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Peter didn’t necessarily like going to Mr. Stark’s parties. The worst ones were the ones he held for all the rich people. It would always be filled with talk about business and who has the coolest stuff. Their children usually just sat around on their phones and stayed huddled in their rich little cliques.“Hey, Parker,” Natasha greets, sliding up on the barstool next to him. “You having fun?”None of the Avengers enjoyed these events. It was a little more tolerable for the adults, though. They at least got to drink.Peter huffs out a breath and rolls his eyes. Events like these are never fun. A bunch of old white farts gathered in a room talking about money is not the most entertaining thing to do on a Saturday, believe it or not.“Why don’t you go over and play with Lyla. She looks bored.”Peter groans, “all the children here are bored. Besides, doesn’t she have her own little clique?”“She’s a bit on the young side to fit in with any of the others.” Natasha points to a young girl standing next to a circle of old men. She seems to be shy, not wanting to leave her father. “I bet she’d love it if someone could take her away from this snooze fest.”Peter perks up. He loves kids. They're always so cute and fun. He could show her his LEGOs he keeps at the tower! “Alright, Nat!” Peter jumps out of his chair, leaving his apple juice behind.“Hey, I’m Peter, what’s your name?”She looks at him wide eyed. “My name is Lyla.”“That’s such a pretty name!”She smiles at the compliment, glad that someone is actually paying attention to her now.“Do you want to go have some fun?” Peter asks.She tilts her head adorably. “What kinda fun?”“We could play some games. I have LEGOs we could play with too.”Her face brightens at the prospect of doing something besides just standing around and listening to grownups talk. She walks over to one of the men and lightly pulls on his jacket. The man turns to look at his daughter.“Daddy, can I go play with some toys?”“Sure, princess,” he says, smiling at his sweet little girl. He smiles at Peter before turning back to his conversation about politics.“Daddy said we can go, c’mon!” She excitedly hops in place, antsy to have some fun.Peter smiles and leads her to the elevator. Whilst waiting for it to ascend, Peter learns that her favourite colour is pink, she likes deers and bunnies, she likes Disney princesses, and she has a giant stuffed animal collection.“Do you like candy? I’m sure Mr. Stark has some lying around. Or Clint, he always hides snacks around.”“Candy?” Lyla questions with wide eyes. “Daddy doesn’t let me have candy often.”“Well, this can be our little secret, okay?” Peter stage whispers with an over-dramatised mischievous grin.“Okay,” she agrees, nodding her head enthusiastically.She follows Peter into the communal kitchen where he searches in the cupboards for some treats. He smiles when he finds a hidden stash of lollipops.“Do you like lollipops?” Peter questions as he takes the container down to put it on the counter. Not hearing a response, he turns around to see her frowning. “What’s wrong?”“I don’t like lollipops. They’re icky,” she cringes, sticking her tongue out in distaste for emphasis.“What? Really? I love them!” Peter says, taking one out of the container. She looks up at him.“May I have a candy?” She asks, politely and shyly.“You just said that you don’t like lollipops,” Peter’s face crumples with confusion. He watches her frown, thinking hard about something.“Nevermind, I don’t want candy anymore.”Peter frowns, wanting to give her something. “I could try to find something else for you,” he offers.“But I don’t want a lollipop.”“I can get you something else.”“Why can’t I have what you’re having?”Peter’s eyebrows wrinkle as he tries to understand what she’s trying to say. It doesn’t make sense. She said she doesn’t like lollipops, but she also said that she wants one.He just shrugs it off and hands her the container to pick what she wants. She takes it, excitement radiating off of her as she looks at all the nummy flavours.In an instant her excitement is vanquished. Almost as if a switch went off. She looks up at him with a frown; Peter swears he can see tears gathering in her eyes.“Can I have one without… without having a lollipop?”Tilting his head, Peter tries to make sense of her sentence. How can she have a lollipop without a lollipop? That just makes no sense. Regardless, if he says yes he’s sure that she will be happy.“Sure,” he shrugs. He watches her features light up again.“Thank you! You’re the best!”Peter smiles, a warm feeling of pride swelling in his chest. Lyla unwraps the lollipop and puts it in her mouth.“Let’s go play,” he says, gesturing to the hallway. She nods and follows along by his side. “Say bye to your new friend, princess. It’s time to go,” Walter Woods, her father says.“Awe,” she whines with a pout, “I don’t wanna leave.”“We can come back to play later, okay?”“Really?” Lyla beams, happy that she doesn’t have to leave her best friend forever.Walter smiles at his adorable little girl, “of course, princess.”“Bye Peter, thanks for playing with me!” Lyla says, wrapping him up in a hug.“Of course!” He whispers in her ear, “better than sitting around some old farts anyways.”She giggles at his comment as they pull away from each other. Peter grins and puts a finger to his lips, silently telling her to not repeat what he says.“What’s so funny?” Walter asks, smiling at seeing his daughter so happy.“Nothin’!” Lyla immediately responds, trying her best to not look guilty. He raises a brow, not believing her in the slightest. Shaking his head, he extends his hand for his little princess to take. “Petey!”Peter turns around, hearing the high pitched voice of his small friend yell across the room. He smiles seeing the pig tails and skirt she wears. It’s so cute.He notices her face scrunch up in a wince briefly before she returns to her happy façade.The only reason she isn’t running into Peter’s arms is because her father is holding onto her hand, Peter can tell. When they get close enough, her father lets her go and she practically barrels him over.“I missed you so much, Petey! Daddy let me bring some of my toys that we can play with this time!”“Only if he wants to, remember?” Her father reminds her, glaring at her for being so pushy. “I highly doubt that this young man would want to play dolls.”Peter instantly goes to reassure the pouting girl, “I would love to play dolls with you!”A grin makes its way back onto her face as she reaches up towards her daddy for her princess backpack.“Here you go, princess. Be good for him okay? He’s in charge, so when daddy is away you have to listen to him, got it?”“Yes, daddy,” she compliantly agrees, practically vibrating with how much excitement she’s trying to hold in her small body.“That’s my good girl.”Peter ignores the chills he gets from that sentence and grabs her small hand. They run over to his room.When they arrive, he watches with amusement as she makes haste to unpack her toys.“Someone’s excited,” he chuckles.She doesn’t divert her attention, still diligently setting up her dolls. “I never get to play fun things with anyone else.”He frowns, “what about your dad?”Her face scrunches up as she fixes one of her doll’s clothes. “Daddy never wants to play fun games with me. Says he’s too busy.”Peter frowns at how casually she says that. Sure, he knew that most rich people’s kids didn’t receive much attention, but he thought that she’d surely have someone.“Now let’s play! Who do you wanna be?” “Thanks for watching her while I was with Stark,” Walter claps Peter on the back, slipping him a $100 bill. Wide-eyed, Peter refuses to take it. He was just hanging out with his friend. It’s not like he should get paid for doing that.“Oh come on, just take it, kiddo. You deserve it for having to play dolls. I know you probably have something better to do, what with your video gaming and TikTok-ing these days.”Peter awkwardly laughs, still trying to refuse his money.“Speaking of,” Walter glanced around, “where is my precious princess?”Peter frowns, looking to the spot he just saw her at. “Hmm, maybe she forgot something, I’ll go check.”Running back to his room, he stops short, hearing sniffling. “Lyla?”Peeking around a corner, he finds her clutching onto her backpack, trying to hide her face. His heart cracks, seeing her upset. “What’s wrong, hun?”“Don’t pretend like you care,” she defiantly mumbles. Taken aback, Peter freezes in shock. Where did this come from?“What are you talking about?”“You’re just like mommy. All you care about is the money. You don’t actually like me.”That was it. The thing that shattered his heart. The poor girl. Hasn’t she had anyone besides her father to love her the way she deserves to be loved?“Lyla, I didn’t take the money,” he informs her, crouching down to be level with her. Her bewildered face looks up at him. “I’m not hanging out with you to get money. I just wanted to spend time with you.”“Really?”God, the hope on her face practically made him want to cry. He nods, extending his arms for a hug. Wiping her red, watery eyes, Lyla smiles as she runs to hug her friend.When they return to her father, he smiles at his princess before taking her hand and leaving. Peter watches them go.“How did your little playdate go?” Natasha asks.Peter smiles, “good! She’s like the little sister I never had.”
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“Hey, Parker.”Peter looks up from his homework to look at his mentor who just entered the room. “Yeah?”“I got a message from Walter. He’s going away for a bit and he asked if you’d be willing to watch over Lyla. She specifically requested you, I guess.”Peter smiles. He hasn’t seen his little sister in so long! It also warms his heart that she requested him. This is going to be so much fun! He can’t wait to show her the new princess LEGO sets he got her.“He also says that you just have to list a price and he’ll send you the money,” Stark continues to read from his phone.“I’d love to!”Peter and Lyla have been playing with LEGOs ever since she arrived, only taking a break for lunch and snack. She was overjoyed when she saw that Peter had princess LEGOs. She immediately wanted to build all of them so they could play princesses.“We should go get supper,” Peter mentions, putting the last piece to the Cinderella castle on.She pouts, “but I wanna play princesses.”“Don’t worry, we’ll have more time to play later, okay?”She acquiesces and puts down the set she was building. They walk together to the commons where Wanda and Vision are finishing up making some borscht.“Hey kiddo, how are you guys doing?” Wanda asks, taking the soup to the table.“Awesome! Me and Peter were building the princess sets and later we’re going to play with them!”“That sounds like a lot of fun!”“You can join if you wanna, there are enough people for you two to play too!”Wanda giggles, loving how adorable this sweet little girl is. Vision just watches his love with affection, loving how she is so good with children.They eat their meal and Tony, Natasha, and Bruce join later on. They talk about whatever comes to mind, making sure to include Lyla in their conversations.“So, Lyla, after supper we were thinking that it’s going to be bath time. Your dad said that you need one.” Tony says, looking at Wanda and Nat, who are probably going to need to help out.She freezes in her seat, eyes wide. No. She doesn’t want bath time. She hates bath time. Why doesn’t Peter say something? Why isn’t he telling them that they had plans? Then she would get out of it.“B-but Peter said we were going to-to play princesses,” she mumbles, tears forming in her eyes.Peter grimaces, whoops. He didn’t know that she had to take a bath, otherwise he wouldn’t have gotten her too excited. “There will still be time to play princesses after the bath.”“You can have playtime after bath time, okay?” Stark resolves.She stands up from her seat and runs to Peter’s room. She doesn’t wanna. No. They can’t make her. Only daddy makes her do it. They… they can’t….Peter, wide-eyed, gets up to rush after her, telling them that he’ll figure it out. Natasha goes to follow, wanting to make sure that the child is okay. Wanda looks over at vision, silently apologising for leaving before dashing after them.“Lyla, are you okay, princess?” Peter figures that using her nickname might make her feel a bit better. Maybe she was missing her dad. Kids get homesick quite easily.She cries harder, hearing her daddy’s nickname come from his mouth. He’s just like him. She knows what all this means. Words like bath time, playtime, and princess. It’s all a part of daddy’s not fun games.“Hey, Lyla,” Peter coos, crouching down to look under his desk, where she decided to hide. “It’s okay, sweetheart. We just wanna get you clean before playtime, okay?”She knows that she has to be clean before playtime. Daddy doesn’t like it when she is icky. He tells her that no one wants a dirty girl.“I don’t wanna have playtime,” she whimpers, trying to back herself up further. Peter’s brows pull together. He thought she was crying because she had to take a bath.“Do you miss your dad?”“I just want friendly Peter back,” she mumbles, lip quivering.Distraught, Peter stumbles over his words. “I-I am friendly Peter. I just want to help, yeah?”“Don’t want bath time. Don’t want playtime. Please don’t make me,” she begs, wide teary eyes pleading with Peter.Peter glances back at Wanda and Natasha for help. He doesn’t know what to do.“We got this, Pete,” Wanda whispers as she puts a reassuring hand on his back.Peter backs up and watches Lyla crash into Natasha’s arms. It saddens him. The fact that he scared her and Natasha was able to comfort her. Why couldn’t he comfort her? Why is she scared of him? Why did she say that he wasn’t being friendly? What did he do?Natasha hums a little lullaby, trying to calm the sobbing and trembling child. Her hands run through the little girl’s tresses.Wanda shoos Peter away, wanting the little girl to be completely comfortable. She isn’t sure if she should leave too, so she just stays near the door. Does the little girl only trust Natasha right now? Or is there something worse going on?“What’s wrong, sweetie?” Natasha hums once she calms down.“Don’ wanna… don’ wanna…”“What don’t you want to do?”“Bath time,” Lyla sniffles, grabbing on to her tighter, just hoping that she will be good and save her from having to go.“Why not, little dove?”“I don’t like it… it hurts,” She mutters, burying her face into Natasha’s chest.“Hurts?” Natasha glances at Wanda, concern etched into her features.“Not as bad as playtime.“Why does it hurt, малышка?”“Daddy does things that hurt.”Natasha tenses, intensely shooting her gaze to Wanda. Not having to be told anything, Wanda knows that Natasha wants her to peek in Lyla’s head. Normally, she wouldn’t do such a thing, hating invading others' privacy, but when it’s something serious like this there’s no way she isn’t using her magic.Subtly looking in her head, Wanda is horrified with the things she finds. Tears make their way to her eyes and she isn’t able to keep them in.Natasha’s stomach twists, seeing Wanda cry. It’s bad. It’s exactly what she thought; though she had practically prayed to any and every deity that she was wrong.“Oh, малышка… my sweet sweet girl…” Natasha murmurs, holding her just a little tighter. Her stance is almost protective now. As if Natasha could protect her from the horrors she has already lived through. As if maybe Natasha could protect her in her arms, and she would forget each abhorrent, atrocious, nauseating touch. “Pete, calm down,” Tony sighs. “She’s fine, probably just homesick or something.”No.He can’t accept that.Not with the way she was trembling and scrambling to get away from him. Not with the way her lip quivered and her voice shook. Not with the way her voice pleaded and begged so brokenly. Not with the way she was sobbing and sniffling under his desk.None of that spelled out “fine”. In fact, it did the exact opposite. But it’s not like Mr. Stark would know that. He didn’t see what she looked like. He didn’t see any of it.Peter perked up when he saw movement out of the corner of his eyes. Unfortunately, he didn’t see his small friend. It was just Wanda.Wait a minute. Had she been..? She was crying.“Wanda?” Peter questioned, rushing up to the distraught witch. His heart was beating out of his chest. What happened? What’s going on?“I-I’m sorry,” she sniffles, “I just… I was supposed to tell you that everything is under control now. Nat is taking her to get washed up right now.”“Why are you crying, my love?” Vision asks, having just walked back into the common room. He glides over to her side and pulls her in for a gentle hug.“Oh Vis, it was terrible. God, I can’t believe it.”“Take a deep breath, darling. It’s okay,” Vision calmly mutters, dragging his hand up and down her back in a comforting manner.“No! No it’s not okay!” Wanda argues, tears spilling down her cheeks. “Oh my god.”“Come darling, let’s go lay down,” Vision suggests, knowing that she likes getting cuddles after horrible experiences.
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“There we go sweet girl,” Natasha mumbles as she dries the little child’s hair.“Thank you, miss.”“You can call me Nat,” Natasha smiles down at her, picking up a brush to sort out her tangled hair. “This is what we meant when we said that you were going to have bathtime. The others didn’t mean to scare you. They’re really worried about you right now.”“So… so they didn’t… they weren’t going to do the things daddy does to me?”She hides her grimace of disgust with an ease that only an ex-assassin can keep. It makes her stomach twist and turn with how she doesn’t even know how wrong what her father is doing to her. “No, they didn’t want to do that, малышка.”The young girl frowns. She surely thought that they were going to hurt her just like daddy. She even indirectly told her best friend Peter that he wasn’t being friendly. He must be angry with her now. She shouldn’t have said such things! What if he doesn’t want to be her friend anymore?Seeing tears forming in Lyla’s eyes, Natasha kneels down and takes her face in her gentle hands. “What’s wrong, малышка? What bothers you sweet girl?”“Does Peter still want to be my friend?” Lyla sniffles, looking at the older woman with wide glossy eyes.“Of course he does! I’m sure he’s really worried about his best friend right now.”“But I was mean,” she mumbles, lowering her head in shame.“No, детка, no. You weren’t mean at all, baby girl.” Peter didn’t see his little friend the rest of the night. He barely got any sleep either. The sight of her trembling in fear from him was haunting his visions. It hurt so bad.Bright and early in the morning he is up and heading to the kitchen to see if anyone is up that can tell him what’s going on with Lyla. He stops in the doorway seeing Natasha, Tony, Wanda, Vision and a strange man wearing red sunglasses. They all look really serious. Besides Wanda, she’s clinging onto Vision like he is her lifeline, just barely keeping herself from sobbing.His attempt to eavesdrop is immediately ruined by the mystery man, who hushes the conversation and stares at him. The blood in his body runs cold, sending chills through his body. He guiltily comes out from his hiding spot, if you can even call it that and gives them a sheepish wave.“Peter, good morning,” Tony greets him. It sounds forced. Almost as if it were painful for him to try and sound cheerful. The others don’t even bother trying to bring themselves out of their depressed state.“What’s going on? Who is this? Why is he here?”Tony sighs, running the hand that doesn’t hold his coffee mug through his messy hair. Wanda can’t look at him and Natasha just looks at Stark.“I’m Matt Murdock. It’s nice to meet you, Parker. I was actually wondering if I could ask you some questions about your friend.”Straight to the point, Peter oddly likes it at this moment. He eagerly goes over, wanting to get answers.“Murdock, I don’t think-”Tony is instantly cut off by Matt. “Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.”“What’s going on? Where is she? Is she okay?” Peter hurriedly asks.“Mr. Parker, I am afraid I need to be the one asking the questions.”Peter shifts in his seat. It feels like he is about to get in trouble. But he didn’t do anything wrong. He would never do anything to hurt Lyla.“Have you noticed any strange behaviour from her at all?”“Strange behaviour?” Peter questions, looking around the room as if someone would hint him into what he was talking about.“Yes, anything weird or out of the ordinary. It can be simple little odd things that you noticed. Anything can help us.”Peter frowns trying to think of anything that really stands out. He can’t really say that he remembers anything too strange until what happened last night. Well, that is except for the first time he met her.“Well,” he pauses. It’s a silly thing to bring up. It doesn’t even matter. “Never mind, it’s stupid.”“You never know, that might help us a little,” Matt encourages Peter to continue. Shrugging, Peter mentions the lollipop incident. It still stuck with him. It was just such an odd interaction. Not to mention it made him feel off, almost like his Spidey-sense, but not really.Matt nods along to his story, keeping record of everything Peter says in his brain.When Matt leaves, Peter immediately questions the others who the hell he was and why he was asking about Lyla.Tony looks at Natasha and Wanda with a despondent expression. He sighs. “Mr. Murdock is a lawyer. I hired him last night upon learning why your little friend was so upset yesterday.”“What? Why do you need a lawyer? What happened?”“Pete,” he trails off, not wanting to deliver such horrible news, “her father has been abusing her.”“What?” Peter stands up, angry that someone would dare harm such a precious little girl.“Apparently he has been… using her body… for his own pleasure,” Stark grimaces, looking like he’s about to be sick.Peter’s face pales. He can’t settle on an emotion to feel. It’s too horrible to think about. How could someone do… that… to a child? How could someone be so sick? His stomach churns the more he thinks about it. Matt Murdock made sure that Lyla’s father would never see the light of day again.Now that the ordeal is settled, it’s time to break the news to her. Tony and Natasha walk into the room where she is playing LEGO princess with Peter, Bucky, and Sam. The latter two are arguing over which princess is better: Mulan or Tiana. Lyla just giggles and rolls her eyes, telling them that they’re both pretty and don’t have to fight.“Lyla?” Tony questions, bringing the group's focus away from princesses. She looks up at Mr. Tony, and she can tell that something serious is going on.The guys around her immediately snap to attention wanting to know the verdict. Of course, they knew that she would be taken away from her horrible father, they just didn’t know the specifics.“We have to talk, it’s about your father.”Lyla grips onto the princess toy harder and her breathing becomes erratic. She thought the nice blind man was going to make him go away. She doesn’t wanna go back. She doesn’t want him to play with her anymore.Peter sees the tears forming in her eyes and crawls over to her. He holds out his arms for her, and she clambers over to him. Burying her face in his chest she whispers, “don’t let me go, please, I wanna stay, I don’t wanna go, I’ll be good.”Brushing his hand through her hair, he hushes her.“Lyla, your dad will never hurt you again, okay? Murdock put him away.”She sobs in relief, getting Peter’s hoodie wet with her tears. Cradling her gently, he rocks her back and forth giving her little kisses on her hairline.When she calms down, Tony asks the next question he’s been meaning to ask, “do you want to stay with your mother?”She frowns and shakes her head. Her mother wouldn’t want her anyway. She only took care of her when she got paid money. Even then, she barely did anything. “Why can’t I stay with Peter?”Peter’s heart melts. She’s so sweet it makes him want to cry. He would gladly take care of her if he could.“Peter can’t…”“Why not?” Lyla huffs.“He’s not old enough.”“I can wait until he gets old enough.”“Lyla, I know someone else that would be willing to adopt you. They have the paperwork and everything.”“But I don’t wanna leave Peter!” She grips into him for dear life, not wanting to be taken away from her best friend.Peter furrows his brows at Mr. Stark. Who wants to adopt her with such short notice? How does he already have someone picked out? What if they hurt her too?“Do you remember Wanda and Vision?”Her tear stained face looks up curiously. “You mean the pretty girl and the guy with the funny rock in his head?”They all chuckle a bit. “Yeah, they have been wanting kids for a while and I think you’d be perfect for them. This way you can still hang out with Peter.”“Really? Oh, yay!” She jumps up from Peter’s lap and crashes into Mr. Tony with a big hug. When she pulls away, her face lights up, “can we have a tea party to celebrate?”“Sure, munchkin,” Tony grins.And that’s how the Avengers find themselves sitting around the table drinking tea and lemonade with small snacks.Bucky and Sam got chosen to wear the uncomfortable fairy wings and flower crowns, and Thor gladly wears the princess tiara. Peter gets to be the knight. Vision is the butler and Wanda is the royal witch. Natasha just got to go as herself. Lyla was, of course, the queen.Since the nice man, Mr. Murdock, was too busy at work to come celebrate, Lyla drew him into the picture of everyone having tea and sent it to him.