Chapter Text
Morgan held back the urge to yawn for the third time in the last ten minutes. Her teacher kept going on and on about animals and how to spell their names, and there was no doubt Morgan loved animals - she was currently in the process of convincing her big brother to try and convince her daddy to give them a puppy -, but the slow pace in which Mrs. Maximoff was using in order to coax the other kids to repeat after her was just painful.
She already knew how to spell the name of the animals. Her daddy always took time from his busy schedule to teach her about everything her little sponge of a brain could absorb, and it she loved every single second of it. It was incredibly fun to be taught about all kind of things by her incredibly smart daddy, since he always made little jokes and found interesting ways of introducing each subject to her, while in school everything was just… terribly boring. Mrs. Maximoff was great, and Morgan had no complaints about the sweet kindergaten teacher, but she just couldn’t see the appeal of the woman’s teaching methods. It was unfair though, after all, nobody could be compared to her awesome daddy.
She just didn’t understand why her aunty Pep was so demanding about her going to school. Daddy was heavily against it, and they had fought over and over again over the decision. She always spoke about how important it was for Morgan to be around other kids her age, but Morgan didn’t quite understand why that was so important, since it has been a bit of time already and the young girl had yet to make any friends.
Morgan was just… not being able to connect with the other kids. During playtime, the girls preferred to play with dolls and pretend they were mommies, which Morgan had nothing against, but wasn’t really much of her taste. She was more fond of plushies - Rilakkuma, in specific - and robots, like the ones her daddy used to make. The other girls, however, always looked at her weird whenever she mentioned her friends U and DUM-E, so after the third failed attempt, she just stopped trying altogether.
The boys were a no-go as well. Even though they shared most of her tastes, they never really wanted to play with her since she was a girl, and some - like Duncan - were particuarly mean to her due something to do with his parents disliking her daddy. He constantly teased and picked on her, either about her intelligence or about her daddy, but she refused to cry in front of him or anyone else. Her daddy had told her once that Starks were made of iron, and while it’s alright to be vulnerable around people that care about you, you must never show others your tears, because people can be really mean if given the opportunity, and Morgan was stronger than any of them. She was proud to hear that from her daddy, and took his advice to heart, but it didn’t change the fact that it still hurt how lonely she felt whenever the girls refused her or the boys picked on her.
She never told daddy, however. Just recently he started to feel better - uncle Obie’s betrayal hurt him really bad - and started to accept the fact she needed to attend to school. She didn’t like it, and would much rather stay with him at all times, but she couldn’t be selfish right now. Daddy had a lot of work now that he couldn’t rely on uncle Obie anymore, and the only person who was helping him was aunt Pep, so Morgan didn’t want them arguing about her situation anymore. He daddy would be overwhelmed with worry if he knew of what she was enduring, not to mention how bad he would feel to know she was being picked on due who he was - Morgan was really perceptive for a little girl of her age, and she knew her daddy wasn’t great with dealing with guilt -, so she really didn’t want to worry him more.
Not to mention that guy. She scrunched up her nose. At least at school she didn’t need to see his dumb scary face.
A knock interrupted Morgan’s wandering thoughts and the sloth paced lesson, and she rose her head just in time to watch the school’s monitor - a cool but scary looking lady called Mrs. Romanoff - appear on the door and ask to speak with their teacher. Mrs. Maximoff went to her and they started to speak in hushed tones, until Mrs. Maximoff opened a bright smile and nodded eagerly. Mrs. Romanoff then nodded and proceeded to leave, leaving Mrs. Maximoff to turn her pretty smile to the rest of the class and clap her hands excitedly, “I have great news, sweethearts! Seems we’ll be getting a new friend to join our little class. Isn’t that exciting?”
The kids surrounding her all perked up and smiled happily at the idea of getting a new friend, but Morgan just pouted and sunk lower on her plush chair. She was hoping something awesome and out of the ordinary would finally happen to make her day less boring, but apparently she was wrong - it was just another new student who would probably ignore or make fun of her, so she failed to be as interested and excited as the rest of the class.
As if on cue, the door opened again, and in came the new student accompanied by Mrs. Romanoff. Morgan rose her look once more to meet the newcomer, and found herself tilting her head slightly. The new girl didn’t seem shy and out of place like most new students got. Instead, she had an annoyed expression and a frown that screamed she wanted to be anywhere but where she currently was. Morgan felt some interest unfurl inside her little heart. I was like that in the first day, too!
Mrs. Romanoff guided the new girl towards Mrs. Maximoff, and after a quick nod, she turned around and left from whence she came. Mrs. Maximoff’s smile hadn’t dimmed even a bit, and as she placed a hand on top of the new girl’s golden hair - it was so pretty! - she addressed the class once more, “Darlings, this is Mary Sarah Rogers. Please be kind and welcome her with open arms, yes?”
The class chorused an agreement and then an excited greeting towards Mary, who just grasped the straps of her backpack tighter and narrowed her bright blue eyes at everyone. “Hi”, she whisper greeted back, seeming awfully unsure of herself, and Morgan couldn’t help but to wince a little bit in sympathy fot the girl’s uneasiness. Yes, Mary was truly just as uncomfortable as she had been on her first day.
After the greetings, Mrs. Maximoff told Mary to go along and pick a seat for herself after she hung her backpack - which had Morgan interally gasping, since it was a Rilakkuma backpack - and once the girl hung it on one of the colorful hooks on one of the classroom’s walls, she went for a seat across Morgan and sullenly sat down; frown never leaving her forehead.
Morgan offered her a sheepish smile and a little wave, to which the girl stared confused for a moment, until she replicated the gesture. Wouldn’t hurt to try and be friendly, right? If she seemed as uncomfortable as Morgan normally felt, maybe they could become friends eventually, right?
“Alright, now, it’s time for math!” Mrs. Maximoff piped in, erasing the blackboard and starting to write down her numbers. After a few scribbles that resulted on a simple problem of how much is 5+5, she turned back at the class and asked, “So, who would like to give a try today?”
Morgan scrunched up her nose and and lowered her eyes to her colorful notebook. Math classes were the worst, and don’t get her wrong - Just like animals, Morgan actually loved numbers, since her daddy just had this magic way of making anything sound interesting and really fun, mainly math, since he had to use it a lot to make his inventions and programs, but at school? It was just torture. Morgan already had contact with things such as percentages and even the pythagoras theorem, much for her daddy’s pride and delight, so how exactly something silly and easy such as a 5+5 problem would be interesting to her?
A hand rose into the air, and then Morgan heard Mary answer, “10”
“Very good, Mary!” Mrs. Maximoff praised, “Now, we will-”
But Mary continued, “Can we move along the subjects?” she asked, earning a surprised look from Mrs. Maximoff, “I already know how to sum. Will be boring to learn about that again.”
Morgan’s eyes widened as she marveled at the fact that Mary had just said exactly what she had just been thinking.
Mrs. Maximoff, in other hand, just arched up a perfect brow and asked with a smile, “Already knows, huh? Very well then sweetheart, would you mind telling me how much is 20+35?”
“55,” came the easy answer, causing both of the teacher’s brows to shoot upwards now. Morgan stared wide eyed at Mary, who hadn’t changed from her bored look.
“75+53?” Mrs. Romanoff tried again.
“128.” Mary answered in a beat.
“128+310?”
“438.”
“300x50?”
Mary shrugged, “15000”
To say Mrs. Maximoff was shocked was an understatement, and the same could be said for the rest of the class, who were wide eyed and gawking and their new colleague. “Squared root of 15000?” Mrs. Maximoff ventured.
Mary seemed thoughtful for a moment, which prompted Mrs. Maximoff to open a satisfied smile, “Mary, you shouldn’t-”
“122,474447138 plus lots of other numbers,” Mary confidently answered, causing the woman to blink in shock and gawk at her for a moment, and then proceed to reach for the calculator sitting on her desk.
Morgan watched Mrs. Maximoff fumble with the device for a few seconds until her eyes widened almost comically, and she proceeded to look at Mary, then back at the calculator, then back at Mary again. “Oh my God.” She whispered, and after a moment of staring at the calculator, she rounded her table and reached for the phone also sitting on her desk, “Just a minute, sweethearts.”
She then proceeded to call what seemed to be Mrs. Romanoff’s number, since Morgan heard her teacher call the monitor’s name as she spoke in hushed tones. Morgan then she turned her gaze towards Mary, who seemed completely unaware of the impressed looks sent her way, until she wasn’t, “What?” she asked, frowning, “Those were simple math problems!”
A smile spread Morgan’s lips, and the little girl couldn’t help but straight up beam at her new colleague as the girl continued to frown at the dumbfounded state she had left the classroom. Mary was like her. Mary is like me!
Finally, somebody who understood her struggles.
━ ☆ ━
Later that day, it was playtime, and Mrs. Maximoff had quickly left the classroom in order to go to the restroom, trusting the kids would be too entertained with their toys and games to cause any trouble - but my oh my, how wrong had she been.
“Duncan, stop!” Morgan cried as she tried to recover her plushie from the slightly taller boy’s hands, “Give me back Mr. Fuzzy!”
“Mr. Fuzzy is such a dumb name. I thought you had a genius for a daddy, so where is your smartness now?” He teased cruelly, keeping the caramel bear out of Morgan’s reach, “Stuuuuuuuupid.”
Her eyes welled up in frustration, “I’m not stupid!”
“You are! You act all smartpants and stuff, like you know better than us, but I bet you do it just for attention. My daddy says it’s because you inherited your daddy’s arrogance, so you are a prick just like him!”
Morgan’s eyes widened, and she felt justified anger spark within her little heart. “Don’t call my daddy that bad word! You take that back right now!”
“Or what?” Duncan actually smacked her with Mr. Fuzzy, earning a yelp from the little girl, “You’ll go cry to your daddy? I bet he don’t even have time to listen to your whining. He probably don’t even like you!”
Morgan gasped. That wasn’t true. Her daddy was a very busy man, but even like so, he found time to give her and her big brother attention! Sure he had grown a bit distant after he figured out Uncle Obie was actually a meanie, and lately he hasn’t had much time since he was dating that scary scary man, who always seemed to demand all of her daddy’s attention when he finally had some free time from his work, so she had to mostly spend time with her big brother and his friend Ned, and daddy just seemed just so sad all the time lately…
Her lower lip trembled, and her eyes started to well up with tears. It wasn’t true. It wasn’t!
“Apologize.” A familiar voice demanded, surprising both Morgan and Duncan and making them turn towards the source of it. Standing by their side was Mary, and she had a very serious expression as she pinned Duncan down with a steely look that actually looked scary.
“What do you want, new girl?” Duncan demanded as he scrunched up his nose, but Mary continued to glare at him.
“Apologize, and give her plushie back,” she demanded hotly, once again surprising Morgan. She’s helping me…?
Duncan scoffed, “Shut up, stupid! I don’t gotta do nothing you-”
But he never got to answer, since Mary - without any further warning - simply stepped forward and yanked the plushie out of his grasp. He was shocked for a moment, soon scrambling to try and retrieve Mr. Fuzzy, but Mary was having none of it and without thinking twice pushed Duncan hard, causing the boy to end up falling backwards and landing on his butt.
There was a stunned silence for a moment as the three children looked at each other, and then the reality of what had just happened seemed to dawn on Duncan and he broke into tears as he cried loudly.
Morgan was staring at the wailing boy, still trying to wrap her head around what has just happened, when she felt a poke on the side of her arm that had her turning to Mary, “Here,” she said, offering Mr. Fuzzy to Morgan, “This is yours.”
Morgan nodded, silently accepting the stuffed bear back and hugging it tight against her chest. It had been one of her daddy’s birthday gifts, and the one she loved the most and that always chased away bad dreams when daddy couldn’t be there. Mr. Fuzzy was probably her best friend, and she couldn’t explain how relieved she was that he was safe back into her arms.
She offered Mary a small, grateful smile, “Thank you so much…”
Mary, for the first time since she had arrived that day, smiled back, and Morgan felt happiness bloom inside her chest. If Mary had defended her, does that mean that they were friends now? Uncle Rhodey was very protective of daddy, and they are the bestest of friends, so if Mary saved her from Duncan’s teasing, then that should mean they were friends now. Maybe best friends? The idea made her feel warm and happy. She had always wanted a best friend - other than Mr. Fuzzy, of course.
She watched Mary open her mouth to say something, but before she could, a very angry voice erupted from the classroom’s now open door, “What on earth is going on here?!”
Mary’s mouth clamped shut and both girls turned their heads in alarm towards Mrs. Romanoff’s voice, only to find the woman standing by the door with her arms crossed tightly against her chest and a stern expression on her face. Behind her stood Mrs. Maximoff with a concerned look, and before either Mary or Morgan could answer, Duncan pointed at them and accused mid wails, “Morgan was being mean and then Mary pushed me!”
Morgan’s eyes widened and then she glared at the boy, “Liar!”
“Not lyin’! She pushed me!” He screamed back, pointing at Mary, who scowled angrily.
“You were being mean to her, so you deserved it!” She yelled back, causing the boy to cry even louder.
“Alright, that’s enough,” Mrs. Romanoff snapped, successfully shutting up all three children and turning to their teacher, “Wanda, go tend to the other kids,” She ordered, uncrossing her arms and placing her hands on her hips, “I’ll accompany our troublemakers to Principal Fury’s office. I guess we’ll need to have a word with their parents.”
Morgan and Duncan winced, while Mary’s eyes widened fearfully.
They sure were in trouble now.