It was a gorgeous evening in New York. The air was clear and warm and the city was covered in spectacular lights.
Too bad that Pepper couldn't appreciate it.
Feeding a bunch of children is hard. Feeding a bunch of superhuman children is harder.
Clint and Natasha weren't wreaking as much havoc as Pepper had feared they might, but they had smeared pizza sauce all over their faces in fake battle scars. Tony was scarfing one piece of pizza down after the other, and Pepper was worried that he'd give himself bellyache. Steve was stabbing at his pizza, whispering, "Die! Die!"
Pepper wasn't sure what to make of that.
Bruce was cutting his pizza into careful shapes. Pepper wasn't sure what they were, but they resembled the odd diagrams that Tony would draw when he was working on some sort of science-y thing. Whatever they were, Bruce was working pretty hard on them, but she didn't think he'd actually eaten much if the random bits of pizza on his lap were anything to go by.
Thor was eating even faster than Tony, and he had just finished his share.
"Thor, put the pizza crust down." Pepper absent-mindedly grabbed the crust from the raised hand of the chubby God of Thunder.
"But I like it!" objected Thor.
"We don't crash things on the floor if we like 'em!" said Tony, with an air of superiority, which he had managed to keep despite being about three years old.
Thor looked at his feet, looking embarrassed.
"Idiot," muttered Tony under his breath, and Pepper groaned inwardly.
Thor gave a mighty squeak (anticlimactic, thought Pepper) and swung his rubber hammer into Tony. The little genius went flying into the opposite wall. He glared at Thor and stood up.
Pepper tensed.
Tony walked back and sat down at the table.
Pepper's jaw dropped.
However, his intent became clear as he turned to Steve. "Boost?"
Steve nodded okay and the two stood up. Tony ran up to Steve and bounced on his newly-repaired plush shield. As he soared up to the ceiling, one small hand shot out to grab the side of a shelf. He wriggled along the side of the shelf and managed to close a hand around the handle of a red plastic suitcase.
"Oh no. Oh no. Oh no." muttered Pepper. "This is bad, this is very bad, this is EXTREMELY bad..."
Tony topped off the shelf, case in hand. He put a foot on it and the rest of the team watched in interest (and trepidation, in Pepper's case) as a plastic suit folded around him, a blue light spluttering to life in the centre of his chest and in his eyes.
Pepper wondered absurdly if the arc reactor was made of plastic too, before recognising that there were greater problems at hand (and also that the reactor wouldn't work if it was plastic).
"C'mon then, Bob the Builder, whatcha got?" Tony's amplified voice made him sound much more like his usual self.
Thor rushed at him, his speed so disproportionate to his size that Pepper half expected him to trip and fall. Before she could move, Thor had reached the miniature Iron Man and had delivered a mighty WHACK!
Pepper stood, but Natasha pulled her back down. "No," she said seriously. "Pepper no..." she paused, looking frustrated, trying to remember the words from her adult vocabulary. "Intervene!" she said finally, looking triumphant. "Pepper no intervene. Could get messy, with big hammer and scary suit. Pepper not trained for."
Pepper sighed. "I guess so, but what else can I do?"
Clint grinned wickedly. "We help?" And before Pepper could say anything, he had walked over to Bruce and sliced his careful pizza shapes in half.
Pepper gasped.
Bruce looked up, shocked. His eyes welled with tears, and he sniffled. "Why cut?" he asked quietly.
Clint shrugged, looking a little uncomfortable. "Hulk?" he suggested.
Bruce looked startled. His eyes started to burn and his fists clenched. "You want Hulk?" he growled. "You get Hulk!"
Natasha ran forward and pushed Clint back towards Pepper, sending the two stumbling back. Natasha stood in front of Bruce, hands on hips. "Sorry Bruce!" she chirped. "We help you put funny shapes back together later." She gestured at the shapes. "But Thor and Tony fight." She pointed.
Bruce was squirming, and Pepper noted with horror that he was turning green. "Go!" he yelped at Natasha, sounding strangled. He shoved the young girl towards Pepper and Clint before turning away. His clothes ripped, and his muscles grew larger... And larger...
The first thing that Pepper noticed was that he was much smaller than the normal Hulk. He was bigger than Bruce, by a great deal, but he was even smaller than she was.
"Bruce?" said Natasha tentatively. Clint stepped discreetly in front of her, just a bit, his arm extended ever-so-slightly in front of her, as if to shield her from the thing that he knew she feared. "Bruce, you help stop Tony and Thor?" Natasha asked in a small voice.
The Hulk turned to look at the three of them, his eyes filled with fury and... sorrow? He growled and began to advance.
Pepper yanked Steve over to her and gently pulled on Clint and Natasha, willing them to move backwards. Instead, Clint, being the brave, foolish little bugger that he was, charged.
Natasha screamed.
Clint whipped out his bow, which Pepper had fixed using super glue, and shot a couple of arrows into the Hulk's face. One hit him in the eye. Momentarily blinded, the Hulk paused and howled in discomfort, clawing at his face. Natasha took the opportunity to take a running leap onto his head, pulling out her pop gun. Steve entered the fray as well, brandishing the shield and yelling unintelligibly.
Pepper looked around desperately. There had to be some sort of button, something to call the S.H.I.E.L.D agents in for help...
A yell got her attention and she snapped around. Evidently, Thor and Tony has just caught sight of the Hulk, seeing as he had just stumbled into the space where they'd been fighting. The two looked at each other, and in an instant, had set their differences aside and jumped into the fight.
The Hulk, enraged at having two new competitors, roared and swept his arm in Tony's direction, sending him flying. The tiny armour landed in a heap, and Pepper shrieked. She started forward, but a voice shouted from the pile of armour, "NO! Pepper stay back!"
She stopped, reassured that he was okay. She looked back into the fray, and her sense of relief died.
There were scratches all over Natasha's face, and they didn't look like tomato sauce. Clint was fast running out of arrows, and he was scrambling to pick them up where they fell. Thor was wrapped around the Hulk's neck, but seeing as Mjolnir was a toy now, he had lost his 'only he who is worthy shall hold this hammer' advantage. The hammer was also not magic anymore, meaning that he had to fetch it whenever he lost it. Steve was being repeatedly squashed as he held his shield up to protect himself, only to rediscover that is was no longer vibranium and offered about as much protection as a pillow- which, in essentials, was what it was.
Pepper inhaled sharply, squinched her eyes shut and gritted her teeth at the pure stupidity of what she was about to do. "Bruce!" she called loudly.
The room went silent.
Pepper saw Natasha mouthing at her in fear. Tony had also sat up, and was staring at her, horrified.
"Bruce," Pepper began, and then stopped. What did you say to an enormous green rage monster who was rampaging around a nursery? "Stop it." she finished lamely.
The Hulk paused, possibly at the utter dumbness of her statement.
Pepper waited.
The Hulk charged.
And then everything happened at once.
"PEPPER!" screamed Tony, and he blasted straight at the Hulk, forgetting about whatever damage he may have sustained. He barrelled into the creature, sending them both flying backwards- straight into the rest of the group. Natasha fired round after round from her pop gun, aiming at the Hulk's face. Clint shot every arrow he could find, and then every arrow he couldn't find (Steve fetched them for him, finally admitting that his shield wasn't of much use). Thor bounded onto the Hulk's head, smashing with his hammer over and over. The Hulk bellowed, trying to scratch off his puny opponents. But they didn't let up.
"Bruce!" shouted Steve. "Bruce, stop it! Don't keep fighting us. Please Brucie?"
"Please?" echoed Tony, looking battered.
"Please," sniffed Natasha, and Clint nodded.
Thor said nothing, but looked down at the Hulk imploringly.
The Hulk paused again, looking a little confused, and then shocked, and then remorseful. He shrank quickly, and became his normal self again- albeit without clothes. Natasha made a face and turned away.
"I'm sorry!" Bruce squeaked, as Pepper fetched him some clothes. "I'm really sorry!"
Natasha approached him tentatively and gave him a hug. Clint looked at him jealously for a moment before remembering himself and coughing. "Sorry for provoking," he mumbled.
"It's okay," said Bruce uncertainly. "I guess."
"At least no more fight," offered Steve.
Tony and Thor looked guiltily at each other.
"Sorry," muttered Tony, looking slightly sullen.
"Sorry, friends," mumbled Thor abashedly.
There was a wet plop behind them and everybody looked around to see that one of Bruce's mutilated pizza shapes had fallen to the floor.
A tear slid down Bruce's cheek. "Molecule," he said sadly.
Clint looked at the floor.
Pepper squatted down and looked Clint straight in the eye. "Anything to say, Clint?" she asked firmly.
"Msry," he mumbled.
"What was that?" she insisted.
"I'M SORRY," he said, much louder. He looked up at Bruce. "Really sorry. I help you put back?"
Bruce managed a small smile. "Okie dokie."
Just as they began to walk back to the table, the door banged open, and Fury stood in the door. He was holding a rather unexpected visitor. A very small one.