Babysitter

Set a month or so in the future from Red Chapter 9.

"It's only for a few hours, Bree, I promise." Bree scowled, leaning against the door frame. It was only a short while ago that she could remember being frightened to even talk to these people, let alone stand up to them. Natasha looked at her pleadingly and she softened.

"Fine. But Clint better pay me $10 when y'all get back." Natasha smirked.

"Deal." Bree sighed as the living room/kitchen area (Tony was a huge supporter of open-floor plans) became a chaotic mess. There were shouts of "Has anyone seen my mask?" and "I swear to all that is holy, if you took my right shoe again-". Pepper was out of town visiting some distant cousin, and unfortunately, it was just going to be her and Tony left at the Tower, which was something Bree usually tried to avoid. She liked him just fine and felt a great deal of thankfulness toward him, but he liked to tease her. Mercilessly. Like that one time he tried to see how many times he could make her blush in a day (26. And it's not her fault she blushes at nearly anything) until Pepper found out and made him stop. Thank goodness. Like the giant tornado that had stormed the room, the Avengers left swiftly, leaving a wake of scattered various things. Bree rolled her eyes at the mess but not without an affectionate smile on her face.

"Hey kid." Bree jumped as Tony snuck up behind her. "I've got something cool for us to do. Follow me." He took off down the hall and she scrambled to keep up, cursing her short legs. Tony noticed and without saying anything, slowed down a bit for her to catch up.

"Tony, why aren't you on this mission?" He shrugged, feigning nonchalance.

"Eh, my suit has been malfunctioning. We're gonna have to fix that tonight." Lie. "Plus, I'm working on something for Pep." Not a complete lie. He had been planning to do something random and out-of-the-blue. He just hadn't actually planned anything out yet. He knew that Bree would kick up a fuss if she found out that they couldn't leave her behind without a guard or something. And they sure weren't going to leave her with some SHIELD bodyguard or anything- she would be terrified and hide in her room, the antisocial and paranoid kid that she was. Besides, he had been doing damage control the day before- helping with local shelters and things like that. It had been exhausting. Bree looked at him skeptically, disbelief written all over her face, but she didn't press. That was one of the nice things about the kid- she was very gentle. It was different, living in the sea of fighters, warriors, soldiers, and assassins. She was very warm, gentle, and bubbly, traits they didn't have around until they had found her at that science lab. Even then, it had taken her a while to actually talk to them, let her personality shine through. It had been hard for him, the first few weeks, to get used to a child (teenager, whatever) living in his Tower. They all had an unspoken agreement to start cooling some of their language and for himself at least, tone down the alcohol. After reading the girl's file, he had sworn never to get too drunk in her presence. He doubted the other Avengers had found out what happened-what's the point of being a billionaire if you can't dig up some classified dirt on your teammates, eh?- but that was for Bree to tell. As for the language thing, they had some experience with the whole "language" thing being muttered by Rogers whenever he flew too off the handle. He remembered cursing a whole lot more at Bree's age, but he had yet to hear the girl utter a single curse yet. That being said, she hadn't seen what he had planned yet.

"Stark!" Tony grinned devilishly at his name being growled out by none other than their own captain. Goody. They were back. And by now, they had presumably been greeted in the Lobby by a bright-eyed Bree - a Bree with her foot wrapped up with an ice pack. So maybe the whole "Let's slide across the wooden floor in Pepper's office in giant fuzzy socks!" idea of his had been a little more dangerous than he thought. Oops. He could hear boots clomping out of the elevator. He lazily swiveled around in his chair and faced the Captain with a smile.

"Ah, Capsicle, glad to see you made it back safely," he said innocently. The rest of the crew spilled out of the elevator, chattering about various things. Clint looked from Bree's foot to Tony expectantly, eyebrows raised.

"What happened here?" he asked slowly. Tony shrugged, and Bree blushed (Haha, that makes the 14th time today!).

"Oh, you know," he said casually. "Stuff." It was almost comical how everyone turned to Bree for what really happened.

"I fell," she admitted. There was a pause, and then groans from the back of the room as Sam passed Bucky $5. Bree frowned at them, confused.

"We saw your foot and bet on how it happened," Sam said bitterly. Bucky just nodded his hello to Bree with a look of amusement to Bree as he walked out of the room to grab a snack in his walk-in pantry (yes, it might seem frivolous, but you try feeding Earth's Mightiest Heroes). Steve had enjoyed watching the companionship develop between his best friend and Bree. Having her around had definitely made everything lighter, and it had opened Bucky up a bit. He knew that his friend, even if he wouldn't admit it, was rather protective of the small girl and was probably already planning something if it turned out Stark had caused the ice on her foot. Clint snickered.

"We live with the World's Clumsiest Kid and you bet that she didn't fall?" The tips of her ears turned pink as everyone chuckled. Bree even giggled before shaking her head. Wanda glanced around the room before turning back to Bree.

"Did you clean up?" Brown eyes flickered with amusement as Bree shrugged.

"Actually, Tony did this room. I cleaned my room while he vacuumed." There was a shocked silence.

"You...got Tony...to clean?" Clint managed out. Bree looked at them in confusion, then at Tony. He just shrugged back at her, with a "What can I say?" expression on his face.

"Uh, yeah. I dusted the shelves and cleaned my room, he vacuumed, and then we cleaned out the fridge and organized the lab a little bit." The stunned silence continued and Bree turned pink (15th time! Tony was so going to win this bet with Clint.) "I'm sorry?" she squeaked out. Clint was the first to snap out of it. He shook his head in amazement, and handed Bree $100.

"Nice work, kid."

(A/N: *covers face* So sorry guys! I started school, which takes up 8 hours of my day, then I work for 4 hours every other day, and on Saturdays I do an 8 hour work day. It's let me for almost no time for writing. But fear not, I'm currently plugging away at Red Chapter 10 and working hard to get it up soon! This is going to be a collection of one-shots, which I will probably work on a whole lot more in between Red and it's sequel. A lot more will be explained once Red is all done, so yeah...stay tuned! :)