Withered Rose

Chp 1: Adoption

Paige is Peter Parker’s deadname
Bold is Latin (Angie and Peter’s “secret” language)
Italics is Sokovian
Bold Italics is Russian

(Basically 1 year before age of ultron)
          I walked into the adoption center. It’s been three years since I escaped from Hydra, and I wanted to adopt a child. I love kids, always believed I could be a mother (until Hydra, they sterilize you. It’s great). I wanted to give a lost soul a happy, accepting home.
          “Hi, I made an appointment to see some of the children?” I said to the front desk receptionist.
          “Yes! Ms. Rogers, I presume?” she responded. Her white name tag screamed the name “Pamela” at me. “First we have this survey for you to fill out. Just to ensure one of our children will be going to a safe and happy home.” I took the clipboard from Pamela and sat in a semi-uncomfortable chair. The questions were mostly about family stats, like how many people live in the house and how many bedrooms. I love living in the Avengers compound, and in total there are 8 people living there. It might not be terribly smart to have a kid in my line of work, but I wanted to nonetheless. I handed the clipboard back to Pamela.
          “Oh, um, well…Ms. Rogers, normally you would be married to someone. Are you sure you can handle a child?” Pamela asked as she scanned over my answers.
         “Well, I’m not entirely alone. I live in the Avengers compound with my brother and our friends. I’m fully confident that I could raise a child,” I responded.
          “And what do you do for work?” she asked.
          “Well, you can see that I work at Stark Industries. I am Tony and Pepper’s assistant. Help them with odd jobs or whatever they need. My salary is $50,000 a year,” I answered. I am extremely overpaid, but I’m not complaining. Tony’s rich, and we’re good friends, so he doesn’t mind giving me the money.
           “Okay, well. I can see that whoever you pick will be living happily with many aunts and uncles,” Pamela smiled. “Jada will show you the children, just tell her what age.” She pointed to a tall, chestnut colored woman in all grey clothing. Jada led me to the main play area with all the children there.
          “Is there a specific age you are looking to adopt?” Jada asked.
          “Yes. How about fourteen year olds?” I asked.
          “If you are 14 years old, please line up here in front of Ms. Jada,” she called to the children. She proceeded to count all the children to make sure they were all there. Going down the line, she told me each child’s name and birthday and why they were here at the adoption center (i.e. teen parents, parents with too low income, etc) . At the end of the line, she stopped behind a young girl dressed in black shorts that came low on her waist and a Nirvana shirt. She had messy brown hair that looked like she probably cut it herself and an annoyed expression.
          “Now this....is Paige Parker. She was born on the 14th of August, so she just recently turned four. Her parents passed in a plane crash, and had no family to take her in. She took some scissors to her hair, and our volunteer hairstylists couldn’t get her to sit still, so it’s a bit of a mess,” Jada explained. Paige gave a death glare to Jada each time the woman said “she”, “her”, or “Paige”.
          “I. Am. Not. Paige! And I’m not a girl! My name is Peter! I’m a boy!” the child yelled angrily at Jada.
         “She likes to pretend she’s a boy named Peter. I’m not sure why, none of us are sure really,” Jada explained. I looked at the child, and crouched down.
         “Who are you? How bout you tell me?” I said.
         “I’m a boy, named Peter Parker. I’m fourteen,” Peter said, his face softening into a happier expression. “What’s your name?”
         “I’m Angelica, but you can call me Angie. I like you Peter. What do you think about me adopting you?” I asked with a smile.
         “Yes please! You can tell that I’m a boy. Please adopt me!” Peter was smiling a huge smile,
         “I want to adopt him, please Jada,” I said.
         “Come in here, we can start paperwork,” she said.
         An hour later, I was the mother of Peter Parker-Rogers.

(A/n: most definitely inaccurate abt how long it takes to adopt a kid but I’m lazy af ok)