Peter went to bed easily enough, falling asleep to a princess movie he had picked out in the common room with Bruce and Natasha. He adored Natasha and would do just about anything to spend time with her.

Emmy was a different story. She simply refused to go to sleep. Clint and Bucky had tried everything but any time they approached her room, Emmy would start to cry.

"Come on, Em," begged Clint, rocking the toddler soothingly as he paced the hall near the bedrooms. "Please, just try to go to sleep."

Emmy shook her head and cried harder, frustrated with herself for not being able to vocalize what she was so upset about. She wanted to explain that she wanted her Daddy and Papa, not Uncle Clint or Uncle Bucky. She wanted to tell Daddy and Papa that she was sorry, that she would try harder, anything they wanted, but they didn't have to leave. And she knew they would come back – they always came back – but she just couldn't shake the feeling that they left because she quit talking again.

"Come on, baby girl," said Clint. "Daddy and Papa will be back in the morning. Please, just go to bed. The faster you fall asleep, the faster you wake up and morning will get here."

Emmy wanted to tell Uncle Clint that time would not speed up just because she was sleeping but that would mean talking.

"Your turn," said Clint after another hour, handing Emmy off to Bucky and going to sit down in the kitchen with coffee.

Bucky sat down in the hall, leaning against the wall with Emmy on his lap. He didn't try to talk to her, he didn't say anything at all because he recognized the symptoms of separation anxiety for what they were. Quite frankly, he thought it was fitting that the two children had found their way into the family the way they did. He knew that Emmy had wormed her way into Tony's heart by getting him to fix her robot and needing someone to love. Tony had always been a sucker for a sob story – he had taken in the Avengers, after all – and Emmy was her own brand of special that needed the care of people who also had the same problems. Peter landed in their lives not because he was unwanted but because someone cared enough to search for a better life for him. Steve had fallen in love with the kid right away, recognizing the same spirit in Peter that he had, standing up for the little guy and a bit too mouthy at the wrong times. They needed the hero's almost as much as the hero's needed them.

"Uncle Bucky?" whispered Emmy after two hours of sitting quietly.

"Yes?" said Bucky, trying not to glow with pride at the fact that Emmy had spoken to him.

"Daddy and Papa are coming back, right?" said Emmy, blinking up at Bucky with her purple eyes.

"Always," said Bucky. "They could never leave you."

"What if they do?"

"They won't."

"But what if they get stolen or hurt when they're fighting and they can't come back?"

"Then you have an entire family here who will take care of you just like right now."

Emmy nodded, seemingly satisfied with the response.

-Home Base-

"I've missed this," said Steve, laying on his back in bed, Tony curled up against his bare chest. "Just you and me. It's nice."

"It is," agreed Tony. "We should do this more often."

Steve hummed in agreement, kissing the side of Tony's head, messing up the slightly sweaty brown locks even more.

"Do you ever think that maybe Emmy and Peter would be better off without us?" asked Tony quietly. In the dark of Steve's old rooms, with just his husband to hear him, Tony could afford to admit weakness. "Like, maybe we are causing them more problems than if they were adopted by a normal family. I mean, Peter's been kidnapped once, Emmy twice, we can't really say we've done our job protecting them."

"You're worried because Emmy is silent again," said Steve, reading between the lines and cutting to the heart of the matter. "I thought we agreed to try therapy with both of them."

"We did. But Steve, think about how much shit she has been through since she met us."

"And think about how much she went through on a daily basis before she met us," countered Steve. "Baby, I know it's been hard but we give that little girl a stable environment – as stable as we can. Yes, the kidnappings have to stop but every day Emmy wakes up and knows that she is loved and doesn't have to wonder if she will be fed or hit and punished or locked away. She'll start talking again."

"We shouldn't have left her so soon," said Tony, burying his face in the side of Steve's neck to hide from his guilt. "She's going to think we've abandoned her."

"And she'll know that's not true when we come back for her in the morning," said Steve.

Tony sighed, still feeling guilty for leaving his little girl for the night. He knew that the others would care for her, he knew that Bucky and Clint were probably spoiling her rotten with all the attention they would shower her with and Peter was probably soaking up the special time he got with Natasha, time void of little sisters and hovering fathers.

"I'm going to take Peter out for a date tomorrow," declared Tony.

"Oh?"

"Yes. I think we need some bonding time. I know how difficult it can be when one kid needs extra attention like Emmy does. It limits a lot of the stuff we can do as a family. So I want to spend tomorrow and just take the day to do whatever Peter wants, just the two of us."

"I think that's a wonderful idea," said Steve. "That'll leave me free to spend the day with Emmy. I've been wanting to try painting with her anyway."

Tony smiled and kissed his way up Steve's neck until he got to his husbands ear.

"Now how about we take advantage of these last few child free hours?" suggested Tony, causing Steve to laugh and flip them over, pinning Tony to the bed and kissing him fiercely.

*Sorry it took so long! I got distracted by other ideas and then got engaged, which I wasn't expecting (but excited about!) so it took a bit longer than expected. Always-Ari