A/N: I know this story probably needs work so if anyone wants to give me any advice on what’s good, what’s bad and what's ugly, please do. I’ve been working so closely with it for a while now that I can’t see all the problems that it has. Also, I realized almost a month after I started writing this that there was a Black Cat in the Spiderman universe but I just haven’t been able to come up with a better name for it now. Anyways, enjoy.

Chapter 1

The steady alarm of Natasha’s clock woke her from her dreamless sleep at a quarter to 7. The radio was playing “All Day and All of the Night” by the Kinks but Tasha wasn’t in the mood to hear one of her favorite bands. Maneuvering her hand out of the tangle of blankets, she hit the snooze repeatedly until the clock finally turned off.

Outside her room, her sister, Sabrina, scuffled into the bathroom bleary eyed. Her eye mask was pushed upon her forehead and her bathrobe rope trailed after her like a train of a wedding gown. She was hardly awake as well but in a half an hour, with the help of some coffee and makeup, Sabrina would look as if she had been up for hours.

Down in the den of their home, their father had been up for hours. He had arisen at 5, already had his coffee and breakfast, and now was working on paperwork for his business.

Blackwell, Inc. was the biggest producer of electronics and plastics in the region. John Rickman Blackwell was the man of the year in Blue Lake City. As a young inventor, John R. had created the newest thing for computer products and the software involved with them. It was at that time, to protect his investments, he created an alter alias for himself. The alter alias of Masque was created. During his first few years as Masque, he realized that he wasn’t the only one with two aliases. After time, he found the woman who would soon become the mother of his children. Miriam Washington.

For years, the first-born females of Miriam’s family had followed in their footsteps of their elders and became an alias known as The Black Cat. Throughout the years the suit changed hands, with each person adding their own personal touches to it until it was passed down to Miriam.

With the Masque and the Black Cat working together, John and Miriam soon began to fall in love as well. In a few years, they had married and had a baby on the way. Being parents and having a secret lifestyle on the side was hard for both of them. Together, they decided to split their work in half. Both continued with their alter aliases but never at the same time.

Even with the flurry of a lifestyle that they lead, another child was conceived – Sabrina. Six months later, Miriam had died. It was a strange twist of fate that left the Blackwell girls motherless and his husband as a widower with two young babies to raise alone.

In time, John had retired from his alter alias of Masque, handing down the costume to his protégé, Toby Vaughn. He had found Toby through a friend of his who had taken in the teenage orphan momentarily but was unable to care for him too long. After meeting the boy, who acted much older than the sixteen year old he was, J.R. decided to take him into his home. Within part of a year, the dark haired boy had learned his new craft and had continued his job successfully for the past six years.

In the Blackwell’s mansion, Toby was the night owl. With his job taking over his night, he went out at night when the sky released its blanket of stars and arrived home in the early hours, sometimes just in time as John Blackwell awakened for another day.

With Toby’s room in a separate wing of the mansion, the late hours that he kept meant nothing to everyone else. Sometimes they would see him here and there, like a man who was really a friendly ghost who lived in their house, who they would pass now and then with a wave and say, “Hi, how you doing?” It was an odd arrangement but that was all about to change.

Meeting John Blackwell in the hallway that day, Toby was the picture of exhaustion. Stopped by his mentor, he had no other possibility but to stay and listen to what needed to be said.

“Morning, Toby. Long night?” the gray haired man asked, already dressed for the office, his blue striped tie loosely hanging about his neck.

The young man sighed, still wearing a dark suit of another sort. “Not too bad to night, Mr. Blackwell.”

John nodded, knowing exactly what was meant. Not too bad was a night with only a few accidents, usually composed of little old ladies having accidents with their shopping carts and teenagers trying to cause trouble. Most didn’t need any appearances by Masque but only needed to be watched for an hour or two.

John was silent for a moment. “Do you remember what I mentioned to you before about Natasha?”

“Are you sure? You wanted to tell her on her 16th birthday and then you changed your mind. Do you want to do it now? She’s got school, maybe a boyfriend, friends and homework. How do you think she’s going to take that?”

“Yes, she needs to know now. I should have told her for her birthday,” he paused. “I just couldn’t bring myself to tell her. She’s always been a bit rebellious. This whole idea...I would have just forgotten about it if I hadn’t promised Miriam that I would continue on her tradition.”

Toby rubbed his forehead with his thumb and forefinger. “So what do you want me to do?”

“Just be at dinner tonight. I may need you to talk to her,” John replied as he looped his tie around to create his knot.

The younger man nodded tiredly. “Okay, I’ll be there.”

A few hours later, their subject of discussion was arising with much difficulty. In a pair of faded Levi’s jeans, Sex Pistols t-shirt and white Nike running shoes, Natasha made her way down the long winding staircase to the kitchen. Her brown hair was tussled, yet brushed off of her face with the few strokes of the brush she had used in the morning.

Down in the kitchen, her sister was already finishing her breakfast of whole wheat toast with low-fat jelly and bowl of cold cereal that was the newest thing and was suppose to help with energy and weight loss. Sabrina had no need for weight-loss or energy but being a teenager with a good mind for fads, she had their butler buy some.

Their father sat at the head of their kitchen table reading a newspaper, his glasses pushed down upon his nose as he scoured the daily news for anything of interest. It was his daily routine to sit with his daughters through breakfast as he drank another cup of coffee and read the newspaper.

Natasha slowly stumbled in then. Her eyes still not fully opened but she already knew her daily routine. In a case on the side of the counter there sat a container full of doughnuts. Some were powered, glazed and crème filled while others were just plain and brown. Their cook who came in the morning, had cooked for an hour, left and then would come back to cook for dinner and took every Tuesday off, had left them by request from Natasha, John and Toby themselves. Sabrina thought of them as messy and disgusting and would have enjoyed if they were taken out of plain sight but her complaining fell on deaf ears. Not only did the cook not listen, she moved them closer to the bread box which contained Sabrina’s favorite breads.

Stealing a doughnut from the pile, Tasha bit into it as she poured herself a glass of orange juice. Her father looked up at her from his newspaper, thinking that she wouldn’t be able to have those after this morning.

Sitting down at the table next to her father, she finished off the doughnut under a disgusted, “Ewww!” from Sabrina before she left and a warning to her sister from her father. Somehow, he wanted to tell her that would be the last pastry she would be having for a long time but he still couldn’t bring himself to tell his daughter the news about her future. How could she become the next Black Cat? How could his daughter possibly be the one who would save people who were in trouble and fight the good fight when he wasn’t even sure if she would turn out to be a good guy in the end? He didn’t want to let his wife down but the idea of releasing a monster on the city crushed him even more. Would Natasha succeed in the world? He had no worries about Sabrina. She was a fine, bright individual. But Natasha with her wild spirit and rebellious attitude made him feel less that confident in her. Would she succeed? That was a question he continually asked himself.