The Littlest Avenger (Avengers x Fem!OC Age Regression)

🧼 Chapter Two 🧼

    Neither Niall nor the rest of the avengers got a good night's sleep last night. On one side of town was a group of people who couldn't wait to finally have their little girl in their arms. On another side of town was a confused little with no sense of direction on what to do now. Niall sat on her best friend's couch staring off into nothing until she was snapped out of her daydream by said best friend. "Good Morning Ni, what are we feeling for breakfast?" Her best friend, Leah, chirps as she makes her way from her bedroom to the kitchen. "Mostly nauseous, I think I'll skip for now." Niall mumbles from the couch. "You never did tell me what happened that made you haul ass across town just to spend the night on my lumpy ass couch instead of your own comfy bed in Avengers Tower?" Leah tried to nudge subtlety yet still failing. "You know you can tell me anything, right? We've known each other since third grade which means you're stuck with me. You know too many of my embarrassing stories for me to just let you go let alone try anything." Leah tried after a moment of silence. "They want me to be their little." Niall mumbles with her head in her hands. Leah pauses her breakfast preparation before making her way over to the couch and next to Niall. "What did you say?" Leah questions while prying Niall's hands from her face. "They want me to be their little." Niall sighs out. ""I'm failing to see the issue here. They're superheroes who literally protect the Earth from crazy, purple, ball-sack looking assholes among other things and now they want to be your caregivers and protect and spoil you rotten? Explain your logic to me because from where I'm standing it sounds like every little's dream." Leah points out. Niall sighs again before trying to verbalize the chaos going on in her head at the moment. "Yeah, it sounds great but there's so many things that can go wrong. I mean, we're the Avengers. What happens if we're needed on a mission? What happens if one of us gets hurt on a mission? What if this all sounds good on paper but is actually a total wash in action? I have to work with them and see them everyday regardless of whatever our relationship is in our personal lives. I don't want to complicate anything, I've known them for awhile now and I like where we are." Niall gets out all in one breath as she works herself up. "Ok, first you need to calm down. Working yourself up like that is not going to do anything for you. Second of all, you are destroying what could be a potentially beautiful relationship before it can even begin to happen. You do this all the time and you need to stop it before you end up alone and dead. You're working yourself up over what if's and it's time to stop it. If you're really that concerned, then offer them a trial period. If you really don't like it, then you can back out but at least you tried to make it work with them. Just remember that you always have me if they do anything stupid, I don't care who they are, I'll kick their asses for you if I have to." Leah finishes by puffing out her chest. Niall giggles at the thought of what would happen in that case. "You're not gonna win against the Avengers, Lee." Niall giggles out. "Hey, I didn't say anything about winning, I just said I would do it." Leah grins with her arms up in a faux surrender. "You're right I guess, thanks Lee. I guess I should get going then." Niall sighs out. "Nonsense, spend Christmas Eve with me and I'll drop you off in the morning with a little goodie bag for you guys. It'll be adorable, we'll send you up there in a gift box and a onesie with a little bow on your head. You could be their Christmas present and the goodie bag will be mine to them." Leah squeals out in excitement. Niall shakes her head with a sigh, knowing once Leah has an idea in her head there's no changing her mind. They're interrupted by a knock on the door that makes Niall tense up. "It's fine Ni, I forgot Jasmine was coming over for a little bit today." Leah explains while making her way to the door. "Oh, I can leave if you guys want some time alone together." Niall apologizes while getting up. "It's fine, you know Jazzy loves seeing her Auntie Niall." Leah grins as she pulls open the door. The three exchange pleasantries before moving over to the kitchen to finally have breakfast where Niall learned that Jasmine was just stopping by before work, which explains both the scrubs as well as the fact that she is not in little space at the moment. After a hefty breakfast of pancakes, waffles, sausage, hash browns, and whatever else you can think of, Jasmine had to unfortunately head out for work at the doctor's office. The next few minutes after Jazz left, the two spent cleaning up the remaining mess in the kitchen. "So what do you wanna do today then?" Leah asks, breaking the comfortable silence. "I'm not sure, maybe we can just stay in and do a junk food and movie marathon like we used to? Maybe a Christmas edition? I'm sure they're out looking for me and I don't really wanna see them yet." Niall explained. With the plans for the day set, the two began getting the den ready for their marathon and Christmas Eve came and went without a second thought of what might be waiting for her back at Avengers tower.
It's safe to say that Niall's Christmas Eve was much more fun than the Avengers. Most of them barely got any sleep and those that did get any sleep had it come intermittently between tossing and turning as they let their minds wander towards Niall. Before they could let their minds run with every worst case scenario, the group decided it was best to get an early start to their day. After breakfast, Tony and Bruce ended up in the lab as they scanned every camera they could access to try to figure out where Niall had ended up while the rest took to the streets and rooftops to try to find her, minus Pepper, who stayed put at the tower on the off chance that Niall turned up. After Niall disappeared last night, they couldn't help but let their minds wander to worst case scenario and think of all the bad things that could have happened to her on her own. With those thoughts swimming through their minds, it only made them more desperate to find her. They knew in the back of their minds that they were probably overdoing it but they couldn't help themselves knowing that she's alone and she's their only chance at finally having a family.
Hours later and the Avengers were coming to accept that this was a loss and they would not be finding Niall today and it's becoming very likely that they won't have their little girl to celebrate this Christmas with either. That thought alone was enough to make them slump in on themselves at the dinner table as they push their food around. It was quiet, a tense quiet, the only sound being the utensils scraping and the occasional defeated huff from one of the team members. After Clint's third sigh in fifteen minutes, the silence was finally broken by Tony. "Do you fucking mind?" He snapped. Clint's eyes snapped up to Tony's, who sat across from him. Clint went to open his mouth in retaliation, although was stopped by Steve before he could say anything. "Language Tony." Steve all but growled. "We are all tired and stressed right now but snapping at each other and picking fights is not going to do anything. Niall is an avenger, I'm sure she could handle herself for one night. We'll go about Christmas as usual with a family day and gifts under the tree and breakfast and everything. We did drop a pretty big bomb on her and she's probably just holed herself up somewhere to work through it in her mind. We need to stick together so Niall has a family to come back to without picking sides." Steve explained tersely. Tony looked away guiltily before muttering an apology in Clint's direction after Steve's impromptu speech. What was left of dinner was spent in the same tense silence that enveloped the room before the minor outburst between the three men. One by one, each body at the table slowly got up to rinse their dishes and put their plates in the dishwasher and retire to their rooms for the night. Most of them were exhausted after spending all day out looking for Niall, and combined with the poor sleep they got the previous night, they were heading towards a pretty heavy crash once they reach their rooms. Before letting themselves rest though, they made sure to not only do their nightly routines but also leave their gifts under the tree for tomorrow morning. They had to make sure everything was ready on the off chance that Niall snuck back in during the night or wandered in tomorrow at some point. Not to mention that although they all fight and occasionally threaten to maim each other on sight, they're still a family and all families fight but they also make sure that they know they're all loved by one another. So just like Steve said, the avengers all dropped their gifts for each other under the tree before retiring to their rooms for the night and hoping Niall turns up at some point tomorrow. They all unanimously agreed that although they are soulmates, they see enough of each other during the day and could use a place of their own to retire to at the end of the day and if they were looking for a cuddle at night, they just sneak into one of the other's rooms for the night since they know that none of them could turn down a surprise cuddle from one of their soulmates. With everything going on at the moment, it wasn't hard for any of them to drift off to sleep once their heads hit the pillow. They couldn't help but think about how having a certain little with them would make for a much better sleep though.
Back with Niall, she knew she was most likely driving the avengers crazy in their search for her. Especially since she doesn't typically just disappear without telling at least one of them where she's going. She actually almost went back to the tower early with these thoughts floating around her head. Both of her actual attempts to leave though were squashed by Leah, who was very excited to carry out her plan for the avengers tomorrow morning. Niall did have to talk Lee out of sending her up in the elevator in a box with holes in it but she did agree to the Christmas bow Leah dug out of her closet to put in her hair. Leah also figured that since they weren't expecting Niall to agree so quickly that they could use a care package to tide them over until they can go shopping with little Niall to pick up stuff for her, so while Leah was out shopping for snacks for the movie marathon (which ended up looking like an unsupervised nine year old given free reign to their parent's wallet for snacks), she also picked up a few onesies, bottles, pacifiers, diapers, toys, and a few other things to send Niall over with tomorrow as a Christmas present. She also picked up some regression pills to help Niall find her headspace easier, knowing how stubborn Niall can be when she wants. While Leah was out doing all this, Niall put together a list of conditions for the avengers to agree to before she agreed to be their little. Conditions such as the trial period, which she decided on a month for, along with a few other things to cover her bases. By the time Niall had finished with that, Leah had come back with all her shopping and put together a gift bag of all the little items for the avengers. Niall blushed at everything before sighing and shaking her head at her best friend's antics knowing that her heart was in the right place and she just got overly excited about things pretty quickly. Niall helped put all the snacks out for the movies as Leah explained the regression pills and  that directions are on the back if she forgets. Leah made sure to give these to Niall rather than throwing them in the gift bag, she knew that part should be Niall's decision. Niall gave her a quick hug before pocketing the pills and helping Leah throw a fort together in the living room for them to watch their movies from.
After a multitude of movies together and one too many yawns, the two realized the time and called it for the night. Leah left Niall in the den room with a hug goodnight before retiring to her room. The two had to be up relatively early as Leah insisted, read forced, Niall to agree to a ride back to Avengers tower as she had to head that way to pick up Jazzy anyway since it was the two's tradition to spend Christmas together. Niall eventually drifted off after tossing and turning as anxiety forced her mind to run wild with different worst case scenarios that could happen tomorrow.