The Tower: Unexpected

The Compound

At 33 weeks, I'd been told to go on partial bed rest. I was huge and they were worried that I wasn't going to make it to term. I could still do things. Go for walks or take a swim. I just had to take it easy and when I was down it was feet up, relaxing. I actually could even have sex still if it was very slow lovemaking. Mostly it was just nothing strenuous, no lifting and I wasn't allowed to do any cleaning.

At the same time, our house was finished at the compound. The compound itself still had a lot of work before it was fully operational, but we could move in, settle into our new family life and get ready for these babies to arrive.

We took the Quinjet there and being in the back both felt quite stressful considering I was supposed to be taking it easy, plus I couldn't see anything, so I had no idea where we were or what I'd see when we arrived.

"When are we going to be there?" I asked craning my head to see out the front.

Tony chuckled and rubbed my leg. I could tell he was feeding off my excitement a little. He wanted to show us, but he liked that none of us had much of an idea of what to expect. "Calm down, we get there when we get there."

"But I want to see it," I whined. "And I need to pee."

"Patience. And there's a bathroom over there." Tony said.

"There is? Why didn't you say?" I asked, heaving myself up.

"I did. When you got on board." He said defensively.

I groaned and waddled towards the bathroom. The baby brain had gotten so bad lately. "Oh god. I'm gonna need to tattoo reminders onto my skin like that guy from Memento."

"That might be a little much," Tony called after me as Sam started laughing.

I awkwardly used the military-style bathroom and came back out, sitting down next to Tony and leaning my head on his shoulder. "You've seen it right?"

"Yes, dear," He said.

"It's nice?"

"Of course it is."

"Do I still have my swing bed?"

He stifled a laugh and rubbed my leg. "Yes, dear."

I hummed and rubbed my cheek on his shoulder. "That's good too."

"I know," He teased.

I laughed and kissed his cheek. "So modest."

"Hey, I worked really hard on the new place." He said, sounding slightly offended.

I rubbed his leg and nuzzled at his neck. "I know. I'm so excited to see it."

"Good, because we're landing in 60," Natasha called back from the cockpit.

I craned my head around trying to get a glimpse of the house. All I could see was trees and a tiny piece of the Hudson. "Damn Quin having no windows back here."

"Patience," Tony scolded. I huffed and stuck out my bottom lip. "You'll appreciate it. Just watch."

The jet landed and Clint started going through the shutdown procedures as Nat climbed back to where the rest of us were sitting. "Well then," She said. "You wanna hit the button, genius?"

Tony got up and walked to the hanger door and pressed the release button. "And here we have -" The doors opened and revealed the new Avengers compound. "- Home."

I got up and walked to the doors my mouth hanging open. The facility was enormous. We had landed near a large hangar that had already been completed and housed several other jets, helicopters and Tony's car collection. There were a dozen other buildings that were part of the Avengers' official facility. Offices, labs, dorms, conference rooms, and training facilities. It was massive. The main building where the public would come first sat right on the Hudson. There was still a lot of construction going on. It wouldn't be finished anytime soon but you could see what this was. This was bigger than the 13 people that currently fell under the label Avenger. It was bigger than the scientists and spies and psych department and admin that currently supported the Avengers. It was bigger than the secret branch of SHIELD still running. It was bigger than SHIELD had been. This was a vision. A privately run group, not there to answer to any government meant to actually protect the world from the things no one else had the ability to do. It was a way for my family to pull back a little and not have to be the only ones there to do this. So they had a large support system that was there first before it got to the point they had to step in.