Tony wakes with a sneeze.
If one has never woken themselves up with a sneeze, one would be hard pressed to understand exactly why and how it's so unpleasant. The pull behind the eyes is difficult to describe with words, though easier with frantic hand gestures. The painful full-body jerk is somewhat easier.
The breath stolen by the sneeze is not.
If one wanted to really know what it's like, there needs to be consideration for how the body functions during sleep. Most people have heard that the body conducts its most vigorous internal activity during sleep: muscle repair, tissue growth, and management of memory are a few.
But that's not all. Blood pressure drops. Muscles in the limbs tense up. Body temperature lowers. Breathing slows.
Now sneeze.
Needless to say, nobody in Tony's bed is happy.
"Ew," a small body in front of his face complains. Tony's too wrapped up in trying to catch his breath while not breathing through the nose, because of course his flu couldn't let him off easy, to answer.
He sneezes again.
"Are you sick?" another voice pipes up from his other side. Several tiny hands touch his shoulders, arms, back. He'd somehow turned onto his side in his sleep.
"Rrgh," Tony replies, startled to find that his hands have been trapped under a surprising weight. He wiggles his fingers experimentally; someone squeals and the weight disappears. His hands immediately come up to rub at his eyes before opening them.
The tiny face of one Clint Barton fills up his vision. A shock of red curls behind him suggests that Natalia's awake, as well. He can hear Steve snuffling somewhere to his right.
Another hand comes out of nowhere and presses on his forehead, clammy and small. Bruce says, "I think he's got a fever."
"A fever!" Steve echoes, alarmed. Tony startles at the sudden shuffling and shifting and opens his mouth to say something, only to be cut off by a long, loud yawn. When he's done, he finds a too-large t-shirt tickling his nose.
"I'm fine," Tony finally manages, pushing gently at Steve's chest. The boy sits back on his heels and stares at him, eyes wide and worried. "No fever."
"But fevers are dangerous!" the blond exclaims, fisting his hands in his shirt. "People die!"
There's a chorus of gasps.
"I'm not going to die," Tony says before anyone else can add to the drama. "I promise. I'm just getting over a cold, is all."
"So you're not going to die?" asks Natalia, leaning on his bare leg.
"I'm not going to die," Tony promises, wondering when this became his life.
"Good," she says, and hops off the bed to march her way into the bathroom. They all watch her close the door before scrambling to follow her. Well, Steve stays, and Thor - Tony checks - is the softly snoring weight at his back.
"Are you sure?" he asks quietly, and Tony smiles in what he hopes is a reassuring manner.
"Very sure," he answers firmly. "I had a doctor make sure and everything." He thinks of Bruce, the adult, waving an old-fashioned thermometer in Tony's face and grins.
Steve looks a little less subdued now. "If you're sure," he says, and hops off the bed to join the others.
Thor snores.
"Right," Tony says to himself, stretching. "Now what?"
"Now," Jarvis answers, "the children need breakfast."
Breakfast? Tony jumps, panicked. "Do I even have food?" he demands. He dives out of bed and makes his way to the kitchen.
"You have large quantities of frozen waffles and fruit," Jarvis assures him. Tony nods, relaxing slowly.
"How about drinks?" he asks. "Do I have anything besides water or coffee?"
"Orange and apple juice, sir, in large quantities."
Tony blames that one on Natasha.
"Well, that's good," he says instead. "Plenty of food for the kiddies."
"Indeed. Perhaps you should plug in the Super-toaster?"
"Ah. Right." Tony opens a cupboard and drags out the largest toaster he's ever seen: a fourteen-slot monster called the Super-toaster because of Steve's toasting habits. And Thor's. The both of them eat a loaf of bread a day in toast.
Each.
Needless to say, Tony is ready for five children.
**8**
Breakfast is a peaceful disaster. The kids all chatter happily at each other, slinging syrup and juice everywhere as they wave their forks and sticky fingers. Clint gets butter in his hair. Steve, astounded by the abundance of food, overeats and has to go lie down on the couch. Natalia's unused to sweets and has to join him. Bruce's manners are flawless. Thor wanders in as Natalia leaves and systematically devours six waffles and nineteen giant strawberries. He thanks Tony for the orange juice and follows Bruce to the sink to wash his hands. The kitchen is a wreck afterwards.
Tony can't figure out how they did it. "Christ," he says when the last kid had wandered off to the couches. "Do I have to clean all this?"
"I'm afraid Captain Rogers usually does the kitchen cleanup," Jarvis says apologetically. Tony downs a fresh cup of coffee before ordering his AI to give him instructions as he goes. At least his symptoms have gone down - they likely won't make another appearance until later this evening.
**8**
It takes nearly an hour, but eventually Tony considers the kitchen cleaned up. Jarvis has been keeping an eye on the kids - thankfully there haven't been any incidents like last night so far. He flicks a little collection of soap bubbles off his elbow and goes to find out what they've been doing.
Crayons. Crayons and markers and glue everywhere. The kids giggle as they slap sheets of colored paper on top of each other, and they're using Tony's (Pepper's) antique coffee table to do it. For a split second, the panic returns, but quickly fades in favor of childish glee at the sight of multicolored cutout stars tangled up in Thor's hair.
"Jarvis," he says quietly, gleefully, "I hope you're getting this."
"Indeed, sir," is Jarvis' reply. "Every detail."
Several boxes come in throughout the day, filled with fitted children's clothes and toys for all ages. Steve accepts whatever clothes he's given so long as he has first dibs on all the puzzles - even the hard ones, he insists. Natalia selects her favourite dresses and three of Clint's dark shirts, silently daring anyone to argue. Thor takes the larger skirts, wearing them with a pride Tony sort of doesn't want to ask about. Bruce, somewhat surprisingly, doesn't need glasses, and when he quietly asks if he can have all the blue shirts his size (the same as Clint's) Tony can't say no.
They eat ordered-in pizza and breadsticks on paper plates, so that when they're done Tony just tosses out the trash and cleans the table and chairs (and floor. He's too old to be crawling under the table like this). Steve is sick again, this time because of all the grease, and has to go lie down. The other kids are a little woozy as well, so Tony declares naptime for all of them, himself included. He's not really as surprised as he maybe should be when they all go straight to his room and leave a space big enough for himself on the bed.
"Is this how it's gonna be?" he complains, and is summarily ignored. With a grumble, he crawls onto the bed and flops down, asleep before his head hits the pillow.
"Stark."
Tony looks up from his blank tablet screen and sighs. Loki stands on the other side of the ruined coffee table, arms crossed with a lethal glare pointed in his direction. Tony sets the tablet aside.
"To what do I owe this visit?" he inquires, leaning back into the couch.
"You're an idiot," Loki seethes. He looks a little less put together than usual, hair frizzy at the ends and deep shadows under his eyes. Tony doesn't realize he's sagging sideways until he puts a steadying knee on the table. He doesn't seem to notice the glitter glue now permanently stuck to his leather-clad knee, but he will later. Tony wants to be there when it happens.
He raises an eyebrow. "I take it I'm dreaming again?"
"That you are," says Loki furiously, "and your stupid subconscious keeps twisting my words." Tony blinks, and then the man is in his face, hands grabbing his shoulders and shaking them. "Listen to me!"
"Alright, alright, Jesus!" Tony pushes on the other man's chest, trying and failing to get some space between them. "I'm listening, you crazy asshole. What do you want?"
Loki releases him and leans down to look him in the eye. "Your Avengers are children."
Tony nods, exaggeratedly. "Yes, they are," he says rudely. "Thank you, Captain Ob-"
"Silence!" Loki looks ready to spit fire. Tony shuts up. "Your Avengers are children, and yet you remain an adult. Don't you consider that odd?"
Tony's mouth twists. "I dunno," he says with a larger hint of bitterness than he strictly wanted, "last time you said something about my not being an Avenger, so."
Loki sighs. "That was your subconscious rudely interrupting me," he says patiently. "How am I to communicate with you during your dreams if your insecurity twists my message before I can get it all out?"
Wow, uh. This is new. "So my issues are stronger than you," is what comes out of Tony's mouth. Loki's eyes narrow.
"I'm contacting you through your dreams," he says, "and you're worried about your 'issues'."
Tony shrugs. "It happens. What did you want to tell me, then?"
Loki frowns. He doesn't look angry, now, just pensive. Worried. "It was not I," he says slowly, "who attacked yourself and your team."
Tony snorts. "As if. Jarvis recognized you and everything."
"I speak the truth," the god insists, and Tony feels inclined to believe him. "If it were me, you would be a child as well, in the care of SHIELD while I attacked elsewhere. You know this."
Tony does.
"And yet here you are, with your body and mind untouched. SHIELD has been isolated. Your team are a bunch of unruly children. Have you not considered why?"
"Well," Tony starts, "I guess? Mostly I've been trying to track you down, to be honest, between nonstop babysitting."
"It is not me," Loki stresses. "It is an imposter, an adversary of mine who carries a lethal grudge. You must -"
The world flickers.
"Must what?" Tony asks, dazed. He can feel himself waking up. "Loki?"
The god is gone.
"Get yourself and the children out," Loki's voice hisses in his ear. "My imposter will return, and -"
"Tony?"
He blinks, woken by Bruce asking for a pair of socks.