A one-shot about the team a what they could do for each other. Inspired by the song.
Some mistakes have been corrected.
I don't own any of the characters. Please don't sue me!
Tony Stark doesn't care about anyone. Hell,Tony Stark doesn't share anything with anyone. Especially if their names aren't Rhodey and Pepper. But he invites all of them to come and live with them, at Pepper's insistence, mind you. And he will never agree, no matter how many times Pepper keeps on telling him, that the tower feels like home only with all of them present. He absolutely hates Clint's sarcastic comments teamed with Natasha's death glare. He has had too much of Wanda and Steve's silly questions and he is absolutely sick of Vision's stares and fashion sense. He'd happily drop them all off to an alternate dimension, or so he tells Pepper everytime Thor manages to break something. But there is a small part of him (small because everything when compared to his love for Pepper was small) that is quite sure that he would rip apart the whole world if it meant keeping bloody Barton's kids safe. He would take it out piece by piece with his bare hands, it doesn't matter how long it will take him, to kill whoever made the mistake of hurting one of his team. Yes, they are not family, he keeps telling himself that. He isn't sure he believes it anymore.
Steve hates being alone and Steve hates being cold. It reminds him of things he wants to forget quite desperately. And hence he isn't surprised when his heart finds home quite easily at the Tower and the farm. He doesn't understand how he could be at home at two places and it take him quite some time to realize it but eventually he does. All it takes is a movie night at the tower which ends up with the whole lot of them asleep on various surfaces; and it dawns on him that home was wherever they all were. The where didn't matter. What worries him is the level of intensity at which the well-being of all of them affect him though. On a mission, they find Barton tied to a cold stone slab, Clint had been quite adamant about being the guinea pig for bait, he looks more dead than alive. The amount of blood splashed around the room and under their feet nauseates him making his head spin till he isn't sure what is real and what isn't anymore. Bruce hulks out and Wanda goes ballistic; he watches and hears both of them destroy the enemy base with a deep sense of satisfaction. It horrifies him later but at the moment he is content to simply sit back and enjoy as every drop of Clint's blood is avenged.
Over the millennia, Thor has fought with many great warriors. But none of them as fierce as his Midgardian ones, he is sure. They fought with an edge, a determination that left him in awe of them. They fought to save the world, the people they didn't know; and Thor has seen people fleeing wars for the very same reason. He notices the way they fight, defend each other and that very thing wakes up a primal urge in him to protect them. He knows he will kill hundreds for them and he also knows that he would willingly sacrifice himself and anything that is needed if it meant keeping them safe. He would quite gladly give up everything he holds dear, scour galaxies to search for anything that is needed, tear apart planets if it meant saving them. The fact gives him a sense of peace, a sense of belonging and he isn't quite sure he is supposed to feel that way. Not when he is the crown prince of Asgard. He doesn't care though.
Natasha has a 'People she cares about' list. The list is very short and for years held only five names: The Bartons and Pepper Potts. The Bartons are family and Pepper simply because she was Pepper. She had that aura about her that made people feel instinctively protective of her; and maybe because she is a genuinely good person. The list keeps on growing though. Natasha has to add Tony to it when the bloody bastard hijacks a nuke and takes the one way flight to his almost doom. Wanda is practically a Barton so she automatically is synched with the list alongwith the latest Barton kid. Not to mention her brother was the very reason that Clint was alive and breathing right now. Steve, Thor and Bruce don't need her protection, she knows, but she adds them to the list for reasons she can't and doesn't want to understand. Sam and Rhodey are extensions of Tony and Steve so they too go on the list. The longer the list grows, the surer she is that her impending death will be when defending one of her boys. Or girls in the case of Pepper, Laura and Wanda. Death, the only thing that had terrified seems quite a welcome thought when the circumstance was a choice between their life and hers. She is a murderer, a cold blooded assassin and she'd be damned if she didn't do justice to her titles if anything were to happen to any of them. And that thought terrifies her.
Bruce starts to consider them as family the very first morning when he wakes up to loud crashes in the tower and nobody even flinches at the sight of his green tinted eyes when he goes to investigate. Clint Barton doesn't bat an eye, Tony Stark is crazy, Pepper is unaffected, Natasha doesn't care, Thor is his usual cheerful self and Steve Rogers calmly asks for his choice of coffee. Right at that moment, he knows that he would happily sit back and watch the whole world burn if it is the world who has the audacity to strike at his family; yes they are his family.
Clint Barton is a very disciplined agent. He doesn't defy orders. Saving Natalia Romanova or the Black Widow had stopped being counted as defiance the moment the Widow had joined them in their fight. He hadn't cared about his suspension then and he sure as hell doesn't give a damn now. After all these years, he is still sure that he would make the same call. He will always make the same call. And he is damn sure he would break every bloody rule laid down for them if it meant keeping his team, no his family, from danger. His team is his family. And he doesn't really care who he has to kill to ensure the safety of each and everyone of his thought is quite pleasing to him because under that disciplined Hawkeye, there is an impatient child who is every bit the troublemaker that Tony Stark is.
Wanda isn't a child and she doesn't care if wiping out an entire locality means getting Pepper back. She has proved it when she had went ahead and done it. Slowly but surely, the team had imbibed her of their shared feeling about each other and she wasn't complaining. It felt nice to be able to feel nice things about someone, to actually care. She would happily wipe out whole countries if any of them needed it.
Nick Fury isn't religious. But everytime the Avengers go out on a mission, he prays to God. Yes he is sure that He exists because he simply refuses to believe that Thor is the highest power. He doesn't pray for the people who will be caught in the crossfire. No, he prays for the Avengers. He prays that no one among them gets hurt. Because he doesn't want to be the one to explain why the whole world is suddenly on fire. He doesn't want to tell the world that their hope, their Avengers are every bit the danger to them that they are to their enemies. Because no matter how deep hate runs, love always triumphs in the end. The Avengers might not share blood but they share a bond that runs deeper and darker than the blood that rushes through them. The fact scares him and yet gives him a sense of security - The Avengers are a family.
Do share your thoughts.