Pepper somehow managed to drag the door open while herding her shaking ten year old and talking on the phone with her husband. "I have no idea, Harold. I tried to call Ana this morning but she didn't answer. None of them are answering, and all the numbers I have for S.H.I.E.L.D. are going straight to hold. I just got to the tower, I'll— I'll call you back later, okay?" She ended the call. "C'mere, Ginny..."

The lobby was full of people in varying degrees of distress. The tower was far enough from where the attack had hit that there weren't any immediate victims among the crowd, no one in need of serious medical attention, but there was plenty of panic. None of that was what caught Pepper's attention, though. What caught her attention was the two women yelling at/interrogating one of the currently very frazzled receptionists. One of the women was a tawny skinned, raven haired live wire of barely restrained energy in a pantsuit who Pepper had never seen before. The other one was— "Simone?"

Simone spun around, her blond hair whipping in a mass of flyaways. "Pepper! Oh, thank God. What's going on?"

"I don't know, exactly." Pepper pulled Ginny closer to her and glanced at the woman in the pantsuit. "Sorry, but who are you?"

"Dr. Erin Mockta. I, uh, know Natasha."

Pepper frowned. "Are you S.H.I.E.L.D?"

"No, I'm not— Is she okay?"

"Probably. Upstairs. Now." Pepper headed for the elevator. Her daughter, Simone, and Erin followed her. With the doors closed, Pepper flicked her eyes upward. "Jarvis, what do you know?"

"The attack on the city was executed under the leadership of Red Skull commanding Jotunn forces. The twins, as well as Loki, left to join the Avengers shortly before seven thirty. The entire team returned to the tower shortly after eight. Within minutes of the team's return Agent Coulson arrived requesting their presence at S.H.I.E.L.D. They are now aboard the helicarrier and a few minutes ago Sir recoded one of his suits to allow Miss Romanov to use it. Unfortunately I do not have full access to that particular suit and do not know the reason for the recoding."

Ginny clutched at her mother's jacket and stared wide-eyed at the ceiling. "Was everybody okay when they were here?"

"There did not appear to be any life threatening injuries."

Pepper petted Ginny's hair and let out a breath. "Thank you, Jarvis."

"Of course, Ms. Potts."

Ignoring Erin's brow-furrowed glance up, Simone looked searchingly at the ceiling. "And the twins?"

"Your classmates are the least harmed of the team, Miss Simone."

Simone nodded.

When they disembarked the elevator, they saw Jane folded into a ball around her son on one of the common room sofas. She looked up. "Pepper—"

"Were you here when the Avengers came through?"

Jane shook her head. "I saw the plane taking off just as I got here. Those things were Jotun."

"I know. Jarvis said. Have you been able to contact anyone at S.H.I.E.L.D, or...?"

"No one's picking up." Jane stood, hoisting Ben onto her hip. "Who's she?"

"I know Natasha." Erin held up her empty palms. "I didn't know she fights aliens. Didn't know she knows Stark."

Ben sniffled, trying very hard to not sound like he was sniffling. "Is Daddy gonna be okay?"

Ginny, still shaken herself, patted the boy's leg and offered him a thin smile. "Your dad's a god, he'll be okay."

"I'm receiving a transmission from the helicarrier," Jarvis injected, converting the nearest window over to video screen mode.

Larger than life, Clint's head and shoulders filled the screen with what looked like a conference room in the background. His hair was damp and he was wearing a clean shirt, but there were abrasions on his forehead and he looked tired. "Hey, yes, we are getting your phone calls, we're just busy, you know, trying to save the world. Again. None of us are dead."

Pepper resisted telling Clint he looked like hell. "What's going on?"

"Good question, I'm not in with the tacticians, I don't really know." He spotted Erin standing by the corner of the sofa. "Who—?"

"She knows Natasha." Pepper shrugged.

Clint's eyes narrowed. "You're the someone, aren't you?"

Erin arched an eyebrow. "Maybe. You the colleague with benefits?"

"Maybe. Anyway, uh, the tower is probably one of the safest places to be, even though it's also a likely target. Tony suggests holing up in the workshop since it's one of the most heavily reinforced parts of the building. I personally think Bruce's room would be safer but something about privacy." He waved a hand dismissively. "We don't know how long this is going to take. It's not like with Loki and the Tesseract. That was meant to be one big hit, overwhelm the Earth's defenses, take over and be done with it. Red Skull's like Cap, Greatest Generation military expertise, he knows how to plan. He's not picking fights, he's waging war." Clint looked up at something offscreen. "Hey, I gotta go."

The feed went dead. Simone dropped onto the couch, looking at her hands. "This is life for you people?"

Jane lay a hand on her shoulder. "Not most of the time."

A/N: Not sure how long it'll be before the next chapter is up or how many more chapters there are going to be but I do know where this whole mess is headed!
Comments appreciated, questions welcome.

Edit: In response to some unsigned reviews, I feel the need to say that yes, I know it's been quite a while since I've updated. I have a life, I don't always have time to write, and even when I do have time, sometimes I'm stuck on a particular story and don't know what happens next, other times I feel like my original stories that I intend to formally publish need more attention than my fanfic. This story wound up on the back burner, all my fanfic did for a while. I'm going to finish this story, though I can't provide a timeline for when. There may be longish breaks between chapters, not because I'm lazy or trying to keep people hanging, but because real life is higher up my priority list.
Thank you.