By the time the last game of Yahtzee was finished, Tony was ready to call it a night and get the boys settled into bed.
"But I'm not tired, yet," Peter said when the billionaire suggested it.
"You don't have to go to sleep," Stark told him, ignoring the way Natasha smirked at the display of rebellion, slight though it was. "But I want you in bed at a decent hour. We have a busy weekend, right?"
"Yeah…"
"Then you need sleep, so you aren't a zombie child."
"I wouldn't be a zombie."
"Come on, Cheese Pizza," Rhodey said, swinging the boy up into his arms. "I've never tucked a little kid into bed, before."
The boy giggled at the manhandling, and allowed himself to be carried out of the lounge, with Ned following.
"What are you going to do when he's sixteen and truly argues with you?" Steve asked Tony, smiling.
"Tie him up and stick him to the wall," Stark replied. "Just like I promised Pepper she could do if he became too annoying while he was staying with her."
Sam snorted.
"That's awesome. Did she do it?"
"Not so far as I know."
"Probably would have heard about that, I imagine," Natasha said.
"From one of them, anyway," Tony agreed. "We'll see you in the kitchen in the morning."
She rolled her eyes, again, an air of great suffering in her expression, but the assassin smiled.
"Why not?"
He headed for Peter's room, and the others left for their own.
OOOOOOO
Rhodes didn't actually tuck either boy into the beds. He tossed Peter onto his bed and then picked Ned up and did the same to him, making sure that he landed on the rollout that had been put there for him, and making the older boy laugh, too. Ned was only a couple of years older than Peter, and enjoyed the treatment. It was something a big brother – or maybe an uncle – would do.
"Is it still snowing?" Peter asked.
Rhodes went to the window just as Tony walked into the room.
"If you're planning on escaping by jumping out the window, they don't open that way…"
The other man smiled, pulling the curtain aside.
"Just checking the weather. It is still snowing," he reported. "It's coming down hard, too."
"Maybe we'll be snowed in," Ned said, hopefully. "No school for a week, and all the snowmen we can build."
"Don't get your hopes up," Tony warned, walking over to the bed and scooping Peter up into his arms to hug him once more before bedtime. "The weather is a fickle thing. You want it sunny? It rains. You want it wet? The sun shines for a week."
"I hope it stops snowing, immediately," Peter said, putting his arms around Tony. "That way it snows for a month."
"I don't think it works like that," Stark told his son. He pressed a kiss against the little boy's cheek. "You can watch movies if you want – as long as you stay in bed. Got it?"
"Yeah."
"Ned?"
The other boy nodded.
"Yeah."
"Good." He set Peter down and looked at Ned, again. "Need a goodnight hug? Does Eric do that? Or Nancy?"
The older boy hesitated, looking a little hopeful, but trying to hide it. He was getting to the age when some might think he was too old for such things, but Ned obviously didn't think that he was.
"Sometimes…"
That made Tony smile, and he scooped Ned into his arms to hug him, too.
"I'm glad you're here," he murmured to the boy.
"Thanks." Ned's voice was muffled by Tony's shirt, but the arms that came around him were happy. "I'm glad I'm here, too."
Peter smiled as Tony put his friend down, simply by flopping him onto the bed.
"Goodnight, boys."
"Night."
"Night, guys," Rhodey said.
The two men left and Peter reached for the remote.
"We can stream Lego Batman."
Ned grinned, getting himself situated under the blankets.
"Awesome."
OOOOOOO
"All kitchen helpers need to wake up and report to the kitchen in ten minutes."
Tony pulled the blankets up over his head.
"I'm sleeping…"
"It's morning," the voice told him, cheerfully. "And it's still snowing."
Stark pulled the little boy into his arms, even though he was still wrapped in the blankets. Peter giggled as he was enveloped in the hug, and they both felt another body land on them, joining the dog pile in Tony's bed.
"Natasha said it's time for you to get your lazy rear end out of bed," Ned reported. "Because she says she isn't going to make pancakes by herself – and she doesn't count me and Peter as adult supervision."
Tony groaned, and kept one arm around Peter but pulled his blankets down with the other. Sure enough, Ned and Peter were both on his bed, now, grinning happily at him.
"She said that?"
Peter nodded.
"Yeah."
"JARVIS? What time is it?"
"Seven."
"Why are you boys waking me up at seven in the morning on a Saturday?"
"Natasha said to," Peter told him.
He scowled.
"And you listened to her?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"Because she's a grown up," Ned said. "And she's pretty."
Tony frowned, and looked at Peter. The little boy nodded.
"She is."
"Go tell her I'll be there in a minute."
Peter squirmed out of his father's grasp, while Ned rolled off the bed.
"Okay."
"And wash your hands."
There was a noise that was probably agreement, and he closed his eyes as he heard the door close. The blanket went back over his head, and he plumped his pillow.
"Natasha Romanoff is in the lounge kitchen," JARVIS told him.
"It's seven in the morning."
"Correct."
"On a Saturday."
"You told the boys that you'd join them."
Tony groaned.
"I said in a minute," he reminded the AI, without opening his eyes. "Wake me up in a minute."
OOOOOOOO
"Well?"
The four men sitting at the table all looked up at Natasha Romanoff, who was standing beside the table watching them, expectantly. None of them mentioned the flour that was in her hair, or the smeared pancake batter on her hip where there was a perfect handprint. A small handprint, which meant it belonged to Peter or Ned.
"You don't really expect anything but compliments, do you?" Sam asked, pointedly.
The pancakes that Peter and Ned had delivered proudly to the table had been edible, but so ugly. Peter had explained that he and Ned had convinced Natasha and Tony to make the pancakes shaped like Avengers, in deference to the people waiting to eat them. The result was fair proof that Tony and Natasha's pancake artistic skills were on par with Peter's drawing abilities.
The men; Steve, Sam, Rhodey and Nick, were all aware that they only had one response to her question. She was a trained killer, after all, and probably knew more ways to kill a man (and undoubtably painful ways) than all of them, combined.
"They were good," Steve assured her.
"Like eating a Picasso," Fury said, blandly.
Romanoff's killer gaze turned amused. She knew that was a two-edged compliment. Yes, Picasso was an artist, but most of his stuff looked like the canvas had thrown up the paint in a drunken night of partying.
"I'll take it."
Peter came out of the kitchen, then, and Fury turned his attention to the little boy.
"Where's your dad?"
"Doing dishes with Ned."
Peter's hair was dusted with flour, too, and there was egg yolk on his neck and shirt.
"Does he know how messy you are, right now?"
The little boy grinned.
"Yeah."
"Did you eat?" Sam asked. "Or did Natasha chain you to the stove?"
Peter shook his head, clearly happy.
"We ate."
Romanoff's hand came to rest on Peter's shoulder.
"Of course, I fed him. Ned, too." She smirked. "I even fed Stark before I put him to work doing the dishes."
"We get to go outside and play in the snow, now," Peter said, excitedly.
"Not until you get cleaned up," Nick told the boy. "I'm not going to have you out in the cold with all that goop smeared on you. Or on Ned. We've done the sick kid thing, once, already. Right?"
"Yeah."
"Then finish cleaning up whatever mess you guys made, go clean your little selves, and then make sure you are bundled in warm snow clothes – with mittens to keep your hands warm. Got it?"
"Yeah."
"Go."
Nick waved the boy back to the kitchen and Peter obeyed, happily skipping back into the kitchen.
"You're such a grandpa," Natasha said, clearly amused at the way Nick handled the boy.
"I'm going to pretend that you didn't say that," Fury told her. "What is the weather looking like, out there?"
"Snow," Rhodey replied, also amused. "A lot of snow."
"Good. You are all excused to go spend time with our young guests and wear them out so they don't run amok in my compound, this evening."
"Yes, sir."