Pepper looked out the window of Avenger's tower, seeing New York in all its new built glory. The crime rate of the area had significantly dropped since a team of super heroes had moved into the vicinity. There was still crime, however, repeat offenders were become fewer. She smiled as she thought about it. Steve and Thor saw to that. They were such big do-gooders. Natasha and Clint weren't quite as eager to rush out and right the wrongs. Tony was much too busy. And Banner didn't want to take any chances of Hulking out.
She started down the hallway. Dinner was going to be soon and she wanted to be sure that the food was all correctly prepared. The team wasn't likely to complain, however they did work hard and Pepper wanted to make sure that she appreciated all their efforts. After all, Natasha and Clint had stopped using the priceless statues as target practice when Tony painted bulls-eyes on strategic spots. And Bruce had stopped hulking out every time that Dum-E accidently spilt liquids onto his notes. Steve had stopped hitting the punching bags hard enough to send them through the walls. Thor had stopped breaking coffee cups. Tony hadn't stopped doing anything.
That was probably the reason that she wanted to make sure that everything was as nice as possible for all the others. Because even though Tony may listen to her sometime, he never stopped torturing the others completely. And they put up with his antics without too many fights.
As she passed the rooms leading to the kitchen she looked into each, making sure that they resembled something somewhat clean. She remembered a disaster in every one. If at the end of all this she can only say one thing she could definitely go with life was never boring. She looked into the bathroom and remembered the time Natasha had come back from a mission to clean up. By the end of her shower, there had been blood on every surface. Pepper could never figure out how it happened and hadn't been brave enough to ask.
She passed the living room and remembered the time that the Warriors Three had come to visit. The day before they had left the household had been privileged to see a drunk naked Tony. Pepper hadn't thought that Steve would ever get over the shock of walking into the living room to get his jacket and finding Tony passed out on the couch. It hadn't helped that Fandral the Dashing was dressed in a pink leotard and tu-tu. Volstagg the Enormous was covered in sparkles and wearing a suit that was ten sizes to small. Hogun the Grim, the only conscious one in the group, was singing along to High School Musical. The entire room had been repainted hot pink and lime green. And then it had turned out that Tony had been using Steve's jacket as a pillow.
In the movie room, she remembered the time that Bruce had hulked out. Twice. Darcy Lewis had decided it would be fun to talk dirty into Bruce's. Apparently, the things she said make Bruce's heart rate increase. She still insisted that she had meant to say them to Steve to make him blush. Pepper had her doubts. Darcy and Tony were forever trying to make Bruce accept the Hulk as part of him. Bruce had only felt supremely guilty when it had passed. Darcy tried to comfort him by making him hot cocoa. Unfortunately, it was too hot and the shock of burning his tongue, didn't only make Bruce start. That had been an interesting movie night. For the longest time afterward, Bruce would avoid Darcy.
There was the supply closet where Natasha had once found a drunk Clint making out with a random girl he had picked up at a club. Natasha still insisted that she felt nothing more than a comradeship with Clint. However, the black eye and split lip that the girl sported as she left proved Natasha's words were slightly off. Clint had fared worse. He hadn't been able to shoot for another six weeks. And for the longest time after that he hadn't gone to a bar. Or took one sip of alcohol.
The music room that Pepper had insisted upon had seen its far share of troubles as well. That was a result of a Hulk-out as well. Apparently, Hulk did not appreciate Thor's attempt of playing the piano. The piano had been cast out of the window. Pepper wasn't sure if it was Hulk who had thrown it out the window because he didn't like the sound. Or if it had been Thor who had gotten frustrated by its refusal to sound the way an Asgardian piano sounded. Pepper didn't think that he realized the sound the piano made depended on who was playing it.
There was the pool room that Loki had enchanted so that whoever went in turned neon yellow. He insisted that he had meant it only for Tony Stark. However the time that the pool was used after he had enchanted it had not only been Tony. The entire team had decided to take a swim after a mission. Even Darcy, Jane, and Pepper had joined them. The spell that Loki had used couldn't be undone and five weeks had to pass before the color would wear off.
There was the elevator. Pepper almost laughed when she remembered the first time Thor had taken the elevator. He had come in on the ground floor and pushed every button leading up the floor that he had wanted to get off at. That may have worked out if he hadn't wanted to go to the top floor. He had gotten so frustrated with stopping every five seconds for a minute that he had flown out of the top of the elevator to the roof. Leaving a hole in the roof of the elevator and the roof.
In the hallway, Pepper remembered the time that Avenger's mansion had been broken into. The villain had decided to attack the Avengers on their own turf. Pepper, Jane, and Darcy had been the only occupants of the building at the time and they had been trussed up like geese and left at the hallway. The first thing that the Avengers would see when they stepped off of the elevator. Jane had never been so scared in her life and was frozen in shock for the majority of the time. Darcy had spewed abuse at their captors for the entire time. Pepper had never heard insults quite the same as Darcy. She had a very creative streak in her. Pepper didn't remember her saying one cuss word and yet she had managed to insult the group of bad guys soundly. Pepper wasn't worried. She knew that Tony would rescue her. What had frightened her was that Tony might succeed in saving her by doing something dumb.
The Avenger team had been extremely angry when they had saw the three women tied up at the end of the hall. Tony and Thor had been beyond pissed when they saw that their 'women' had been treated so roughly. And the anger Steve had shown had gone beyond the normal someone-treated-a-woman-in-an-unchivalrous-manner-anger, leading the others to think that there may have been someone in the Avengers who didn't just like Darcy because of her lighthearted contributions to life in the tower.
Needless to say, the girls had been rescued. The bad guys' butts were whooped. And Tony worked for days without sleeping so that the security was so upgraded that even Fury had trouble getting. Pepper suspected that was an ulterior motive. Tony did take great pleasure in tormenting Fury. Fury had been…furious…when Jarvis had refused him admittance because he couldn't say that hour's password. After that incident, Pepper had made Tony do away with the hourly password change. And the daily password change. And the biweekly password change. She agreed to let him change the password every two weeks. Fury was still pissed that he had to use a password but he agreed as well to the password every two weeks. And that any SHEILD agent who was going to know it had to have at least a Level 10 clearing.
She made it to the kitchen and before walking in just looked around the room. She remembered the all the good times that the group had had in that room. It was larger than most kitchens because Pepper had insisted it be that way. When she was growing up the family kitchen had been one of the main rooms where all her treasured memories had taken place. She had wanted it to be the same way with the AVegers.
So, Tony had the kitchen take up half of a floor. It was painted the color of ginger. The color seemed cool in the summer and warm in the winter. The table was right in the middle. A huge piece of oak furniture. Tony boasted that it would survive practically anything. The Avengers had taken him up on it, trying to prove him wrong. They hadn't been able to. The table was now scratched up and looked worn but it was still sturdy. It was the place that after Loki's first attack they had gathered around to eat. It then became a custom for every meal that was eaten after a battle to be eaten there. Even if their mission took place hours from the building not one Avenger would eat anything until they were at the table with all of the others.
Other things happened in the kitchen besides the eating of meals. All the Avengers chose to write their mission reports in the kitchen. Fury reluctantly had to allow it when Thor simply walked out of the SHEILD headquarters so that he could write his at home. Tony followed the gods lead and then there was no way for Fury to keep them in the SHEILD building.
Lately, (much to the dislike of the others) Bruce and Tony had started bringing their work to the table. Jane had also joined them in this practice. Pepper couldn't reprimand them because she fell prey to this habit as well, often bringing contracts that she had to go over to the table. Darcy would bring her stacks of college books to the table, to study. As it turns out, Natasha and Clint were both trained in politics (no matter how much they acted like it didn't exists) and were willing to help her. If they weren't helping Darcy, they sometimes set up scenarios with completely accurate models of New York and had full scale battles on the kitchen table. Steve would spend his free time sketching, or reading the For Dummies series, trying to learn things about this new modern world. Thor sometimes joined him in his pursuit of knowledge, or would help Jane with knowledge of the magic of Asgard.
Fury had walked in on them more than once when they were spread out in this manner. He sometimes joined them, talking with the different members or Pepper about random things. Surprisingly, he became one of the people that Darcy would turn to when she had a question about something political. Maybe even more surprisingly was the patience that he had with Darcy that he had with none of the others. He seemed to appreciate her ability to make anyone relax. And he loved to hear her stories of the happenings in Avenger Tower. She was able to take any event and turn it into a hilarious parody.
Friends of the Avengers were always more than welcome to stop by so the mansion was never empty. Rhodes was practically living there. Tony had made him his own suit so that if any big fights came up while he was there he could join in as well. As was Erik Selvig. Even Loki had finally managed to gain enough trust among the Avengers to be allowed a room in the Tower. It had taken a long time and he had participated in plenty of battles on the Avengers' side before that had happened though. Lady Sif and the Warriors Three could often be found there. Though, after the time mentioned above, there was a limit on the amount of alcohol they were allowed to consume. Their presence was a huge help during fights. Though, Fury did not appreciate having to go over their debriefings with all their 'thees' and 'thous'.
In addition to friends, people that none of the Avengers had ever met often frequented the Tower. Though, they rarely got past the tenth floor. Tony was always throwing a party, or Pepper had a huge business meeting at the tower. Jane, Tony, Erik, and Bruce had thrown scientific conventions there. Darcy had even gotten Tony's permission throw a party in the Tower. Even though no one could get up past the sixth floor, Fury nearly had a heart attack when he found out that almost half her college campus had shown up, including five sports teams (football, baseball, soccer, lacrosse and basketball), the entire cheerleading squad, the entire drama group, and the entire science clubs of all four years. The science clubs insisted that they had come in hopes of seeing Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Erik Selvig, or Jane Foster. Darcy had been pretty pissed at Fury when over half of the SHEILD agents had shown up to shut the party down. Tony had taken her side and Fury had had many mechanical mishaps in the weeks following.
Pepper smiled as she remembered all these times and more. She had started heating up the food in the microwaves. Tony had gotten tired of having to wait in line to use the microwave and had put in one per Avenger plus Jane, Darcy, and Pepper. He had gone slightly overboard and had 'personalized' each one. His was red and gold. Pepper's had originally been identical to Tony's. She had repainted it silver. Natasha's was a sleek (well, as sleek as a microwave can be) and black, completely business, with a black widow spider painted onto the front of it. Clint's was similar, only his had a hawk. Steve's was red with a copy of his shield on the front. Thor's was the biggest, it was painted gold. Bruce's was green. Jane's was small, she only used hers to heat up her coffee. Darcy's had been white, but Tony had taken a million different colors of paint and splattered it all over the surface. Needless to say, there were some cough*Natasha/Clint/Bruce*cough who were slightly upset with Tony over their microwaves, but they dealt with it.
Pepper put the take out containers into the correct microwaves. Bruce was having Thai food, for some reason he loved the spiciness. Natasha's was Russian, of course. Thor usually went with barbecue. Jane had a stack of lean cuisines in the freezer that no one else would touch with a ten foot pole. Darcy had a different ethnic type of food every night, which half of usually ended up on everyone's places so that they could try. So, Darcy always had huge servings. Clint loved chilies and stews. Steve was happy with a meal from a fast food place. Hamburgers and fries. All the females were extremely jealous due to the fact that he could eat as much as he wanted without ever gaining a pound. Tony went with whatever Darcy was having.
Even as she pressed the buttons to start the meals, Darcy was coming through the kitchen door. Darcy was never one to miss a meal, and because dinner was served promptly at six thirty, she was always in the kitchen about ten minutes beforehand. She started setting the table. A cup of coffee at Jane, Thor, and Tony's places. A cup of tea of Bruce and Pepper. A cream soda for Steve and herself. A grape soda for Clint (who would have guessed). An espresso for the Russian spy. By the time Darcy had finished, the others were coming in. Tony smelt like oil. Clint's hair was still glistening from the quick shower he had taken after his work out. Natasha was perfectly put together, that basically meant that she could have been doing anything since she always looked perfectly put together. Jane looked slightly disoriented and was still muttering to herself about some scientific theory. Steve and Thor walked in, having a debate on how the television worked, since neither knew the debate was going nowhere. Bruce walked into the room, engrossed with the paper in his hands. Pepper knew it was some scientific research. She smiled at her dysfunctional family. Because, that was what they were after all. A family.