Chapter 7: "Not all Family Reunions Are Good Ones"
Upstairs, the party was steadily growing. Storm had joined them with Amadi after the little girl finally woke up from her nap — both of them dressed as witches to the adoration of all — and America came bouncing in the door a little later dressed in a sexy nurse costume to Lucy's white lab coated doctor.
But when Billy and Teddy showed up with wide grins, they had half the adults laughing as they burst in and, in perfect unison, called out, "excell-ent!" — they were fully decked out as, well, Bill and Ted.
"You two are just adorable," Annie said as she shook her head at the pair of them. "You always have the cutest couples costumes."
"I just can't believe we didn't think of this one sooner," Teddy said with a grin as he wrapped her in a hug. "Love the Maleficent, by the way. Your raven is my favorite touch."
"He's a sweet little raven for sure," she agreed with a laugh. "You want to hold him?"
"Yes! Of course," Teddy said with a wide smile. "Gotta get some practice in."
When she handed Cody over to him, the little guy just looked up at him with wide eyes and a crooked smile for the longest time before he crunched up and buried his face in Teddy's shoulder with a giggle.
"He's been learning from James, I'm afraid," Annie said as a half-apology, half-explanation.
"Not surprised," Teddy said with a grin. "Seems like I never see those two apart, except when Kari's messing with James or Zoe is roping them all into mischief.
"That's the cutest thing I've seen all day," Billy called out as he joined the two of them. "Look at him, Annie — isn't that the cutest thing you've seen?"
"He really is darling with a baby in his arms," she agreed.
Billy leaned over with a twinkle in his eye. "Well, give us another few months and you'll get to see that look more often," he told her in a conspiratorial whisper.
Annie's eyes widened. "Really?"
Billy grinned. "Oh yeah. Got the call from the agency that they matched us with a mom. She's only a few months in, but she likes our profile… Gonna have a cute little boy of our own soon!"
Annie broke into a wide grin and flung her arms around Billy's neck before she made sure to do the same for Teddy too — while Cody relished the chance to be part of even more snuggles.
When K returned from the poker game, she made her way over to Kate and Storm with her arms crossed. "I think — outside of those that are in some way married into or related to a Summers — we should ban siblings from visiting unless they are tiny. Estranged adult siblings? Just say no."
"Barney being a pain?" Kate asked in a tone that said she was not at all surprised.
"I just don't like him," she said. "He's being nice, but he's doing the older sibling thing that makes me want to just … stab him in the mouth."
"Oh, so that thing older siblings always do forever," Kate said. "Susan does it too. Must be a curse of us younger siblings."
"Not all of us," she said through gritted teeth.
Kate patted K's shoulder. "Well at least Clint's has an adorable wife and kids that are fun. Come meet Simone and hang out. You'll like her much more than that ridiculous Barton boy."
"So many promises," K replied. "At least I had a couple beers and set off the time bomb."
"He … he can be nice when he wants to be," Kate said lamely. "It's just rare."
"I'm sure. Just not to Clint. He thinks he's being funny."
Kate rubbed the back of her neck. "Better'n I was when Clint was getting his butt handed to him by the tracksuits. So I have to give him that."
"Siblings are supposed to back you up first and pick on you later, not start out pissing you off. At least open with a hello that sounds like you halfway like them before diving into the sarcasm and picking. Come on."
"Yeah, well, you're the one who set off the time bomb. Give it an hour tops."
"I did," she said with a little smirk. "Clint seemed happy to see it too."
"Those two… are idiots," Kate said, shaking her head.
They were just starting to joke around a bit more freely when Tony and Pepper arrived — their slick entrance blown when Elin and James made their way over to give the two of them a gingerbread man each. Pepper was dressed as Captain America and enjoying the look Tony was giving her. Every time he took a moment to glance her way, he just had to shake his head and chuckle, but even that was blown when James pulled at her pants leg, held up his gingerbread man, and smiled widely.
Pepper matched his wide smile and scooped up the little guy to give him a big kiss on the cheek. "Is that for me?" she asked him when she was done.
"Mmmhmm," he said, nodding seriously with one eyebrow quirked up.
Pepper grinned even wider. "I don't have to share it with Tony, do I?" she asked in a teasing whisper.
"Nooooo," he said, scrunching up his nose as Elin shook her head at her little brother and held up the cookie for Tony.
"You should try to share with her anyhow," she advised Tony.
Tony couched down to her level with a sparkle in his eyes. "I don't know; I think I should share with the very pretty Gretel who gave me the cookie," he said. "Pep's got her own sugar daddy now."
Elin giggled at him and held her arms up. "Okay," she said.
He grinned and swept her up, tossing her in the air as he did so, before he very dramatically bit off the gingerbread man's head, complete with monster noises.
She giggled harder and followed suit, though she could actually pull off the growl the right way, even if it didn't sound very monster-like with the giggles.
"You're much scarier than me," Tony told her as he set her back down. "Too scary. I think I'm gonna have to hide," he added, glancing Pepper's way with a little smirk.
Elin grinned at him and nodded. "All the other boys are hiding in the lab," she said.
"Are they scared of you too?" he teased.
She shook her head, the long curls bouncing behind her as she laughed at them. "No … they're being party poopers."
"Shame on them," Tony said with a smirk. "Think I should send a few up here so you can scare them with your monster noises?"
She thought about it for a second then very slowly shook her head. "No. I can scare enough here," she said before she leaned toward him with big eyes to whisper, "but Gretel isn't supposed to be scary."
He leaned toward her and matched her wide-eyed expression. "She's pretty scary to the witch who tried to eat her little brother," he said with a significant look Pepper's way, and it took her a second to take the cue before she started to pretend to 'eat' James, blowing raspberries on his tummy as she did so.
James, of course, just leaned backward, giggling out 'stop' and then 'more' when Pepper would actually stop. It wasn't more than a couple of times, though, before she pulled him into a snuggle and he half-melted into her shoulder.
"It's probably a good thing Cap isn't a witch then," Elin said with a little smile before she waved at Tony and skipped off toward the other kids her age, leaving James to get his snuggles.
Of course, Tony didn't quite make it past the rest of the kids, because his biggest little half-Kree fan was fast enough to speed over to where he was and wrap his leg in a hug. "Tony! Guess what! I am a JEDI!" he declared between happy, excited bounces.
"Oh, you're going to have to show me that before I go downstairs and clean out the poker game," Tony said as he bent down to pick him up.
Sying was beaming as he nodded and then scrunched up his face in concentration as he pointed at a plate of Annie's cookies - and sure enough, they came flying over to where the two boys were so that Sying could snatch one up and bite into it with a little cackle of delight.
Tony looked around the room until he spotted Tammy and just shook his head at her. "Something tells me that's only going to work today," Tony said with a little smirk.
"Cuz it's my birthday," Sying informed him, nodding seriously. "And I'm short for a Stormtrooper," he added with a grin that looked very much like Jubilee. "You should dress up. Dad's friends Billy and Teddy dressed up and they are playing downstairs now!"
"I couldn't figure out who to dress up as," Tony told him, looking as serious as he could. "So instead, I just came as myself."
Sying scrunched up his face for a moment and looked thoughtful. "You … you can be… you can be a starpilot," he decided at last. "Cuz you make spaceships."
"Alright then," Tony said with a nod. "That's what I am."
"But you're a rebel," Sying said, putting a finger to his lips. "So it's a secret. Shhhh."
"You got it buddy," he said as he set him down. "Happy Birthday. Have fun. I'm just going to go see what all the guys are doing."
"Grammy K put a bomb there," Sying told him conspiratorially. "I heard her tell Hawkeye."
"That does not surprise me one bit," Tony said with a little laugh.
"So be careful!" Sying told him, leveling an index finger at him before he grinned and ran off to go play with the other kids some more, helping James snuggle Pepper for a moment because he hadn't said hi to her yet.
The rest of the junior team was trickling in, and while everyone was finally settling in to the little games that Annie and Jubilee had planned out for the kids, Wade and his … date … made their dramatic and very late entrance.
K was with Natasha and Storm, trying to referee the kids, when Wade sidled up to Kate with a little blonde. "Whatcha think, Katie-bug? Jack Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe. Eh?" He gestured to himself, and it didn't take Kate long at all to catch that the blonde looked exactly like K — though a touch more fair-skinned.
She tried to cover for her surprise but couldn't quite stop the double take K's way before she said, "I don't think I've met Ms. Monroe yet."
"Sure you have; she goes by Storm ... oh," Wade laughed a little too hard at his own joke, shaking his head and wiping away a false tear before he caught his breath and cleared his throat. "Katie-bug, this … is Lisbet."
The blonde extended her arm and gave Kate a bit of a shy smile. "Hello. Nice to meet his friends finally."
"I didn't know he was dating anyone or I'd have pressured him to bring you by sooner," Kate said as she recovered herself a bit more. She tipped her head and took in a breath. "So, I'm Kate, as you can tell, and… you gotta be related to K somehow. Cousin? Aunt?"
"She's my little sister," Lisbet replied with a tight smile. "And she's been avoiding me forever."
"Ah, well…" Kate looked a bit sheepish. "I'm so not the one to ask about that. Haven't seen my own sister in years."
"I'd have to say she's beat you out for evasion," Lisbet replied slowly.
Kate cleared her throat. "So ... how long have you been dating my favorite mercenary?" she asked conversationally.
"We met at New Years," Wade said excitedly. "At least ... face to face. I was talking to her before then on the phone. Email. Skype. All that."
Kate leaned toward Lisbet. "He means well," she said.
"I know," she said with a little smile in response. "He's got a good heart. He just can't control himself too well."
"Yeah, I know." Kate tilted her head. "How'd you meet, then? He seek you out?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact," she said with a nod. "He said you guys found my name in some old files of hers?"
"Umm." Kate looked toward Wade. "I guess? We weren't really looking for… That was with the whole… I mean, you saw JJ's whole spiel on TV a few years back, right?"
"I did," she said, nodding slowly. "And to be honest, I thought she was probably dead until that all started up, and you wouldn't believe the trouble I had when they started looking for her."
Kate winced in sympathy. "Ooh, remind me to introduce you to Tyler. He can totally relate to that."
"I managed," she said. "I don't like hiding out in the middle of nowhere, but that was my only option, really."
"Sorry to hear it," Kate said. "I didn't know there was someone out there who… well, I mean, we fixed it, but sorry about all the crap in the interim."
"Yeah, well. When most people's little sisters make a mess, it doesn't turn into a global catastrophe like Lilja does, apparently."
"Well, my big sister teamed up with the same guys who put a price on my head, so at least K's wasn't her own fault," Kate said with a shrug.
"If you say so," Lisbet said with a little shrug of her own.
Kate gave her a bit of a sideways glance. "It wasn't," she said flatly.
Lisbet looked her up and down and had the sense to at least look like she understood that she'd hit a nerve. "Alright."
Kate returned the once-over for a moment before she turned her shoulder a bit so she was better facing Wade and Eleanor. "Your Ms. America costume is amazing," she told Eleanor. "You should totally show America."
"Will you take me to find her?" Eleanor asked, catching on that there was an issue with Lisbet.
Kate grinned and took Eleanor by the hand to go find America and Lucy and inflict the adorable on the two of them, though of course Kate made it a point to pass by K and mutter "sisters suck" on her way past.
"What?" K asked, spinning on the spot to Kate before she looked the other way to see Wade conversing with Annie, Jess and … "Oh, crap." Now, it was a simple matter of what to do about her sister. She couldn't ditch and leave the kids behind. And considering how much fun they were having … nope.
"I suppose someone would care if I killed her, right?" K said to Natasha with a little tight, strained look. "It's not like Wade has too many dating opportunities."
"Well, killing is so final," Natasha said with a raised eyebrow.
"She wouldn't really die," K said, rolling her head Natasha's way. "But it would wreck her dress."
"Then the healing is a family trait," Natasha surmised before she looked over at Wade and Lisbet. "You don't have to talk to her. I'll cover it."
"You're my favorite Avenger," K said, perfectly straight faced in an emotionless tone.
"Of course I am," Natasha replied without even blinking. "No competition, really."
"Well. You're my favorite girl Avenger. I got a thing for the little stabby one."
Natasha waved her hand. "I'm your favorite Avenger. Logan doesn't count in this equation when you're married to him," she said matter-of-factly.
"Oh, well, in that case, the title is yours." K just gave her a little smirk as the little ones started their attempts to bob for apples.
Krissy was cheating and using her tail when she stuck her face in to pull the apples closer, though when Sying pointed it out, she very quickly told him that he was just a sore loser. Elin and Chance cheated in entirely a different manner — trying to go at the same time so they could help each other corral their apples, giggling madly when they weren't half submerged.
"You gotta use re-courses," Zoe explained to Sying patiently when he tried to point out the cheating. "Mom says that all the time."
Still, the cheating little ones didn't get too far before Chance laughed and just picked his apple up. Elin gave him another kiss, and the two of them took their snitched apples over to Tammy and Tyler to turn them into caramel-covered apples.
Charlie had worked hard to get her apple without cheating, but when it was Gerry's turn, she broke into sudden and inexplicable giggles until he was halfway bent over and she just rushed over and dunked his head all the way under. When he came back up, he was wide-eyed for all of a second before he saw Charlie giggling madly, and then Jess had to pull him back because he tried to just straight up pick her up — super strength from his mom and all —and throw her in, all while she giggled and he told her, "Turnspouts, turnspouts" and Zoe was clearly encouraging him with her best cheers.
Krissy shook her head and her finger at Charlie with the hand that didn't have her caramel apple. "No dunking. That's mean."
"I don't mind," Gerry assured her. "It's silly."
"Because you li-i-ike her," Krissy sang out.
Gerry wrinkled his nose at her. "I li-i-i-i-i-ike silly," he said with his hands on his hips.
"But you wanna kiss that silly," Krissy giggled.
Gerry grinned at Krissy and ruffled her hair. "You're so little," he told her with a very big brotherly look before he headed off to go try again to bob for his apple, though Krissy was giggling madly when she noticed that he waited until he could see Charlie before he did so.
Meanwhile, Sying, with his caramel apple in hand, had slipped over to where Wade and Lisbet were so he could grin up at Lisbet. "It's my birthday," he told her importantly.
She turned his way with a surprised look on her face before she crouched down. "Well, happy birthday, handsome," Lisbet replied with a little smile. "How old are you today?"
"Three," he said happily, holding up the correct number of fingers.
She looked a little bit surprised at that. "You … are very tall and very smart for just being three," she said. "Are you sure it's three?"
He nodded and counted off one-two-three. "And next year I will be four, and maybe I will go to school. Dad thinks these schools are slow."
"For a boy as smart as you, he might just be right," she replied.
He beamed at her and took a big bite of caramel apple before he continued. "You look like Grammy K but with different hair. Are you being her for your costume?"
Lisbet didn't quite know how to respond to that, but she gave it her best try. "No, I'm an old movie star for my costume. Did you say Grammy? Where are your mom and dad?"
He giggled and nodded. "Dad is playing hide and drink things with allll the boys," he explained. "Mommy is Princess Leia."
Lisbet looked up at Princess Leia and shook her head. No way. She could hardly believe that it had been long enough since she'd seen her sister that there were two generations of little ones she didn't know about. "Is your daddy going to come up here so I can meet him?" she asked, then whispered, "Your Granny is my little sister."
He went totally wide-eyed at that. "Really?" he asked, all excitement and bounces.
"Really," she said, nodding a little bit. "But I've never met your mom and dad."
"No worries," he said, holding his hand up to indicate that she should stay put. "My dad loves people. I get him." With that, he skipped off, surprising Lisbet a bit more when he skirted around the adults who might have noticed him sneaking off to the men's party by climbing up to the ceiling and scooting along from there.
When he got down to the lab, he happily climbed into his dad's lap while they were all still playing cards as the men in the room looked bewildered by the sudden appearance of a tiny Stormtrooper. "Dad, did you know Grammy K has a sister?" he asked without any introduction or fanfare. "She is a movie star!"
Logan slowly turned his head Sying's way but didn't say a word as he tried to figure out what exactly was going on. Noh, meanwhile, picked up his little boy a bit better and tipped his head at Sying. "Does she have a sister with her costumes?" he asked, since clearly that was the reasonable explanation.
"No!" Sying giggled. "Her costume is a movie star. Being a sister's not a costume," he said as if this was obvious.
Billy glanced up from his phone a second later. "Kate says her name's Lisbet."
Logan narrowed his eyes and tossed his cards down. "I fold," he said before he got up and started heading for the door.
"Dad, Dad, we gotta go too. You gotta meet Sister-Grammy K!" Sying insisted as he pushed Noh's cards down on the table with one hand — and since they were face-up, Noh folded anyway.
He scooped Sying up with a sigh and set him on his shoulders. "Alright. Let's go meet this person," he said.
"We'll deal you out for a few hands," Clint called out, knocking his boot against Barney's sleeping form — his brother was already passed out, his head tipped back in the chair next to him as he'd started drinking even more heavily than before when he realized that he was losing. "Getting short on players lately."
Noh chuckled at that before he headed up, and Sying wriggled to be let down so he could skip over to Lisbet and Wade — and Logan.
"Where'd you find her, Wade?" Logan asked, though he was more or less blocking their view of where K was with Natasha still.
"Tucked away in Miami," Wade said with a grin.
"And you were thinking — what? Happy family reunion that clearly neither of them were looking into?" he asked.
"Little bit? But also ... I was thinking nice stabby lady friend who didn't run away screaming from my face?" Wade shrugged openly.
"Well, I've had enough of this," Lisbet said, stepping quickly around both of them. "I've waited too long already, and I'm not going to stand around waiting for her to say hello even after I came this far to see her." Before she could take more than a step or two, Logan grabbed a hold of her arm and stopped all of her forward motion.
"Hold on a sec, lady," he said, keeping his tone low so that only someone with enhanced hearing could catch it. "If I find out you used Wade here just to get to my wife, you're gonna wish you didn't heal."
Lisbet goggled at him openly for a moment, her mouth opening and closing not unlike a fish before she let out a low sound from the back of her throat. "What … you've got to be kidding me," she said, her tone almost to a hiss. "You think I'd get involved with a man just to see her?"
Logan leaned closer to her for just a moment. "All the same? You better be here for the right reasons. I don't take too kindly to anyone screwin' with my friends."
As Lisbet looked insulted further, Wade couldn't have been happier and as soon as Logan let Lisbet's arm go, Wade nearly wrapped himself around Logan in a hug. "I knew you cared!" he mock-whispered even as Logan rolled his eyes and shoved him off.
Lisbet was taking the most direct route as the two men shared a look and both headed over — Wade taking the path of least resistance behind Lisbet and Logan darting off to cut around to K before they could get there.
"There a reason you're still avoiding her?" Logan asked as he stepped up next to K.
K took a second to look between him and the quickly-approaching, irritated sister. "I don't like her. At all. And she has shit taste in men."
"Then it's a good thing he has the same taste in women," Natasha said under her breath on the other side of K.
"It's nice to be introduced to your family secondhand," Lisbet said airily as she glared at K. "Your grandson's adorable, by the way."
"He really is," K replied quickly. "You're lucky you got in here. Usually, his father's security system weeds out the aggressive visitors."
"Wasn't feeling too aggressive when I first walked in the door," Lisbet pointed out. "Wade painted it like it would be a nice party — family and friends, that sort of thing. Didn't realize I'd be getting the cold shoulder all night just for existing."
"I … had no idea you were screwing around with Wade, or I'd have given it to you earlier," K said with her chin tipped up. "Though maybe if I had a little warning you were coming, I could have prepared."
"Why do you think I didn't call ahead?" Lisbet shook her head. "Apparently, the only way to see my sister is to just show up — forget playing nice."
"You're both doing a shit job of that," Logan said. "So what is it that's got you two still sniping after... what … seventy years or so?"
"Oh, I don't know. We could start with my thinking she was dead until a couple years ago when she was on national TV?" Lisbet said with a bit of heat. "The whole grieving process upended on itself? Family torn apart and I find out on television she wasn't even gone?"
"I'd ask if you tried to find her, but…." Logan put his arm around K's back gently. "Not like you could have."
"Of course not. She was always the sneakier one. And then I stop by to find out how she's been, and look at what I missed." Lisbet gestured at the ongoing party. "Nieces, nephews, grand-nieces and nephews — how long have you had this adorable family and I didn't know about it to spoil the kids?"
The descriptor took K off-guard by a fair bit, and she went for straight honesty instead of the pure snark she'd been dealing out. "Not that long, really. We've only been married for three years. You didn't miss that much."
"Three years, two kids from this marriage. What about Princess Leia over there and the little white-haired kid?"
"Mine by adoption," Logan said. "More or less."
Lisbet relaxed the slightest bit on hearing that at least it hadn't been a few decades of missing out on family, though she still looked annoyed. "If I'd known, I'd have asked you to my last wedding. You'd have liked him; he was a good soldier."
"Still stuck on soldiers, huh?" K asked. "Not terribly surprised."
"Like you're that much different. An Avenger and an X-Man? Come on."
"He's more durable than most soldiers," K teased as she elbowed Logan in the ribs a little.
"Which is perfect for you," Lisbet agreed. "I'd have liked to see you get settled down with someone like that. What happened — forget you had a sister to have at the wedding party?"
K took a deep breath and crossed her arms over her chest. "You couldn't have gone anyhow. We were kind of … it was a rough time. Security wise."
"So send me an announcement at least!"
"I thought you were dead, honestly, you old battle axe," she said with a little shrug. "How would I have known otherwise?"
Lisbet shook her head and glared for a moment before she pinched the bridge of her nose. "You and I both know it'd take a lot more than a few years' age gap to kill me."
"Yeah, but you've never been a fighter either. If you dealt with half the crap I've messed with … well." For the first time, K gave her a little bit of a crooked smirk and raised one eyebrow a little bit.
"Yeah, I gathered that from the book," Lisbet said. "I'm really sorry all that happened to you."
Both of the little ferals drooped a bit on hearing that, and Logan swore under his breath. "Frikkin' book."
"What, you think I was honestly going to pass up a chance to find out what happened to my baby sister?" Lisbet raised an eyebrow at him. "And get pissed on her behalf? She's … her. But she's still my baby sister."
"I'm not the baby. Stop that," K half growled.
"You are now," Lisbet said, though without any heat.
"Doesn't change the fact that you're wrong."
Lisbet rolled her eyes. "So, are you going to introduce me to the kids? I've already met the adorable Jedi grandson."
"Well, here I figured you knew everything," K said under her breath before she turned to Natasha and nodded so she could gather up the little ones. "What about you? Is it just you, or are there, like … forty kids wandering around with your hairline?"
Lisbet let out a sigh. "Just me," she said, sounding a bit resigned to it.
"That … sorry to hear that," K replied with a little sigh as the two little gingerbread dealers showed up. James had already attached himself to K's leg and was staring up at the stranger with a frown on his face, and Elin stood between her parents with a look of distrust on her face that was a little too familiar for Lisbet.
"James and Elin," K said. "This is your Aunt Lizzie."
Lisbet crouched down with a look on her face that was far warmer than anything she'd given K. "Are you having a good Halloween?" she asked sweetly.
James side-stepped around K's leg to hide a bit better as Elin nodded her head and held on to her father's hand.
"Well, it's very nice to meet you both. You look amazing in your costumes," Lisbet said.
"Tack så mycket," Elin said very clearly as James quietly muttered out the much shorter 'tack'.
"Oh, your Svenska is very good," Lisbet said with a delighted laugh.
Elin gave her a shy smile and tried to hide behind Logan's hand.
"You actually getting serious with Wade?" Logan asked, drawing her attention back.
"We've been dating long enough," Lisbet said with a little smile. "And… it is nice to have someone I won't outlive this time. So, yes, I think so."
Logan raised an eyebrow and looked up at Wade. "Well it's about damn time. Don't screw this one up. She might just stab you."
Wade put a hand on his heart and grinned. "I would never."
"I'm not worried," Lisbet said with a small smile. "He's a good guy."
"He is," Logan agreed. "But most people can't get past the rest of his personality."
"Well, as Lilja likes to point out, I am older. I'd like to think I got patient with age."
"You sure got blonder," K said airily as she looked out to where the kids were roughhousing.
Lisbet followed her gaze for a moment and sighed as she took Wade's hand. "Sure."
"I don't suppose anyone's shown you around the general access part of the tour?" K asked as she excused the little ones in Swedish to let them play more with their friends.
"Not yet, no." Lisbet gave her sister a little smile. "I'd really like to see it, though."
K turned to Natasha for a moment. "Can you watch over Hansel and Gretel for a little bit, Mama Spider? I think I'll keep my sweetheart with me for this one."
"I'll try not to fatten them up too much."
"You'll play hell getting them to eat much more sugar anyhow," Logan said. "Saw her turn down Chance's cookie when I got up here."
"And you know she's done when she says no to Chance." Natasha shook her head with a little smirk.
"It's a phase," he replied, pointing a finger at her.
Natasha smiled sweetly. "You know that's what people said every time Clint and I got back together."
"Yeah? Maybe it still is," he countered before he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.
"Don't stab anyone until after the kids are asleep," she whispered his way.
"I'm not makin' any promises," Logan called out as he and K led Wade and Lisbet out — away from the party.
While the not-quite-so-happy family reunion was going on in the corner of the party, Gerry and Chance were playing together and blissfully unaware of any drama. Gerry had let his best friend borrow his screwdriver, and Chance loved the noise it made every time he pressed the button as he went around "zapping" everything.
"My mom can zap things without screwdrivers," Gerry said proudly as the two boys played heroes together. "She says since I got her sticking to walls and strength and stuff maybe as I get bigger I'll get that too."
"My dad can zap things with his eyes," Chance responded without missing a beat.
"Yeah, I know," Gerry giggled.
"Your dad zaps things with arrows like Kate," Chance added as he pretended to shoot the sonic screwdriver like a bow.
"That's why they have the same name," Gerry agreed as he climbed onto the back of a chair to dramatically fall "victim" to one of Chance's shots. He hung upside down on the chair with his head over the edge for a while, grinning crookedly, before he asked suddenly, "How come you like Elin?"
"Cuz I do," Chance said with a shrug.
"Yeah, but how come?"
"I dunno." Chance shrugged again. "Cuz I do."
Gerry wrinkled his nose at his best friend for a moment and then just shook his head. "O-kay. You're weird."
"Nu-uh," Chance said, shaking his head.
But Gerry just giggled and climbed back up onto the seat before he declared, "I'm a Cyberman! DELETE!" and started to chase Chance around the living room, screaming "delete" at him the whole time as Chance pulled out some of his best action hero moves in trying to take down his new foe.
Annie, meanwhile, had been caught up in games of pretend as well. Since Krissy, Kari, and Charlie were all princesses, Charlie had decided that Annie had to try to "capture" all of them. Cody was doing his level best to help, too, chasing after Kari and flapping his wings as Annie caught Krissy and tickled her mercilessly now that she had her "prisoner."
Of course, Kari solved her little raven problem by climbing up the wall to get away from Cody, but that had the little boy incredibly upset as he stared up at the ceiling with wide eyes. "No fair, no fair!" he called out at Kari as the pink elfling giggled impishly and stuck her tongue out.
James had been playing with Zoe as they traded candies that they didn't like for ones that they did when they heard Cody start to get upset, and Zoe frowned for a second before she looked over at James with a little smirk. "Watch," she instructed James with a wink before she skipped over to where Cody was. Once she got there, she grabbed Cody's hand and gave him a little squeeze before she squared her shoulders and looked up at Kari and very clearly called out, "Chicken Hawk!"
Kari gasped dramatically as if this was the worst possible insult as she looked over at Zoe. "Nu-uh," she said insistently, but Zoe just gave her a smug grin.
"Uh-huh," Zoe countered, one hand on her hip and the other holding Cody's. "Chicken Hawk on the ceiling!"
"Nein."
"Da." Zoe looked even more smug the more upset Kari looked. "Chicken Hawk, Chicken Hawk, Chicken Hawk," she sang out over and over again as James dissolved into little giggles.
"Am not!"
"Chicken Hawk, Chicken Hawk!" Zoe continued to sing as Cody scrubbed at his face to wipe his tears and looked at her in something like awe.
Kari pouted and crossed her arms over her chest, her tail switching angrily behind her, but she did start to climb down from the ceiling all the same — all while Kate, who had come over to help her fellow evil queen "capture" the princesses, just watched the whole display in something like shock.
"I blame Logan," Kate whispered to Annie, who couldn't help but laugh at the whole situation.
"Of course you do," she said, still laughing.
Of course, once Kari was down from the ceiling, it was a much fairer fight all around, as Annie and Kate had their little raven to help — and Kate had a small army of little bamf snowmen who seemed to be playing both sides, helping Kate capture anyone who wasn't an elfling but teleporting Kari and Krissy out of "danger" at the same time. But James and Zoe had also joined in on the side of the good guys — and it didn't take long for the rest of the kids to join in, too, with Chance and Gerry joining in from their own games.
Of course, once Cody found himself as the only kid on the "bad guy" side, he stopped in the middle of chasing Sying and frowned. "Inna be good," he whined.
Chance thought about it for a second before he rushed over to Elin. "Can I borrow my hat again?" he asked, and when Elin nodded, he beamed at her, took his hat back, and ran back to where his little brother was so he could put his Prince Philip hat on Cody's head. "There. Now you are a prince too!"
Cody beamed up at his brother and let out a delighted little giggle before he darted in and hugged Chance — and hurriedly joined in the fighting against the two evil queens.
It didn't take long before Annie and Kate were "vanquished" — though it was definitely the dramatic fake bamf deaths and their pretended mourning over their dead queen Kate that had the kids in hysterics of giggles and laughter.
Finally, though, the kids started to slow down, and the first sign that it was time to start putting everyone to bed was when Krissy and Sying started up with their usual arguing.
The kids were playing more pretend, this time playing superheroes — being X-Men or Avengers or whoever they wanted to be as they "fought" the bamfs by tackling them — and the fight started when Sying had valiantly chased after a bamf who was chasing Krissy across the ceiling, since he was one of the few who could get up there too.
Of course, as soon as Krissy noticed what he was doing, she spun on her heel to face him with her hands on her hips. "I don't need your help!"
"We're working together," Sying tried to explain diplomatically.
"I don't need it."
"Everybody need help," Sying shot back.
"I don't need it."
Kate and Annie glanced at each other before Kate let out a sigh and looked at one of the bamfs, who nodded and teleported over to grab Krissy and pulled her down off the ceiling, since Kate couldn't reach up there. Kate picked up her little purple elfling with a long sigh. "Honey, you have to play nice. When you work together, you help each other. You would help Sying too, wouldn't you?"
"That different."
"It's really not," Kate said patiently. She smiled up at Sying, who had his usual kicked puppy look when he got in a fight with Krissy, and she tipped her head to indicate the hurt little boy. "You hurt Sying's feelings, Krissy."
Krissy looked up at Sying for a moment, her tail switching behind her at just the tip before she let out a long and discontented sigh. "Sorry," she muttered out, sounding like she had been forced to apologize when Kate hadn't even asked her to yet.
"We keep playing?" Sying offered with both eyebrows raised.
"No, honey, it's time to go to bed," Jubilee said as she joined the other two ladies with the unruly "heroes."
Sying stuck his lower lip out a bit at that answer, and he crossed his arms over his chest for a moment and grumped. "Don't wanna."
But before Jubilee could even ask, the bamfs had teleported Sying down from off the ceiling as well — right into her arms. She pressed a little kiss to Sying's forehead as soon as she had hold of him, and though he squirmed a bit, it wasn't long at all before he and all the other kids were all headed in different directions, being shepherded by bamfs and parents alike — until everyone under the age of ten was well and truly either tucked into bed or on their way home. And the rest of the partygoers were either taking their kids home or making their way down to the lab to retrieve the drunken boys from their poker game.
Natasha wasn't surprised in the least to find that Clint was startlingly more sober than he would have been usually, as he was keeping half an eye on Barney — though he needn't have bothered, as Barney was pretty well zonked out, and Simone came to retrieve him after saying her goodbyes to Kate.
"You cleaned him out, didn't you?" Natasha asked Clint with a little smirk as she watched Barney and Simone head off.
"He needed a good cleaning," Clint defended. "And besides, I checked with Simone to make sure they had plenty to get back home."
"Of course you did," Natasha said with a fond smile as she kissed his cheek and hooked arms with him to pull him to his feet and bring him back upstairs to where Zoe was waiting for them, completely curled up asleep on the loveseat with a blanket Cody had given her that she had a death grip on.
"We'll bring it back in the morning if it's an issue," Clint decided when they realized they couldn't get to the blanket without waking Zoe — and with that, the little Romanoff family packed up and headed out.
The story was about the same for pretty much everyone else as, once the kids were out, the ladies headed down to grab the stragglers from the poker game — the ones that hadn't been retrieved by their designated costumed drivers while the kids were being wrestled into sleeping.
Annie and Kate, of course, shared little grins at the state of their boys — both of them wearing wide grins and very much snuggly now that they'd been liquored up. Annie was half giggling as Scott was leaning on her heavily, though Logan didn't miss the little look she shot him over Scott's shoulder with a mouthed out 'thank you' — clearly pleased to see her husband had such a good time and got to relax with his friends for a few hours.
As for Noh, Jubilee wasn't sure if she was disappointed or not that her little be-bopper wasn't having one of his "gravity-defying" moments that usually came with his drinking, though that probably had something to do with the fact that he was entirely wrapped up in conversation with Peter Quill. Which… was actually really helpful when a very, very pregnant Kitty popped in to see how things were going on, and it was clear Kitty did not want to have to drag Peter anywhere, so having Noh mostly upright and sober to help with that part was definitely a good thing.
Wade was in high spirits by the time he had gathered up Eleanor and Lisbet — who had simply fallen in love with Annie, deciding that the two of them could be good friends, especially when Annie made mention that they should come back for Thanksgiving if they didn't have other plans.
As soon as they left, K's shoulders dropped a bit, and she gathered up the little ones to head up, complaining that she really needed a shower after how the night had turned out.
