Her Mind's Keeper {MCU//Steve Rogers}

Chapter 1. Surprise

From my seat on the overground train, I could see the back of Peter's head five rows in front. It was almost 4 o'clock and the afternoon sun was glinting off the flecks of bronze in his hair. The New York skyline bathed in a pale orange in the distance, and the train sailed towards town.

It was Peter's first day back at school after his trip to Mexico with the Stark Industries "internship" he'd miraculously secured 6 months ago. At lunch, I overheard him telling Ned Leeds how Mr Stark had invited him to fly in his private jet. All fabricated, of course. 

I knew Peter was Spider-Man. That my last birthday gift from Uncle Tony, accompanied by an NDA. I wasn't sure what was more surprising - that my middle school crush was a superhero, or my uncle had remembered my birthday for the first time in four years.

Peter didn't know that I knew, nor did he know I was Tony's niece - in fact, I would have to consider him even less of an acquaintance than most of my other classmates. Discounting the fact that I knew his deepest, darkest secret. We rode the same train everyday, sat in three of the same classes, but I wasn't sure he'd even recognise me in the street.

It was mom's idea for me to take her maiden name at school. Davies wasn't as catchy as Stark, but drew much less attention. I didn't see the point when we barely had any contact with Tony. Even the shallowest of friends would struggle to scrounge money from a billionaire relative I never saw. 

It hadn't always been like that, though. He practically raised me in the years after my father died. 

According to mom, Tony thought walking a toddler around Central Park could help him pick up dates. Then after a while, he genuinely started to enjoy spending time with me. My recently widowed mother, meanwhile, worked every hour she could to avoid being left alone with her thoughts. Or worse, left alone with me.

As soon as I was old enough to look through old photo albums, I realised how much I had looked like my dad when I was that age. I understood my mom a bit better after that.

Anyway, Tony and I had a few blissful years playing hide and seek in Stark Tower until he founded Iron Man and his weekends sorted of filled up.

The train rattled to a stop at 67th Avenue, and Peter got off without looking up from his phone. I thanked him silently for having returned today, sparing me from another night watching over the streets of Queens. I had an English paper due on Monday.

My 'vigilante' work is a whole other story. It all started back in September, when Peter went on another "internship" trip to Stuttgart. He returned with a black eye and a limp, so I assumed whatever the Avengers had been fighting, they'd lost. 

But that was beside the point - in the time he was gone, a gang robbed and set fire to a dry cleaners on 99th St in the middle of the night. They got away and the building burned silently for eight minutes before someone across the street saw the flames. The family living upstairs hadn't checked their fire alarm in months, and their 5 year old daughter spent weeks in hospital afterwards with third-degree burns.

I didn't have the strength, the senses or the tech that Peter did, but I knew when Spider-Man was out of town. And I spent too many sleepless nights knowing criminals were taking advantage of every time he was away. I thought, with a suit that looked similar enough and a bit of dumb luck, I might be able to "fill in" for Queens' guardian angel. 

I wasn't going to do anything drastic. I wasn't stupid. I planned to stay below the radar and out of the action, of course. Whenever Peter didn't show for school, I'd spend the evening observing from the rooftops, showing myself just enough for word to get around that Spider-Man was in the neighbourhood.