A/N: Holy crap, I feel terrible! It's been way too long since I've updated this and I feel awful about it, but I just got completely slammed these past few months. It was assignment after assignment (there was a nine page paper involved) and I just finished up my last final for college today. I have a week of midterms to look forward to next week, but after that I have Winter Break so I will hopefully be updating more. Again, I am terribly sorry, but to try to make up for it, if you review this chapter, I'll send you a sneak peek of the next one as soon as it's written. So, on to the story...

Natasha's mouth dropped open as she took in the scene around her and she turned on her heel, giving Kristoff her full Black Widow glare and the man shivered under it. "I thought you were supposed to fix them!"

"The machine would have worked but another button was pushed and… this happened."

Natasha sighed as she looked at what had become of the Avengers and Maria. In place of six children were six babies. Their traits were still obvious and it was fairly easy to figure out who was who. Natasha looked to Pepper. "I think we're going to need to go shopping again."

Baby Tony started wailing louder and Pepper frowned, hurrying forward and lifting him. Baby Bruce was already falling asleep, Maria was sucking on her foot, and Clint had an "I just went to the bathroom on myself" look on his face while reaching for Natasha. Steve was watching everyone, and Thor was laughing at everything, the high pitched giggle making Natasha and Pepper start to laugh along. Natasha picked up Clint and grimaced at the smell coming from his even more miniature clothes. Natasha turned to Pepper who was cuddling Tony. "Um, Pepper, I think we've got an even bigger problem than before. They're babies. Taking care of six kids was one thing, but six babies? Can we do that with just the two of us?"

Pepper shrugged. "We'll have to make it work. We don't exactly have another choice."

Natasha looked down at Clint, who was playing with her hair and trying to grab the arrow necklace she was wearing. Then she looked back to Kristoff. "How old are they?"

"I can't tell for sure, Lady Romanoff, but I'd guess they are around eleven months old."

Natasha frowned. "JARVIS, can you shed any light on this?"

"I would estimate that they are each around the age estimated by Mr. Svenson."

Natasha pursed her lips. "Great. Alright, I'm going to change Clint because he stinks. I need you two to watch the remaining five while I do so and then I'm going to call Fury because I'd say we're all out of our element."

Pepper and Kristoff nodded and Natasha left the room. Hurrying up to her floor, Natasha ran the bath, filling the tub with a couple inches of water before undressing Clint and deciding against keeping the clothes he was wearing, realizing that they were a far cry from salvageable. Wiping up Clint's mess as best she could, Natasha set him into the bathtub and Clint's eyes widened for a moment before he smiled widely and started splashing around in the tub. Within minutes, Natasha was completely soaked and she chuckled. She let Clint splash in the tub for a few more minutes before plucking him out. Clint froze for a few seconds before letting loose a howl that could wake the dead.

Natasha rolled her eyes, wrapping him up in a towel. "Yes, yes, I know you like the bath, but you can't stay in there all day."

Clint continued screaming as Natasha dried him off with a fluffy towel and then tried to figure out what to dress Clint in. He was a lot smaller that before and Natasha eventually decided to just slip a pair of kids underwear on him and duct tape them to make them fit before finding the smallest shirt she could find (it ended up being one of Maria's old ones) to put on him, seeing how she had no other options. She figured she'd sneak out of Stark Tower sometime later and get some supplies for the six babies. She still couldn't believe they were babies. It seemed so strange that the six people she knew and were friends with were now reverted to their baby-selves.

After Natasha returned to the lab, she found Kristoff working on the machine, frowning as he tried to put the pieces of the wrecked device back together. Natasha sighed as she watched him. "So, any luck?"

Kristoff shrugged. "I'm afraid I'm unable to shed any light at this point."

Natasha nodded, looking to Pepper, who had Tony in one arm and a fussy Bruce in the other. Before Pepper could move, Natasha grinned and shifted Clint so she could dig her phone out of her pocket, where she snapped a quick picture of the three. Natasha had to admit that they looked utterly adorable, Pepper and her two Science Bros. Pepper's head snapped up when she heard the picture being taken and she could to little more than smile when she saw, as Tony was tugging on her necklace with one hand and grabbing a fistful of her hair with his other, and Bruce whimpered and buried his face into her chest. Natasha chuckled at the sight and set Clint down next to a still-laughing Thor and a dozing Maria. Steve was awake and watching everyone, quiet, but not looking like he was getting upset or like he was going to mess himself as Clint had. He seemed simply calm and curious.

For the next hour, Kristoff worked tirelessly on the machine and Pepper and Natasha tried to figure out how to possible care for six babies. The two women had managed to find a place to all the babies to sleep, by pushing two of the twin sized beds into the common room where they drilled planks of wood onto the sides of the beds to prevent the six from rolling out of the beds. Natasha then added a couple smaller pillows to the beds to cushion the planks so no one would hit their head should they roll over. It was three babies to a bed, Tony, Bruce, and Steve in one and Thor, Clint, and Maria in the other, all lined up on the bed-turned-sideways. When that was done, Pepper sat on the couch while Natasha hurried to the store to buy some supplies for the kids. She bought diapers, baby clothes, baby food, and she found she couldn't resist adding some toys to the mix when she thought about Baby Thor's laughing and Baby Clint's smiles.

With a smile of her own, Natasha checked out and drove back to the Tower. She had moved most of the bags from the car to the elevator and was grabbing the last few bags when she sensed movement behind her. Standing up straight, Natasha dropped the bags and raised her fists, preparing for a fight.

Behind her stood a man about a foot taller than her five feet three inches and at least a hundred pounds heavier. Natasha didn't bat an eye, simply going on the defense as he rushed towards her, but she soon turned the tables and had him on the ground, her foot at his throat. "Who are you?"

The man gave a hoarse laugh and dislodged what had looked to be a tooth, murmuring a "Hail Hydra" before preparing to bite down, but Natasha had had to remove non-edible items from numerous kids' mouths and before the man could bite down on the substance that would no doubt end his life, Natasha bent down and pulled the poison from his mouth, his teeth clacking together when he bit down hard, just missing Natasha's fingers and the poison. Natasha smirked. "No need to overreact. I think I'll call my boss down here to talk to you about that."

The man paled and Natasha pulled out her cell to call Fury. The director picked up on the second ring. "Please tell me you called to say that the Avengers are back to normal."

Natasha grimaced. "I'm afraid not. If anything, it's worse, but I did managed to knock out a Hydra agent. He's taking a little nap right now, but he should be awake by the time some SHIELD agents get here to detain him."

There was a sigh and Natasha heard a few murmured curses and then orders being yelled out. "A team is on their way to your position." Fury's voice took on an angry tone. "Care to tell me what you mean by 'it's worse'?"

Natasha frowned. "Well, they're babies now, Sir. Around ten months old."

"WHAT?! WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?!"

Natasha cringed, holding the phone slightly away from her ear as her boss yelled at her. "A machine was brought from Asgard by one of their doctors. Thor recognized him and when the kids were going to be returned to their normal selves, Tony accidentally knocked something over and one thing led to another and a button got pressed before the machine went off. It resulted in the kids turning into babies and the machine was knocked over and broken. The Asgardian doctor is working on it now, but there's no telling how long it'll take to be fixed, or even if it can be fixed."

There was a short silence as Fury took the news in before a more controlled, but still angry, voice came over the phone. "Fix it, Romanoff. The team should be there soon. We'll take care of him, you get the Avengers and my Assistant Director back to work."

"Yes, sir."

There was a click when Fury hung up and Natasha sighed, waiting for a few minutes in the underground parking garage for the team to arrive. The wait was short and soon enough, Natasha was gathering the dropped bags and entering the building.

A/N 2: There it is. Questions, comments, concerns? And am I the only one who's been completely addicted to the song Hanging Tree from Mockingjay Part 1? I haven't seen the movie yet, but, man, I love that song! Again, those who review will receive a sneak-peek, so make sure you sign in if/when you review so I can send it to you! And with that, I bit thee farewell, my faithful readers!