I do not own Marvel. I would be even more crazy and/or eccentric if I owned Marvel.

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Ever since that moment, when Claire had accepted Miss Virginia "Pepper" Potts' offer of a job as Tony Stark's personal lab assistant, she had almost lost the concept of something being strange any more. She didn't really do surprise after all of that.

There was a crazy genius blasting ACDC until the ceiling shook while teaching her how to restore an Isetta bubble car to its former "glory". There was a for all intents and purposes - at least in traditional definitions - a mad scientist cooking them (bizarrely) authentic Indian curry every night and when she moved into freaking Stark Tower, a genetically engineered superhero and his Brooklyn-born Russian boyfriend and fellow super soldier had helped her move her couch. Really.

She had never been somebody inclined to fuss very much, and after a year or so of accidentally getting locked up with the Hulk and sparring with assassins (although usually not the one who did ballet, because you know - danger) she had all but abandoned the very concept. Nothing, and that is nothing, alarmed Claire Thomas any more.

This point was proven rather pointedly, as she was woken at 3.07 am on a Thursday morning, by the Hulk standing in her bedroom and growling loudly: and she could still inform Pepper exactly what time it was, when asked about it the next morning.

"Hulk?" Claire frowned, coming more fully awake, sitting up in her giant bed. She was wearing her hair - recently cropped off at the waist - loose around her shoulders and pyjama bottoms with the Mark 121 suit on them, along with a yellow t-shirt showing the new and improved arc reactor, as Tony had whined about all her t-shirts with the old lethal platinum design on them.

The Hulk, still showing remnants of what Bruce had been wearing - along with the Hulk-proof boxers Tony and Bruce had designed together - growled again in response. Padding out of bed, she asked the natural question, even though she suspected she knew what had drawn the Hulk to her room. "Is everything alright? There's not a crisis, is there?" At the Hulk's grunted affirmative and then headshake to answer the second part of her question, she drew a breath of relief and slipped her feet into the elegant slippers Pepper had gifted her, "To even out Tony's - lack of - fashion sense." "Is it the baby?"

This time, the Hulk gave a distressed, "Sad!" and Claire nodded her understanding.

"Where is she?" She asked, only to be picked up by the Hulk and carried at great speed through the little used emergency stairwell at the back of the tower. It seemed the Hulk was not fooled by alarms meant to alert Jarvis to his presence.

Pepper, Natasha and Tony's as of yet unnamed, three weeks old baby was sobbing quietly, not yet reaching the level of full screaming - which, Claire assumed, was why she had yet to be heard by whoever her sitter was tonight - in the communal living room when Hulk put Claire down. Walking straight over and picking the baby up, still less than a minute after waking up, Claire was not surprised when the Hulk slipped back out of the room again, again avoiding the elevator shaft. She assumed he was heading either to Bruce's room, or possibly to his own. Not that the Hulk would feel the need to contain himself, she supposed. The Hulk was not one to fuss.

Except, she noted with some amusement, apparently over babies. Said baby had gone back to sleep in her arms immediately, as new-borns did, and she put her back down with a kiss to her head. As she slipped out of the room, she noticed Steve and Bucky coming out of the more brightly lit kitchen, checking on the baby like the responsible uncles that they were. Smiling, she went towards the elevator. No need to give the Hulk away; he had stuck to his part of the deal, after all.

"Miss Claire?" There was a measure of surprise in Jarvis' voice, but she merely smiled towards the elevator panel. Jarvis wouldn't give them away unless asked: the AI was nothing if not discreet.

Silently, she let the stunned Jarvis take her up to her own floor, which he did without another word.