Chapter 1

Three months had passed since the ULTRON fiasco, and for the Avengers that time seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. After getting back from Sokovia they'd buried Pietro, a death for which Steve still felt responsible, and then they'd concentrated on training. Natasha and Steve had quickly found a rhythm that worked for them, and for the new team. In little time the New Avengers made up by Vision, War Machine, Falcon, and the Scarlet Witch were ready for battle, and to the field they had gone with Captain America and the Black Widow as their co-leaders.

Everything had been running smoothly, although neither Steve, nor Nat could deny they missed their old team particularly Hawkeye who was an old friend of the spy's, and a close confidant for the Captain. To make up for the archer's absence, and also because of popular demand by the Barton children, Steve and Nat would be sure to always take time out to visit the farm. Lila and Cooper now loved uncle Steve almost as much as they loved aunt Nat. Wanda would also go with them on these visits, since the young girl had no one else to be with after the death of her twin brother. Lila and Cooper had basically adopted the young enhanced as an older sister of sorts, and Wanda was incredibly grateful for that.

The team was running a training exercise with Natasha when Steve interrupted, handing the spy her cellphone and taking over the class. Wanda was about to start target practice at Steve's command when Natasha rushed over to the two of them.

"Steve, it was Clint. He needs us down at the farm, Laura's having contractions," the redhead explained in a rush before running from the gym presumably to her room.

Steve hurriedly called a halt to training, and told everyone to take the week off before leaving the gym, tugging Wanda along.

"Change and meet us at the hangar, we're taking the Quin-Jet," he told the younger Avenger softly.

Wanda did as she was told, rushing into her room and having the fastest shower of her life before changing into comfortable clothes for the flight ahead. She was worried and could tell that Steve and Nat were worried as well, so she tried to hurry even more throwing random things into a bag.

She made it to the jet to find Steve and Natasha performing the pre-flight check, and as soon as she strapped in Natasha put the jet in the air toward Iowa.

"I thought Laura still had a month to go before the baby would be ready to be born," Wanda said softly.

She saw Steve close his hand around Natasha's, "That's why we need to get there fast. Right now Lila and Cooper are at the house alone, and Clint doesn't know how long they will take to get back to them."

"Oh, is Laura going to be okay?" She asked timidly.

Natasha unbuckled and moved closer, "We don't know, Wanda. They should be okay because the baby is only a month away from full tern, but we won't really know until the baby's born."

The flight to Iowa took an hour and a half at high speed, and Steve parked the jet in the corn fields close to the Barton farm. The three of them hurried to the front door of the house and entered to find Lila and Cooper sitting on the living room couch looking scared. As soon as the kids saw them they ran to Natasha and Steve who quickly hugged them.

"You're here," Lila said from Steve's arms.

"Of course we did, and we brought Wanda along with us," Steve told her before putting the little girl back on the ground. Lila hugged the older girl before grabbing her hand and pulling her to the couch.

"Is my mummy going to be okay?" Lila asked of Wanda.

"I don't know, little one, but we have to hope that she will be," Wanda answered. "What do you guys want to do while we wait for your dad to call?"

"Can we color?" Lila asked.

"Sure," Steve answered.

The four of them sat down to draw and/or color according to their preference while Natasha sat on the floor by Steve's legs trying to read a book. The fact that she kept glancing at her phone every few minutes, gave Wanda a clue as to the amount of tension the redhead was experiencing. Steve was the only one of them who was really handling the stress well, and even then it was a close thing. When the phone rang almost two hours later Natasha jumped up to answer it.

"Clint," she said practically breathless from the relief of hearing from her best friend, "how are things going?"

Natasha was silent as she listened to whatever reply Clint gave her, and the spy's face betrayed nothing. Wanda and Steve exchanged a look knowing that if Natasha was keeping up the Black Widow's mask then the news couldn't be good.

"Hey kiddo, your dad wants to talk to you," Natasha told the kids after about twenty minutes of listening to Clint.

Wanda watched as Natasha handed the phone to Cooper before moving to Steve's arms; it wasn't the first time she saw the only other female Avenger rush to the Captain's arms looking for comfort. The first time had been after Natasha had come back from their first weekend off from training. Steve and Wanda had come down to the Barton farm, but the master spy had spent the first two days of the long weekend elsewhere. She'd arrived under a downpour on Sunday looking hurt and with red rimmed eyes. Clint had opened the door, taken one look at her and pointed her in the direction of Steve all in the space of half a minute. Natasha had moved silently until she was standing in front of the soldier who immediately enveloped her in his arms. At seeing that, Wanda had left the room to give them some privacy and when she saw Natasha later on that same day she'd looked normal.

The same scene had been played out a few other times with Wanda or Sam as sole witnesses to the affection that existed between the two. Now it was happening again, although here neither of the two bothered to hide their affection, instead they hugged openly and Wanda smiled at the feeling of safety and warmth that spread through her body from the two. Steve smiled at her and motioned for the youngest Avenger to move closer to them. The super soldier hugged her with one hand, bringing both girls close to his chest, and Wanda smiled wider as she felt the warmth and tranquility that flowed through Natasha at that moment.

"Are Laura and the baby out of danger?" Wanda asked Natasha in Russian.

"She had a placental abruption, but the doctors are confident they'll be able to deal with it. She's still in surgery, but on the last update given to Clint they were optimistic," the spy answered making both Steve and Wanda sigh with relief.

Steve let go of the two girls and moved toward Lila and Cooper who were just hanging up the phone, he scooped Lila up into his arms as the little girl giggled, "Daddy said the doctors are working on mummy, but that she should be okay."

"That's right, so now that we know that what do you say to helping me bake some cookies to take to her at the hospital?"

Lila continued to giggle as she nodded her head yes at her uncle Steve's suggestion which made Natasha smile brightly, "Are you gonna help your sister and uncle Steve in the kitchen kiddo?" The spy asked Cooper.

Cooper chuckled at his aunt's question, but quickly made his way into the kitchen to help with the baking. Natasha and Wanda remained in the living room picking up the drawing and coloring supplies. Twenty minutes later they went into the kitchen to find pretty much a mess, but at least Cooper and Lila were happy again.

"What happened here?" Natasha asked.

"I was betrayed by them," Steve said laughing, he was covered in flour as was most of the kitchen and the two giggling kids.

"Yeah, auntie Nat, we attacked uncle Steve," Lila said with a cute little giggle that absolutely melted both Natasha and Wanda.

Wanda smiled at the three, grabbed some flour with his powers and threw it at Natasha who had been distracted with trying to clear some of the white powder from Steve. The redhead stopped mid motion, causing Lila to giggle again.

"Did you just throw flour at me?"

"It slipped," Wanda said innocently.

Natasha grinned at that and grabbed some eggs from the counter which she proceeded to break over Wanda's head. The two of them laughed like crazy until some more flour was thrown at them.

Natasha laughed even louder, "Ok, now it's a war," she told Steve and the kids as she and Wanda grabbed more ingredients with which to attack.

The result of the unplanned food fight were hilarious, there was white powder, eggs, and other substances everywhere. Thankfully the house had a door off the kitchen which led outside, they used that door to get out to the patio where Steve had to hose everyone down. Despite wincing at the mess they'd left behind Steve couldn't be happier with the results of the impromptu food fight since both Lila and Cooper seemed lighter after it. Since it was late the kids were sent up to shower, as were Natasha and Wanda while Steve tidied up in the kitchen and prepared some dinner.

Steve's phone rang as he was finishing up the spaghetti he was preparing, "Hey Clint, how's everything going over there?"

"It's going good, Laura's out of surgery and the baby's fine. They both are, she can receive visitors tomorrow."

"That's good, we'll take the kids to see you guys at around 10 if you that's fine."

"It is. Thanks for doing this man, I know you guys were working on new strategies with the team..."

Steve cut Clint up, "You don't have to thank me, Clint. You, Laura and the kids have become a second family to me. I'm glad she and Nate are doing well now. Do you want to talk to the kids?"

"Nah, just tell them I called and that me and their mum love them very much and will see them tomorrow."

"Sure, have a good night and congrats Clint," Steve said before hanging up.

"Was that Clint?" Natasha asked coming into the kitchen from the stairs.

"It was," Steve answered. "He says Laura and Nate are fine now, and that she can receive visitors tomorrow."

"That's great," Natasha said with a big smile, "you should go shower and change. I'll finish up in here."

"I will, but please try not to burn my spaghetti," he said chuckling as he ran away from the redhead.

"That wasn't funny, Steve!"

"In my opinion that was hilarious," he called from the stairs.

Steve came back downstairs ten minutes later dressed in pajama pants and a white t-shirt. Wanda, Cooper and Lila were already sitting at the table watching as Natasha took the garlic bread he had prepared out of the oven, "You didn't burn my spaghetti did you, agent Romnoff?" He asked in what the spy called his Captain America voice.

Natasha whirled around as he obviously took her by surprise, Steve counted that as a victory since it was so hard to catch her by surprise, "Of course I didn't, Rogers. We were just waiting on you, didn't want such a senior citizen to have to eat his dinner by himself."

"Hilarious, Nat."

"I thought so," she said with a bit of teasing to her voice.

He shook his head the redhead before helping her move the bowl of spaghetti and meatballs to the table. They all ate their food, conversation flowing easily among them. After a filling dinner, Steve helped the kids decorate the cookies they'd baked and then Wanda and Natasha took them up to wash their teeth. Steve cleaned up the kitchen quickly before going up to Lila's room where everyone else was gathered. Between the three adults the Barton kids got a bedtime story and Steve ended up carrying Cooper to his room after the little boy fell asleep on his sister's bed.

"What should we do now?" Wanda asked.

"You are going to bed," Steve told her softly.

"But..."

"No protests, Steve's right. You're tired, we had a late night because of the mission and then we were training so it's bed for you. I'll help the fossil over here in packaging the cookies."

Wanda giggled at Steve's look of mock annoyance, and although she wanted to help knew they were right about her being tired, "You're right. I'm sorry for not helping."

"Don't be," Steve said, placing a kiss to her forehead and sending her off to bed. Natasha gave her a hug and she went off to the guest bedroom she normally occupied when staying at the farm.