*Hi all! I know I haven't updated this story in a super long time. Life just got busy. But I hope you enjoy the new chapter! Hopefully there will be more soon.

After throwing some things into a duffle bag, I emerge from my room at the same time as Peter emerges from his own.

He grins, "Are you ready to go?"

I shrug, "Uh sure. But what's in Missouri?"

He's about to answer but Morgan appears at the end of the hall, "Petey, May and Happy are here. Oh and Uncle Rhodey and Kayla are here too!"

"Calm down Mo, we're coming," Peter answers with a laugh as he follows her down the hallway.

"Hey, wait up, you didn't answer my question!" I shout after him. I enter the living room area to see everyone with bags and talking amongst themselves. Kayla grins when she spots me and walks over.

I smile, "Hey Sourpatch."

She rolls her eyes, "Hey AJ. Long time no see."

"That's not my fault. You've been busy."

"Hey, elementary school is hard."

I gave her a look.

She smirks, "Ok, fine, maybe it isn't that hard but I've been busy getting to know Rhodey and new environments and stuff."

I give her a soft smile, "Fine. I'll give you that. It's not like I haven't been busy either. But, there is plenty of time to catch up this weekend. Speaking of, do you know what's in Missouri?"

She shrugs, "I'm just as new to this world as you are Buddy."

Pepper looked up at that, "Tony and Rhodey didn't tell you guys where we're going?"

We shake our heads and she sends them a silent glare.

Tony holds up his hands in defense, "Hey, you should expect this from me. Platypus on the other hand…"

Rhodey glares, "Thanks Tony."

Pepper sighs, "We're going to Missouri to spend the weekend with Clint and his family, along with some of the other Avengers."

"Oh cool," Kayla says but she starts to flick her bracelet, which she does when she gets rarely nervous.

I look over at her, "Don't worry Kay, they're all pretty nice. At least the ones that I've met."

Rhodey gives her a soft smile, "Trust me, you'll have a good time. We figured it might be easier to spend the anniversary away from the city."

I look over at Tony, "Are Cassie and her family coming?"

A small smirk appears on his face, "Yes. Yes they are. Why?"

"Um..no reason. I was just curious," I stutter as a small blush crosses my face.

Before Tony gets the chance to say anything, May interrupts, "Shouldn't we get going? It's almost a three hour flight and it'll already be late when we get there."

Pepper nods in agreement, "Yes we should, come on guys," she says as she shoots Tony a silent look.

"What, I'm supposed to ignore that he has a crush?"

The blush deepens on my cheeks, "I don't have a crush."

Tony smirks, "Really, cause your face says differently."

Pepper wacks him in the arm, "Tony leave him alone! Come on, Friday is ready for us."

Tony reluctantly follows his wife as I breathe a sigh of relief. We all head towards the plane. It was a lot bigger than I was expecting.

"Wow," Kayla mumbles.

"My exact sentiments."

We both stare for a moment at the huge plane before Morgan comes running next to me, "AJ, come on! We got to set up the movie and stuff!"

"There's movies on it?!" I ask in surprise.

She looks back at me in surprise, "Yeah, why wouldn't there be?"

I glance at Kayla and she shrugs, "Um...no reason," I mumble.

I follow her onto the plane and I'm shocked at how spacious the inside was. There were plenty of seats on the plane. I even noticed a bar. I felt a tug on my wrist and looked down at Morgan, "Come on, I'll show you the kids area." She pulled me behind the curtain and I see a movie screen set up with snacks and stuff.

"Wow," was all I said.

"My exact sentiments," Kayla mumbles this time.

Peter and Harley come in behind us and throw their stuff down. Peter glances at our shocked expressions, "Have you guys ever been on a plane?"

"Besides the time when I was unconscious? No. No, I can't say that I have."

Kayla nods mutely next to me.

They walk over to us and wrap an arm around us, "Don't worry. We were both in shock our first time too. Peter even has videos," Harley says as they guide us to our seating areas.

"Hey!" Peter argues in protest.

I smile, "Can we see them?"


Half-way through the flight, Harley and Peter had wandered off to mess around with Peter's suit and Morgan and Kayla had fallen asleep while watching some stupid cartoon. I was lying somewhere in between them, finishing my sketch from earlier. I was so enthralled in it that I didn't even notice Tony until he cleared his throat.

"Hey," he said, kind of awkwardly.

"Hi."

"Can I sit?"

I nod, "It's your plane."

He chuckles and sits across from me. He kind of stares at me quietly for a while before he clears his throat.

"Um...I know I didn't ask earlier and it's obvious you don't want to talk about it but...I uh...thought I should let you know that if you wanted to talk about what happened to your mom, you can."

I nod, "Ok."

We drift off into an awkward silence.

I decide to look up from my drawing and clear my throat, "Um… it wasn't your fault."

Tony looked over at me sharply, a question on his face.

I look down, "My mom's death. It wasn't Avengers related."

"I didn't ask because I thought it was my fault."

"I know. I just thought you should know."

He nods and we fall back into silence.

I really wished I was ready to talk about it


"AJ, Daddy, wake up! We're here!" Morgan practically shouts in my ear. I jump and blearily look around. I see Tony next to me doing the same thing.

"Alright Morguana, we're up," Tony says as he stands.

I fumble around for my sketchbook and turn back around to see Peter and Harley emerge from the lab in the back.

Harley grins at me, "Welcome to Missouri."

Kayla appears next to me, suddenly looking fully awake.

I give her a small smile, "It'll be fun."

She nods as we follow our fathers and everyone else off the plane. The first thing that hits me as we exit the plane is the fresh air around us. We had landed in the middle of a field. In front of us was a lovely house and to the right of the house was a barn. I glance at the sky and my mouth almost drops open as I see the stars twinkling above us. Part of me wishes I had brought my paints.

Tony smiles at me as he shifts Morgan to his hip, "Welcome to the boonies."

"We're not in the boonies, Tony," Clint says as he walks towards us.

Tony smirks, "Whatever Legolas."

I give him a small smile as he nods hello.

Rhodey nods, "Hey Clint. How's the family doing?"

"Fine. You'll see for yourself in a minute. I hear your family's expanded since the last time we saw each other."

Rhodey's smile widened and he looks down at Kayla, who had managed to slide slightly behind Rhodey when we saw Clint approaching us, "This is Kayla. Kayla, this is Clint."

"Hi," she mumbled. She glances at me and I mouth, "Hawkeye." Her eyes grow wide a little.

"Hi, nice to meet you. You'll get to meet my kids in a minute.'

She nods and we continue to the house with Morgan asking a million questions about Nate and the farm animals and Clint promising to let her play outside tomorrow.

As we entered the house, I was surprised at how cozy it felt. I glanced to the right and smiled when I saw Cooper, Lila, Nate, and Cassie in the living room with sleeping bags.

Morgan gasped, "Are we camping?!"

Laura smiled as she greeted Pepper, "Sort of. With so many of y'all coming to stay we decided it would be easiest if all the kids camped in the living room."

"Cool!" Morgan said as she scrambled out of Tony's reach. She immediately ran over to Nate and they started talking about something.

Cooper smiled at me, "Hey AJ! I see you decided to give the farm life a try."

I rolled my eyes as I walked over, "Yeah, yeah. I figured you could show me some things."

I glanced back at Kayla who had stayed closer to Rhodey. I waved her over and Rhodey encouraged her to come over. She walked over slowly.

"Guys, this is Kayla."

She waved nervously, "Hi."

I gestured to them, "This is Cooper, Lila, Nate, and Cassie."

They all waved hello.

Lila waved her over, "Come join us. We were about to watch AJ get his butt kicked in Mario Kart by Cassie again."

I scoff, "I'm not going to lose again."

Cassie looks over with a smirk, "Yeah right."

She looks really pretty like that.


I almost jump when someone nudges my shoulder. I was just about to fall asleep too. We spent the evening playing video games and hanging out. Eventually some more of the Avengers showed up and all of the adults ended up talking in the kitchen until later in the night. They all eventually went upstairs after making sure us kids were good down here.

I looked over and saw it was Cassie. I raised an eyebrow.

She put her finger to her lip and gestured to the back door. She started to quietly tiptoe around the others, who were surprisingly not waking up.

I glanced around and then slowly start to follow her.

When we got outside, she slowly slid the door shut behind us.

She smiled, "Come on. I want to show you something I discovered last time I was here."

She then turned and took off towards the barn.

I glanced around and decided to take off after her.

We reached the barn and Cassie gestured for me to help her open the barn door. We each grabbed a part of it and pulled it open. Inside was a pretty classic looking barn. The tractor sitting in the middle of the barn looked pretty old.

Cassie started walking in confidently towards the back loft. She looked over her shoulder, "You coming?"

"Uh…yeah. Yeah," I stutter.

I followed her towards the ladder and started climbing up after her. After I reached the landing I realized she wasn't there. I looked to the right, and saw that she had moved a hay barrel and climbed up another ladder. She was busy opening a hatch on the roof.

I stared at her before following her. Once I got to the top of the ladder, I almost gasped at the clear sky. There were stars and constellations everywhere. It was gorgeous.

"It's pretty great, huh?" Cassie said as she glanced back at me with a smile.

She was sitting on the roof with her knees tucked into her legs. She looked really pretty.

I sat down next to her, "Yeah, it is actually. I didn't know you were into like space and stuff."

Smooth J, I thought.

She smiled, "I mean who isn't nowadays? Especially after all the aliens started popping up. But I'm more interested in the Quantum Realm stuff."

I smiled, "That's how your dad disappeared right?"

She looked at me surprised.

I shrugged, "Peter mentioned something about it."

"Oh. Yeah. I spent a lot of time researching it when i realized they hadn't come back from their excursion. My mom always hated it. She just wanted me to move on."

"I get it. If there was a way to bring my mom back I would," as I turned back towards the sky.

I heard her hesitate before she asked, "What happened to your mom? I mean, you don't have to answer. Or give a lot of the details. I just…it seems like you could use someone to talk to about it. And I'm a great listener. And I promise not to tell anyone."

I chuckle at the last part. I see the big dipper in the sky and start tracing the lines with my finger.

"She was dying."

Cassie stayed silent as she waited for me to continue. I can't believe I'm actually talking about this. But talking to her just felt easy.

"At the moment of the snap. She was actively dying. Then she blipped…"

I glanced at Cassie who looked at me sadly.

I swallowed, "Then she blippped. And no one was there to help her stay alive. So she died anyway."

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

I shrugged, "It is what it is."

We sat in silence for a few more minutes. I crack a smile at her, "Some first date, huh?"

She looked at me, "You think this is a date?"

I shrugged, might as well try to salvage this, "I mean, you woke me up in the middle of the night. We snuck out. Climbed up the roof to a barn to star gaze. I mean, this feels like a date."

She turned back to the sky, "That's some excellent deductive reasoning. Too bad you don't have any proof."

I smirked as I turned towards her, "Oh I have a way to prove it."

She turned back towards me, "Oh yeah, how?"

By this time we both had slowly inched closer to each other.

"Like this," I mumbled as I leaned over and kissed her.

I pulled back, "See?"

"You talk too much Stark," she mumbled as she leaned over and kissed me again.

Maybe Missouri isn't so bad afterall.