*knocks down door, a disheveled mess* I'M BAAAACK!

Hoo, boy, did my writing motivation ever take a nosedive at Christmas. I've had half this chapter written for over three months, but I kept being dogged by my work and life...but I'm back!

I am still determined to finish the ChristyVerse. I have stories planned all through Endgame, it's just a matter of me getting the time to sit and write. I will try to be way more timely with updates!

Chapter Nine: Sharp Things

"Remember, you have to keep the knife pointed up. No being sloppy."

Anish nodded perfunctorily and gave a weak slash.

Natasha frowned. "Do you not want training today?"

"No! I want! But…" Anish glanced at the floor and let the knife drop slowly to his side. "My head is full."

Natasha sat down on the couch and motioned for him to do the same. No sense in continuing their weekly training if Anish was in the wrong headspace.

"Wanna tell me what it's full of?"

Anish shrugged. "Adoption is soon."

"Yeah? You still worried we don't want you?"

"No! No, not…really." Anish glanced away. "It feels like a movie. But movies don't happen. Not here."

Natasha gave a half-smile. "It is a little like a movie, isn't it? My whole life could be a dang good movie."

Anish shifted. "Are you ever going to tell us about all the secrets?"

Natasha's heart stopped for a second.

"What secrets?" she whispered.

Anish could sense her mood change. He played with the edge of the couch and mumbled, "…why you know how to kill people. Why no grandparents. Why so many friends that aren't family, but you say family."

"Ah. Those secrets." Natasha sighed. "In order, I know how to kill people because I was taught how to, you have no grandparents because they are all dead, and all the friends…a lot of us don't have blood family left. So, we made our own family."

"Uncle Steve look like a superhero."

Natasha's face didn't change, but her heart sped up. "…which one?"

"Captain America."

There was a long pause.

"Well…" Natasha finally whispered, "that's because he is."

Anish's eyes grew huge. "He is? Really is?"

"Yeah, bud. He's Captain America."

"…then who are you?"

Natasha laughed. "They call me Black Widow. A spider where the girl eats the boy."

Anish nodded slowly. "You eat lots of boys."

"…you mean kill, yeah?"

"Yeah, kill."

Natasha gave an internal sigh of relief. Anish was only nine. Conversations about the facts of life could wait for a little while longer.

"Who is Baba?"

"He's a doctor. A famous scientist." She took a steadying breath. "But when he fights like a superhero, they call him Hulk."

Anish's jaw dropped. "Baba is Hulk?! But he…he's Baba! He's nice!"

"Yes, he is. One of the nicest people I know. He had…an accident. When he was making an experiment. It hurt his body. So, when he's angry or stressed, really angry or stressed…"

"He become Hulk." Anish frowned. "Why I never see?"

"He tries very hard to make sure no one ever sees."

"Is Hulk bad? He look scary but he fight monsters."

"I don't think he's bad. He just needs other people to make sure he doesn't hurt the wrong people."

"…is that why Baba turn green sometimes when he's mad?"

Natasha did a double take. "You noticed that? I barely notice it anymore!"

Anish nodded. "I want to be a scientist. So I notice things."

Natasha couldn't fault that logic.

"Is everyone a superhero?"

"Well, Uncle Tony is Iron Man…"

"Oh, I know that!" Anish said, almost scornfully. "Everyone know that!"

Natasha couldn't help but laugh. "He doesn't really try to hide it very well. Who else have you met on Skype…well, Uncle Clint is…like me. A spy. He doesn't have superpowers, but he fights bad guys still."

"How does he fight?"

"With a bow and arrow."

"Oh, like Rama, and Arjuna?"

"Yeah, something like them…he is a hero. He saved me."

Anish grabbed her hand. "Can you tell me that story, Ma? Please?"

Natasha hesitated. "It's not a very nice story…"

"My story not very nice, too. Please, Ma? I wanna know."

For a moment, the only sound was the traffic from the street. Shanta was napping, and Bruce was at Hope Center. There were no potential interruptions.

Better an honest screw-up than a liar in a mask…

Natasha gave a faint, sarcastic smile. "Damn you, Tony."

"It was a cold, spring day in Budapest…"

"Where Budapest?"

"It's in Europe…here, see?" Using her phone, Natasha found a map of the world and zoomed in with her fingers. "This is India, this is where we are. Here's Europe. The country is Hungary, and Budapest is the capital city."

Anish's eyes were wide. "So far away."

"It is. I was sent there on a mission. I don't even really remember what I was supposed to do, but Anish…" Natasha felt her throat catch. "I wasn't a nice person. Or a good one. I'm still not, but I was a worse one then. I was sent to kill someone."

"Kill? Why?"

Natasha smiled sardonically. "They were a threat. They knew something that made it dangerous for the people who were my bosses. It should have been normal. But what I didn't know what that your Uncle Clint was in the same city, on a mission to save the guy I was supposed to kill. And kill me."

Anish sat quietly, riveted on Natasha's face. She took a deep breath.

"I had the guy in range—he was close enough to shoot. And then, I passed out. Something hit me in the back of the head. I woke up later in a bed, in a tiny room, with this guy who told me I had two choices—come back to America with him or die."

"Uncle Clint."

"Yeah. The thing is…he wasn't supposed to even give me that choice. And he got in some trouble later for bringing me back. Some of his bosses were mad at him."

"But he saved you."

"He saved me."

"Does Uncle Clint have a hero name?"

"He has a secret name…a spy name. And now it's his hero name. They call him Hawkeye. A hawk…here, look. A bird like this." She found another picture to show Anish.

Anish looked impressed. "Very scary bird. Big…feet?"

"Claws, yeah. They're good at catching things and seeing things from far away. Clint is like that. He's an archer from far away. He hides up high and fights from there."

Anish took her hand. "That's not such a bad story."

Natasha gave him a wobbly smile back. "I guess not, bud."

"…every people have sad story. If you tell…not sad, not much."

Natasha nodded. "You're right. That's what everyone says. Only nobody tells you how hard it is to tell."

Anish leaned against her arm. "I here, Ma."

Natasha smiled a little as she lifted her arm around her son.

"Three words I never thought I'd hear."

Shanta peered into the small, slightly grimy bathroom mirror and touched her tooth. She immediately flinched back from pain and whimpered a bit.

Baba said that teeth had to come out to make room for bigger teeth. But she didn't like to think about that, because then she imagined all her teeth being pushed out at once by big teeth from inside the pink part of her teeth. Baba called it 'gums'. Not the kind you chew.

Mostly, Shanta wanted the tooth out because it hurt and made it hard to eat. But also because Baba talked about a goddess that took away your tooth, if you put it under your pillow, and brought you money in return. He called her the Tooth Fairy.

Shanta very badly wanted the Tooth Fairy to come. She had never had any money that was hers before.

With one last gingerly poke, she left the bathroom. Maybe Anish would play Doctor with her.

"This is a new low." Natasha muttered, watching Shanta and Anish both on devices (a tablet and a phone respectively) chatting away. "Letting my children get their own Skype accounts."

Clint, on Skype himself, just grinned. "You could have let them get Facebook. Or TikTok. Or Twitter…"

"Over my dead body, Barton!"

Bruce laughed. "Never thought the super spy would be so against tech."

"I'm not against tech! I'm against small children having exposure to things they aren't prepared for and have no clue what to do with!"

Clint grinned wider. "Careful, Tasha, your Steve is showing."

Natasha pretended to punch him through the screen.

"How, ah…how is everyone." Bruce asked quickly, pinning Natasha's arm down.

Clint leaned back on the sofa. They were trying to keep the call going until Laura got back from running errands. "Fine, currently. Wanda and Pietro are taking classes at the local community college. Steve volunteered to teach a drawing class on the weekends. Sam's almost got his Master's in counseling an' he's trying to get hired online. Bucky…" he broke off, smirking. "He's got a job at a car fix-it place. Mechanic!"

"I can't say I'm that surprised." Bruce said. "It must be good for him to work with his hands to make something. Not destroy."

"That's what he said. Kids are all fine in school. They keep asking when they can meet their cousins for real."

Natasha sighed. "I hate bureaucracy. I hate paperwork. Stupid Visas."

Bruce put his arm around her. "We are making progress. It's just slow. Not the adoption part, the Visa for the States part."

"If it goes through, how long do you think you'd stay in India before coming back to the States?"

Bruce and Natasha looked at each other, both afraid to say what they had been thinking for a while.

"We…we've got a life here." Bruce said slowly.

Clint nodded, sharp understanding in his eyes. "You wanna stay long-term."

"Yeah."

"It is a good place to lie low."

"We miss you guys." Natasha clarified. "You don't even know how much. But there's not much left for either of us in the U.S. Life is good for us here. We wanna stay a while."

Clint let out a breath. "I get it. Still miss you, Tasha. An' you, Big Guy."

Bruce rolled his eyes playfully. "No Big Guy here. He hasn't come out in months. He's got less to be mad about, since the kids came."

"Let's hope he gets to stay in." Clint rubbed his hand over his face. "We haven't heard anything lately about repercussions for all that mess last year, but there's always a chance Ross will get some sway. Everyone's been more worried about the economy lately to give a crap about some superhero spat, though."

"Good." Bruce said fervently. Even though he technically hadn't been involved with the Accords, anything to do with Thaddeus Ross made him antsy.

"That's another reason to stay in India, I guess." Clint added. "Ross ain't gonna go to so much trouble, hopefully."

"Hopefully." Bruce sighed. "But I've been on borrowed time for years. We should enjoy the peace while we have it instead of speculating about when trouble will come again."

Natasha and Clint shared a look through the camera and smirked. Clint intoned in a decent impersonation of Nick Fury: "Trouble…trouble always comes 'round."

Meanwhile, Anish and Shanta were enjoying chats with Lila and Cooper respectively. Nathaniel was out with Laura.

Shanta was proudly showing off her tooth to Lila.

"That's so cool!" Lila squealed. "Are you gonna put it under your pillow for the Tooth Fairy?"

"Han! Then got money."

"How much? I got a dollar."

Shanta frowned. "No know. Maybe twenty rupee."

"How much is that?"

Shanta shrugged. "Baba! How much twenty rupee?"

Bruce glanced over and made a quick search on his phone. "Twenty-seven US cents."

Shanta dutifully repeated the amount.

"That's not that much! You should ask for more!"

"B-but…"

Lila leaned forward. "Mommy told me that the Tooth Fairy is just a story. That it's really mommies and daddies that give money. So you should ask for more."

Shanta's eyes grew wide. This was even worse! Asking money from a mystical fairy-goddess was one thing. Asking for money from Baba and Ma, when they had already given so much was impossible!

Lila frowned. "What's wrong? Auntie Nat and Uncle Bruce always like sharing."

"They give a lot…"

"So they'll give more! They like to do it!"

"…promise?"

"Promise!"

"…Fifty rupee. That a lot."

Lila shrugged. "Okay. I know one girl at school that got five dollars! That's gotta be a lot of rupee."

A few feet away, Anish and Cooper were discussing various Lego building projects. They were trying to see who could build the bigger spaceship. When that line of conversation was exhausted, Cooper shyly asked:

"Are Auntie Nat and Uncle Bruce gonna adopt you guys soon?"

Anish nodded. "They want. The papers take long time."

"Dad says paperwork is always slow when it really matters. It took them a long time to adopt Pietro and Wanda."

"Why they do that? They are big."

"Um…because Dad says everyone should have a family. Even grown up people."

"I want to see Uncle Clint for real. And you."

Cooper shrugged. "We don't leave. Come as soon as you can. I'll keep all my Legos and we can build the biggest spaceship ever. Maybe Uncle Tony will even help."

"I like that! Uncle Tony is cool."

From the couch, Natasha looked over both children briefly. For all her ranting, it was good that they talk with their cousins. Clint and Laura were some of the best parents she knew, and their kids' healthy expectations of what parents give would spill over to Shanta and Anish.

"We're going to give you two the world…" She thought. "And the best family in it."

Two nights later, Shanta lay in bed.

'Lay' was a bit of a lie. She kept shifting every five seconds to see the precious treasure under her pillow.

Her tooth had finally come out, leaving a strange hole in her mouth that she couldn't help but run her tongue over.

Now it was time for the Tooth Fairy.

Shanta was blissfully unaware of how much this whole affair had been discussed by her soon-to-be parents.

"Bruce, are you really going to let her believe in the Tooth Fairy?"

"Why not? I'm letting her believe in undead super soldiers, wizards, mind powers, super speed…"

"All of those things are real!"

"She's a child, Tasha. Let her be one! God knows we never got to be. My mom still did this for me, even though I didn't believe!"

"…fine. How much are we gonna give her?"

"…one hundred rupees."

"That's over a dollar!"

"Tasha." Bruce paused patiently. "First, it is a lot, but not too much. This is just for the first tooth. Second, think of it from Shanta's point of view. She's probably never had any money to call her own. Never gotten the freedom to just buy something, without asking for money from Anish or anyone else. She needs this."

A light slowly dawned in Natasha's eyes. "Oh. I see. Fine. One hundred rupees it is."

But naturally, Shanta knew none of this. All she knew was, she couldn't sleep.

Bruce passed by the doorway and paused. "Shanta, noyoner moni, you have to sleep or the Tooth Fairy won't come. Your brother is already sleeping."

Shanta whined a bit. "No sleep, Baba! No tired!"

Bruce sighed and came into the bedroom. Sitting down on the warm comforter, he smoothed Shanta's hair.

"What if I sing? Will that help you go to sleep?"

"…story!"

"A story! Like…Cinderella? Or Rama and Sita?"

"No! New story!"

"A new story, huh? Demanding tonight, aren't we?"

Shanta wilted slightly. "Sorry, Baba…"

Bruce hugged her. "It's fine, noyoner moni. I'm not angry. I just have to think…"

Shanta waited expectantly. Bruce wracked his brain for anything to say.

Finally, almost without knowing what he was doing, he said:

"I have a story. One you've never heard before. It's the story of a man…and a monster."

He took a deep breath.

"Once upon a time, there was a…wizard. He was given money by a powerful general to help create a…potion that would protect people from…bad magic, magic that made people sick. The wizard tried, but he couldn't make the potion. And because he was around the potion's ingredients so much, it…caused a problem."

Shanta snuggled into the blankets; her giant brown eyes fixed on face. "What problem?"

"Being around the potion's ingredients hurt the wizard's emotions. Every time he was angry or stressed or worried, his emotions would work against him and turn him into a monster. A giant, super-strong monster. The monster destroyed the place where the wizard had worked and ran away, but the general was angry. The government of the country was angry. So they tried to find the wizard, to put him in jail."

Shanta's eyes got even bigger. "They find?"

Bruce smiled sadly. "No, not at first. The wizard hid in foreign countries for many years. He used his magic to help others, but he always had to be careful that the monster did not come out. But one day, he was found by a woman who worked for a secret group of fighters, who kept people safe. The man in charge of the group wanted the wizard to help them. The wizard didn't want to…but the group was powerful. So he agreed. He helped the group fight and they accepted him. They became like his family. And eventually, he fell in love with the woman who had found him…"

"They get married? Nice wedding with pretty dress and flower?"

Bruce started.

"Y-yeah. Yeah, they did. Nice wedding with pretty flowers and…and two happy kids."

Shanta relaxed back into her bed. "I like this story."

"Yeah? I'm real glad…'cause it's real." Bruce hugged her tight. "It's…it's my story."

"You?!" Shanta squirmed out of the hug. "You are doctor! Not wizard."

"Doctors have magic powers. We just call it medicine. Medicine is almost magic."

That made Shanta think. And then pout. And think more.

"You have monster."

"Inside, yeah."

"Will he come out?"

"Not unless something very, very bad happens. In fact…the last time he asked to come out was…was the night we found you and Anish. He was angry at the bad man hurting you."

Shanta's mouth was a perfect o shape. She gently placed a hand on Bruce's chest.

"Monster have name?"

Bruce melted. "Hulk. You can call him Hulk."

"Dhanyabad, Uncle Hulk! But stay inside, okay, please?"

Any last semblance of rational thought was gone from Bruce's head.

"She wasn't scared! She's happy! She called him Uncle Hulk!"

But he came down from his elation long enough to realize that the main problem he had was still not solved. Shanta was wide awake.

He sighed.

"C'mere, sweetie. Let me sing, huh? You need to sleep."

Shanta tried to whimper protests, but he started to sing their mother's lullaby (Anish had taught him) and she slowly fell asleep.

When she was at last comatose, he slipped his hand under her pillow, found the tooth, and inserted a hundred rupee note.

"Mission accomplished."

Anish was awakened the next morning by Shanta climbing into his bed.

"Ah! Shanta, get off! I'm trying to sleep!"

"Anish, I got money from the Tooth Goddess!"

Anish moaned, reluctantly peeling open his eyes. "For the last time, she's a fairy, not a goddess, and she isn't real! Cooper said it's just a story!"

"I know! Lila told me, too! But that means Ma and Baba gave me money…"

She smoothed the money out flat, obviously very proud. Anish looked it over. It was one hundred rupees, alright. And a new bill, too. The blue paper almost seemed to shine, and Ghandi's face looked like he was smiling benevolently just for them.

"That's a lot for a tooth." he whispered. "You could eat for two days. Three."

"I can buy sweets with it!" Shanta crowed happily. "All the sweets, as much as I want, and not feel bad!"

Anish nodded, feeling just the slightest twinge of sadness.

"Stop it." He chided himself. "Shanta's never had her own money before."

Suddenly, Shanta gasped and pointed at his pillow. "Anish, look! Did you lose a tooth, too?"

"What? No! Not for a long time. Why…?"

And then he saw it.

Poking out from his pillow was a crisp hundred-rupee bill.

He took it out gingerly, as if it would disappear.

In a whisper, he said, "They gave us both money…"

From the doorway, they suddenly heard Bruce ask, "So, good night's sleep for you two? How would you like to go to the market today? I hear you've recently come into some money."

He didn't even have time to finish his sentence before he was almost knocked over by the weight of Shanta and Anish hugging him.

Natasha, from her seat on the couch, sighed. "Fine, so you were right. Happy?"

Bruce grinned. "That doesn't even scratch the surface."

Next chapter will be the last for this story. Then, I delve into pre-Infinity War events. *rubs hands* OHHH THE FEELS. See you all there!