's daughter. That and I'm not the raging asshole my dad is." She slipped her hair over one shoulder, a smug look on her face. A smug look that was shockingly identical to Tony Stark's.

Her eyes widened. Well that...if you needed technical support and didn't want Avenger attention finding Tony Stark's kid was a good choice. But also...Amira looked at the three kids, and god all of them were kids. She kept her suspicions to herself. Not enough information. The important thing was that Darcy's identity left open information she couldn't get any other way. "If the information you give me is verifiable I'll follow it."

"Sounds like a deal." Darcy held out her hand.

Amira looked between the three of them. "Then I believe we can work together." She took the hand. "I can have a camera man I trust here in two hours if you're willing to start those interviews?"

"I mean I'm down for that." Quake shot a look at Spiderman. "You never speak to Spiderman without Darcy or I there."

Amira nodded, Spiderman was definitely the youngest. "Alright."

"Catch." Quake tossed her watch.

Amira looked at the watch and felt herself smiling slightly. This was a panic button if she'd ever seen one. It would seem they were offering her an alliance. "The wind up triggers a gps signal?"

"Well I think we should let you take a look at that usb drive." Darcy stood up, hauling Spiderman up with her. "Quake will drop by later."

She stood herself. "It's been interesting meeting you."

Amira scrolled through the files on the drive. It was military paperwork from the forties. Legally it shouldn't be classified anymore. It was detailing the experiments leading up to and then after the success of Steve Rogers. It was nauseating. They'd experimented on African American soldiers without their full consent. It wasn't safe, it'd killed hundreds. A few partial successes though.

She dialed her editor, not even waiting for him to finish picking up. "Marcus cancel my arrangements for the story in Nigeria. Send Tiffiany instead. She's got the grit she just hasn't had a chance. And I need Ethan with his camera equipment at my apartment in an hour."

////

Peter let his copy of The Scarlet Letter drop onto his face. "It's so boring!"

"Why can't we just use sparknotes?" Ned asked from the beanbag chair where he was also trying to muck his way through.

Peter could hear the whine in his voice, and he didn't care. "Because Daisy will know, and then she'll laugh at us. And we can forget going to laser tag this weekend."

"But didn't you say she dropped out?" Ned protested. "Like she's too cool to care about something this boring. Cool people don't care about boring books."

He dragged the book off of his face and stared at his ceiling. "Aunt May made her promise to not let me slack off from school."

"Your Aunt is very scary. I don't know how I missed that." Ned solemnly replied.

Peter felt a slight shiver at the memory of his Aunt shooting targets down at the warehouse. Also she'd gotten really into her self defence and fitness class. "She and Daisy are going to be back from their cooking class in two hours."

"I can't read anymore. I can feel my brain oozing out of my head." Ned protested. "I think watching paint dry would be more interesting."

Peter held up the offending book between his thumb and forefingers and glared at it. "For laser tag."

"For laser tag." Ned repeated with the excitement of a dying man discussing his upcoming execution.

Peter cackled while shooting twelve year olds in the laser castle. It was awesome. His spider sense tingled and he ducked and rolled. Popping back up he shot Ned straight in the chest.

"Come on man." Ned exclaimed, throwing up his arms.

He sniggered. "All's fair in love and war man."

"Good to know." A voice came from directly behind him, practically in his ear. And then his whole laser get up flashed at a hit.

Peter groaned looking over his shoulder. "Really?"

"I thought you said all was fair in love and war?" Daisy winked at him before moving onwards to continue destroying the hopes and dreams of the twelve year olds having a birthday party at the laser castle.

Peter blinked as he saw a twelve year old girl in pigtails, braces, and wearing a tiara following behind Daisy like a duckling. She had a viscous look of glee on her face. "You're teaming up with the enemy?!"

"Work together to try and hit your sister?" Ned asked.

Peter's eyes narrowed. "Deal."

They bumped fists.

Peter watched as the psychotic twelve year old in a tiara cut her cake. That small of children should not be able to cackle that menacingly. "That is a terrifying villain in training over there."

"She used her party mates as sacrificial lemmings." Ned's voice was filled with awe as he scooped up another chip from their nacho platter.

Daisy just snickered. "It's the killer instinct."

"You shot me sixteen times!" Peter pointed at his sister's face. "I will have my revenge."

Daisy mimed brushing off her shoulders. "And how many times did you shoot me? Oh yeah, you didn't."

"Your sister is a badass." Ned looked at Daisy with a sort of hero worship. "You really want to help us build the new Death Star Lego set?"

Daisy's eyes lit up. "Duh. Hanging with you two is fun."

Peter beamed, his insides feeling all warm and fuzzy. He stuffed his mouth with nachos so he didn't say anything dumb. But this was good. So good.

"Are you coming to our first decathlon next week?" Ned asked.

Daisy reached out and ruffled Peter's hair. "I wouldn't miss it." And the thing was, she meant it, he could tell.