Peter's First Steps

It was a typical dinner at Avengers Tower for the team. Which meant an enormous amount of food (mostly frozen and take-out, because none of them could cook), Clint shooting apples in the air, and Tony's robots constantly cleaning up Thor's smashed plates and cups.

"Hey guys. Miss me?" Tony walked into the dining room, signature smirk on his face. Steve followed shortly behind him, carrying a sleeping Peter. Natasha snorted.

"You wish."

"Ouch." Tony replied, sitting down at his 'appointed' chair (Thor's idea – "You all must have your own banquet setting!"). "I am deeply wounded. Seriously."

Natasha just rolled her eyes, going back to her Chinese. Steve had gone into the kitchen to find some baby food, unsuccessfully. "Hey, guys, what happened to the baby food?"

Thor looked up from his chicken. "Ah, do you mean those marvelous clear containers of blended meals? Why they were delicious! I did not know it was possible to blend foods together as such."

Everyone facepalmed. Mostly. Bruce just shook his head, amused. "Thor, we feed those to babies when they can't digest whole foods yet. They aren't for adults."

Thor's face fell. "Babies? I do not understand this strange Midgardian way of eating."

While Bruce explained to Thor the details of what babies ate and why adults couldn't eat it, Tony and Clint were having a silent testosterone battle. Clint was shooting mini darts at an apple he threw up in the air, and Tony was trying to catch it. Needless to say, they were locked in a staring match until Natasha pulled out a gun and shot the damn thing, so that it dropped onto the ground, rolling off. Peter started to cry.

Tony was deeply affronted. Or at least, appeared to be. "Natasha! How could you do that."

"Men," she muttered, stowing away her gun. Clint just shrugged, turning away from the apple and proceeding to stare longingly at an orange before Natasha mashed it to a pulp with her bare hands.

Steve, on the other hand, was actually offended. "You upset the baby," he accused, taking Peter out of his high chair and rocking him. Natasha didn't look exactly remorseful, but she did turn to look at him. A strange expression came over her face as she looked at Peter.

"Hey, do you know who he looks like?" She asked slowly.

"Huh?" Steve replied, confused. Peter had stopped crying and was staring at them with big blue eyes.

"Wait, Clint, get over here." She dragged him up by his collar, ignoring his protests, until he was beside Peter. "Yes, I knew it! It's that hair!"

Tony got it immediately, and groaned. "Oh no, our son is going to grow up an ugly asshole. God help us."

Clint just hit him (somewhat) playfully. "Oh come on. The ladies love this hair."

Steve looked back and forth carefully. "I can see the resemblance, sort of."

Natasha just shook her head. "That hair. I agree with Tony, for once. At least about the asshole part."

"Oh, you know you love it." Clint smiled, seemingly not noticing the death scowl that Natasha directed at him. Clint was the only member of the team who could take the full force of Natasha's glare and keep acting the way he always did. Tony, at least, couldn't take it without swallowing down the Yes, Ma'am that always occurred to him whenever Natasha felt it necessary to glare.

Steve sighed and lifted Peter out of the high chair. Peter burbled, reaching his tubby hands out to touch Steve's nose. Steve laughed, pride radiating off of him like light off the sun. Tony and Steve had adopted Peter seven months ago, and in that time he had gone from a sickly, pale baby to a healthy toddler. All the team adored him, even if most of them didn't express it openly. Tony still giggled over the memory of catching Fury playing a game of pattycake on the living room floor. Future blackmail material.

Bruce got up, walking over to Steve and holding out his hands. "Mind if I take him?"

"Go ahead." Steve walked over to the table, handing off Peter and joining in a conversation about what flavor Poptarts were the best with Thor and Tony. Bruce smiled at Peter, who sat on the floor about a foot away from him. He tilted his head and smiled, as if to say Hi Bruce!.

"Hi Peter." He said, laughing. He tickled Peter's toes, and Peter cooed. "Want to come here to Uncle Bruce?"

Peter hadn't taken his first steps yet, a lack of development that had Steve constantly worrying and Tony trying to construct a robot to make him walk. All that led to was Steve trying to use Google and poor Peter passing out on the floor after an exhausting amount of crawling around to get the robot. So it was almost in a trance that Bruce watched Peter slowly, eagerly push up off his knees and take a clumsy first step towards him.

"Guys," he said calmly, trying not to disturb Peter. "Guys! GUYS!"

"What?" They all turned towards him, but it was too late, Peter had fallen to his knees again and kept crawling to him.

"Peter…he was walking!" He said, scooping him up. He shook his head, unhappy that they all had to miss such an important milestone. "He was walking to me!"

Steve's face fell. "I can't believe we missed that," he groaned. "Such an important event in our son's life and we were talking about whether grape Poptarts are the nastiest things on Earth."

Tony patted him comfortingly on the shoulder. "Hey, don't sweat. I've got it all on the security camera."

There was a pause in which Steve looked relieved and everyone else looked horrified. Then: "You have security cameras?"

"Yup," Tony replied, almost cheekily. "All over. But don't worry, I review them all myself, once a week."

For a moment, there was complete stillness, until Natasha, Clint, and Steve were all racing to the security room. Bruce just laughed, shaking a finger out of Peter's grip. "You were joking, right?"

"Nope." Tony smirked, and Bruce joined the race.

A/N: I wonder what Bruce has to hide ;) orz AO3 INVITE ANYONE. Also, I'm sorry for my excuse for a fanfiction right here OTL. Okay, I'll just leave now. REVIEW PLZ? :D