AN: Apologies to everyone that I promised a chapter to months ago. I've got no excuse other than having a really hard time writing. Hope I haven't driven off all my readers with the hiatus.
All that Steve had wanted was to have a meal with his teammates. To be able to come down to the kitchen with his friends, eat, and hopefully talk about something other than who had most recently tried to kill them. One day a week should not have been so difficult. They'd picked a day. All that any of them had to do was show up. They had even come up with a rotation for who would be in charge of food on those days so that there could be less conflict. It was supposed to be easy. Then again, nothing in their lives was ever easy so why shouldn't breakfast be added to the list?
"I'm thinking he's not coming down," Clint said, head resting on his fist as he slumped over the kitchen table.
"It's not that late. I'm sure that he just went out to get Burger King or something," Steve said. Although in truth he was starting to think that Thor might have forgotten that it was his day to make everyone breakfast.
"Should we seek our meal elsewhere?" Fandral asked Fenrir.
"No," Steve insisted. "I'm sure that he'll be down any minute now."
"Hey, Jarvis. Is Thor even awake yet?" Clint asked, leaning back in his chair and looking up at the ceiling. As if Steve hadn't asked Jarvis the same thing almost a half an hour before.
"He is awake, but I do not believe that you will be leaving his room anytime soon," Jarvis replied.
"Why not?" Bruce asked.
"If you will recall, I have been programed not to inform on what any of you do when in your private quarters unless I feel that you are in distress," Jarvis answered.
"I woke up for this?" Tony muttered, getting up from the table and heading out of the room.
"Tony," Steve began, getting up to try and stop him from leaving.
Deep down Steve knew that it really wasn't that important that they eat breakfast together. He knew it but, when your day to day activities included fighting monsters and dealing with aliens, he needed to grab onto what little bits of normalcy he could find to keep himself sane. Lately the only things that had still made the cut were going for jogs in the park and meals with his teammates. So he was not going to let breakfast go without a fight.
"I'll be in the lab. If I'm going to be up at dawn then I'm at least going to get some work done," Tony said.
"It's almost ten," Bruce said, more to himself than anyone else in the room.
Steve watched as Tony made his way down the hall and to the elevator. As much as he might have wanted to make breakfast happen, he couldn't really blame the other man for not wanting to wait any longer. Tony had already been waiting for twenty minutes. Which, Tony being perpetually late for anything that didn't involve explosions or Pepper, meant that the rest of them had been waiting for close to an hour. Now with Tony gone, and still no sign of Thor, Steve had a feeling that they were going to have to give it up.
He turned around and saw that at some point while he had been going after Tony, Bruce had grabbed a carton of yogurt from the fridge.
"You too, Bruce?" Steve asked.
"I'm sorry, Steve, but you really don't want me to let the other guy get too hungry," Bruce replied.
"Fair enough. I guess we're on our own then," Steve finally admitted.
"Finally," Clint said, jumping up and all but lunging for the fridge.
Steve felt an arm set down on his shoulder. He turned and saw that Fandral had gotten up to come and stand next to him.
"I am sorry that your plans for our meal were unsuccessful. Perhaps we could try something similar for the evening meal?" Fandral said.
"Maybe. If Thor ever comes out of his room," Steve added.
"I'll go see if I can rouse him." Fandral said, heading out of the kitchen. "Oh, Fenrir, would you like to come?" Fandral asked, turning from the hallway. Fenrir looked around the kitchen for a moment before answering.
"I think I'll stay here," Fenrir said.
"Very well," Fandral said, as he left.
"Well, if Thor's not bringing food I guess we should figure out something else to eat," Steve offered.
"I am way ahead of you," Clint said, coming away from the fridge with what looked suspiciously like a pie.
"You are not actually going to eat cherry pie for breakfast, are you?" Steve asked.
"I was planning to," Clint said, dropping the pie on the table and grabbing a fork.
"You going to get a plate for that, Clint?" Bruce asked, looking amused.
"I considered it, but then I decided that that would really just slow me down," Clint said with a smile.
"You can't just eat an entire pie, Clint," Bruce said. "Even your body can't stand that much junk food."
"I disagree, but you do have a point," Clint said. Steve thought that that meant that Clint would put the pie away and go make himself eggs. Three years in the Avengers and he still knew so little about his teammates.
"Fenrir, grab a fork. You can have half," Clint said, digging into his 'breakfast'.
"No, Fenrir, don't do that," Steve said, when he saw that Fenrir was actually getting up from the table to do what Clint said.
"But..." Fenrir started, looking lost. "I'm hungry and Thor's not coming, so-"
"I'll make you some pancakes then, just don't eat that," Steve said. Fenrir sat back down at the table and smiled.
"How come I don't get pancakes?" Clint asked, around a mouthful of pie.
"You're already beyond hope," Steve said, grabbing eggs and milk from the fridge.
"Pie is always wonderful. You're just jealous that I didn't offer you any," Clint said.
Steve didn't even bother arguing. There was no point and his mind was already occupied trying to remember what it was that his mom had always used when she made pancakes. It was probably cinnamon, or nutmeg? Had he ever seen nutmeg in his kitchen growing up?
The end result was definitely not his moms' pancakes. They looked alright, but Steve knew by the smell that he still didn't have it quite right yet. He figured that if he covered them with fruit then they would still taste good enough. At least Fenrir wasn't as picky as some of the others in the Tower when it came to food.
The look that Clint gave the plate when Steve handed it over to Fenrir was enough to make him roll his eyes. Yes, Clint, some people do eat fruit in the morning instead of just dessert.
"I have good news," Fandral said, reentering the kitchen. "I have alerted Thor and he is on his way." Fandral looked down and saw Clint and Fenrir's breakfast. "Oh, so you did find food. I suppose I didn't need to interrupt Thor after all."
"So was he still asleep after all or was he just in there polishing his hammer?" Clint asked. Clint's eyes widened at the deep sound of a voice clearing behind him. Everyone looked up to see Jane and Thor standing in the doorway.
"Jane, when did you get here?" Bruce asked.
"Thor brought me back last night. Sorry about missing breakfast we… were sleeping in," Jane said.
Steve looked over and saw that Fenrir was suddenly very focused on eating his pancakes. It didn't take much to figure out what was making him uncomfortable. Given his relationship with Thor, this had to be like hearing that your parents had been up all night having sex. Steve was going to take pity on him and try to get his mind off of things. Unfortunately, he wasn't the only one who had noticed how Fenrir was reacting.
"You know it's funny," Clint began, "We actually asked Jarvis a few times to check in on Thor and he always said that he was awake. He just couldn't come down." Jane blushed and Clint took that as his cue to continue. "I guess the two of you were just too busy to come join us."
Clint smiled over at Fenrir who was beginning to look like he might bolt out of the room at any second. Clint reached out and grabbed a strawberry off of Fenrir's plate. Judging by the look that Fenrir flashed Clint, he knew exactly what the other man was doing. Steve spared a glance to Thor who seemed to be oblivious to what was going on at the table.
"I apologize for my absence this morning. If you will allow I would be happy to make it up to everyone this evening," Thor offered, as he walked over to the cupboard where he stored his pop tarts. He reached in and grabbed a box while Steve replied.
"That sounds fine. I don't think anyone has any plans tonight."
"Although," Fandral added. "I do think that Stark had hoped that we would all go into the city tonight." He looked over to Thor who was looking disappointedly at an empty box of pop tarts before reaching for another one. "However I am sure that it can wait until after we have eaten."
"Yes, yes," Thor said, surprised to find that the second box he had pulled out was also empty. Thor reached into the cupboard and pulled out a third box but once again it was empty.
Clint started to laugh but was quickly cut off by a glare from Thor. Thor dug through his cabinet to grab the next box and all but ripped it in half when he opened it. There wasn't anything inside that one either. By now the entire room was watching as Thor continued opening boxes and finding them empty. By the time he reached the final box the entire room was silent. Thor opened the last box, looked inside and tipped the box over. One arrowhead fell out of the box and into his palm. Thor spun around to glare at Clint.
"It wasn't me," Clint said, tensing his legs and getting ready to evade an attack if necessary. Thor didn't look too convinced by his denial but did nothing but glare at the other man before leaving the room.
Fandral came over to stand beside Steve at the kitchen counter and smirked. "You all certainly know how to keep a meal interesting."
A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A
Clint didn't really think that Fandral was the kind of guy who would want to spend the afternoon sitting and watching a movie. If he had to be doing anything indoors then Clint thought that videogames would be more his style. But when Thor had told Fandral about how Clint and Fenrir would be spending their afternoon he had insisted that he wanted to try it.
So now Clint was sitting in front of the tv trying to figure out what kind of movie the guy would like. He still didn't think that Fandral was going to be a big fan, but if he was going to be picking the first movie that the man ever saw then he wasn't going to mess it up. He was representing the entire earth here, and he was not going to let it down.
"Oh, my God! I love it," Darcy said, hurrying over to where Fenrir was sitting on the couch and petting his hair. "Jane told me that they gave you a makeover but I was just picturing new clothes. I kept telling her to send me pictures but she always said no." Darcy took a few steps away from Fenrir, pulled out her phone and aimed it at him. "Smile cutie."
Clint watched Darcy take a few photos of Fenrir. Fenrir gave Clint a brief 'help me' look, but had to drop it when Darcy told him to smile again.
"Thor didn't say he brought you back too," Clint said, torn between laughing at how terrified someone like Darcy was making Fenrir, or going to rescue him. It was a tough decision. It was going to require a lot of thought and work before any action was taken.
"He didn't. Once again I was left in New Mexico while Jane got to fly away to someplace more interesting," Darcy explained. "It's hard enough listening to Eric talk physics when Jane's around but when she's not he keeps trying to explain things to me. Do you have any idea how boring that is?" Darcy stopped talking long enough to take a breath and sat down on the couch next to Fenrir. "Anyway, I decided that Jane shouldn't get to have all the fun, so I bought a plane ticket and came up here to join her."
"You got here fast," Clint said.
"You show someone a credit card with the name Stark on it and things happen quickly," Darcy replied.
"How did you get one," Clint asked. Sure he had one, but if too many people started using them then even Tony would start to wonder where the money was going. Then again, the rumor going around the Tower was that he'd recently bought Pepper an island. So maybe he wouldn't.
"Tony sent one to Jane after your guest smashed half of our kitchen. He told Jane that she could keep it in case she needed new equipment. Then she just put it in a drawer. So unsafe. Anyone could just come in and take it," Darcy looked around for a second and seemed to remember something. "Where is Jane, anyway? I was wandering around here for like ten minutes before I even found you guys."
"Why didn't you just ask Jarvis?" Clint asked.
"That seemed like too much work," Darcy said, tucking her legs under her on the couch and getting comfortable.
"Jane and Thor went shopping. They're making everyone dinner tonight," Clint explained.
"You're going to let Jane and Thor cook? Get ready to order pizza," Darcy said.
"Darcy?" Fandral said, as he came back from the snack run Clint had sent him on. "I was not aware that you were here. This is a very welcome surprise."
"You're back?" Darcy asked with a smirk. "Hope Pepper has her lawyers on speed dial."
"She always does," Clint replied.
"Will you be joining us? Clint is preparing entertainments," Fandral said.
"Oh, yeah, Jane told me that you guys do movie days. Did she really make you watch a bunch of chick flicks?"
"I… don't know what that is," Fenrir said.
"I'm not surprised that Fenrir has taken to this amusement," Fandral said, as he looked over a stack of DVD's that Clint had set aside. "Considering how much you always liked going to performances when you were young." Fandral smiled as he turned back to Fenrir.
"What kinds of performances do you have on Asgard? Is it like opera's or just battle reenactments?" Darcy asked.
"We have both of those. Or something similar, as far as I have seen of what you offer here. Much of it I would not know how to explain, as you don't have much to compare it to. But what Fenrir always liked best were the escapades. As I understand it they are quite similar to your plays. Of course, in all fairness, many of them do contain reenactments of battles," Fandral explained. He walked across the room and chose an armchair that was facing Darcy before sitting down.
"I cannot picture anyone from Asgard sitting down and watching a play," Darcy said.
"We can and often do. Personally I love a chance to enjoy a taste of culture. A man cannot spend his entire life fighting," Fandral said, leaning forward with a smile that was just for Darcy.
Darcy didn't even try to repress her snort at the last statement. Reminding Clint why he and Darcy had always gotten along. "Still not seeing it," She repeated, before eyeing Fenrir for a moment. "I guess I can see you going to plays though."
"You would be correct in that. Fenrir always loved the escapades. Any time a new performance would come through the city Fenrir was always sure to be the first one in the audience. Often all it took was a rumor that a group were coming and he would be watching the roads for their approach," Fandral said."
"That is so cute!" Darcy said.
"He exaggerates," Fenrir said, shifting in his seat.
"Hardly," Fandral insisted. "I don't think there was ever a time when you weren't begging your father to take you to see the entertainments again and again. And if he couldn't then you would go to Thor or Frigga. Then if no better options presented itself you would even have me accompany you."
"This is officially my new favorite thing about you," Darcy said. "So what other stories do you have about little Fenrir?"
Fandral dived into some story about Fenrir following his dad and the warriors on some hunt, and Clint finally decided that it was time to show Fenrir some mercy.
"Come help me pick what movie we should watch," Clint said. Then; well Fenrir didn't so much leave the couch as much as instantly appear at Clint's side. "You want to pick the movie?" He offered.
Fenrir actually smiled at that. And people said that Clint wasn't a nice guy. "I can choose? Any one I want?"
"Sure. Just as long as it's not the same one you've been watching," Clint added quickly.
"I don't know which movie you-" Fenrir started but Clint stopped him.
"You know which one I mean, and you've watched it enough."
"I haven't watched it that many times," Fenrir insisted.
"Not counting all the times you've asked me to watch it with you. Do I need to ask Jarvis how many times has you've come in here to watch the movie without me?" Clint asked.
"I just, I like that movie," Fenrir said looking through a stack of BluRays that Clint had already rejected.
"You like part of that movie," Clint added. Fenrir shifted some of the movies around and starred at the floor. "Pick something else." Clint said, before adding. "Pick something and we can watch the other one again later." The promise did exactly what Clint knew it would and Fenrir soon had something picked out. Sometimes Clint still couldn't believe how easy it was to make that guy happy.
A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A
One think was becoming increasingly clear to Tony, and that was that young Fenrir had been a total brat. According to the stories that Fandral was telling, the kid had apparently spent the majority of his childhood finding ways to use his magic to drive his family up the walls. Naturally this was only improving Tony's opinion of him.
"The next thing we know Fenrir is riding off on his father's horse and taking nearly all of our supplies with him," Fandral said, laughing at the memory.
"In his defense," Thor added, putting an arm roughly around his nephew. "We did tell him to go back home."
"Weren't you still in the middle of enemy territory at that point?" Jane asked.
Fandral and Thor looked at each other and then burst out laughing. Because yes, yes they had been surrounded by their enemies. They had almost died but apparently, when you're a magical space Viking, that's just the way things go sometimes.
Between the stories, and the new pizza place that Thor and Jane had gotten their dinner from, this was definitely making Tony thankful that he'd agreed to stay at the Tower for the night. He'd initially been disappointed about putting off the pub crawl, but there was more than enough time for that. If he was going to be getting embarrassing stories about Thor, and even better Loki, then he could delay going out for one night.
Things only got better when he heard Fandral ask, "So who wants to hear the story of Loki and the horse?" It was like Christmas! It was like Christmas but with the promise of horse porn. Not something he'd ever thought that he would want before, but times change.
"I do, I do," Tony said, raising his hand like he was in school.
"You have no idea how happy it would make me to hear that story," Clint added.
"What happened with the horse?" Darcy asked, looking confused. She had no idea the treat that she was in for. Thor could glare all he wanted but Tony was finally going to get the good stories.
"It didn't happen," Fenrir insisted from across the room. Tony barely heard him. Between the noise of all the Avengers and guests in the same room and the fact that Fenrir had purposely sat far away from the group to be beyond arms reach of Darcy, his voice could hardly be expected to carry. Add to that the fact that Tony was ignoring him and his arguments were barely audible.
"It might not be the truth," Fandral admitted. "But I have always been partial to my version of the story."
"Honesty is overrated," Clint said. "Tell the story."
"Well it all began when-" Fandral said.
"Clint!" Bruce interrupted walking into the kitchen.
"Hey, Doctor Rage, You got back just in time for the bedtime story of the century. Pull up a chair," Tony said.
"Clint," Bruce began again, staring past Tony and Fandral to look at the archer. "Tony gave you your own laptop. So don't use mine. I'm having to have Jarvis go in and fix it now and I could have lost some important files."
"What happened to your laptop?" Steve asked.
"It caught a virus; several actually," Bruce answered, still looking angrily at Clint.
Tony knew that he should probably step in. Offer to buy Bruce a new laptop or something. Bruce was getting better and better at being able to be annoyed or angry at his teammates without slipping into the Green Zone. That being said, it was always better when the man was calm. Then again, Tony also knew about the projects that Bruce was working on and, if they had been lost or damaged because the files had been corrupted, the work could be set back by months. So he figured it wouldn't hurt to let Bruce yell at Clint for a little bit.
"I never took your laptop," Clint said.
"You could at least be an adult and admit it," Bruce said.
"I didn't take it. What makes you so sure it was me?" Clint asked.
"Aside from the fact that the screen was frozen on a monster truck video?" Bruce asked dryly. "The keys had smears of cherry pie filling on them."
"That doesn't…" Clint stammered. "I'm not the only one here who eats pie. I didn't do it."
"Just like you didn't switch all the music in my lab to classical?" Tony decided to add. He knew that he really shouldn't be adding to the argument, potential of Hulk and everything but, damn it, the pranks go too far when you replace Metallica with Mozart.
"God," Steve said, leaning back in his chair and tilting his head toward the ceiling. "Natasha cannot come back soon enough."
"I'm being set up," Clint insisted.
"So, Darcy, did Eric have any messages for me before you left?" Jane interrupted. The woman had about as much subtlety as Thor, but at least she meant well.
"Nope. When I left all of the machines were flashing and pinging like they always do. Nothing new," Darcy said, reaching across the table and pulling a box of meat lovers pizza away from where Thor had been hogging it. It had initially looked like he would have at least shared with Fandral, but when the other Asgardian had opted for Hawaiian Thor had taken all his favorite pizza's and had been hoarding them at his side of the table. A tug of war immediately began over the box and Tony noticed Clint taking advantage of the distraction to leave.
A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A
Clint wasn't running. He was simply making a strategic exit. It he was moving quickly then that was just a coincidence and nothing to do with wanting to put distance between him and Bruce. And Tony. And Thor. And whoever else might be annoyed at him for pranking them. This was not a new thing in the Tower, and he usually didn't care if one of his teammates was annoyed with him for a day or two. It wasn't like they didn't always forgive him. The difference now was that he wasn't actually playing any of these pranks. He hadn't even been into Tony's lab in over a week and wasn't sure that he could have changed his music if he'd wanted to. Jarvis would have inevitably just changed it back.
Someone else was moving in on his territory and, if the arrowhead and pie crumbs meant anything, someone was making it look like it was him. So who was it?
The list of people who could even get access to their private floors was small. Happy and Pepper could get in if they wanted but neither were the type to do something like this. Obviously no one from S.H.I.E.L.D could get in without alerting Jarvis, and even then this wasn't the type of thing that agents, other than him, would waste their time on. Fandral would never dare to take food away from Thor, so the Pop Tart incident ruled him out, and since she hadn't gotten to the Tower until the afternoon it also ruled out Darcy.
That meant that it had to be one of the Avengers. Bruce would never risk science by willingly putting a virus on his computer so he was out. Thor's anger at the loss of his favorite breakfast had seemed genuine enough that he was probably out of the running too. So that just left Tony and Steve.
Clint continued the walk to his room and considered which one of them could be setting him up. By the time he had reached his rooms he still didn't have an answer. This type of thing wasn't either of their style. So who was setting him up?
Clint opened the door and took a few steps into his room when his eyes landed on something that definitely hadn't been there when he left. Sitting on the floor was a small can with a note attached. Clint slowly walked over to get a better look and almost laughed out loud when he saw what it actually was.
Mixed Nuts was written on the side of the can, and the note just said To Clint. He couldn't believe it. Someone was actually trying to pull the mixed nuts trick on him? He hadn't seen anyone fall for that since he'd been in elementary school. This was just… Clint felt like an idiot for not having figured it out right away. It was Fenrir. All of these tricks had to be Fenrir.
They way that he'd enjoyed helping Clint play tricks on Steve and Tony should have clued him in. The real surprise was that Fenrir would do something like this by himself. The guy still seemed afraid of his shadow half of the time and now he was trying something like this?
Clint would have like it better if Fenrir hadn't made him his scapegoat, but the more he thought about it the more harmless the whole thing seemed. Fenrir could use some fun and Clint was even a little proud that he had brought this side of Fenrir out again. Fandral's stories at dinner had made it pretty clear that he'd loved jokes a lot when he was a kid.
Clint picked up the can of nuts and smiled. They probably didn't have this type of thing on Asgard, so it had probably seemed hilarious and original when Fenrir had heard of it. However that had been. Deciding that Fenrir had earned a victory he twisted the cap off and waited for the snakes to pop out. It was at this point that the can exploded.
AN: I'm dying to know if anyone is still reading this. Leave me a review and I promise never to leave for months at a time again.