The kid avengers

Life Goes On

It had been several days since Pepper had learnt of Natasha's night terrors. As it turns out, they were a nightly occurrence, but with Clint always there she seemed to be coping fine. Pepper had worried tremendously about whether the nightmares would follow the little girl as she woke, clouding her days aswell as her nights, but she seemed as happy as ever in the mornings, and Pepper learned to sleep a little easier.

Clint's way of thanking Tony for coming to get him that night was to ask Coulson to put the confiscated Wall.E DVD on the next morning while they ate breakfast. Pepper nodded to Phil who seemed unsure, and smiled at the look on Tony's face; shocked and grateful all at once. Clint had smiled his thanks at Tony as he gripped Natasha's hand.

Life went on; the three adults continued looking after the children at the tower while SHIELD scientists tried desperately to solve the situation. The public was slowly beginning to realise that The Avengers hadn't made an appearance recently; although their focus was quickly refocused after the latest threat was dealt with by the Fantastic Four, all attention on them. For now...

One morning Pepper was woken by Tony jumping on the end of her bed.

"I think Thor is lying! He says he's 315! That can't be right! He doesn't look that much older than me! And he's definitely not older than Steve and Steve said he's only 12! How old are you Pepper? And Maria? And what about Phil? I bet Phil is the oldest! Are you the youngest? You look the youngest. Am I right Pepper? Also, I thought lying was against the rules?"

"Tony..." Pepper yawned. Natasha had had a particularly restless night resulting in a lack of sleep for Pepper. Phil and Maria both had both slept at home for the first time since all this had happened when they'd gone home late to get some more of their stuff. Pepper had been on edge and anxious all night, the pressure of being the sole adult in the tower with all six of them had really gotten to her, she'd be grateful to have Phil and Maria back! Pepper had spent most of the night traipsing up and down the hallway checking on all six children. She'd finally dosed off at around 4am, and Tony had chosen 6.15 to come and wake her.
She slowly sat up, allowing a moment for her lights to adjust to the light before grabbing Tony and pulling him into a hug. He giggled as she tickled him. She couldn't resist his cute little face, and with his hair sticking up at odd angles from sleeping – he was just adorable.

"Hello?" Maria called from the other room. "I'm back, and so is Coulson"

"Where did you go?" Natasha asked from the table. She and Clint were sharing a chair, and both eating cereal from the same bowel. Since they'd arrived at the tower, this had been the norm for them both. They even slept in one bed.

"We just went home to get some more clothes" Maria answered with a soft smile. Maria was surprised with herself, at how fond of the children she had become.

"But I thought you resided here?" Thor's echoing voice came from down the hall as he ran to join the others for breakfast.

"No, just Pepper lives here with you guys. Me and Maria live just round the corner. But we'll be staying here with you from now on" Phil explained as Bruce wrapped himself round one of his legs.

It was about 11 o'clock when Coulson had the bright idea to suggest a game of hide-and-seek to try and occupy the children. Pepper and Maria decided they needed an escape; this wasn't going to end well!

All five boys had run off to hide while Phil slowly counted to a hundred. Natasha strolled shyly to Pepper as her and Maria were putting their jackets on. She tugged at the bottom of Pepper's skirt.

"Please may I come with you instead?" she asked timidly.

"Sure you can sweetie!" Pepper answered, digging Natasha's jacket out from the mound.

"Good luck Phil!" Maria called as the three of them turned to leave.

"97... 98... 99... 100! Ready or not; here I come!" Phil called.
He started by looking in all of the obvious places; under the beds, behind doors, in the cupboards. But only found Bruce, who'd been hidden in the bathroom. This would be easier if JARVIS had been operational.
Just then, he heard the elevator beep. 'Damn!' he thought. Why hadn't he specified that they had to stay on this floor of the tower! His face fell as suddenly the meaning of Maria's parting message dawned on him.

Despite the sheer amount of clothes that had been bought only a few weeks ago, it seemed they were in need of more. Most of Thor's and Clint's pants had holes in the knees. Many of Tony's clothes were covered in grease stains and dust from dismantling/rebuilding various electronic devises. Bruce's all had stubborn food stains on them that just wouldn't wash out. And most of Natasha's clothes were covered in paint, markers, glue or glitter. Although Steve seemed to take care of his clothes much better than the others, he'd recently had a growth spurt; causing all of his clothes to be several inches too short.
They'd been meaning to go and get some more clothes for a few days; it wasn't until Phil's bright idea of playing hide-and-seek in a 70-storey tower with some of the sneakiest, most mischievous children alive, had the opportunity presented itself.

Pepper and Maria walked, each holding onto one of Natasha's hands, swinging her as they walked. As she laughed and giggled she could have been any five year old child. Pepper found it hard to believe; looking down at her innocent face, her long curly hair in pigtails; that she would grow up to become one of the world's greatest assassins.

After several hours of shopping Maria took all their bags back to the car to free up their hands while they hit the other half of the mall, Pepper stood in a queue to get the three of them some dinner and held Natasha perched on her hip.

"She looks just like you!" an elderly woman cooed. "I can certainly see where she got her looks from!" a broad grin appeared on her face.

Natasha was too distracted looking around from her new higher vantage point to notice anyone had been speaking to either her or Pepper, Pepper was just too stunned to say anything, so she just smiled politely and nodded.

Pepper had never thought of herself as a mother. She'd never seen kids in her life. She was too busy, too driven, her work was too important. And she had enough of caring for Tony to even consider she'd be able to do look after children. But as she looked at Natasha; her eyes wide with awe as she looked around, a huge smile forming on her face as she saw Maria approaching; Pepper felt her heart swell. Maybe she could. Maybe this is exactly what she wanted...

Before she could dwell on the thought any longer, her phone rang. "Pepper Potts" she answered, out of habit. Although she then felt a bit stupid, she knew it would be a personal phone call. Noone from work would dare to phone her, she'd taken the well deserved time off work to help care for the kids.

"Pepper" came Phil's exacerbated voice. "I can't find them! It's been hours! Please..." he stammered. He sounded well and truly out of breath, panic laced his shaking voice.

"You don't have any of them?" Pepper asked back, looking at her watch, trying to figure out exactly how long they'd been missing: 3 hours, 25 minutes.

"I have Bruce, the other four are AWOL"

"We'll be there as soon as we can!"...