***

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***

ADRENALINE STILL FLOODED JOEY'S SYSTEM AS SHE STUMBLED SLIGHTLY WHERE PIETRO HAD LEFT HER IN THE HOTEL.

She groaned as a wave of pain finally hit her badly, and as she brought a hand to the slash on her head, she caught sight of the wound on her right wrist.

"Oh my god," she said faintly, light-headed at the sight of how much blood was on her skin, and how much blood she must be losing.

"O doamne," Pietro cursed upon turning around to Joey's current state. "You're hurt!"

In a flash, he returned to her side and helped her take a seat on the sofa. In the frantic state they had left the party in, he didn't get a good look at her before grabbing her and running her back to the hotel.

He grabbed one of the towels from the bathroom and wiped the blood away from her face, and it seemed that the slice on her forehead had stopped bleeding on its own— it wasn't too deep. It was the wound on her arm that concerned both of them— she was stabbed straight through.

Pietro carefully picked up Joey's arm, and she flinched when he put the towel to her skin. This one hurt.

He wrapped her wrist in the rag. "Hold this here. I will be right back," he told her. He disappeared in a blur, and returned in one a few minutes later. In the meantime, Joey held back tears as her nerves began to wear off and her face began to sting and her wrist began to throb. She stood from the couch to walk over to the mirror to get a better look.

"Sorry I took long, I had to ask someone for a first aid— whoa, what are you doing?" Pietro said when he returned. He set the metal box on the table next to the couch before moving Joey back to where he was sitting.

"That was like four minutes," Joey said. That wasn't long. "And I was just trying to see for myself."

"Take it from me. It looks bad. And nasty," he assured her. She was sitting on the couch, her wrist still wrapped and held in place by her free hand.

"Thanks a lot," she replied, shuddering a breath.

Pietro walked to the counter on his right, and he grabbed a paper towel to run under the faucet before walking back to Joey. He grabbed the first aid kit on his way, and when he reached her, he sat on his knees to make it to her level.

He wiped some more blood off of her face, and some of her makeup came with it. He also wiped her bloody hands with the damp towel, before setting it to the side on the sectional cushion of the couch.

Now, he took an alcohol wipe and some closure bandages. He looked up at her, and their eyes met, but Joey looked away when he brushed a piece of her hair from her face to clean the cut.

Neither of them said anything while Pietro tended to her wound. Joey bit her lip as Pietro brought the alcohol wipe to her forehead. It stung, bad. I know, he wanted to say, reassure, but he didn't.

He applied three butterfly bandages across the cut, before moving on to the worse situation at hand: her stab wound.

He carefully unwrapped her wrist, where the cloth had soaked through with blood. It was an overwhelming sight for him— for both of them, had Joey had the guts to look down at it.

"I am going to do my best with this," he warned her. "But I don't... I don't know how bad it really is. You will have to get this looked at by a medic tomorrow."

Joey nodded briefly. If her wound was bad enough, would they alert her dad?

He began to clean up the blood around the wound, but was careful near the actual site— he didn't want it to accidentally start bleeding, again. After applying a layer of antibiotic ointment, he wrapped it in gauze.

He inspected the injuries one more time, and then Pietro stood, deciding he had done all he could do as he threw away the used cloths.

Joey stood now, too, and went for one of the complementary water bottles on the counter, taking a few sips before walking over to the mirror to finally inspect her appearance.

Her breath hitched when she saw it. It ran from the left of her forehead, through the tail of her eyebrow, and it passed just over the top of her eyelid, just almost missing it entirely. "Shit," she whispered. She knew she shouldn't touch it, but still, she felt the skin around it. That hurt badly, too.

"Hey," Pietro called from the counter a few feet away. "Don't touch."

Joey gave him a look before going for her duffel bag. She took her pajamas out of it carefully, but as she made it to the bathroom, she cringed and made a 180 toward Pietro.

"Can you—?" She pointed to the zipper on her back. Wordlessly he undid it, and she didn't look at him again before she went to the bathroom to finally change.

It took her an unusual amount of time, being unable to use her right hand for fear of making the wound worse than it already was. But, she changed out of her dress, shoes, jewelry; everything. The PJs she brought were nothing special— a red Yankees shirt and some gray, plaid flannel pants.

Outside, Pietro had changed into his pajamas, too— and he was wearing the exact same pants that she was. Only instead of the flashy red top that Joey had on, he was wearing a plain white tee that Joey couldn't help but think, to put things simply, was doing amazing things for him.

He looked up, and a humorous expression adorned his face when he noticed their matching clothes before turning back to his garment bag where he was packing up his tux. Joey followed suit, and once her dress was packed nicely enough away, she got out some makeup remover and her real phone. It was only 11:17.

She opened the mirror she brought with her on the train, and sitting on the floor, she carefully removed the makeup that remained from the night, being sure to not get too close to the gash across the left side of her face.

"We weren't there for long," she said softly, breaking the silence. "Did you see what they were selling?"

Pietro sighed, unclipping the watch on his wrist. "It was a drug of some kind. I could not tell what exactly based on looks alone, but there were pills, powders... there was some kind of seal on most of it, though. I tried to get a picture," he recalled, walking around to find his burner phone. "I don't know if it turned out."

A few seconds later, he handed his phone to Joey, a photo pulled up. It was a little blurred from having been taken in motion, but Joey could definitely make out the emblem he had been talking about. It was a white hooded figure, outlined in black and red. No words, though.

Joey looked at the image for a beat longer, before setting the phone to the side, since Pietro had walked back to the other side of the bed.

"Maybe they'll be able to reverse-image, cross-check it, or something," Joey offered.

Pietro shrugged. "Yeah, maybe." He plugged in his regular phone before looking over at Joey as she packed her mirror back away. "So, how did you get stabbed?"

Now, Joey was the one sighing as she stood to throw away her used makeup-removing cottons.

"Well, I had Nadia down," she started. "I made the mistake of regaining my footing but not my defense. And then someone shouted that they had recognized you, and I just got distracted. Stupid. Right after I turned around, I got slashed in the face. Meg warned me to try not to use my powers unless I had to, so when I went to disarm him manually, his knife went straight through my wrist." Joey took a deep breath, her arm throbbing at the thought of the incident. "I hit him with my powers after that," she said, chuckling dryly. "Too little too late."

Pietro shook his head. "No, you did good. You had no choice."

Quiet fell between the two of them again, and it was sort of weird; there was this weight that was completely lifted between the two of them, now that everything surrounding the party was out there in the open. Joey wasn't making passive-aggressive remarks, Pietro wasn't being too cocky.

She hung her garment bag next to Pietro's on one of the hooks near the entrance of the suite, then pulled a charger out of her duffel bag for her phone. She turned in the general direction of the bed when:

"I am sleeping in the bed, by the way."

Joey whipped the rest of the way around, having spoken too soon about Pietro's uncockiness.

"You are such a jerk," she told him, laughing shortly. "I just got cut in the face and stabbed in the wrist. And you made it out unscathed."

"I did not say you could not also sleep in the bed," he reminded her, though he didn't meet her eye while he organized the last of his things.

"Good, because there's not a chance I'm sleeping on a couch after getting my face lacerated and my wrist punctured."

"Oh, pull out the big words around the immigrant," Pietro whined. Joey's jaw dropped open, because she knew damn well that Pietro knew what the words laceration and puncture meant. Before she could bite back, though, he added, "Înțelegi ce spun, fată drăguță?"

Joey rolled her eyes. "I don't speak Sokovian," she told him.

"I know," he told her, smirking. "But you do speak... what, Spanish?"

"And Italian and French," she confirmed. "They were speaking Spanish at the benefit tonight. That's the conversation I overheard."

"You know two others, but not Sokovian?" He asked, feigning hurt.

"My parents taught me French and Spanish growing up and I took Italian in school. I could probably learn Sokovian if I really tried," Joey said, matter-of-factly.

"I am sure," Pietro replied, unconvinced.

"You're a jerk. What's that in Sokovian?"

"Esti asa aratos," Pietro told her. "Say that."

"Oh, now I know you're lying." Joey laughed. "I'm not saying anything."

"How will you learn if you do not speak?" Pietro wondered, crossing the room again back to the bed from where he had wandered over to his own bag in the corner.

"I guess I'll have to figure that out myself," Joey told him. She plugged her phone in by the nightstand on the left side of the bed before pulling open the blankets and getting under them. She eyed Pietro in her peripheral doing the same, and she stayed as far to the side of the bed as she could. He, however, did not make the same courtesy.

Joey, almost falling off the bed, scoffed. "Scoot over, you leech!" She followed up with a pillow to the face. He yelped, but complied, a stupid grin on his face.

"The light is still on," he whined after the two of them were situated, about a foot apart and lying on their backs. Joey turned her head to the right, with a look on her face as if to say, 'seriously?' She swung her hand in the air for a small moment, and as it fell back down, so did the light switch across the room.

"Yeah, yeah," Pietro mumbled, moving his hands up under his head. He sighed, and Joey couldn't help but bring her hand to her face again, near the cut.

"What are you going to do about that?" Pietro wondered, his voice quieter now. "The medics may want to do a procedure on your wrist if they cut through anything important. Veins, or whatever."

Joey took a breath. "I don't know. I think I can play off my face for falling down the stairs, or something. For my wrist... I don't know. I'll be wearing long sleeves for a while, I guess. If my dad asks, I'll say I got injured in training or something."

"I assume they would tell your family if they had to operate on you," Pietro said.

"Well..." Joey said guiltily. She had already been thinking about that.

"What?" Pietro asked.

"I do have an idea, I guess. My cousin April is a doctor at the compound. If I can get her to take my mission evaluation, I think I could try and convince her to not tell my dad. But I don't really know for sure. I didn't even know she existed until last week."

Pietro looked over. "April?" Joey looked over and nodded. "Jarvis?" Joey nodded again. "Is your cousin?" He confirmed.

"Yeah," Joey said. She didn't ask if he knew her— clearly, he did.

"Jeez, woman." Pietro looked back at the ceiling.

"What?" Joey demanded.

"Nothing," he said simply. "You are complicated."

Joey scoffed. "Yeah, 'cause you're so simple yourself." She rolled her eyes, before taking a breath. "Do you think she'll keep quiet?" She asked quietly. "I really don't know her. At all."

"I do not know," he replied after a beat, looking at her again. "I know she has loyalty to Stark, but... well, you are a Stark, too."

"My thoughts exactly," Joey said with a sigh. She turned over onto her side, then. He didn't follow suit. "Don't go spreading all my family drama to Wanda," she commanded, though honestly, she wasn't worried he would.

He eyed her from the side. "Sir, yes, sir," he replied slackly. Finally, he turned onto his side, facing Joey. "How the hell is April Jarvis your cousin?"

She readjusted, her head resting on her hands as she lay. "My grandfather helped raise her, I guess."

A beat passed between them, and Joey ignored the sadness creeping in over the fact that this woman she didn't even know knew her grandfather, and she didn't. After all, she was sure she wouldn't be giving it as much thought if she wasn't so tired and recovering from minor blood loss.

"You weren't far off on what you said about my dad," Joey admitted. "He wasn't a good person when I was little. I've always known that, but the older I get, the more I realize how deep it went. But I swear, he is different now. Maybe he did know better back then, but even if he did... I don't think he felt like he had a reason to be better. Not until me. Not until Pepper. Not until the Avengers."

Pietro just nodded. The two of them looked at each other for a beat.

"For the record," Pietro said softly. "You were right, that I treated you like a jerk. I know I said it earlier, but I'm sorry."

Joey smiled lightly. "It's OK," she told him. "I mean, it's not, but. You know." She yawned. "I'm sorry, too."

Pietro's brows pulled together. "What for?"

"That I... that I'm not who you wanted me to be. Or who you thought I was."

Another bout of silence filled the space between them, and Joey noticed the silhouette of Pietro's throat bobbing in the darkness as he swallowed.

"You lost a lot of blood," Pietro told her, clearing his throat. "You should go to sleep." He seemed upset, sort of, at Joey's last words. Not angry, but sad. Between that, and the remembrance of where they were— in a bed, together— maybe he was right.

He turned back over onto his back. "Goodnight," Joey told him.

"Goodnight, Joey," he replied, and finally, the room was the quietest it'd been since they arrived.

***

Joey and Pietro both leaped out of their skin at the sound of the alarm: 5:45 AM.

The first thing either of them did was groan about being up so early before rubbing their eyes and looking around. They took in their proximity, which was a deal closer than they were before they went to sleep last night, but for their own sakes, neither of them commented on it.

They each wordlessly got up and grabbed their things, yawning along the way. When they made it out of the room and into the elevator, Joey looked at the clock on her phone as they glided down the 24 flights.

"The train boards in three minutes," she told Pietro tiredly.

"I can get us there in one." He shifted the garment bag that was over his shoulder, and when the elevator doors opened, he was walking significantly faster than Joey— significantly faster than anyone should at this hour.

To their favor, the receptionist was the same one from last night, so it didn't take long for them to check out: Pietro returned the key cards, and the woman behind the podium let them go.

Outside, they rounded a corner in the direction opposite of that they were supposed to be going, into a small alleyway. Pietro readjusted his garment bag once again before wrapping an arm around Joey's waist and making sure the coast was clear before picking her up and speeding off to the train station.

When Joey could take in her surroundings again, the two of them were in a little pocket of space at the station that she didn't even know existed, and it was once again clear to Joey just how many missions Pietro must have spent through this train station: he knew exactly where to go to not get caught.

They made it to the appropriate train, car, and cabinet in time, with absolutely no help from Joey, and to no one's surprise, they both slept through the ride. The only thing that woke them up three hours later was the PA announcing their stop. They didn't talk much on the cab back to the compound, either, both fighting the same sleep that got to them on the Amtrak. The driver didn't mind this— in fact, he favored it over the slight bickering from yesterday.

By the time they were pulling back into the S.H.I.E.L.D. entrance of the compound, it was 8:41 in the morning. Way too early to be up on a Saturday, Joey thought. As soon as she and Pietro walked inside, their bags were being taken out of their hands by agents, before being met with Carrelli and Fury.

"Welcome back," Carrelli said, and by her tone alone, Joey could tell that she was in pure agent mode.

"We have medics on their way down here now. I assume you're prepared to report?" Fury said, not quite sternly, but not quite friendly.

"Yes, sir," Pietro said with Joey's "Yes." She tacked on a "sir" after she heard Pietro's, and she glanced at Meg for a moment of moral support.

"Great. Carrelli, you can go ahead and take Stark's. Maximoff, you can follow me to Agent Morse, she'll be taking yours."

Pietro followed Director Fury away, and Joey followed Meg over to a cubicle-style space like the ones upstairs before sitting across from her. Carrelli pointed to the recording device on the table and eyed Joey before clicking the 'on' button, and looking over at the laminated square of paper that was adhered to the table, just to the right of Carrelli's arm: a list of questions.

"Mission Report: June 24th, 2022. State your name."

"Josephine Stark."

"Please state the location of the mission," Carrelli said.

"Manhattan, New York."

"Who-slash-what was the target at hand?"

"Nadia Regan and Gabriel Lieber, under the aliases Sabrina Reynolds and Calvin Richmond, and what they were trying to sell and auction off," Joey answered.

"Please state any casualties that occurred."

Joey hesitated, slightly stunned by the question. Of course they'd ask that, but it never occurred to Joey to even think of a casualty on a mission, let alone one like this. "None," she said.

"Describe your mission in as much detail as possible."

So, she did. Joey started with a brief rundown of the cab ride and train ride, as well as the hotel they stayed at and the walk to the building. She included the bouncer at the door, Sabrina's sister, the dance she and Pietro, or 'Jeremiah', shared, the Spanish conversation she overheard, the fight between her and Nadia, the slash to the face and stab to the wrist, and what it was that Pietro said he found on that bidding table.

By the time she relayed the last bit of information, Carrelli spouted some S.H.I.E.L.D. language into the recorder, and when she finally clicked it off, she looked at Joey with as big of a smile as she'd allow herself while she was on duty.

"When I get off today, I can come by and we can talk. I want to hear all about it. Not just the important report stuff."

Joey's face matched Meg's while she simply nodded, attempting to hide her feelings of excitement and nerves and pride. Meg's expression softened slightly. "You can loosen up, Jo. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents don't typically bite. I mean, there was the whole thing back when— whatever. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents don't typically bite now."

Joey made a face at the slightly inappropriate joke before shaking her head and laughing quietly. "I'll talk to you later," she told Meg, a scolding tone creeping its way into her voice still in regard to the comment on S.H.I.E.L.D. agents biting, once upon a time.

As they exited the cubicle, Meg went in one direction and Joey realized she had no idea where to go. She caught the eye of Director Fury as he made his rounds, and he gestured to the medical staff waiting behind him.

Joey nodded, and as she neared the small medical area on this floor, she kept her hopes high but her expectations low as she looked around for her cousin. The universe had her back this time, though, and she spotted April's red hair as she stepped inside.

"Dr. Jarvis? I'm here for my post-mission examination."

April turned around, smiling, but her face dropped when she saw Joey. "Wh—"

Joey's eyes widened. I'll explain, they said.

April cleared her throat. "OK. Have a seat over here."

Joey sat on an exam table— everything down here was a lite version of the medical examining tables she'd seen downstairs.

"It's my face and my wrist," Joey told her.

April removed the bandages on Joey's forehead, and then carefully unwrapped the gauze on her arm, gasping and looking up at Joey when the wound exposed itself.

"I know," Joey said quietly. "I'm sorry. I didn't know what else to do. I don't... there isn't anyone I can trust." She emphasized the last word. Trust. It was a question in itself. Could she trust April?

"Tell me what happened," April said, placing Joey's arm underneath some contraption that seemed to scan her wrist. Joey winced at the movement.

"I got cut with a knife, and then stabbed with it," Joey said lamely. "Pietro said my wrist might need extra medical attention. It feels like it might. But..."

Joey hesitated, and April looked at her. "My dad doesn't know about this. He can't know about this." A beat passed between them. April swallowed. "You can't tell him about this."

"Joey—"

"Please," Joey added. "I know I— we don't know each other. But I'd really like to get to know you. I'd like to... I mean, you knew my family. I never knew them. I'd love to know about them. I'd love to know you. I know I'm asking a big thing, but. Please."

April was quiet, and she tore her gaze away from Joey's as she returned to examining Joey's wrist.

"You're lucky they didn't cut through any arteries," April said finally. "Somehow, the knife went clean through, but didn't catch on any muscles or anything really important."

Relief flooded through Joey's system.

"It's going to take at least a week to heal. Don't go punching anyone with your right hand during training or... missions."

Joey nodded, but didn't say anything— and neither did April as she spent the next few minutes continuing to examine Joey. The typical things: reflexes, brain response, heart rate, etcetera. By the time her examination was over and Joey knew that nothing else was wrong, it was 9:30. If she could make it upstairs without running into her dad, she could still pretend to be asleep.

April removed her gloves, sighing. "Just like him, for the first thing you ever ask me to be a favor," she chided.

Joey shook her head, looking away. "Yeah. I get that a lot." She really was her father's daughter.

April typed some things into the computer next to her, and Joey assumed it must have been to add to her mission report.

"You're good to go," April told her. "I can send you with painkillers for your wrist, if you want them."

"That's OK," Joey told her. She was hoping April would tell her, I won't tell your dad.

"Alright. If your wrist starts to bother you at all, come find me."

And that was it.

Joey stopped to grab her duffel bag from the other side of the room before taking the stairs up rather than the elevator to avoid unnecessary noise, and when she made it to the fifth floor, she crept down the halls and to her room as quietly as she could.

*

The knock on her door came a few hours later. "It's Meg."

Joey stood up from her desk chair, closed the drawer she had been organizing, and headed for the door. "Hey," she said with a smile. "So?" She added as Meg took a seat on the edge of her bed. Joey returned to her desk.

Meg was silent, leaving Joey in anticipation, before telling her, "You're in."

Joey blinked once, twice. "You mean—"

"Fury was highly impressed with the results of your first mission. Given, it wasn't exactly the most challenging one, but considering you got the information we needed, made it out in one piece, and are working for him when you could have said no... it's all pushing up your numbers." Meg gestured with her hands as she went on. "And these types of missions— the undercover-black-tie-event type missions— come up more often than you'd think. We never really know who to send; usually Natasha and Steve in some Nano Masks, like the one we sent Pietro in. The only problem is the two of them tend to hate those missions, and they can never get the actual targets to give them information. Having younger moles incentivizes the targets to share more; they're less likely to suspect some newly-wed teenagers."

Joey nodded along; it all made sense to her.

"There are already other missions lined up for the two of you, as early as next weekend," Meg added finally. "Anyway. Anything else you'd like to talk about?"

Joey took in Meg's expression and raised a brow. "For an agent, you are not very sly."

Meg feigned cluelessness, her tone going slightly higher as she sputtered rebuttals.

"I cannot believe you put us in a room with one bed. You know damn well we did not need that suite," Joey added.

"Oh, hush!" Meg dismissed. "It was just a little push."

"The push wasn't putting the two of us on a mission together in the first place?"

Meg rolled her eyes. "You can't tell me nothing good came from it."

Joey was quiet at these last words. Despite the fact that Meg might have been the only person Joey could fully trust in this building at the moment, Joey didn't even consider getting into everything that came out between Pietro and her last night. In fact, she wasn't sure if she ever would.

She knew what was at stake for Pietro just by working with her, and she knew how vulnerable it had to be that he actually told her everything he did. Despite the part of her that wanted to gossip with her friend, a bigger part of her wanted to keep the details to herself. She decided that if Meg pried any further, she'd tell her that Pietro apologized for what he did. But everything else— telling her the truth, giving her a chance, trying to move forward— she wanted to hold onto herself, just for a while longer.

Joey was the one to roll her eyes this time. "You're full of it, Carrelli."

***

don't forget to comment, react, and vote! thank you for reading!

***