Chapter Four

Tony dove frantically for his teammate, grabbing the shrunken doctor and lightly bouncing him on his knee. "Hey, Pep, bring Natasha over here for a sec."

Pepper raised an eyebrow and gestured to Natasha, screaming and kicking on the couch cushions.

"Fine." Tony cautiously pulled the still-bawling baby Bruce into his arms and carried him over to Pepper. Tony deposited the child onto the couch, next to Natasha.

The moment he did, it was like Loki had magically stolen their vocal chords; both kids' tears stopped flowing and they looked at each other calmly.

Clint, still on the ground reaching for Tony's leg, stopped and made a distressed sort of noise, looking at his two friends.

"Nasha."

"You wanna see Natasha?" Pepper cooed, picking him up and plopping him down onto the couch as well. "Say hi to Clint, Natasha."

Tony chuckled at his fiancée's baby-talk, watching Nat raise a chubby baby hand to wave at Clint.

"Cwit," she giggled. "Cwin!"

"Yes, that is Clint! Good job!" Pepper ruffled Natasha's red hair, but the little girl reached up and slapped her hand away. "Sorry, sorry."

"Stark," Loki said, readjusting his hold on Thor, "were you able to obtain your research materials?"

"What? Oh, yeah." Tony went back to where he'd dropped his tech. Once he'd gathered it all back into his arms, the highly stressed genius walked back into the living room and plunked everything down onto the coffee table. While his laptop was booting up, he felt a buzzing coming from the back pocket of his jeans. "FRIDAY, who's calling in?"

"Incoming call from Peter Parker, sir."

"Answer it please," Tony said, a pencil between his teeth and notebooks clutched in his hands.

"Mr. Stark!" Peter's voice rang through the house, magnified by FRIDAY's speakers. "I'm at this store, Babies 'R' Us! They have all this stuff, but I'm not too sure what exactly to get."

"Baby clothes, baby food, diapers, bottles?" Tony guessed.

"But there's so many different options," Peter said, sounding almost as stressed as his mentor. "Like did you know there's over a hundred flavors of baby food? And they do the clothes sizes by the baby's age, and certain formulas are only for certain kids!"

Tony looked at Pepper desperately.

Thankfully, she took pity on her fiancé. "Peter, hey, it's Pep. I'm gonna start spewing a lot of information for you, so get some paper to write."

The speakers were filled with a loud rifling sound as Peter dug around in his backpack for a notebook and pen. "Okay, Ms. Potts!"

"We've got seven babies," Pepper began. "Six boys and a girl. I'd say the youngest one is…" She looked around, studying the size of the infants- "probably Steve, actually. He looks to be about six to eight months old. Bucky and Sam look about a year. Nat and Clint, maybe ten months. Bruce, I think he's the oldest, maybe eighteen to twenty months? I'd say Thor might be about that as well, but he's bigger so get clothes for kids a little older."

The speakers crackled with frantic scribbling noises until Peter said, "okay! What else?"

"Get one of every baby food," Pepper said. "Honestly, I don't know a lot about that so we'll experiment. As for formula, I read somewhere kids can stop drinking that after twelve months, so we have four or five that'd still take it."

"Um, Ms. Potts? There's like, a gazillion bajillion different brands and types of food and formula."

"Go with a good name brand," Pepper instructed. "Something like Gerber or Enfamil."

"You got it," Peter said. "And for the, uh, older ones, should I get some solid baby food too? Like those yogurt drops and puffy thingies that look like tiny Cheetos?"

"Yeah, sure. And while you're there, get three of those double seated strollers, a bunch of blankets, bottles, a chest carrier, and a sh*tload of diapers."

Tony and Loki both snickered at her ironic word usage, to which Pepper shot them both annoyed looks.

"Okay, Ms. Potts. What about toys? They need toys, right? And beds? Oh my God, Ms. Potts, where are they going to sleep?"

Pepper rubbed her temples. "Calm down, Pete. Tony, Loki, and I will makeshift some beds so you don't have to haul all that crap around."

"Oh, don't worry about me!" Peter said through the speakers. "I can lift up to ten tons!"

Tony coughed and sputtered on the sip of water he'd just taken. "You can WHAT?!"

Both Peter and Pepper chose to ignore him as they went back to discussing the various babycare items they needed.

"I don't think we'll need cribs," Pepper said. "Worst case scenario, I'll just have Tony throw a few pieces of wood and metal together to make one."

Tony opened his mouth, no doubt to make a snarky retort, but Pepper silenced him with a withering look.

"Okay, Ms. Potts, I'm gonna walk around the store and say things they have. Tell me if we need them."

"Thank you, Peter," Pepper said kindly, nudging Tony to do the same.

"Yeah, yeah," her fiancé agreed quickly, not paying much attention as he stared at his computer screen, "thanks Pete. Really helpful, y'know."

"How 'bout baby monitors?" Peter asked, the squeaky wheels of his Babies 'R' Us shopping cart screeching through the speakers. "Or do you have tech for that already?"

"Don't worry about that, Mr. Parker," FRIDAY said, "this house and the rooms in it are under constant surveillance."

Loki, who had been uncharacteristically quiet during the entire exchange with Peter, raised an eyebrow. "Constant?"

"Yeah, Reindeer Games, so no funny business."

"Wouldn't dream of it," the Asgardian replied sarcastically, slapping Thor's hand away from his face.

"Okay, I've got a lot of food and stuff, but now I'm going into the clothes sectio-" Peter went quiet for a few seconds before whispering-yelling into the phone speaker. "OH MY GOD, MR. STARK!"

"What is it, kid?"

"You know those outfits that come in pairs, one for the parents and one for the babies?"

"Yeah?"

"THEY HAVE AN IRON MAN AND SPIDER-MAN SET OF FOOTIE PAJAMAS!"

Tony chuckled. "Nice, kid."

"They got my suit completely wrong," Peter muttered. "The spider on the front isn't that big."

"If they messed up your costume, I'd hate to see what mine looks like," Tony said, scribbling a chemical formula down in his notebook.

"Not too bad, actually. The arc reactor looks a bit like a blue doughnut but other than that it's pretty accurate."

"Okay, Pete," Pepper said, laughter in her voice, "focus please."

"Right! Sorry, Ms. Potts." Clicking echoed from the other side of the phone as Peter rifled through the many different baby outfits. "Anything else besides clothes and a few toys?"

"No, I think that's all. Thank you, Peter, you've been a great help."

"Of course, Ms. Potts! I'll be there soon! Maybe thirty minutes."

With a soft beep, the call disconnected, leaving Pepper, Tony, and Loki in complete quiet with the seven children.

"Why," Loki started, breaking the silence after a few moments, "do you think Rogers appears to be so much younger than Thor or Banner?"

"Haven't the slightest," Pepper answered. "Any idea, Tony? This was your creation, after all."

"Well…" Tony paused, scratching his head as he thought. "Thor is, what, a thousand years old?"

"One thousand five hundred, actually," Loki corrected.

"Well, whatever, he's obviously the oldest. Meaning that it'd take a whole lot more of the serum to get him down to this age. Steve and Barnes, they're both nearly a hundred, so they needed quite a bit as well. My best guess is that Thor inhaled more of the smoke than anyone else, therefore getting the most years taken off. If you think he's around two then that's nearly 1,500 years. Steve, since he's the youngest baby, probably got quite a bit as well, going down nearly a century. Banner was the first out of the compound, so it only makes sense that he'd be the least affected. Steve kept going in to make sure everyone made it out alright, and Thor had to stay in long enough to unlock your prison cell, so yeah, they probably got the brute end of it."

"That makes sense," Loki agreed.

Pepper nodded slowly, but her mind seemed to wander as she stared at Steve, who had fallen asleep, curled up in a ball in the divot of his shield. "Hey Tony, what about the shield? And Mijölnir? How did those get shrunken?"

Tony's eyes widened innocently. "I have no idea."

"Yes, you do."

The genius billionaire blinked and smiled. "Pep, I seriously have no-" He caught a glimpse of his fiancée's glare. "Yeah, okay, I may have used some of Thor and Loki's magic," he mumbled.

"What!?" Both Loki and Pepper exclaimed at once.

"Why?" Pepper shouted.

"How?" Loki wanted to know.

"I have an extraction device, same one I used to take Gamma rays from Banner, that I managed to get some traces of magic from. It was supposed to extend the shrinking spell to the clothes they were wearing and objects they were holding. Clearly, that part worked."

While Pepper looked angry, Loki appeared thoroughly impressed. "That's actually ingenious," he told the billionaire. "You know, you'd make quite a good-"

"If you say I'd make a good villain, Reindeer Games, I'm gonna lose it."

"That's not what I was going to say," Loki said unconvincingly. "A Warrior Three. Partnered with Volstaag, Hogun, Fandral, and Lady Sif, you'd thrive." The Asgardian paused for a moment. "Though you're correct, you'd make a d*mn unstoppable antihero."

Tony raised an eyebrow and smirked. "Appreciate it, Horn-Head, but I think I'll stick to Avenging for now."

Loki shrugged. "Your call." He bent down and picked up Thor, who'd begun gnawing on the end of the coffee table. "Anyways, I'd appreciate it if you began working on a solution to our current predicament. And by that I mean, get to work now, Stark."

Tony raised his hand in a mock salute. "Aye aye, Cap'n."

Loki wrinkled his nose. "Don't compare me to that spandex-clad, Frisbee-throwing patriot."

Tony snorted and slapped his associate on the shoulder, throwing his head back with loud, genuine laughter. "You know, Lokes, I think we might actually get along just fine."

Pepper rolled her eyes in an obvious 'God, now there's two of them' expression, but also felt her heart warm to see Loki warming up around Midgardians, and Tony being willing to accept him despite everything he did.

Stark plopped down onto the carpeted floor, crossing his legs, stacking a few notebooks, and propping his laptop up on the coffee table in front of him. He fervently began typing, computing, and scribbling away at his formulaic expressions.

Meanwhile, Loki and Pepper worked on subduing the children.

"Oh, James, that can't be sanitary," Tony heard Pepper scold Bucky. The mini assassin was lying on his back on the carpet near Steve, the thumb of his metal arm in his mouth. "Please at least use your other arm… you don't know where that thing's been."

"Or how many people it's killed," Tony quipped lightly, not looking up.

Loki sniggered but Pepper cuffed her fiancé on the back of the head and made both men quiet down.

Pepper struggled to pull Bucky's thumb out of his mouth, but the baby refused to budge. Eventually, after nearly breaking her fingers on the vibranium appendage, she gave up, turning her attention to Clint, who had just started wailing for no reason. Natasha looked at him inquisitively, and Bruce tried shrinking into a small ball to escape the noise.

"Shhh...shhh," Pepper cooed, picking up the shrunken archer and bouncing him in her arms. "What's wrong?"

Of course, Clint, being just shy of a year old, didn't respond with anything except a small hiccup and louder sobs.

"You know," Tony laughed, "does it really matter if we turn 'em back? I mean, Barton acts like this anyways."

"You and your snarkiness can go sit in the time-out corner," Pepper retorted, still cradling Clint.

"I enjoy a bit of sarcastic banter myself," Loki interjected, cutting Tony off as he opened his mouth to fire back another witty response, "but I'd like to know the whereabouts of your son… the spider child?"

As if in response to his query, the front bell was rung. "Hey, uh, Mister Stark?" Peter Parker's voice called from the foyer. "Miss Potts? We have a problem!"

"Come on in, Pete," Tony said back loudly. "What's up?" he asked once the teenager was standing in the living room.

"Um… the store people aren't letting me buy the stuff." Peter picked anxiously at the hem of his tee-shirt, biting his lip and not meeting Tony's eye.

"Why the h*ll not?" Stark demanded.

"Well, Miss Potts said for me to use your card, and I opted not to put in the PIN, so I wouldn't have to worry about that, but the cashier saw that the card said Anthony Stark, and clearly that's not me…"

"You've gotta be sh*ttin' me," Tony sighed, rubbing his temples. "Okay, I'll drive up there with you, Pete, and sort this whole thing out."

"What about the babies?" Peter asked, looking at the small Clint in Pepper's arms.

"Oh, yeah," Tony said, as if he'd just remembered. "No offense Lokes, but I'm not leaving you here with my fiancee and seven defenseless kids."

Loki shrugged. "Trust has to be earned. Understandable."

"So…" Tony said slowly, forcing a grin for Peter's sake, and rocking back on his heels. "Who's up for a field trip to the store?"