I am so sorry that I'm posting this late at night. I keep really weird hours now, so the days just run together lol.

So, on to the story!


The next morning, Tony found himself awakened by yelling from the living room. As he walked out, he saw Raina jumping on the couch, completely unattended.

"What are you doing?"

"Rachel said we can watch Rocky Horror Picture Show tonight! I'm getting ready!" She exclaimed as she jumped off the couch, "I'm just waiting for Rae to wake up!"

"Why are you making so much noise?" Tony heard Gwen ask from the stairs.

"Movie day!" Raina explained.

"I should make popcorn," she said, heading to the kitchen, where Bruce was making breakfast. Tony looked at her as she left, feeling that it was beyond strange for Raina to be up first and Rachel wasn't anywhere to be seen. Tony wondered where Clint was, and then realized that he was probably in Natasha's room. He decided to follow Raina and go into the kitchen as well.

"Why hasn't anyone else gotten up?" Tony asked as Gwen walked into the room. They both sat at the table at the same time.

"No idea."

"It's almost noon," Tony said.

"Everyone needs to sleep in every once in a while Tony," Bruce responded.

"Where'd Raina go? I thought she was making popcorn." Gwen said. At almost the same time that Gwen stopped speaking, they heard a crash in the next room.

"What's she doing in the dining room?" Gwen asked, getting up and heading towards the dining room. Gwen opened the doors and gasped, "What the hell were you doing with flour?"

"It was in front of the Halloween bowl." Gwen sighed and walked into the room, "Okay, just go get the cleaning stuff and help me clean it up." Raina must have agreed because Tony watched as she walked towards the bathroom and come back with a broom and a bucket full of what Tony could only assume was cleaning supplies. Tony smiled at the insanity that Raina kept around her all the time.

"I really missed being here," Tony said, almost to himself.

"Me too," Bruce smiled, though he was also thinking of the fact that the Other Guy couldn't follow him here.

"Do you think Rachel's alright?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Her family was murdered, we were nowhere to be found, Raina couldn't been all that helpful and have you really looked at Rae? She's not been taking care of herself."

Bruce sighed, "I think that she could be better, but she's not for all of the reasons that you just listed. I mean, can you imagine going through all of that practically alone?"

Tony nodded, "You're right, I'm just over concerned."

"I wouldn't say that," Bruce said, "We're just coming in not knowing the whole story. I'm sure everything's going to be fine. Can you go and wake everyone up?"

"Yeah I-" Tony was interrupted by a Gwen yelling.

"Raina! Get back here!"

"Never!" Bruce glanced at Tony and then walked into the dining room as Tony walked to the stairs to head to the bedrooms..

"Are you okay?" Bruce asked Gwen as he walked into the room.

"No," she snapped, but then added, "Sorry, Raina's just rubbing every last nerve I've got here. I'm kinda starting to understand why Rachel just gave up."

"What do you mean?" Bruce asked as he bent over and reached for the broom, which had been thrown on the ground and started sweeping.

"She just lets Raina do whatever she feels like it, and if you ask me, it's turned Rain into more of a child, if possible."

"I don't understand-" Bruce started.

"Rachel's changed, she and Rain were a perfect balance, but now, Rae won't do anything to stop Raina from being completely chaotic."

"Oh, why not?" Feeling like everything that he just said to Tony was to be proven incorrect.

"No idea, but it definitely has something to do with you guys." Bruce stopped sweeping and looked at Gwen with guilt.

"I didn't mean it like that," Gwen said quickly, "I meant that it coincides with you guys leaving but it could also be with Jess and Dom's deaths. I wasn't saying that it was your fault. I mean, I didn't even get to see any of this first hand till two weeks ago."

"We should've tried harder to get them to go with us," Bruce said sadly.

Gwen frowned, "Yeah and have them leave everyone that they care about. What a great idea."

Bruce sighed and started sweeping up again, but said nothing. He heard the door connecting the dining room to the hall open and looked up to see a newly woken Rachel.

"What'd she do?"

"Spilled flour and ran off."

"Oh, let me help you clean it up."

"How about you just make her come back here and clean it up?" Gwen asked.

"No, it's fine, I don't want to deal with the fight that will inevitably come." Gwen made a disapproving noise and frowned. Bruce also frowned, Rachel didn't back down from a fight.

"We've almost got it done," Bruce said after a second.

"Okay, I'll make breakfast then," Rachel said, yawning.

"I already did it." Rachel's eyes widened, "Well, I'm useless this morning."

"It's noon," Gwen said tersely.

"Oh well," Rachel said, shrugging.

"Where's Raina?"

"Probably with Loki," Rachel said, walking forward and starting to wipe the flour off the table with one of the washcloths.

"Aren't you going to say anything to her?"

"I'm not her mother. You go say something if you want."

"She wants to do a movie day and she said that you told her that she could."

"I did, last week. Why does it matter?"

"Shouldn't someone go grocery shopping? I mean there's over twice as many people here as there was yesterday. There's stuff we should be doing."

"Fine, write out a list and I'll go." Gwen frowned once again, "I thought Raina could do it because she always gets the groceries."

Rachel shrugged, "No it's fine, I'll just do it."

"Whatever," Gwen said, walking out of the room. Bruce looked over at Rachel, who sighed.

"I'm not Rain's mother," she repeated again, though Bruce didn't know if it was for her benefit or his.

"What happened?" Bruce asked.

Rachel looked at Bruce, "Loki left and she got depressed, so I did what any incapable mother would do, and I just stopped trying to discipline her because only doing stupid things made her happy again, so I just made sure that she didn't kill herself while doing these things."

"You just described yourself as a mother, why do you keep saying that you're not hers? If I had to guess, I'd say you were the closest thing she's ever had to a mom."

Rachel sighed and smiled sadly, "Because now she's out of control and I just don't want to fight to get back in control. I didn't have fun being at trying to be a grown up at fifteen, and I don't want to be a grown up now."

"That's not how life works. And are you seriously telling me that you've never had fun since you turned fifteen? What about-" Bruce was cut off by Clint yelling in the other room, "Raina, get off!"

Bruce looked over at Rachel, "Now would be a good time to start reasserting yourself, especially if you can get Loki on your side."

Rachel nodded and walked into the hall and finding Raina on Clint, piggyback style, nearly choking him from her grip. Rachel rolled her eyes and walked into the living room, "Raina," she said, her voice taking on the familiar authoritative tone, "Get off of him, you're going to kill him."

"No," Rain said, smirking at Rachel and clearly asking "what are you going to do about it?"

"Sorry Clint," Rachel said, causing Clint's eyes to widen and stop moving so that he could ask, "What?" while facing Rachel.

Rachel stepped forward and hit Raina in the side, where Rachel knew she was ticklish, which caused Raina's eyes to widen and her to slip off of Clint, but not without scratching his neck on the way down. Raina hit the floor with a thud.

"Are you okay Clint?"

"You are inquiring about him when you just made Rain hit her head on the floor?" Loki asked incredulously.

"Yeah, I warned her Loki. She didn't listen." Loki glared at Rachel as he helped Raina up.

"Are you okay Raina?" Raina nodded.

"Don't strangle people, that's bad and they don't like it."

"Yeah, you'd know all about that, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, I would, so don't do it anymore. Go get breakfast." Raina nodded and started to walk off, but stopped when Tony, who had just come back downstairs with Steve and Natasha, asked about why Rachel would know about being strangled.

Raina turned back to Tony with a smirk on her face and said, "Oh, Michael hated her, so he tried to kill her before he died. How many times was it?"

By the time everyone in the room looked over to Rachel, they saw that the colour had drained from her face and her mouth was in a thin line as she glared at Raina. "Go," Rachel said, her voice steely and hard. Rain looked at Rachel, still trying to test the boundaries of what Rae would do until Rachel added, "Now."

Loki, sensing that Raina had crossed a line that he didn't even know existed, pulled her towards the kitchen. Bruce, who had finished cleaning up the flour, came into the living room, "What happened?" He asked, not sure as to why everyone was staring at Rachel.

"Who's Michael?"

"It doesn't matter, he's, as Rain was so kind to point out, dead, so it doesn't matter."

"But-"

"She doesn't want to talk about it," Steve said suddenly, cutting across Tony's protest. Though Tony usually didn't back down, he could tell by the expressions on both Steve and Rachel's faces, that this was not a time to fight, so he just nodded.

"He was her brother. The older one, but I'm pretty sure she only told Steve about him." The Avengers saw the look of rage on Rachel's face and stepped between Raina and Rachel, Steve going so far as to hold onto her wrist in case he needed to stop her from murdering her friend.

"Rachel, I have a list. Why don't you go to the store?" Gwen said in a voice that made it clear that it wasn't a suggestion. Rachel took her eyes off of Raina, "Sure, uh, Natasha, you wanna come?"

"Yeah, I'll go," Natasha said, though she was surprised that Rachel didn't ask Steve.

Rachel nodded, and said, "Fifteen minutes," then headed out of the room. Steve glanced at Raina with an exasperated look and then followed Rachel upstairs. Steve walked to Rachel's room and opened the door, just in time to see Rachel throwing a shirt over her head; she had already changed into jeans.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Rachel turned around to face Steve, "Because, he's dead. It doesn't matter, there's absolutely nothing to do about it. It happened, and it can't be changed."

Steve shut the door and walked further into the room, "Yeah well it doesn't mean that you should keep it inside."

"I don't really roll like that," Rachel said, smiling emptily.

Steve decided to change tactics, knowing that Rachel would only talk about herself when she wasn't in control, "Why is Rain acting like this?"

"Because I couldn't do what was best for her while Loki was gone," Rachel said, looking down at the ground to hide the tears that were welling up in her eyes.

"And what did you do for you while I was gone?" Rachel looked up at Steve, who was now only inches from her, "I held myself together for Rain and I. I'm the one who didn't break down and cry for three months straight," Rachel ended, more angrily than she intended.

Steve frowned at her, "Sometime people need to cry Rachel, it's not a sign of weakness."

Rachel smiled up at Steve, "That's not really how I work."

"You should try new things."

Rachel laughed, and then said, "I have to go. I also have to force a wig on Natasha, but not in that order." Steve chuckled at the ridiculousness of Rachel's statement.

He leaned down and kissed her softly before saying, "Okay, but you know this conversation isn't over, right?"

Rachel sighed heavily, "I know."

After Rachel had convinced Natasha that wearing a black wig would be the only way that she could leave the house, the women set off to the store.


So much drama. Things have clearly changed in this household.

Oh, you can thank Izzy for not reminding me to post earlier.

Don't forget to tell us what you think and thanks for reading!

~Jade