Cooper and Lila Barton could not wait for their father to put the truck into park before they struggled to get out of their carseats and leap out of the door.
"Hey! Slow down!" Natasha called after them.
They ignored her, of course.
"Let them blow off some steam, then once they're inside, it'll be nap time." Clint yawned. "I hate driving."
"You're were one of SHIELD's best pilots."
"Yeah, but I feel so confined in a car, I just..."
Natasha ignored the rest of the rant, and watched her children tackle the god of thunder to the ground.
"Who in the Nine Realms are you? You cannot possibly be the Mighty Cooper and the Adorable Lady Lila. You are giants!" The children squealed with laughter as they piled onto their favorite uncle.
Tony frowned as he held their birthday present, watching in utter jealousy that he was still not the favorite. Well, that was about to change. He whistled for their attention, and the thing in his arms came to life. Tony threw his head back to avoid the slobber.
"Uncle Tony! Uncle Tony!" They chanted, running up to him, then stopped when they noticed what he was holding. "Is that a-"
"A really stinky mess." Tony squatted down as they plopped onto the grass, eyeing the creature in wonder. "Happy Birthday, kiddos..." He let the thing go in relief as it started to sniff and lick on the tiny hands reaching greedily for it.
"He's pretty!" Lila exclaimed.
"Is this for us?" Cooper hopefully asked.
"As long as it's ok with Mom and Dad." Tony popped up and went to interject the inevitable. "I know you don't need a third kid or anything, but this one has had all of its shots, can be potty-trained rather quickly, and doesn't require any formal education...just lots and lots of attention."
"Well, good thing I'm retired."
"Clint, you say that every week." Tony said.
Natasha noticed how sweet it was to see her children playing with the puppy, and laughed when Thor threw a stick so far, the poor thing had no idea what to do so he just rolled onto his back.
"Thank-you, Tony." She said. "You didn't have to-"
"You know you are talking to the king of spoiling people, especially the small ones. It's too easy, and so much fun. Who wants fried chicken?!"
The kids chanted over each other as the puppy chased them inside to meet everyone else.
Scott looked over to the passenger side of the minivan to see Wanda Maximoff gnawing her finger off. Cassie could not contain her excitement to meeting new friends. Especially when said friends helped her Daddy save the world.
"Hey, Peanut, you go on in, we'll catch up in a sec."
"Ok, Daddy!"
"You ok?"
Wanda smiled. "Everybody keeps asking me that...ever since I woke back up." She turned to look out the window at Cassie waving at Peter, who plopped down to introduce himself. "I'm not..." She shook her head. Losing Vision felt like it was only yesterday. It was going to take awhile. "...but I will be..."
Scott raised his fist to her, which she bumped with a small laugh. "That's the spirit."
Peter took Cassie and ran up and down the hallways, checking every room on every floor to get everyone to the living room.
"There are so many people here!"
"And there are more to come..." Peter realized as he was certain he cleared everyone that lived here...the others [who came back with him] should be showing up any minute. He wondered if it would be inappropriate to ask Doctor Strange to just portal everyone here.
It would make for a really epic entrance.
"Awwww...there's kids...AND A PUPPY!" Peter laughed to himself as he could probably guess Cassie was not that much older than the two Barton kids, but he was happy to see that they all immediately hit it off. He leaned against the wall, letting out a breath.
"She's quite the talker, isn't she?" Scott raised a knowing eyebrow.
"Oh, yeah, it's great, I just...I don't know, I guess I'm still tired because I could not keep up..."
"Yep, that's my peanut. Gives the Energizer Bunny a run for his money." Scott shook his head as he watched his little girl play with the dog. Please don't ask for a dog. Please don't ask for a dog. Your mom would literally kill me.
"Attention all, Mr. Stark would like to inform you that lunch is now served, if you would calmly-" The rest of FRIDAY's announcement could not be heard, as the swarm of Avengers flew to the kitchen.
Thor, Peter, Steve, and Bucky all got there first, much to Tony's dismay. Now he had four super-hungry enhanced individuals to worry about...at least Carol was a lady and-
"Really?" Tony wide-eyed Carol's plate overflowing with chicken squeezed around a mountain of mashed potatoes.
"Are you insinuating something?" Carol gave him a look, which he immediately regretted even asking.
"Oh, hey, Strange! Yeah, where's Wong?" Tony acted distracted as Carol shook her head, then went to find Thor, who had saved her a seat.
The dining room was barely enough room for everyone. Some, like Bruce and Wong, offered to eat standing up. Tony realized in horror that pizza night was a lot less chaotic than "reunions" with the entire freaking class in full attendance. Well, minus T'challa. He understandably went back to Wakanda to spend some quality time with his family. But he promised to come for Christmas.
"Jesus Christ..." Tony swore this was it for him...how the hell am I supposed to house and feed everyone for Christmas?
"Tony..." Tony went blind for a second, he rolled his eyes so hard.
"I was blessing my food...Amen!" He kissed his husband.
Steve took his napkin and wiped off some gravy stuck in Tony's beard. "You're a handful."
"And you love to stay busy..."
As everyone was just about into their greetings and conversations with each other, Tony pulled his phone out and played a blow horn to quiet them all down.
"That's not how it's supposed to be done. I thought it was supposed to be beautiful chimes."
"That's the old way, Point Break." Tony confused the Asgardian. "Listen, I know this isn't a formal or anything, but...it's a reunion. A special one, with more reasons than I have time to go over before the chicken gets cold. It would still be good though." They all laughed. "There are some of you here that I have not seen or spoken to in a couple years...and, I know it's still kinda painful. But I'm willing to get back to where we were before all of that. I was an idiot...let's face it, we all were. That's neither here, nor there, the point is: if it wasn't for each of you, we would not have won. Now, some of you were just dozing off in dreamland, but you were the reason we did not give up. You forced us to get back out there after we were embarrassingly beat down over and over again. I'll admit, we had more than our own fair share of pity parties. Lots of tears, lots of heart-to-hearts, Pepper, you would have loved it, we got all of that toxic energy out of our system, and it helped." Pepper shook her head, whispering something to Rhodey, who just laughed. "Ok, I'm rambling and we're all hungry, so I'll cut to the chase. To us, Earth's Mightiest Heroes." They all raised their glasses. "The greatest kickass team in the universe."
Everyone cheered and hugged each other as they continued on socializing and laughing in community.