A/N: Argh! Sorry. It took me a long time to get started last night and by the time I was like 'okay I can't do this' I was still missing two important scenes, so it ended up getting delayed. *covers face*

Thank you to Yuki F. Karasu, Im a guest, chaosoulg, jy24, Pandora the Ghost Elf, bookishangel, karina001, newby6320, a tiny person, Katherine Sanderson, Shadow Spears, InsanityOwl, Shadow-X1999, Amelia Loves Anime, XavierForest, Nightgray, melovecats, SquirrelQueen88, and guest for reviewing!

Title: Cosmic Composite

Author: liketolaugh

Rating: T

Pairings: Tony/Pepper, Natasha/Steve, Miranda/Marie

Genre: Family/Adventure

Warnings: AU, !spoilers for Winter Soldier onward, spoilers for Agents of SHIELD!

Summary: The exorcists reincarnate into Marvel's next generation. No one can figure out how. Still, it's nice to have a family. (Also includes Agents of SHIELD. AU starting one year before CA2. Major divergence begins after Age of Ultron.)

Disclaimer: I only wish I owned D. Gray-man, and the Avengers are but a dream that is not my own.

Lavi: 5 years old

Kanda: 5 years old

Lenalee: 4 years old

Allen: 3 years old

Month: February

Natasha felt… unsettled, at best.

At heart, Natasha was an agent - an assassin and a spy. She liked to know things, to understand what she was getting into, and when she didn't know and had to find out, she liked to know that, too.

It wasn't often that she found herself blindsided, and even less that it genuinely upset her. She had felt this way when Clint was compromised by Loki, when she heard of Coulson's supposed death, when she'd thought Steve was dead and realized the idea genuinely terrified her-

And she felt it again now, every time the thought of what they'd learned crossed her mind.

She didn't show it, of course. After training her whole life to hide her emotions, Natasha was not sure she still had the ability to show this depth of feeling - certainly not as Steve did, with a tearstained face and a gym strewn with inches of sand and bloody knuckles that made it stick together in clumps.

After what Steve had gone through in war, Natasha could easily understand what this meant to him.

Worse was the helplessness, the knowledge that there was nothing, nothing at all that they could have done-

"Mommy?"

Natasha looked down to meet Allen's large, worried silver eyes, and smiled at him before pressing a kiss to his forehead, making him giggle and squint. "It's nothing, little angel."

But for Allen, she'd deal with all this and more.

He tilted his head, clearly unsure, but she'd already swept him up and placed him on her hip. He squeaked and clung to her, startled.

"Ready to go?" she asked him, raising an eyebrow.

Most of the Avengers were out, either getting straight to work or finishing the move. Steve and Tony, specifically, were off-base entirely, working through the SHRA issue at Coulson's 'request', which Natasha had backed up, and Pepper wouldn't be moving into the Theta Base for a few more days.

Natasha herself had a meeting with Coulson and a woman she'd recently met called Rosalind, concerning HYDRA and a few projects they were thought to be working on. A meeting which Allen would also be attending, since at the moment there were precisely two people Natasha trusted to look after Allen, and the other was currently off arguing with Stark.

Allen hummed uncomfortably, holding onto her with one gloved hand. (Gloves had been the first and only thing he'd asked for, the implications of which were not lost on Natasha.) After a moment, though, he nodded, which was enough for Natasha to start walking.

"Are you getting used to the new house?" Natasha asked Allen, letting the corner of her mouth twitch up slightly at her own choice of words.

"House," Allen echoed crankily, but he sounded amused, too.

The Theta Base was very much a government-issue building, save perhaps the somewhat haphazard bottom floor, which was mostly Tony's design anyway.

The bottom floor was a general living space, with everything from a gym to the children's playroom to a library and a living room. The other two contained fifteen bedrooms and a large bathroom each, with two of the bedrooms currently designated as 'quiet rooms'. The top floor was currently uninhabited, all of the Avengers and their children staying on the second floor only.

After having apparently decided that his comment needed no further contemplation, Allen added,

"It 'kay."

Natasha hummed sympathetically, and they left the living room to enter the large, open 'walking space', Stark insisted. "Moving is always difficult once you've settled," she agreed. "And there are a lot of new people, aren't there?"

She glanced down at Allen, who'd rested his head against her side, and watched him shrug, and then shiver slightly as she pushed the door open, bringing them both out into the late-winter air.

"I'm not fond of it either," she continued, only just loud enough for him to hear. "Steve's a little uncomfortable too, you know." She felt Allen look up. "None of us are really fond of change."

They reached the SHIELD headquarters - which was, in all honesty, just across the street, even if it was surrounded by an unfriendly fence and any number of security checkpoints - and Natasha nodded to the security team, who knew better than to stop her.

Allen's hand tightened in her shirt, and she felt him press closer to her as they passed through the gate. This was concerning - while fairly normal behavior early on, it had become less so as time passed, which indicated that rather than genuinely getting better, he'd merely grown used to the Avengers.

Or - that was the first explanation to come to mind. Natasha would reserve judgement for now.

"I won't let anything happen," she reminded Allen without looking down. He nodded against her side, but didn't loosen his grip. She hitched him up a little higher and continued on.

The meeting room wasn't difficult to find. Natasha continued talking quietly to Allen, commenting on anything she noticed and subtly making fun of the agents they passed by, but, uncharacteristically, he didn't reply beyond a few soft giggles and hums. Natasha politely ignored this.

Coulson and Rosalind were both inside already. Coulson smiled at her, and Natasha gave him a cool look back, for the purpose of making him aware that she still resented the feigned death. His head and his smile both dropped slightly, turning apologetic, and Natasha let her expression fade as she sat down a seat away from Coulson.

"Agent Romanoff," Coulson greeted, as if the exchange had not occurred. "And Allen." He gave the toddler a friendly smile, and Allen, now on Natasha's lap, tilted his head up to look, and then quickly ducked back down.

"Coulson," Natasha returned, reaching down with one hand to take Allen's tiny left hand in her larger one. He relaxed slightly, and she continued, "Price."

Rosalind nodded at her in return, but her gaze was lingering on Allen, far too interested for Natasha's taste. Natasha's gaze turned cold again, and she cleared her throat.

"I believe you had some information to share?"

"Just so," Coulson agreed with a faint smile. Natasha just caught the motion he made to Rosalind - probably warning her off for her own good. Sure enough, Rosalind removed her gaze from squirming Allen and returned her attention to the matter at hand.

Rosalind nodded and passed a folder to Coulson, who passed it on to Natasha, who took it, set it on the table, and flipped it open one-handed, as her other was still occupied.

"Most of HYDRA's forces are focused on the gathering of Inhumans and other known metahumans-" Rosalind began.

On Natasha's lap, Allen was listening, head resting against Natasha and heart beating a little faster than normal, even with Natasha doing her best to keep him calm. Half his attention was on her heartbeat, soothing and even in one ear, and the rest on the conversation above.

He kept his eyes on Coulson, who he'd at least met before and who Lenalee clearly adored, and off of Rosalind, who frightened him for no better reason than that he had no reason to trust her.

The move itself hadn't been difficult - Allen quite liked moving around, having never stayed in one place for very long at all in his previous life. The new location would be interesting to explore, once Steve and Natasha were once again sure that he wouldn't collapse into a sudden nervous breakdown the instant he parted from them.

It was the people who were the problem.

Once, it wouldn't have been - despite experiences, Allen had loved meeting new people. They were all so interesting, with so many dreams and hopes and each with a past and passions all their own.

Recent experiences, however, had not only brought back the wariness and mistrust from his first childhood, but they had reminded him, in a most sharp and unforgiving manner, how helpless he was at this age. Howlittle he could do, if they once again decided to throw him out, or beat him, or try to kill him in a more direct way. And while he could be reasonably certain that people like him, like his friends, wouldn't try - past experiences had taught him how much more forgiving unusual people were of unusual traits - he wasn't nearly as sure with these new ones.

Most of his friends seemed to get by alright with normal people, of course - Allen couldn't have failed to notice that. Allen wasn't sure what it was about him that people saw and abhorred, but…

It was okay, anyway. He'd just try to avoid them, that was all.

He closed his eyes and listened.

Bucky, currently unoccupied, was wandering the halls of the SHIELD HQ, learning his way around. The kitchen he'd met Hunter in was almost all the way to one side of the building, with the main quarters not far away from that, and the playroom just a hall or two away. Most of the meeting rooms, by contrast, were almost all the way on the other side, and the labs-

Below, Yuu hissed and tugged at his hand, hard. It was Bucky's metal one, so he didn't quite feel the wrench he might have, but it was still quite noticeable, and he looked down, surprised.

"Yuu?" he questioned.

Yuu scowled up at him, face flushed with anger and something like dismay, and jerked his head at the lab they were approaching - though Bucky had no intention of entering, he'd planned to pass it by.

"No!" Yuu snapped, breath catching somewhat. "I don't wanna go there!"

His expression alarmed Bucky, pinched and upset as it was, and the result was that Bucky nearly reeled back, away from the lab as if he was as disturbed by it was Yuu apparently was.

"The lab?" Bucky asked, both of them now turned around and going to opposite direction. "Who's going to the lab? We're going to the meeting rooms again. I think we missed some of them."

Yuu took a deep breath and nodded, and Bucky felt his hand tighten on the metal one. He squeezed back, gentle enough not to hurt him, and waited until they were far enough away, carefully avoiding the agents they passed.

"What was that?" he asked at last, without looking at Yuu, who was now scowling at the ground, still visibly tense. Yuu's assertion that he didn't want anything to change had gone a long way to reassuring Bucky, but it didn't mean he wasn't going to ask questions - if something upset Yuu that much, he wanted to make sure he could do something about it.

"Scientists," Yuu muttered, which clarified the problem but didn't actually explain why it was a problem. "Don't like scientists."

"You don't?" Bucky asked, genuinely surprised. "You get along with Tony fine."

Yuu looked up to wrinkle his nose at him, scowling faintly. "Tony's fine. I mean - scientists like…" He jerked his head back again, probably indicating the lab.

Bucky frowned, trying to recall what kind of lab it had been. "Biologists?" he ventured at last, recalling the microscopes and the samples and what he'd heard from Vision.

Yuu nodded. "Don't like them," he repeated, frowning. "They…" He hesitated, apparently unsure of what to say, but continued, "They don't know when to stop. They push." Bucky could almost hear Yuu growing older, more mature, just for a moment, the way he occasionally did. "They mess with life and think they're playing God for a fool."

Yuu always sounded bitter when he was at his most mature.

"Yuu…" Bucky was frowning, looking down at him, concerned. Yuu was still scowling, but there was an edge to it, shadowed and ominous. "Did something happen?"

Yuu grunted, sounding half disgusted and half dismissive, and refused to speak, and Bucky made a note to ask again when they were alone.

He wasn't going to make the mistake of not pressing again. Some things needed to be said.

They reached the section of meeting rooms again just as Rosalind left. She paused to nod at Bucky, and then to Yuu, before leaving, and Coulson appeared after her.

He looked a little surprised to see Bucky, but he smiled slightly, inclining his head. "Barnes," he greeted quietly.

Natasha appeared after, looking a little interested herself, and at her feet - pressed close to Natasha and holding one of her hands - Allen smiled at Yuu, opening his mouth to call out a greeting of his own before he apparently took note of Yuu's expression, and his smile faded instantly.

"Bucky," Natasha offered instead, nodding at him and cocking one eyebrow in mild interest. Bucky gave a distracted nod back, and would have moved on if Coulson hadn't caught his attention first.

"I'm actually glad to see you - I had a question."

Bucky paused, tensing slightly, and, for the most part, involuntarily.

"Yes?" he asked cautiously.

"According to Rosalind's intel," Coulson plowed forward, apparently electing to ignore Bucky's clear reservations, "you brought a weapon with you out of HYDRA, and they're currently searching for it rather hard. Any idea what it is?"

Bucky's brow furrowed, and he thought for a moment. Slowly, he shook his head.

"No," he said cautiously. "I sold or dumped everything they gave me - too much chance of there being a tracker in it, or worse. All of it was standard issue, maybe a little customized for optimization, but nothing special. The only things I still have are the arm and-" He stopped, heart going cold for what felt like the hundredth time in the past two weeks.

"And?" Coulson prompted, frowning. Natasha, however, had apparently caught on, because her eyes went cold as well.

"And Yuu," Natasha finished for him.

Allen's eyes darkened and turned concerned, and when Bucky looked down, he found that Yuu had scowled, looking away again.

"They mess with life," he repeated, much more darkly this time, "and think they're playing God for a fool." He tilted his head to look up at Bucky, dark blue eyes meeting Bucky's lighter shade. "They wanted an assassin, so they made one. You knew that, stupid bear."

Yes. Bucky had.

A human weapon, huh?

It shouldn't have surprised him as much as it did; he felt tense and frustrated all over again.

So, Yuu, what else did they do to that end?

"How's the log going?"

Coulson's sudden question didn't make Daisy jump as Coulson had hoped, unfortunately, but she did at least look up, looking mildly surprised. Then she frowned slightly.

"Not that well," she admitted, reaching to shut the television off as Coulson sat on the couch beside her. The noise cut off. "There's a lot of missing information, and some of what we know doesn't make sense, or has a pretty vague time frame."

Coulson nodded; he'd known that.

Once it started to become clear how complicated the issue was, and how many differences there were between the alternate Earth's history and this one's, Coulson had ordered Daisy to create a log that estimated the history of the alternate Earth. It was an ongoing project; little else could have made it more obvious just how little they knew.

On that topic…

"Have you checked it today?" he asked. Daisy side-eyed him, frowning in skeptical confusion.

"No," she said cautiously. "I'm the only one with access right now, besides you and May, and I'm the only one who adds to it, so I know everything that's there. Haven't been on for a few days now, since we don't know anything new."

"We do now," Coulson told her, handing her a tablet with the relevant file pulled up. She looked unconvinced, but took it anyway, scanning the information.

It didn't take her long to find the blip, her brow furrowing in confusion.

"Bookmen," she echoed quietly. "Unknown event with Yuu… and we didn't have this much information on Innocence. Who did this?" She glanced at Coulson, who looked unperturbed.

"I think Stark found his way onto the server again," Coulson explained, and her eyes widened slightly. "Normally he plays some sort of prank-" He probably still had; they probably wouldn't find it for some time, though. "-but this is one thing he takes as seriously as we do."

Daisy hummed softly, surprise still fading. "That's a surprise."

Coulson thought of how Tony acted with his family and said, "Not really."

All of these halls looked the same.

Well. Pepper supposed that she was being unfair. There were a few minute differences between them, and occasionally, such as the clear-glass wall of the lab, they were even distinctive. Still, for the most part, the Playground was extremely uniform, even for a government building.

She was never going to find Coulson.

The agents in the hall looked, for the most part, professional, walking briskly and with clear purpose. One, an Asian woman who held her head high and her expression impassive, caught Pepper's eye, and the redhead seamlessly slipped through the thin crowd to match her pace.

"Hello," she greeted, just loud enough to be heard over the sound of the activity in the hall. The woman's head turned slightly toward her, eyebrows raising expectantly.

"Yes?" the woman asked curtly.

"I was wondering if you could show me where to find Coulson," Pepper explained, keeping her demeanor very nearly as professional as the agent's.

"The director?" the agent asked, sounding a little doubtful. Pepper almost laughed; she supposed she wasn't nearly the type that usually dropped into Coulson's office.

"I just finished moving on-base and I thought I'd check in," Pepper explained, smiling slightly. The woman studied her for a long moment, and then Pepper caught the glint of recognition in her eyes. The woman nodded, gaining a look that was suddenly unexpectedly interested.

"I see," the woman acknowledged. They approached a turn and took it, and the woman continued, "He'll be in his office at the moment. I'll show you there."

Pepper smiled. "Thank you," she told the woman gratefully, and then, "What's your name?"

"Agent May," the woman introduced, inclining her head slightly. And then, unexpectedly, "Lenalee is my daughter."

Pepper started slightly. "Oh! Is that so?" She smiled again. "Lavi was very pleased to see her again; he wouldn't stop talking about it."

May's lip curled in amusement. "Neither would Lenalee," she admitted, and they made another turn. "She ran around the whole day, introducing them to the team."

Pepper laughed. "Lavi mentioned that. Yuu wasn't so pleased, though."

May let herself smile a little. "No, I didn't think so."

Pepper smiled in agreement for a few seconds more, and then it faded and she grew serious. "Tony told me about what you talked about."

May's smile vanished as well. "I suppose that was rather unpleasant for you."

'Rather unpleasant' was an understatement, but Pepper nodded. "Lavi had already told us a good amount of it, actually, but I don't think either of us really understood just how bad it was." Pepper glanced at May, green eyes unsettled. "He'd mentioned, actually, that something terrible had been done to Lenalee, but he never told us what."

May's lips thinned into a firm, straight line of disapproval. "I'd like to have a word or two with the Black Order staff," she muttered scathingly. Pepper nodded her agreement, brow furrowed.

"I'm not sure what to do," she admitted, quiet and a little frustrated. "Tony was bad enough - and I'm not suggesting that it was his fault, not at all - but he's an adult. Lavi is just a little boy."

For a long time, May didn't speak, and Pepper didn't, either, tense and worried. Finally, though, the agent spoke.

"Lenalee doesn't like to talk about it."

"Lavi doesn't either," Pepper agreed, but it was clear that May wasn't finished.

"I understand that," May continued, frowning straight ahead. "I'm not fond of talking about the past, either - but she will talk about it." She glanced at Pepper. "She told me once that it makes her feel better afterward."

Pepper considered that for a moment, and then sighed softly and nodded. "Thank you."

A few more moments of silence, and then May returned, clearly reluctant,

"I haven't been around metahumans very often, until these past few years. I'm not sure I'm prepared to raise one."

Pepper smiled, knowing that a hint of sadness would tinge the expression. That was something Pepper could sympathize with all too well, and now it was her turn to consider.

"They're special," she said at last, careful. May didn't look at her, but it was clear she was listening, still tense. "They will always be special, and that's a good thing. But- you can't forget that they're still humans. Their hearts are just like ours."

May hummed quietly, neither believing nor disbelieving. Pepper continued to mull the issue over, speaking slowly as she did.

"They'll face discrimination," Pepper continued. "Tony deals with it well, of course, but not everyone does. And…" She hesitated, then said, louder and more decisive, "They'll make mistakes; of course they will. And some of them will be large, and hard to fix, but they're still mistakes." She glanced at May and smiled. "But they'll always be worth it, won't they?"

May's expression softened slightly, and that was answer enough.

They reached a door and May nodded at it.

"This is Coulson's office."

Pepper smiled at her? "Thank you." For more than one kind of guidance.

May nodded shortly back, looking mildly uncomfortable, and Pepper refrained from laughing and entered.

Sure enough, Coulson was inside, behind his desk. More surprisingly, perhaps, Tony was also inside, looking bored out of his skull as Coulson scolded him for something or other, and Lavi and a little girl were off to one side of the room, giggling.

Pepper pondered whether or not she really wanted to know, then accepted that she had taken on this responsibility and listened.

"-not meant for hacking, Stark-"

This again?

"Mommy!"

Lavi's loud, cheerful voice distracted her, and suddenly he was at her feet, grinning up at her.

"You're here!" he continued, beaming.

Pepper chuckled, crouching down so she was nearly at eye level with him.

"We weren't apart more than a few days," she reminded Lavi, who huffed.

"I don't care," he said stubbornly, but then the frown changed back into a grin, just as the girl wandered over, looking interested. "Mommy! This is Lenalee!"

"Hello, Lenalee," Pepper said agreeably, holding her hand out. Lenalee looked at her curiously for a few long moments, then smiled brightly and shook it.

"Hi," she chirped. "You Lavi's mommy, righ'?"

"That's right," Pepper confirmed.

"Pepper!" Tony piped up, apparently having decided they'd had their moment. Pepper glanced up, the lines of her face settling into an expression both familiar and exasperated. "Pepper, gorgeous, I'm glad you're here. Save meee!"

Pepper sighed and straightened up. "What did he do this time?" she asked Coulson.

"He's also hacked SHIELD again," Coulson explained, long-suffering.

Pepper sighed, and then Melinda was distracted as Lenalee appeared in front of her, smiling brightly and now free from Lavi, who was apparently more interested in the brewing trouble his father was in.

"Mommy! Lavi tol' me tha' the Avengers are being all silly about letting them go 'round an' talk t'people," Lenalee told her earnestly, and Melinda both felt a twinge of sympathy and had to try hard not to smile. Of course they'd be protective. "An'! An' Tony 'minds me of brother!" Melinda stilled, but Lenalee's smile never faltered, and finally, Melinda let herself smile as well, listening. "See, he's silly an' 'xciteable an' he makes things he shouldn' sometimes-"

Melinda listened, and in the background, Pepper had apparently joined Coulson in scolding Tony, who whined unabashedly while Lavi laughed.

Melinda's focus, of course, was on the words from Lenalee's mouth and the sparkle in her eyes.

Fury stared boredly at the television screen as a movie played on it. His arms were crossed, and he leaned against the back of the couch, determinedly ignoring the children scattered across the room.

Yes, Fury was babysitting. He'd been somewhat loathe to do so, but there weren't many people they trusted to take care of their kids, and this latest mission required all of them - not necessarily highly dangerous, but certainly not easy. And so. Fury. (How had Fury landed on any list of 'trustworthy people'?)

Fury wasn't sure how he'd let them talk him into this, anyway. It was probably Romanoff's fault.

Allen and Lavi were well within his range of sight, stacking blocks and attempting to build something. Lavi was being very patient with Allen, who was focused but also clumsy, and the little redhead was, from what Fury had seen of him, unusually quiet at the moment as well.

Yuu and Lenalee, on the other hand, were running around - as far as Fury could tell, Lenalee had stolen Yuu's hair tie, something he'd only started using within the past few days.

Fury hadn't been raised to read people, as Natasha had, nor was he a natural at it, like Pepper. Still, you could only survive as a spy for so long before you started to pick up the skill or else suffer the consequences, and Fury usually preferred to swim rather than sink.

Fury didn't know a whole lot about kids, but he still picked up on some of the more unusual aspects of these particular children - the stillness of Lavi and Allen, Lenalee's grace, Yuu's dark look - and it was easy, with the necessary knowledge, to trace these back to their origin; Fury took a certain amount of satisfaction, in fact, in doing so.

There were other things. Allen's visible uncertainly, his second glances and his shyness, revealed more about him than the boy probably liked. Lavi tended to pay a little too much attention to everything. Yuu stuck close to his own and approached almost no one else.

Fury noticed these things, and others, and he was good at connecting the dots.

As he watched, Yuu tackled Lenalee, who threw the tie to Lavi. Lavi caught it and took off without hesitation, laughing. Yuu growled, pushed himself up, and launched himself after, only to find himself tripping over Allen, who smiled up at the older boy, shy but mischievous, and Yuu growled at him, too.

Strangely enough, though, it wasn't those things - the markers of their past and of their origin - that stood out to Fury the most.

No, what stood out to Fury were the hints of playful defiance in the lines of Allen's body while he faced Kanda down. It was the efficiency with which Lenalee distracted Allen, allowing Yuu to dart past, and the playfulness of Lavi's grin as he 'rescued' Allen and both of them started running away from Yuu, who ran after them, silent and intent.

What stood out to Fury was how much they reminded him of their parents.

He was getting soft in his old age, and he didn't like it.

As he continued to watch the 'fight' play out, feigning indifference, Fury pondered to himself, something he hadn't been especially prone to doing before his faked death and subsequent pseudo-retirement, which had been spent mostly on the run anyway.

It was clear, considering, that Fury was going to die in action. In all honesty, he'd known that for a long time. It had been a recent decision, however, that led to him coming here.

Because being on the run wasn't going to keep him alive much longer, not at this age in this situation, and hell. Fury was a lot of things, but he wasn't a fool, and he wasn't up for dying silently in a hideout somewhere like a coward.

He wanted to go down swinging.

Yuu finally caught Lavi, who begged for mercy, face flushed and grinning. Lenalee and Allen glanced at each other, and then identical smiles stretched across their faces, and both of them lunged to grab at Yuu, who yelped indignantly as he was wrenched off the other five-year-old, and the four of them struggled, mostly Yuu against the three others.

Fury decided enough was enough and stood up, wandered over, and glared down at them until they finally stilled. Yuu scowled up at him in confusion, while Lavi stared with an innocent look that was just like Stark's, Lenalee tilted her head curiously, and Allen pretended not to be alarmed.

"If you hurt each other on my watch, your parents are gonna kick my ass," Fury informed them plainly. "Which means I'll kick your asses because you are not my responsibility."

Most of them giggled, and then Lavi popped up, eyes suddenly sparkling. Fury felt very suspicious. This suspicion was warranted.

"Tell us a story!" Lavi requested.

Fury scowled. "No."

"Please tell us a story?" Lenalee suggested, popping up right beside Lavi, eyes bright and hopeful.

"No," Fury repeated, turning away with the full intention of going back to finish the movie he wasn't really watching.

"Pwease?"

He looked down and found Allen staring up at him with big silver eyes, and- It fucking figured that even Steve's adopted child would be able to manage a sad, hopeful look just like the grown fucking man who probably could've weaponized it when he was a kid.

Even Yuu looked interested, though he was pretending not to, shuffling in place and glancing at him. Fury huffed.

"Will that make you sit your asses down and shut the fuck up for ten minutes together?" he asked them, injecting as much resentment into his voice as possible.

All of them nodded quickly, even Yuu. Fury sighed.

"Fine!" he scowled.

Lavi cheered, and then Lenalee, and then Allen gave a smile that shouldn't have fit on his tiny face. Fury rolled his one eye and went to sit on the couch, and when he looked down again, the kids had clustered in front of him, expectant. Fury sighed.

Only the Avengers' kids. (He ignored the fact that Lenalee was not actually the child of one of the Avengers.)

"Listen up, you asked for this so you better pay attention. First random-ass mission to come to mind is that one in Kazakhstan-"

"Miss Simmons?"

To her own surprise, Simmons barely jumped this time. She looked over her shoulder to smile distractedly at Vision. "Oh, hello, Vision. It's good to see you."

Vision smiled at her. "And you as well." He glanced down at her current occupation, and she had to resist the urge to cover the screen. "I have not seen this project before. May I ask what it is?"

Her smile faded, and she glanced down, pensive and unhappy. "It's…" She stopped, sighed, and tried again. "A while ago, I was taken into a portal and ended up on a planet in an unknown galaxy. There was a man who was there before me, Will Daniels - he wasn't able to come back when I did. We - Fitz and I, mostly, are trying to bring him back."

Vision hummed, coming a little closer. "I see. Is there any way that I could be of use?"

Simmons turned to give him a surprised look, and he smiled.

"I… Maybe," she breathed.

Okay! There we go. A few character check-ins and a little plot development, as well as some setup. I've mapped out the Theta Base, at least as far as the walls go, so I at least have a clear idea, and I'm going to try and get that up on my Tumblr at some point, I'll explain how to get there when that's done. Meanwhile, Kanda's getting some backstory expansion before Bucky gets his questions answered - and by that, I mean I'm editing some of the earlier chapters. I'll let you know when that's done too. Thanks for reading, and for being patient, and please review!