NOTES: This chapter comes with a warning: it contains ALL THE FEELS. There's a lot of cute here. And a lot of angst. And a lot of cute. And a lot of angst.

And Baby Makes Eight

- Part IV -

Maria does the power-down checklist for the Quinjet, exhausted beyond measure after a four-day mission in China, working with an agent who objected to her authority in the field – she practically has a collection of them - and desperately looking forward to a cuddle and babble from her daughter.

It's the longest time yet that she's been away from Pippa since Pippa was born. When she was needed to oversee a mission, she took overnighters and was back within twenty-four hours, and only once Pippa was old enough to understand that Mama was going away, but she would always come back.

Mere moments after Pippa's birth, Maria looked at her daughter swore she'd never allow Pippa to feel that she wasn't important to her mom. Some things had to come first – world security, for starters - but Pippa should never, ever doubt that her mom loved her.

She thinks she's done an okay job; not perfect, but then her standards have come down a little since she embarked on this course of motherhood.

Sometimes it scares her, how far she's come.

Sometimes it scares her, how far she's yet to go.

And sometimes it scares her how much easier her life is with the backing of Nick Fury at S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers. Including – and she will never admit this anywhere but in her head – Tony Stark's 'adoption' of her daughter.

Laws have been laid down regarding Pippa, of course. Tony even keeps to most of them.

As she signs off the checklist and hauls her duffle out of the empty co-pilot's seat, Maria wonders how many of those rules were broken while she was away – and just how difficult it's going to be to get Pippa back into a routine.

"Welcome home, Lieutenant."

"Thanks, JARVIS. Where's Pippa and Sukie?"

"Miss Pippa is presently in the nursery. Unfortunately, Miss Sukie had to return home for a family crisis; her elder sister has been injured in difficult circumstances. She apologised most profusely."

Damn. Sukie is good with Pippa. Maria hopes the sister is okay, but the prospect of having to find an emergency nanny for her daughter is not particularly enthusing.

She steps into the elevator and rolls her shoulders, trying to ease the ache in her spine from the long flight in from the helicarrier. She doesn't even need to press the floor button in the elevator - the biosensors automatically set her destination as her quarters unless she indicates otherwise. "So who's looking after Pippa now since the team is up at the moon base?"

"Assorted people have been looking after Pippa. Commander Fury was her carer yesterday."

Which means Pippa's going to be unbearable. Fury might be the terror of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the despair of the Council, but far more terrifying to Maria is the sight of her boss playing 'granddad' and crawling all over the floor on his hands and knees as he chases after Pippa.

They don't talk about it. Ever.

But that's something else. Right now, Maria knows she's being stalled. "You haven't answered the question, JARVIS."

"Pippa is quite entertained and perfectly safe."

"JARVIS..."

"Peter Parker is babysitting her."

The elevator doors open on a toddler screaming with delight as she soars around the room from a contraption of webby threads that do nothing for Maria's maternal instincts, and a young man with a distinctly embarrassed and slightly hangdog look on his face when he sees who's at the door.

"Uh, hey, Miss Hill."

Maria forbears from reminding him that she's an agent, not a 'miss'.

"Mama! Mama! Look! I fly!" Pippa flaps her arms and legs, and Maria fixes Peter with a look that says she has a weapon. And knows where he lives. And has his medical records on file.

He smiles, bravura barely covering his nervousness. "I'll just get her down," he says.

Maria sighs. What the hell. Pippa clearly doesn't need her right now, and there'll be plenty of time for hugs and cuddles – and tantrums and screaming fits - when Peter's done playing. "No, I think that, since you're doing such a good job of entertaining her, Mr. Parker, you can keep doing it for an hour or so longer while I get a wash and something to eat. Unless you have work to do?"

Peter grins as Pippa demands another 'fly'. "I think Pip and I can manage another hour."

–

There are times when Bruce wishes he could still let himself get drunk.

Right now, he suspects Natasha wishes she could.

He indicates the empty bench space, weathered wood, unpainted, and well within view of the playground. "This seat taken?"

She knew he was coming – that one of them would come to look for her. She probably expected Steve. But Steve's giving Clint a target right now, and dealing with his own anger and guilt in the process. And, perhaps, facing the facts of his own future.

"I never wanted children," Natasha says without preamble, her voice low and even, her eyes staring blindly at the play equipment where children shriek and laugh and cry at play. "Pippa's lovely, of course, but I was never maternal. So why does it hurt?"

In that question, Bruce hears not the woman Natasha Romanova has become, but the child she was never allowed to be. Inside him, the Hulk rages, but there's no outlet for this anger, no target. The people who did this to her are long scattered and the trail is dead. There's only the anger, and in and of itself, it would do more harm than good.

It's still a struggle.

Natasha continues, almost as though she's talking to herself rather than to Bruce. "Regretting something I never wanted only once I discover I can never have it seems so...pitiful."

"It's human," Bruce says, letting his gaze drift across the park, watching the families go by. So small and ordinary a thing, but something he can't have. "And it's harder because you didn't make that choice – it was made for you."

"Is it easier on you or Steve?"

He shouldn't be surprised that Natasha goes for the throat, but his gut squeezes briefly. "Our circumstances are a little different. We can father children – at least theoretically we can - we just...think we probably shouldn't."

It came up just after Pippa's birth – an unguarded moment while holding Pippa when Steve had admitted he'd never even considered fatherhood when he took the serum. "Before the serum, I never figured I'd find a woman who'd want kids with me. And afterwards... there was the war to fight."

Bruce certainly wasn't thinking of his future progeny when he took the serum. But then, he wasn't expecting the serum to turn him into a raging monster, either.

"You'd make a good father."

"It's the Other Guy I'm worried about."

"He'd beat up the other dads."

Bruce laughs then, caught between the horror of the thought and the black humour of it. "Barton said that, didn't he?" The words slip out before he manages to censor them, and he regrets the mention, because the smile slides from her face.

Is her anger and grief for herself, or for Clint?

"He should have children of his own."

"And if he wanted them, would you let him walk away?" Her silence is all the witness to the struggle that Bruce needs. "He's not angry about that."

"I know. But he should still..." Natasha trails off and catches a ball that bounces up at her, thrown by an overenthusiastic little boy, who starts to come close to fetch it, then hesitates, uncertainly. She tosses it lightly back to him and he grins shyly at her from behind the toy, too bashful to say thank-you before running off. His mother can be heard telling him he should have thanked the nice lady.

The 'nice lady's mouth twitches a little, but her eyes are very far away when she speaks. "We're not made for normal things, are we? Any of us."

Bruce looks at the woman who was bred and trained into a tool for death and desire.

He thinks of Tony, kept alive by the grace of his own brain and the drive to be more than the butcher of America. He thinks of Steve's heart and hopes too big for the body he was born into, given manifestation by Erskine's brilliance; Clint's instincts to brutality honed to a fine tip and used without mercy until S.H.I.E.L.D. offered him an alternative; Thor and the cost of his youthful pride – a brother of bitterness and worlds rent asunder.

And he looks at himself, at his own anger at the world and his desire to change it, to make it better, and where that anger and pride and drive and will took him – is still taking him.

It's a little different for the newer members of the Avengers - Henry, Janet, T'Challa, Heather. The original six were brought together by the Chitauri invasion and Phil's death – need and anger and revenge. Newer members request to join; but the founding six had the choice to be Avengers or to fail the world.

'Normal' was never an option for them after that.

"No," he answers her gently. "We're not."

"So we really are lost creatures."

"If you define 'lost' by the standard of 'normal', I guess we are."

"And if you don't?"

Bruce takes a moment. "We're drawn to Pippa because she's our touchstone to normality."

"The little girl who plays pony with the Hulk is a touchstone to normality?" Natasha arches a brow at him, and his cheeks grow hot in the light breeze of the afternoon. No, she hasn't broadcast it about, but she's not going to forget it, either.

"We're not heroes in Pippa's eyes. We're just the people who love her."

"And she loves us back."

"No hero-worship. No reverence."

It's that very irreverence that delights the Other Guy - someone who isn't afraid of him, who doesn't tiptoe around him, even if it's only because she doesn't understand she should. Bruce knows and fears what the Hulk could do, but trust is such a rare commodity these days - rare enough in those who knew them before they became what they are; almost non-existent in those who've met them since – that he doesn't have the strength to walk away when he should.

So Bruce understands why Pepper's departure left Tony broken in ways nobody talks about anymore. And why Tony made Pippa his legal heir.

"We can't be normal anymore, but we can have Pippa, who thinks we are?"

"That's about it."

There's a moment when it looks like she wants to protest this. Then Natasha sighs, and something in her relaxes. "So Maria's stuck with us."

"Do you really think she'd ever get rid of Tony?"

One corner of Natasha's mouth quirks upwards, and her eyes gleam as she turns her head. "She still sometimes thinks about getting Pippa out and away from us into what she considers a normal life."

Bruce snorts. "She'd be lucky to make it to the door."

–

Clint has never seen behind Fury's eyepatch. He was quite happy not knowing.

Unfortunately, it seems that, like dogtags, glasses, long hair, and beards, eyepatches are an utterly natural thing for a baby girl to grab hold and pull off – or, in the case of long hair and beards, attempt to pull off.

"Yes, Agent Barton?" Fury says, brows arched. "Did you have a report to give?"

Pippa waves the eyepatch at Clint, and Clint decides that discretion is the better part of saying nothing about the sunk-socketed Eye That Is Not. He's going to have a word with whoever coined that phrase, too, because it's damned catchy.

He gives his report and gets the hell out of dodge, not even stopping to ask the director if he wants Clint to take Pippa back to the daycare.

–

In the middle of Pippa's screaming tantrum, with Tony holding onto his temper by the thinnest of margins, Pepper walks in, looking as cool, elegant, and untouchable as Tony's ever known her to be.

Their eyes meet and for a moment he can't think.

Then her gaze drops to the thrashing child on the floor.

"Philippa Carmelita Hill," she says in the quiet, authoritative voice that snaps something in Tony to attention. "What is that noise you're making?"

Pippa scrubs her eyes and – little traitor – flings herself at Pepper, still-sobbing with her crocodile tears. Tony can't hear what she's babbling and he's kind of glad of it, because otherwise he'd have to contradict her and it would get messy. As if it isn't already messy enough with Pepper in the room.

"Bad day?" Pepper asks as she hoists Pippa up and rests her on her hips, her gaze taking in the shambles of what was a perfectly good playtime until they had an argument over naps and snacks.

"I never believed in the terrible twos before this," Tony says, scrubbing a hand through his hair and ignoring the clutching in his gut at her proximity. "I mean, of course they happened, but I figured it was mostly parents losing their shit after a couple of years of parenting."

Pepper laughs. "I suspect that most parents have lost it after a few months. They just hide it better. What is it, Pippa?"

Pippa is batting at Pepper's shoulder trying to get her attention, and the stream of insistent baby babble that flows from her mouth gives Tony a moment to study Pepper.

She looks good. Of course, she always looked good, even back before- But he can't let himself think about that. There are things Tony needs to do - or not do - to stay sane, and not allowing himself to think about those two years when things were good - or, at least, as good as they'd ever been - is one of them.

Better than one who doesn't like who I am!

Pepper knew who and what Tony was within six months of working for him. She knew all his faults and his failings long before they finally got together. And yet, after two years, it all fell apart and Tony still doesn't know how or why, or what - if anything - he could have done to save them.

Maybe it just wasn't meant to be.

But that's bullshit. An easy out that means nothing and doesn't require any self-examination. God knows Tony's never been one for navel-gazing; but he's very aware of his faults.

"You want Tony to read you a book?" Pepper asks, and Pippa sticks her fingers in her mouth and nods emphatically.

Tony gives her a stern look. "You wanted cookies before."

"Cookies, too!"

Pepper has the look on her face that means she wants to laugh but is keeping it formal and professional. "I'm sure that Tony is willing to read to you, but there won't be any cookies."

The little con artist lets her lower lip tremble for a moment, but Pepper's expression is adamant, and after a moment Pippa wriggles to be let down.

"How do you do that?" Tony asks "When I told her she couldn't have any you-know-whats, she screamed at me."

"A woman's touch," is the lofty reply. "Not that way, Tony!"

"I wasn't-" The lie dies on his lips. "Okay, I was." But he doesn't defend or justify it. Apart from the fact that Pippa's in the room, he doesn't need to - Pepper knows him too well. "Will you stay?"

"Pep-pep stay!" Pippa insists, detouring to wrap herself and the book around Pepper's leg and giving her a beseeching look.

Tony hides his grin at Pepper's expression. Yes, he's pathetic. But he's an opportunist, too. And he'll take what he can get, even if he has to resort to using a two year-old girl to get it.

And it wrenches something in him, sitting next to Pepper on the sofa, their thighs close enough to warm each other, closer than he's been allowed to get since—well, since. Pippa sits in his lap, leaning against his shoulder, her leg stuck out across Pepper's lap as though to make sure Pepper doesn't run away. It feels like...family – like things he can't have, things he wanted without knowing he wanted them – like Pepper herself.

He's watching her, not Pippa, watching the way her mouth moves and her face softens as she reads through the romps and the roaring and howling and rolling of terrible eyes and gnashing of terrible teeth. So he barely notices when they sail back through a year and in and out of weeks and through a day back into the night of Max's very own room where his dinner is still hot.

Pippa jumps off his lap and runs to get another book and he seizes the opportunity.

"I never apologised," he says softly.

"Tony—"

"For what happened. For how things went. For—anything, really. You wouldn't let me, and I need to—"

Her gaze darts across the room to Pippa. "This doesn't make things the way they were, Tony."

"No," he says. "But it clears the way forward. For me, anyway, since you've moved on. I know I can't have—I'm not asking for that. I just—I miss you."

"Book!" Pippa announces, pushing herself into the moment and climbing back into Tony's lap. "Pep-pep read!"

"I... Pippa, I can't..." Pepper drags her gaze away from him. "I have to—"

"Stay!" Pippa's lower lip wobbles tremulously and Pepper hesitates.

"Stay," Tony says, knowing it's probably the thing most likely to send her running but unable to stop himself, unable to give up hope. "Please."

Pepper looks at the door and then down at him and the little girl who is and isn't theirs. And then it's like her knees crumple; she sits heavily back down on the sofa. "Very well, I'll stay," she tells them – tells him. Then her mouth quirks with a touch of mischief. "But Tony's reading this time."

Tony doesn't mind reading. Especially not with Pippa in his lap and Pepper beside him.

And behind Pippa's back, his fingertips touch Pepper's, and she doesn't pull away.

–

Pippa is vibrating with excitement by the time they reach the park, kicking in the pram and making the happy squealy noises that always make Steve grin. And Steve is looking forward to an afternoon spent with his two best girls.

Then Maria's phone rings.

She grimaces as she looks at the display. "It's Sitwell. I have to take this—"

"I'll take her," Steve says, taking the pram out ofher hands. "We'll be in the park."

Maria's smile is brief and grateful as she takes the call, before it drops and she's all business, all agent.

As Steve walks on towards the park with Pippa, he thinks Maria looks tired. Too many late nights, working and looking after Pippa. S.H.I.E.L.D. demands a lot of her and she never seems to have enough rest, enough time to relax. He wants to say something, but he doesn't have the right. She hasn't given him the right to look after her, but she's given him the opportunity to look after her daughter. He works with what he has.

"What's first?" Steve asks Pippa, who's clapping her hands and already trying to wriggle out of the pram restraints. "The see saw or the slippery slide?"

The instant she's out, she drags him towards the slide, and Steve laughs as she tows him along, all the way to the first of the seven or eight platforms that rise up in shallow stairs to the colourful, fenced-in top of the slippery slide.

"Teev," Pippa says when she climbs up onto the first platform and realises he's not coming up after her.

"I can't go in," he tells her, smiling. "I'm too big. You can do it yourself. I'll walk around the outside edge and keep you company."

Pippa pouts a little, but Steve moves along the outside of the first two platforms, sticking his hand through the coloured bars and wiggling his fingers at her. "Come on!"

She climbs up and toddles across the wooden floor, giggling as she tries to catch his hand and he moves it away, further up the stair. On the other side of the enclosed space, another little girl is being coaxed up by her father. She's smaller and probably younger than Pippa, with little pink ribbons tied around tightly curled pigtails. Less certain of herself, halfway up she's decided she doesn't want to go any further, and Steve meets the father's wry smile as the other man exhorts his daughter to keep going so she can slide down.

"Hey, Pippa," he says when Pippa grabs his hand and tugs it. "How about you help the other little girl up the stairs?"

Pippa turns her head to look at the other girl as though considering whether she wants to. The other child sniffles and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, shaking her head at her father. Then jerks away, startled, when Pippa takes her hand and tugs her along.

"Daddy!"

"It's okay, Alice – you've just made a friend. Come on, she's going to help you up to the top and then you can slide down together!"

Alice takes a little while to be persuaded, but she makes her way up the stairs as Pippa chirps encouraging noises at her. By the time the two girls slide down the slide with delighted squeals, they're fast friends and run for the stairs to do it all over again.

"Well, that'll keep them occupied for at least five minutes," says Alice's father, leaning his shoulder against one of the support columns for the play equipment. "And my brother-in-law thinks minding children is easy."

"Does he have any of his own?"

"Not yet. But when he does, I'm going to watch him struggle and laugh. Payback's a bitch." The man says it cheerfully, without any malice, just the satisfaction of human nature.

Steve glances around but it doesn't look like Alice's mother is anywhere nearby. "Your wife went shopping?"

The man gives him a look. "She's working, I stay home. We did the math and she earns more after tax and breaks and stuff. Plus, I'm better at holding down the house and getting Alice to do what she's told. We figured it made more sense that way."

"You do what you have to," Steve says, thinking of Maria and the daycare on the helicarrier, of babysitters and bequests.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I'm doing what I want," says the other man. "I wouldn't swap watching Alice grow up for any number of bonuses."

He sounds sharp and Steve glances at him, realising he's touched a nerve. Things have changed a lot in seventy years, but he tries to keep an open mind and not give unwarranted offense. "Sorry, I didn't mean to imply…"

"No, no, it's okay," the other man says. "I have a tendency to jump the gun. Oversensitive, I guess." He smiles, rueful. "I guess this is just a day out of the office for you?"

"Yes. Well, not exactly. We don't, that is, I don't have regular hours that way." Steve grimaces at the prospect of trying to explain it. "It's complicated."

"Sounds it. Todd, by the way." One hand is stuck out for Steve to shake. It's a firm shake, brisk and friendly, and Steve doesn't think twice about giving his name.

"Steve."

"A pleasure to meet you."

High-pitched squealing draws their attention away – the girls are coming back, their little feet pattering over the playground turf. Alice giggles as Todd bends down to swoop her up into his arms, and Pippa wraps herself around Steve's leg, and babbles up at him. Before he can bend down and hoist her up, her head turns and she lets go and runs for the pram, where Maria is tucking her phone away in her jacket, just on her way towards them.

The expression on her face softens as she picks up her daughter and says something to Pippa who giggles and wraps her arms around her mom's neck. And Steve's chest suddenly feels too tight for breathing as the little girl rests her head against Maria's shoulder.

When he looks away, Todd has a dawning recognition in his eyes.

"I thought you looked familiar." Todd nods at Pippa. "So she's the Stark heir, then?"

Steve hesitates, torn between the truth and the desire to protect Pippa. The truth wins out. "Yes."

"Right. Big shoes for a little girl," is all Todd says. "I guess she'll grow into them."

"Not too fast," Steve murmurs. "At least, we're trying not to make her grow into them too fast…"

But something else is dawning on Todd's face as he looks from Pippa to Steve. "She's not yours, is she?"

"No."

Pippa is babbling at Maria, and twisting to get out of her momma's arms. Maria lets her down and allows herself to be dragged over, her mouth curving at the corners as she meets Steve's gaze. And Steve can tell himself that the look in her eyes is just the shared amusement of two adults caring for a beautiful, willful child, but his heart stubbornly refuses to believe it.

She's not yours, is she?

An afternoon with his two best girls?

They're not his. Steve knows they never will be. But sometimes – like today – he lets himself pretend.

–

Maria regrets letting anyone know she planned to redo Pippa's room as a third birthday present.

Once Stark knew (and she had to tell him since it's his tower), she found herself vetoing all manner of decorating suggestions from him and the other Avengers.

Some are easier to veto than others – or maybe she's just growing tired of always having to argue Stark out of his latest, greatest idea.

"It's not pink, princessy, or gender-oriented," Stark points out.

Maria pinches the bridge of her nose, even as she acknowledges her last three objections to Stark's suggestions do not apply here. Also, considering both Banner and Dr. Pym are hovering behind him, this is not merely his brainchild, and therefore will be more difficult to simply reject.

"It's wool pile, easily cleanable, decorative and instructive. What can you possibly have against it?"

"It's the periodic table and she's three years old!"

"And? But? So? Therefore? Learning can never start too early. Besides," Stark adds, "my first suggestion had a mad scientist's test tube and glass flask collection. Bruce persuaded me that 'Better Living Through Chemistry' was probably not an appropriate theme given his affliction."

"If, by 'affliction' you mean his tendency to turn into a big, green monster when he gets angry? Inappropriate seems a slightly inadequate word to describe it." Maria gives up. There's a time to fight with Tony toe-to-toe over the rules of interaction with her daughter; during a discussion of the décor in her room is not that time. "Fine. The periodic table rug – but in her playroom, not her bedroom."

Tony smirks, inspiring an urge to smack that look off his face. He's been insufferable since Pepper started talking to him again. Whether they're going to make another try of it is something else. But Maria wishes Pepper luck.

"It's a good learning tool – even for a young child," Dr. Pym is saying, aiming for mollifying.

"And Stark wonders why I keep contemplating taking Pippa and falling off the grid."

Not that she ever would.

But sometimes it's nice to dream.

–

Natasha rather resents Tony's implication that she never had a 'proper' childhood.

Perhaps she did not have a childhood like his, but that isn't a reason to belittle what she did have.

"Stark can't talk," Maria snorts as she untangles the skipping rope that has twisted itself in knots while Pippa makes anxious noises. "His childhood was nannies, boarding school, and building little baby AIs. Okay, all done, Pip!"

"Danku, Mama," Pippa declares with a smacking kiss before she runs off to continue her game of 'superheroine' – where she rescues her toys from dire situations and then they all sit down to tea and happy endings.

Natasha admits that Pippa's tendency to attempt to commando-roll under coffee tables and crawl under chairs during her 'rescues' is most likely due to her and Clint's influence. But everyone blames the stomping of wooden-block buildings on Bruce (which he claims is ridiculous because the Other Guy has never stomped anything while Pippa was around, and Maria has forbidden any videos, clips, or even news segments of the Avengers to be shown to her daughter), and her tendency to invent imaginary friends who talk to her is laid firmly at Tony's door (JARVIS denies all involvement every time).

However, whether her penchant for throwing things at other things is Steve's fault, Thor's fault, or just the natural inclination of a small child is hotly debated.

Maria sits back in the couch with a sigh. "My childhood wasn't anything I'd wish on someone else," she murmurs. "But…my stepmom used to read to my brothers and sisters when they were little, and she didn't mind if I sat in and listened. I'd just… It was nice. I want Pippa to have that."

And, Natasha suspects, it's a kind of revenge on Maria's part; if she can't give Pippa a 'normal' life – as defined by the rest of the US population who aren't Avengers – then she is at least going to give her daughter a life with some kind of structure and regularity to it.

So, every night before bed, there is The Reading. Currently two books of Pippa's choice, read to her by whoever offers – or is roped into – the duty.

Frankly, Natasha's surprised there hasn't been more fighting over who gets to read to Pippa.

"My father knows a place we can only reach by boat."

Maria's rule for bedtime stories is that the only person allowed in the room with Pippa and herself is the person doing the reading.

However, she said nothing about standing in the corridor outside Pippa's room and listening.

"Not many people go there – you have to know the way through the reef."

Tonight – and most nights, lately – Steve is the one doing the reading, his voice even and easy.

On the other side of the door, Stark leans back against the wall with his hands in his pockets, casually dressed, like he just came up from his labs, with the faint glow of the reactor beneath his t-shirt. Beyond him and on the other wall, Thor leans with one shoulder, arms folded, expression pensive.

"My father says there has been a forest here for over a hundred million years."

Bruce is cross-legged on the floor, his upturned hands resting on his knees. He's been off in other parts a lot lately – although he hasn't said if it's his restlessness or the Hulk's. His hair's growing long again. Someone – probably Steve – will drag him along to a barber in the next few weeks. Steve is good like that – the unofficial 'mother hen' for all of them.

Nobody has yet commented on the fact that Steve seems to be putting himself in the role of Pippa's unofficial father, too, taking as much of a proprietal interest in Pippa as Stark does – albeit, a lot more subtly.

Of course, it might just be that nobody sees it but Natasha.

"My father says there used to be crocodiles and kangaroos that lived in trees. Maybe there still are."

Clint leans against the wall behind her, one hand on her hip, the other folding about her fingers. His chin rests on her shoulder and his breathing matches hers. They can't have children together; Natasha's mostly made her peace with this – although she thinks it a pity that Clint won't leave anything of himself in the world.

A part of her wishes they could – that they lived 'normal' lives – that they could be 'ordinary'.

"I wonder how long it takes the trees to grow to the top of the forest."

But a woman who was brought up to be an angel of death, and a man who blooded his hands when he was still in his teens and hasn't stopped in the twenty-plus years since are not 'ordinary'. And maybe that's a good thing – what kind of parents would they be?

"My father says we'll come here again someday."

After that conversation about children on the park bench with Bruce, Natasha not only understood why she was so drawn to Pippa, but also why Maria struggles with the involvement of the Avengers in her daughter's life. Standing on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s thin grey line, Maria would understand the distinction between living the everyday and fighting the things that would destroy that 'everyday'.

They don't get to have it both ways.

"But will the forest still be here when we come back?"

The story ends, and Pippa pleads for another, but she's already had two, and Maria is firm about not letting her daughter stretch the rules. Then there are kisses – Pippa's attempt to draw out the goodnights – and before long there'll be wardrobe checks for monsters and entreaties for cups of water.

Meanwhile, the shadowy people out in the corridor depart, one by one.

Thor pads away on bare feet with Stark strolling after. Bruce eases himself up, surprisingly silent for a man who carries the Hulk within him, and Clint and Natasha drift along behind him. And Steve strides out just as the elevator arrives.

They don't speak when they get in the elevator - not about tonight's story, not about what draws them to this child, not about the things they feel in the quiet of an ordinary girl's ordinary bedtime – a yearning for something that's beyond them as individuals, as heroes, as Avengers.

But they're not normal, and perhaps they never were.

–

The visual is stark, the message brief.

A little girl in tattered overalls beats her fists against a white door, sobbing with fear and exhaustion, as a computer-generated voice-over says simply, "Keep S.H.I.E.L.D., the Avengers, and Stark Industries leashed for the next seven days and you'll get her back unharmed and in one piece. Disobey…and here's one I prepared earlier!"

There's a reason many S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel – particularly the high-level agents - choose to 'die' after a few years in the job. It's easier to work for the good of the world when you have no connections to it.

It's also isolating.

But Nick was present when Pippa was born. He jiggled her when she cried and told her stories to get her to nap. He let her climb into his lap and stand up using his shoulders, take off his eyepatch and ask artless questions about what happened to him.

He doesn't know the little girl who lies broken and empty-eyed – the 'example' that will apply to Pippa if the demands are not met – but he can see Pippa's face on the small, brutalised body.

What profit it a man if he save the world and lose his own soul, Nick? He can almost hear Phil's voice, see the smile, weary and gentle. We can't ignore our humanity for the sake of humanity.

I can, had been Nick's retort.

And that's why you're Director, and I'll never make more than agent.

He wonders if Phil has a bitter smile on his lips at this moment. Because Nick let a little girl crawl into his heart, and now he's hostage to her safety, just as her mother is, just as the Avengers are.

Stark's already raging, making plans, plunging into the fray with reckless hot-temper. Pym and Barton are trying to temper him – and their own anger. Thank God Banner stayed off the helicarrier this time – even his much-vaunted control wouldn't have survived this.

Rogers and Romanoff are watching Hill. Rogers has the air of a creature leashed - if Hill only gives the command, he'll jump. Romanoff has already put the personal away; the Black Widow is in the building.

And Hill? Hill watches her daughter as the video replays, the hatefully sing-song voice repeating its taunting message.

She's in lockdown mode, with nothing but a pinched look about her lips.

But when she turns to Nick, there's a ferocity in her eyes which makes him want to reach for a weapon that wouldn't protect him anyway. Not from a mother's rage.

"Sir," she says, and her voice is the cold adamantium will for which she made Lieutenant at just past thirty, "Permission to take leave."

Nick grasps what she intends to do immediately. He knows what she's asking of him while she does what she has to. Keep S.H.I.E.L.D., the Avengers, and Stark Industries leashed. "Permission granted."

He won't stand in her way.

God help whoever does.

tbc