done making things worse

The party was in full swing, and Cindy was having a blast. She hadn’t been around so many people in a long time, hadn’t been to an event like this ever. It was exhilarating, a welcome break from the terror that had come along with the fear toxin. Apparently, the rest of New York was in agreement with her, because every guest in attendance seemed to be having just as much fun as Cindy was. She’d danced with strangers, complimented people she thought she might know under their masks on their costume efforts, had conversations with people she only recognized from the local news. All in all, it was shaping up to be a pretty fun night.

It seemed like it was getting even better when she spotted a familiar --- albeit masked --- face in the crowd ahead of her. Grinning, Cindy grabbed a pair of champagne chutes from a passing waiter and walked over to stand next to the blue dress, batting her eyelashes at Daisy. “You’re the most beautiful princess I’ve ever seen,” she informed her seriously. “Did you come here in a pumpkin? Because that would be, like, totally in season right now.”

Family meant something different to everybody, and Daisy had definitely created her own unique definition. For her, family was on the bus, and it was with Matt. She’d do anything for them and she had no doubt that was reciprocated, but it wasn’t stereotypical. Unfortunately, she’d never gotten any leads on her biological parents, and Daisy was never really upset about that. All her life she’d been searching for her lineage, no doubt about that, but it’d come in a different package. Now that she had that, Daisy felt a little more settled in the fact that she was an orphan. Cindy, on the other hand, had a biological family that had gone missing. She could completely understand why she was choosing to search to the ends of the Earth for them. In her shoes, Daisy would do the same for Coulson, May, Jemma… Yeah, it was a pretty long list these days. (The old Secret Warriors were on it, too, although she’d never admit it out loud. She owed them, it basically made them family… in a messed up sense.)

“Is that so? You should use the power of flattery on someone you like, Cindy,” Daisy replied with a faint smile. It made her feel strangely like an older sibling, but she didn’t mind that in the least. After everything that Cindy had lost, it was really the least Daisy could do. Cindy deserved normal experiences, especially the happy ones, and dating qualified. “It’s the nicest thing I’ve ever done for anybody so it fits,” Daisy quipped. If hitting herself purposely in the face with a gun made Cindy happy, it was a small price to pay. Besides, with her powers, Daisy figured it wouldn’t be too hard. “You better take some mental pictures because I am so not letting you record it,” she warned. Daisy snickered at Cindy’s reply and pulled her jacket on, leaving the bar without a second glance. It wasn’t very impressive! “How are you gonna repay me for the gun thing, by the way? We both embarrass ourselves in this friendship.”

When she’d come out of that bunker, seeing the world for the first time in ten years, the first thing Cindy had wanted to do was to go home. She’d wanted to apologize to her mother for all the terrible things she’d said during their arguments, wanted to thank her father for being the thought that helped her survive through ten years of isolation, wanted to reintroduce herself to Albert now that they were both adults. Unfortunately, she hadn’t gotten the chance. No one had heard from her family in years, but for Cindy, the wound was still incredibly fresh. The amount of time they’d been missing only served to offer her a trail too cold to realistically follow, a thought that both broke her heart and filled her with anger. It wasn’t fair that she’d gone underground to protect them only to lose them anyways. It wasn’t right that she got to come up for air only to have to continue missing them. Daisy was probably one of the few people who could help her find them, and the fact that she was willing to do just that was something Cindy didn’t even know how to describe. Not many people would offer their assistance, especially when the case seemed hopeless. That was just who Daisy was, she guessed; a hero through and through. 

“Oh, I do. It works out pretty well!” It had gotten Kate into bed with her, even if that wasn’t going to be anything serious. After ten years of isolation, Cindy deserved to have a little fun! She knew Daisy wouldn’t judge her for that. Daisy didn’t seem willing to judge Cindy for anything, something Cindy absolutely loved about her. “It’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for anyone, I think. I’m willing to give it that title.” Sure, there were probably a million news stories to dispute that, but Cindy didn’t watch the news! Daisy probably didn’t, either! They were in the clear! “Aw, come on, really? What if one day down the line I’m having a really bad day and need to see it again? Easier to let me record it than to repeat the process, right?” Her dad always used to say she made great arguments, and Cindy was pretty sure it was still the truth! Trailing behind Daisy as she exited the bar, Cindy shrugged. “I don’t know. Any requests? I’m great at embarrassing myself, Daisy. It comes with the spider bite.” Peter humiliated himself, like, hourly, so that was probably true!

Gwen made a big show of scoffing, but her smile betrayed her. “You shouldn’t believe everything you read on the Internet,” she protested, linking arms with Cindy to lead her away. Lunch waited for no woman, and Gwen was starving. “You’d be wrapped up in some crazy credit card scams if you did!”

Gwen’s salary wasn’t much better, but she had some money saved. Parker Industries wasn’t about the money, really. Working with Pete and organizing her own projects was a dream come true. “Any news of a promotion?” Gwen asked, holding the door for Cindy on their way out. “You work hard enough as it is, I think, but I could be biased. There’s a possibility.” 

Gwen, Cindy discovered, was the world’s worst actress. She’d never win an Oscar as long as she was so completely unable to hide her smile! “Uh, I’m pretty sure everything on the internet is true, Gwen.” She knew it wasn’t, but unlike Gwen, Cindy was a great actress! She totally sold the lie with wide eyes and an innocent smile. She was nailing this. “You mean there’s no Nigerian prince who wants to wire me $10 million?”

Cindy didn’t mind her job. It had always been a means to an end, a way to preserve her identity, get resources to find her family, and make money for rent all at the same time. It wasn’t a dream come true, wasn’t something she’d wanted to do since she was a little girl, but it was a job. “I don’t know,” she replied with a shrug. “Jonah loves me, but I think he’s worried about showing favoritism. I mean, I’m not as qualified as a lot of the other people who work there, you know? So promoting me over them... It could look sketchy. How about you? Want me to bully Peter into giving you a pay raise?”

Sometimes - often - Tony liked to look back on his life and remind himself that for a lot of what he did wrong, he did a lot of things right too. After Afghanistan he could have continued on the path that was set out for him long before he was born, he could continue to close his eyes and pretend he didn’t see or hear the suffering of others around the world, he could continue to be naive about Obadiah and his intentions, but he had chosen a different path. Iron Man was a hero of Tony’s own creation, he was a legacy that he was destined to leave behind, and one day, a mantle that he hoped would be passed down. The future, after all, was the only thing that Tony had ever fought for. Every life he saved, he did so because he knew that would help the future, whether through that person directly, through someone they loved, or through someone they influenced. Doing the right thing now meant the world would be a better place tomorrow.

Cindy seemed to live by that philosophy too, though she was less likely to implement it in her daily life. She was a journalist, a reporter who didn’t sensationalise pieces in order to sell papers, but gave the subjects the dignity and respect they deserved. Jameson probably wasn’t pleased with that - from what Tony had seen the man was rarely pleased with anything - and it took a certain level of guts to stand up against your boss. “I’ve floated above it, yeah. Nice view of the city, and it made me feel super patriotic. I considered painting the suit red, white and blue too, but then Hawkeye said I’d clash with Cap. Couldn’t have that.” Tony grinned, always a little more comfortable with people who shared the same proclivity towards recklessness as he did - and who appreciated him irritating Rhodes. “I’ve never jumped out of a plane - health warnings suck - but I have dropped in a depowered suit. That was basically the same thing. You only came to the city recently, right? You need introduced to the hotspots to jump off of ASAP.”

Heroism wasn’t something that came naturally for anyone. it had taken some time for Cindy to realize that, taken her meeting and getting to know various heroes and vigilantes in order to allow her to understand it. Being a hero went against human nature in a lot of ways. It meant putting other people far above yourself, something that was hard even for the most selfless of people. You could be a great person and still not want to die for a complete stranger, and there was nothing wrong with that. It was natural. Knowing that didn’t make Cindy feel any less out of her element as she attempted to navigate the world of heroes. It didn’t help her figure out what her place was, didn’t help her carve anything out for herself. It made her feel a little less alone, though. That stood for something, even if it never felt like much.

Years later, Felicia liked to believe that she wasn’t afraid of anything. She liked to think that years of experience in deadly situations, slipping her way out of impossible scenarios and keeping her head attached to her body, as well as the near decade of training she had vigorously put herself through, that she would be capable of handling anything that came at her. Of course, the fear toxin was using her own body, her own mind, against her. That in itself was something that Felicia took particular offence to, something that made her hands shake and sweat come on the back of her neck, but then everything else began to unfurl in front of her. Her father, dead because she had been unable to protect him, even though she logically knew he was in a safehouse, that the secret was still safely within her own mind, that no one else had managed to figure it out. Being out of her depth, having someone else exceed her in her field, being useless, being regarded as nothing other than a selfish thief. Even if she tried t push forward the perception that was all she was, deep down Felicia knew differently.

Cindy was one of the people in her life who knew that more than others, mostly because she had gone from thinking of Felicia solely as an adversary to something like a friend. They were in the same place now, were looking at each other with wide eyes and shining skin, and that meant that they were relying on the other person. That sounded like a friend to Felicia. “Unless you’re talking catsuit, I am morally opposed to that idea,” Felicia said, matching Cindy’s smile with only the slightest difficulty. “Can I tell you a secret?” Felicia asked, hiding her surprise at Cindy’s admission - that she trusted Felicia enough to say it - by leaning in and then plopping down on the sofa beside her. “That’s how everyone feels, even the people who have been doing it for decades. No one knows who they are all the time, not really. That’s what makes people so interesting.” Maybe that was just Felicia’s experience talking, but she liked to think it was reassuring. “Good,” Felicia said, nodding once. She paused for a brief moment before awkwardly leaning back on the sofa. “Um. Do you have cable? Please tell me you at least have cable.” 

Ten years ago, Ezekiel had used fear to control Cindy. He’d used her panic at the development of her powers to trick her into a vulnerable position, preyed on her uncertainty and fed into it. He’d seemingly confirmed every fear she had, informed her that she was going to be responsible for terrible things happening. He made it seem as though locking herself away forever was her only option, as if she didn’t have a choice. Your life stopped being your own the day that spider bit you, he’d said, and Cindy believed him. She’d believed him entirely, even years after he was dead. She’d let fear control her, let it steal her life away from her for so long. It was easier, now, to be angry. Anger was an energy; fear was a drain. The toxin, whatever it was, forced Cindy to feel the latter all the same, took away all the control that had allowed her to turn fear into rage since her escape from the bunker. She was still angry --- she was starting to think she’d always be angry, no matter what she did --- but she was terrified on top of it. She was afraid of a dead man, afraid of a prison she’d left behind, afraid of things that would never happen and things that already had. Whoever had invented this stupid gas was a total asshole.

Felicia wasn’t entirely sure that if there was any single detail that had changed in the story thus far, she and Cindy would have still ended up friends. It was a very specific chain of events that had led them to the point where they could sit in a karaoke bar on a Thursday night with a glass of wine in their hands and talk about life as if they were old college friends catching up after a few months apart. Honestly, she doubted it. Getting trapped in an elevator shaft, going through the motions on a heist, saving the city (or at least a small part of the city), all of those events gave them ample opportunity to sit, reflect, and talk to each other. If they hadn’t been forced to spend time in each other’s company, if they hadn’t been hyped up on the adrenaline of a fight and spurred on by the threat of injury or worse, Felicia doubted she would’ve seen anything in Cindy other than a paper thin do-gooder. Cindy was angry, she was vicious at times, she was hilarious, loyal, compassionate. She was a lot more than just another person playing at being a hero and carrying around enough self-righteousness to level a city block, and Felicia appreciated it insanely, though she wouldn’t put it into words.

“You’re a terrible, despicable human being,” Felicia said, attempting to keep the smirk off her face and the teasing from her voice, but failing insanely. “Why wouldn’t you save a cat from a tree? The little pet is stuck up there on the branch! They can’t jump or anything, Cindy. You basically left it to die a slow, painful death. What kind of hero are you?” Like Felicia - there was a reason why the name was so apt - cats were extremely independent, and would probably claw the face off their rescuer. “Oh really? Please tell me you got evidence of that.” Tag-teaming was important when it came to Peter! “I can’t believe you’re telling me to pickpocket every person in here,” Felicia said. “People look at their phones all the time, it’ll be a challenge, but here I go.” Felicia stood up from the barstool, keeping a hand on the bar to steady herself. “Make a distraction,” she instructed Cindy in a low whisper before making her way towards a nearby bar patron.

To a lot of heroes, the world was a very black and white place. Cindy doubted guys like Captain America made exceptions for any sort of crime, which was probably why he was the first hero many people thought of when they were defining the word. For Cindy, that simplicity was hard to come by. To her, crime-fighting felt painfully gray. There were people who undeniably deserved to have their reigns of terror brought to an end, but Cindy had trouble deciding what punishments fit the crimes. She had so much pent up anger, so much rage that had gone ten years without an outlet. She still remembered that night with Felicia, still remembered throwing a man from a roof unaware that he would survive the fall. She hadn’t felt wracked with guilt, hadn’t felt painful sorrow. She’d felt good, as if she’d accomplished something. Similarly, she found it difficult to condemn Felicia for her crimes. Nothing she did seemed worthy of prison. Stealing from the rich wasn’t exactly the same level of unforgivable as murdering innocents or mugging underprivileged deli workers in an alley, after all.

Matt had been to therapy before, back when trauma counselling was necessary due to his loss of function, and subsequently the murder of his father. It had been imposed on him first by Jack and then by the nuns, and each and every time he had played a role. He had never shown the therapist his true self, had given just enough information that they believed they had gotten through to him and gained his trust, and he had left their care without gaining anything out of it. These days, it almost terrified him to think what a shrink would say if they saw into his psyche. For one thing, he had an overwhelming tendency to run into the thick of things that most sane people would turn away from. At least Matt had good company tonight, though - and it was someone else in a costume, determined to keep their identity hidden, if the fibres he was picking up were anything to go by.

“You need to break into them!” Matt called back, ducking underneath one of the ninja’s blades, hearing the whoosh of it above his head as it cut through the air. “Just being invited takes away a lot of the appeal, even if you find a way to manage it. You need to go in through the back door, work your way through the kitchen, and then slide on up to the bar.” He wasn’t going to give any more specific tips and tricks than that - that would require explaining where the knowledge came from, which was multiple party crashes with Foggy during college, before he’d met Elektra. “I can track people,” Matt confirmed, taking a light graze with one of the ninja’s sais so that he could jump back at the right moment, making him cut a gash along his buddy’s arm. “Hire me? No need. I can just help you out. Who are you going after?” Matt laughed, a brisk and bitter sound against the wind on the rooftop, and kicked one of the ninjas back into the garbage below. “They think safety in numbers still applies. Let’s show them it doesn’t.” God, that was cheesy. Maybe he should leave the talking during fights to Peter.

After everything she’d been through, Cindy knew it was normal for her to have a few issues. She’d lived the last ten years of her life in total isolation, her only contact with the outside world being the videos Ezekiel had made with the sole intention of keeping her compliant. For ten years, she’d had no one, had taken to talking to herself and humming just to fill the silence. That was bound to leave a person with a few things to work out and, unfortunately, Cindy had no real method to work through her issues. Instead of talking about what was bothering her, she punched criminals until her knuckles were bruised and bleeding. She channeled her grief into rage and pretended it solved the issue because she had no other way to comprehend what she’d been through. She was pretty sure if she stopped to think about everything she’d lost for a second, she’d have a total breakdown so, yeah. Punching things was pretty preferable to all that!

[ ✪ ] cindy & peter are stuck in an elevator together.

For obvious reasons, Cindy wasn’t the biggest fan of being stuck. She’d spent ten years locked away in a bunker, and any small space automatically gave her pause. Unfortunately, elevators were only optional when she was in uniform, and if people saw Silk climbing in through her apartment’s window in broad daylight, they’d probably get suspicious. At least she wasn’t alone in the rickety elevator; having Peter at her side made her feel a little more at ease, though it went out the window the moment the elevator stalled.

[ ☁ ] the entire city is without power due to a storm, and cindy and kate run into each other during a supply run.

It was weird, being without power. Even in the bunker, she’d had that, and its absence was sort of potent. Cindy found she didn’t quite know what to do. She went out for supplies mostly just to give herself some kind of purpose, humming to herself as she walked. She was debating spinning up her Silk suit and swinging the rest of the way through the city to avoid the crowds when she spotted a familiar figure in front of her.

[ ✜ ] cindy collapses in front of gwen, all bloodied and bruised.

Despite her powers and the training Ezekiel had put her through, it wasn’t rare for Cindy to get her ass handed to her on a patrol. Sometimes, the other guy was just better than you were. They fought harder, they played dirtier. You couldn’t beat them, and it was all you could do to get out alive. Nights like that, after she nearly got herself killed, she usually wound up looking for Peter. He’d been at it longer than she had, knew more about how their healing factor worked. 

(✉ → hot web woman): it’s a pretty sexy treat. not as sexy as you! (✉ → hot web woman): i can’t wait to hear or feel all of your ideas. i bet they’re genius. (✉ → hot web woman): yes! what’s wrong with that

(✉ → Cindy): I am so a cop! Don’t make me put out an APB on you. I know how.

(✉ → Cindy): Maybe? I don’t know. It all happened so fast.

(✉ → Cindy): Hey, I should arrest you! This is solicitation. Check and mate, friend. If this was a sting operation, you’d be so busted.

(✉ → Cindy): We should get started on one. Or just reverse enigeer our own Jeff Goldblum.

Safety was something that Felicia associated overwhelmingly with being young and stupid, naive to the ways of the world, and still believing that her father was a goddamn travelling salesman. Every night growing up she had been read to sleep even when she was far too old for it, tucked into her silk sheets, warm and comfortable in the knowledge that no one would ever hurt her so long as she was within the walls of the Hardy mansion. That belief had been tipped on its head with the news of her father’s death, the realisation that had been a lie, his subsequent incarceration, and then college. Most had happy memories of that time, but all Felicia had was rage. Seeing Ryan’s face, seeing her father appear with blood pouring from his head, going to grab the Black Cat suit and finding nothing there, realising that she was just another normal, pathetic human in a world of super-heroes, it was weighing on her. Safety was not something an adult could have, at least an adult who was realistic.

Still, safety was something she craved tonight. The only people who could provide that were also people she didn’t want to see her struggling in any capacity, because that meant vulnerability, that meant opening yourself up like an idiot to get hurt all over again. Finding herself at Cindy’s apartment wasn’t something she had planned, but the sound of her voice calmed her. “You can never have enough leather, darling,” Felicia replied, slipping into the apartment with ease. “An angry vigilante is never a good thing, so maybe that’s a wise decision. An interesting thing, maybe, perhaps even entertaining, but your type always aims for ‘good,’ don’t you?” Cindy, though, didn’t act like the others in that subgroup, not all the time. It was part of the reason they were reluctant friends. At Cindy’s words, Felicia’s face softened for a second before she recovered herself with quirked lips. “Why would I be pissed? I’m used to people falling over themselves to spend time with me. You know I’m on the other side of the phone, don’t you?” She paused for a second before dropping onto Cindy’s sofa. “Would you be pissed if I stayed for a while? I need some valuable recharging time.” And a friend, too. That was kind of important right now.

Fear worked differently for everyone. Some people, when faced with things that terrified them, wanted nothing more than to run and hide. Others faced their fears head on, refusing to let the things they were afraid of control them. The latter were the sort Cindy figured made good heroes, but she didn’t count herself among them. She’d always been a lot better at hiding, had done it for ten years without ever thinking to question why. She wasn’t the same girl who’d gone into that bunker, either, though. She no longer hid at the first sign of trouble, even if she didn’t rush to meet it head on. No, these days, when Cindy felt fear, it was quickly drowned out by a resulting rage. Anger seemed to be the most overpowering emotion in her arsenal now, seemed to come out any time she felt anything strongly at all. When she felt happy, it was immediately replaced with anger towards herself for feeling good while her family was still missing. When she felt sad, it was quickly shut out by anger towards whatever was upsetting her. And when she was afraid, she grew angry at the fact that fear was still such an overpowering aspect of her life.

Mistakes were pretty much part of the Hawkeye vocabulary. If she and Clint weren’t messing up in some capacity, something was seriously wrong. That being said, Kate liked to think that her mistakes were a lot less volatile and problematic than Clint’s. She was proud of that, by the way, although there wasn’t anything to really be proud of… okay, whatever! She wasn’t the one falling into dumpsters and that was a total plus. If Kate was messing up here, it was by dating a client, someone who could pay her actual, real money that she needed, and Kate had made her peace with that. There was a reason why Hawkeye Investigations wasn’t her sole career (and one of them was her refusal to get a private detective licence).  

Besides, Kate needed to explore her sexuality further. Maybe it wasn’t with the ideal person because of their ‘professional’ relationship, but Kate was way more focused on how attractive Cindy was. She was a simple woman at the end of the day, Kate guessed, and she wasn’t ashamed of that. “Oh yeah?” Kate asked with a grin. “What kind of skills do you got?” She really needed more details about that! Kate was shameless and it sounded very enticing. Again, she was a simple woman. Was that another Hawkeye trademark, being super horny and making questionable choices? Probably! “Archery is pretty cool,” Kate said with a grin. Idly, she wondered whether she should purposely tone her skills down or whether she should impress Cindy, assuming she showed her. “I can show you how to shoot sometime,” Kate offered. When Cindy mentioned martial arts, Kate brightened once more. “What kind of martial arts?”

Cindy hadn’t had much of a life before going into the bunker. She’d been a high school student, a kid with no idea of who she even was. She’d had all of one romantic entanglement, and while she’d loved Hector, she’d never actually wanted him to be the only boy she ever kissed. She’d thought a lot about things she was missing out on while locked away in her bunker, thought a lot about what might happen if she just left. Ezekiel’s videos stopped her every time, filling her with a crushing guilt any time she did so much as put her hand on the door. Your freedom is not worth the world, she’d remind herself as she curled into a ball next to the door. Your life is less important than the safety of everyone else. It had been a cruel tactic, but effective when it came to keeping her from leaving.

Now, though, that was no longer the case. The threat was over, and it had been for a very long time. She was free to go out, to live her life without weighing her happiness against the safety of the world at large. It was an incredibly freeing feeling, and Cindy wasn’t going to let it go to waste! She was gonna date her hot P.I., consequences be damned! “I could show you later! They’re really easier to demonstrate than explain.” Yeah, okay, that was definitely flirting. Cindy thought she was doing an okay job at it considering the whole ‘locked in a bunker for ten years’ thing! “Really? I would love that! I’ve never tried archery before.” New things were the best things, as far as Cindy was concerned. “All kinds. I had a sort of martial arts tutor back in high school, and I kept practicing after he left.” There hadn’t been much else to do inside the bunker!

There was nothing in the world that was more important than family. It sounded corny, and coming from an abandoned orphan like Daisy — yikes, that sounded harsh now — there was some irony in that statement. However, her family was not as simple as bloodlines. Daisy’s family was every single person on the bus, she was lucky that way, and Daisy’s family was Matt Murdock and Johnny Storm. Helping Cindy find hers was an honour, especially if they were successful. With Daisy’s persistence and Cindy’s passion, Daisy had no doubt that they would be entirely successful one way or another, regardless of how long the search would take. After being a SHIELD agent for years, as much as Daisy hated it, she had learned patience. Cindy… Well, she would learn eventually, and like when Daisy learned, it would absolutely suck.

“Oh, we got a flatterer on our hands,” Daisy said lightly, touching a hand to her heart. Another thing that she loved about Cindy was her willingness to learn. After spending so much time trapped in the bunker, Daisy could imagine that it wasn’t easy discovering the world, and she could imagine how startling all the crazy things going on in New York was. “You know what, Cindy, for you, I’m gonna try to recreate that golden moment.” Cindy deserved that kind of happiness! “You wanna get outta here and I can grab a gun?” Daisy grinned as Cindy successfully hit closer to the mark. “Good job! Now that’s what I’m talking about,” she said proudly. “You’re a natural cheater for sure.”

Unfortunately, Cindy hadn’t been on the best terms with her family before her spider bite. She and her mother argued fairly often, and the fact that her father never seemed to take up for her hurt. Albert was too young to understand teenage rebellion, and had no idea why Cindy fought with their mother so frequently. If Cindy could go back and change things, she would have done it in an instant. In the short amount of time she’d had between the spider bite and the bunker, things had been better, but it had been the bleak sort of improvement that came with tragedy. Cindy got along with her parents easier only because she knew she wouldn’t see them again for a while, and they’d let her get away with more than they previously might have for the same reason. The pressure to find them now that she was out of the bunker and they could have a new, permanent sort of relationship was intense, and without nights like these --- nights of relaxing with friends --- Cindy was sure she’d topple under the weight of it all.

“Only for you, Daisy,” she shot back with a grin. Daisy was sort of easy to compliment. Not only was she using her resources to help Cindy hunt for her family, she also spent time with her and let her feel normal. Cindy had so much catching up to do when it came to life in general, and Daisy was playing a huge part in helping her get there. “I think that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me,” Cindy commented. “I’m so touched. Seriously, I’m gonna remember this forever!” She tossed another dart, watching it land next to the first. At least she was getting consistent! “Um, yes? I would love that, Daisy. I want to see you hit yourself with a gun.” That didn’t make her a bad friend, did it? Flashing a grin, she shrugged a shoulder. “Some of us train, some of us cheat. You gotta know your skills, I guess!” 

It was a bit uncanny, sometimes, looking at someone who was at the beginning of not only their career, but their life. Cindy was in her twenties, she had memories and experiences already, but Tony knew that even at twenty and with his various issues and dependencies, life had been a hell of a lot simpler. Tony fought to protect civilians and innocent people on a daily basis, but he also fought, primarily, for the future. He believed in it, he worshipped at its feet, and that meant putting faith in the younger generation that would one day rise up and take their place in a world that hopefully didn’t need people like the Avengers, as much as Tony loved the team. The whole reason why they fought, after all, was to end the fight and get home. Tony hoped by the time Cindy was in his shoes, she would never need to throw a punch in her life, or even know how to.

“The Empire State is always something of a hotspot for people who develop the ability to fly, but I find it so cliche. At least the Chrysler has a little bit of individuality.” Usually when Tony offered to take someone for a quick aerial tour of the city they were shitting their pants. Cindy was pleased, politely excited, but she didn’t seem to have quite the same response as others Tony had offered it to. Hey, to each their own! He would just need to find something else more impressive to offer her. “Take it from someone who’s seen them first hand - the arms are not a disappointment.” Thor was maybe his hottest teammate, and that was saying something! “Are you a thrill seeker, Moon? Tell me you aren’t one of those people who jump out of planes for fun. Actually, maybe you should tell me that.” Only if she meant it, though, considering he actually had a plane. “He hates lemonade. You know that whole ‘if life gives you lemons, make lemonade’ thing? If Rhodes was given lemons, he would cry about the lemons. It’s a foolproof plan for making him pay!” It was either that he hated it or he loved it, Tony couldn’t quite remember.

Ezekiel told her once, when she was doubting whether or not locking herself in that bunker was something she wanted to do, that her life no longer belonged to her. It stopped being her own the moment that spider bit her, he’d said, and in her childhood naivety, Cindy had believed him. She’d let him convince her that she didn’t get to be her own person anymore, let him twist her mind into thinking that she belonged to someone else. She regretted that now, and she figured a part of her would always hate herself for it. She had always been her own person, had always belonged entirely to herself, but because she’d believed Ezekiel so thoroughly, she’d lost a decade of her life. She could never get that time back, could never know who she might have been. Had she stayed out of the bunker, she’d be an entirely different person now. She could have protected her family from whatever caused them to disappear, could have become a hero long ago and saved countless lives.