Stark's Avengers Academy for Future Heroes

Chapter 3 - Domestic Bliss

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The seven heroes sat in the living room all sifting through the thousands of emails that they had received. Even after having F.R.I.D.A.Y look through all incoming emails to trash all of the ones that were pranks or filled out incorrectly at least two-thirds of the emails were left.

Peter was stuck to the ceiling with his laptop, especially made so that it stuck to the boy while he was upside down. Tony sat on the couch on his phone. Pepper whose feet were draped over Tony's legs had her eyes glued to the laptop in her lap. Shuri, who was staying the night, sat cross legged on the armchair had a tablet. Bruce sat on the carpet in the middle leaning over the coffee table with his computer.

"How about this guy, Jonathon Rodriguez from the Bronx? He's a rising sophomore at Bronx Science. 3.7 gpa and he applied for the Iron Man Program. He's in Honors Chem and is in a robotics club." Peter says breaking the silence in the room. The others look up from their devices for a moment to contemplate it.

They are being extremely selective in their application process. Their only accepting the cream of the crop for a follow-up exam and interview. They wished to accept a majority of applicants but they have a max capacity of 1,500 people in the compound, not including staff. And only 500 seats per program.

"Invite him for a follow-up, he sounds promising." Pepper said. Tony let out a sound of agreement. Peter copy and pasted the email he needed to send. They continued on like this giving out information of an applicant and deciding whether or not to reply to the application. It took about 4 hours but they sorted through all of the applications they were going to go through for the day. A total of 5,000 applications. Bruce said that he was heading to his room.

It was 5:00 pm and behind them the elevator opened and out came Happy and Morgan, who was now 5 years old, skipped into the room. The little girl wasted no time in climbing onto her mother's lap.

"Mom, I never ever want to go to school ever again." Morgan whined.

"Why in the world would you want to stop going to school squirt?" Tony laughs. Morgan turns toward her father and frowns. She lets out a long sigh and begins to talk about a boy who was teasing her and calling her "Missus Stark".

"Hey Morgan if you need me and Peter to give this boy a stern talking to just say the word." Shuri says to Morgan.

"Yeah he'll listen to Spiderman." Peter says jumping down from the roof and landing in a superhero pose, hands on his hips. Morgan began to giggle and looked like she felt much better. Happy who had taken a seat in a nearby armchair inquired about the press conference.

"So Kid how'd revealing your secret identity to the entire world go?"

"It was a harrowing experience." Peter says. He says it with a slight laugh in his voice but you could tell he really was scared for what would come next.

"It'll be fine Pete. You got a team of superheroes and me behind you." Happy reassures him. Peter nods and the sore subject is dropped.

"It's already 5. We should probably get something to eat. Suggestions?" Tony asks the group. Everyone shouts out different answers to the question: Shuri and Peter say chinese, Morgan to no one's surprise asks for a cheeseburger to which Tony replies with "You had one yesterday", Happy wants Italian, Pepper asks for pizza, and Tony insists on the "classic" shawarma. Even Doctor Banner joins in on the conversation when he hears all the commotion from his bedroom.

Eventually they agree to get Chinese, much to Tony's disappointment, because Peter said, "He should get to choose seeing as he just had a 'harrowing experience.' Happy's words not his." After that guilt trip they each choose what they want from the menu and F.R.I.D.A.Y places their order.

"When did we become so domestic?" Pepper com=ntemplates when the food arrives. Tony agrees with his wife before they all sit down to have an indoor picnic and watch Back to the Future for the millionth time. It had become something of a joke to watch time travel movies since the reverse-blip.

After that all you could hear was Tony's complaints about the logic of time travel, sounds of people chewing, and Morgan's giggles watching her father getting so riled up.

It was as close to domesticity they would ever get. Two parents with super suits that own a multi-billion dollar company, an adopted teenager with the abilities of a spider and one of his best friends who was a princess of a technologically enhanced African nation, a five-year-old who had the intellect of her father and her mother's charm. And you can't forget their family friends one of which could turn into the Hulk and the other who worked for them.

Yes, this was it. Their domestic bliss.