In this chapter; Evie is ten, Elijah and Henry are seven, Alexis is two, Cecelia is one, Jacob is six and Oliver is two

Pepper was watching all seven of the kids while the Avengers tried to explain to Director Fury why the Manhattan Bridge was now in two halves following the latest alien attack on New York.

She'd manage to occupy them all morning by taking them to the park, but in the afternoon it had started raining and she'd been forced to take them back to the tower.

Seven children were not easy to occupy!

After food and a film she resorted to arts and crafts.
She covered the table and the floor in newspapers, put aprons on the children and crossed her fingers.

To be fair; all of the children were well behaved; Evie helped Alexis put glitter on her painting of a flower, Elijah helped Jacob draw round his hands and color in his picture, Henry and Oliver worked together on a picture of The Hulk, while Cecelia mostly sat and watched the others.

Pepper supervised from a distance; mainly allowing the older kids to watch the younger ones. Watching her sons play with Clint and Natasha's children she smiled; Jacob was doing so well, largely thanks to the support of his cousins, and Oliver was hopefully going to turn out like his cousins too (and not too much like his father!)

Her phone suddenly rang; hoping it would be Tony or Natasha informing her they were done at SHEILD and were on their way back, she rushed to answer it. Regretting it instantly when it turned out to be Richard Regal; an investor in SI who had rung to discuss what he called 'important financial matters', Pepper called them 'a huge waste of time'. However his generous donations to SI made him a necessity, which meant Pepper had to oblige...

She went to the hallway to take the conversation somewhere she could concentrate, shortly later she wished she hadn't.

She returned to utter chaos; Elijah had emptied a pot of glitter over Evie who wore most of it in her hair, she'd thrown several back at him; ans these were now spilt and scattered about the table and the floor. Evie had used the paints to paint whiskers and a cats nose on Cecelia, and Oliver and Alexis had taken to finger painting the wall. Henry had taken off his top and was redecorating it with his own design in paint while Jacob happily rubbed paint into his hair.

Pepper stood in disbelief at the mess that had been caused during her rushed five minute conversation with Regal.

"Ot oh" was all Jacob said when he realised his mother was watching them

"Ot oh indeed! What do you think you're doing?"

At that moment the elevator opened and Natasha strode in; "Pepper, I hope you don't mind; Tony and the others have gone- What on earth happened?"

The kids all stared in silence at their moms who stood, equally silent, waiting for an answer. Eventually Evie stood, and walked up to Pepper; "I made you this" and she handed over a painting of a large pink heart, inside she'd written; 'I love you aunty Pepper, Love from Evie xxx'