Chapter 10
The elevator opened to a common room floor full of chaos. Lizzy dug her head into Charlotte's shoulder at the gleeful noise that filled the floor. What looked to be thirty pizza boxes sat piled on the table along with a stack of three plates. The rest of the rooms occupants all had pizza filled plates in front of them. Charlotte figured some part of her mind should be nervous or annoyed, but she mostly found herself amused. Clearly these people cared about each other to pull pranks like this.
Still if tonight went well and Clint wanted revenge she was more than willing to help come up with a few ideas.
"Birdbrain!" Tony Stark called over the noise "Glad you made it! We're deciding on what movie to watch!"
"Thanks Tony," Clint drawled as they walked further into the room. Charlotte watched him turn to Natasha, "I'm going to kick your- butt tomorrow. Just so you know."
The redheaded woman just smiled.
"What kind of pizza would you like?" she asked Charlotte.
"Pepperoni please." Charlotte said. The entire room began to groan as one.
"Pep! Did you hear that Pep?" Tony nudged THE Pepper Pots as she sat next to him, "she wants our pizza!"
"Tony, I've told you a hundred times. SI is not going to fight for the trademark to pepperoni as it pertains to pizza or the nickname the tabloids have for us. Deal with it." Charlotte had to take a few deep breaths when THE Pepper Potts turned her attention to Charlotte.
"It's lovely to meet you Charlotte. I'm Pepper. This must be Lizzy."
"The pleasure is all mine Ms. Potts. This is Lizzy. She's feeling a tad bit shy right now, but she'll warm up in a minute." Charlotte would forever be proud of herself that her voice didn't shake once.
"Please, it's Pepper. After Tony messes with your date night- I am sorry about that by the way- you should feel comfortable enough to call me Pepper."
Charlotte just nodded and took advantage of Tony distracting Pepper to look around the room. Steve seemed to be in a deep conversation with the woman she remembered to be Darcy. The other woman (Jane her brain reminded her) looked to be trading equations back and forth with Bruce. Thor seemed to be trying to eat as much pizza as possible as fast as possible.
Clint reappeared at her elbow expertly carrying three plates laden with their own slices of pizza. Charlotte smile gratefully at him. One of the bar stools just so happened to have the same booster seat Clint had in his apartment strapped securely down. Two open seats sat right next to it.
"Your friends don't mess around when it comes to a joke do they?" Charlotte asked once Lizzy was in her chair with pizza cut up in front of her.
"Nope." Clint said with a smile. "Gotta love them though right?"
"Awww Birdbrain you love me!" Tony cried from the other end of the table. A small holographic screen popped up in front of Clint with a picture of Tony and his words written on it.
"Not you Tin Man. I was talking about Steve." Clint called back.
Charlotte laughed as Tony sputtered and looked annoyed. Lizzy looked down the table to lock eyes with Tony.
"Fucker." she pronounced before digging into the food in front of her. The entire table burst into laughter at Tony's expense. Tony ever the adult stuck his tongue out at the toddler.
"How's her speech been?" Bruce asked breaking away from his conversation.
"Better. She's been doing more two and three word sentences. She seems to be using more Spanish. My neighbor is Cuban and most of the board books her church gave us are in Spanish." Charlotte explained.
"Quiero mas." Lizzy spoke up just at that moment.
"Que decimos?" Charlotte asked the toddler.
"Por favor." Lizzy promptly said.
"Bueno, puedes tener mas. Cuidado- no comes tan rapido." Charlotte told her as she grabbed the toddler another slice of pizza. She turned back to her conversation with Bruce.
"I've been responding in whatever language she talks to me in. My neighbor doesn't speak much English so Lizzy's been hearing mostly Spanish if Esme comes over for dinner or takes her to church." Charlotte said. Bruce nodded.
"That makes sense." he told her, "Even if she's still using shorter sentences her vocabulary is growing a lot. It'll be good for her in the long run." he said.
"That's what I keep telling myself." Charlotte said.
"You're doing a great job." Clint told her as he nudged her shoulder. Charlotte turned to him and smiled. After that it seemed the ice was broken and soon the conversations fell into a pleasant rhythm of overlapping voices. Charlotte noticed the little holographic screen in front of Clint made sure he caught everything.
~&~
Clint was going to kiss Tony Stark full on the mouth. He was also going to punch the man for helping Natasha do this but first he was going to kiss him. The holo he rigged up kept him in the loop for the entire conversation. It lit up brighter when his named was referenced. A picture popped up next to the words of each person speaking. It wasn't perfect with everyone talking over each other, but it was a dozen times better than anything else he'd ever used before. Hell, even his hearing aids couldn't always filter out the different conversations. Natasha still signed as she spoke, and Thor loudly asked what was this speaking with hands.
"It's sign language." Darcy broke away to explain, "People who can't hear use it to speak. I know a little."
Clint remembered Darcy could sign from his rotation as the guard in New Mexico. She mostly used it to sign rude things about jackbooted thugs to him. As she spoke she clumsily signed. She mixed up a couple signs, but Clint could understand what she signed and the holo told him too.
"I must learn this way of speaking." Thor claimed loudly.
"I'd like to learn also." Steve spoke up.
"I know a little but most of it would get me slapped." Tony chimed in.
"I don't know any but I'd like to learn." Bruce said.
Clint could feel his cheeks heating up in a blush. He looked over at Charlotte who was looking at him and smiling. He could feel his face heat up even more and looked down at his lap. Soon the conversation picked back up and turned away from Clint.
He nudged Charlotte's shoulder. She looked up from her second slice of pepperoni pizza and smiled at him.
"Sorry about the change of plans." he told her as a piece of sausage was launched over their heads to hit Steve in the face. Thor responded by launching his own piece of sausage back at Tony. Instantly a food fight with toppings broke out. Lizzy screamed her own joy and began flinging bits of the cut-up pizza off her tray it the others.
"You know," Charlotte said, "this is still pretty good." She ducked to avoid a pepperoni slice that seemed to come from Natasha's direction.
"Okay, either she doesn't like me or that was a challenge." Charlotte said. Clint noticed her smile tighten for just a moment.
"It's a challenge. You use the pineapple, I'll grab the sausages." Clint said as he grabbed the nearest slice of pizza to raid for toppings. Soon the food fight was in full swing with toppings flying around the table. Tony had some sort of suped up roomba that came around and grabbed everything that fell on the floor. Darcy and Jane seemed to take a particular delight in pelting Thor with the messiest toppings they could grab. Tony focused most of his missiles on Steve but also aimed at Natasha frequently. Clint remembered Tasha's stories from being his assistant. Thor took both the missiles from Darcy and Jane and endeavored to block them from as many projectiles as possible. Bruce was careful to stay at the edge of the food fight, but he also showed the biggest smile Clint had seen on him since arriving at the tower.
Charlotte gently threw small projectiles at Lizzy as well as the others and dramatically acted as Lizzy's projectiles hit her. Clint focused his toppings on the group equally. Everyone he launched squarely landed on his target. Charlotte tossed several at him. He responded in kind.
Half an hour later the fight finally slowed down enough that the group could look around at the damage. The floor was relatively clean thanks to Tony's robot fetish. The Avengers and company however, were covered in various amounts of pizza toppings and sauce. Lizzy was sitting in her booster seat clapping loudly and laughing along with all of the adults.
"Okay no one is sitting on my furniture without washing first." Tony declared. Clint reached up and wiped a bit of pizza sauce off of Charlotte's face. His own hands were still covered though so he only managed to spread more around.
"I have a change of clothes for the little one." she told him.
"I have some sweats you can borrow. Tee shirt too." Clint said. Charlotte nodded and smiled.
"Hey Tony, if we try to go back to my apartment to get cleaned up will JARVIS let us?" Clint asked.
"Yep- but if you take too long he'll set off police sirens. There's Princess and the Frog to be watched." Tony said. "Make it snappy Legolas."
~&~
"How many nicknames does Tony have for you all?" Charlotte asked on their way up to his apartment.
"God we haven't figured it out yet. He keeps finding new ones. Don't suggest any. He'll use them." Clint laughed.
"Oh, I don't know- I think you could rock a Katniss costume." Charlotte teased him. Clint stopped and turned to her. He put his hand on her forearm.
"How much do I have to pay you to never ever say that anywhere Tony or Steve can hear?" Clint asked.
"Steve?" Charlotte asked.
"That boy from Brooklyn is a shit and once he gets the reference there's a chance it'll be worse than Tony so please- for my sanity- do not say that anywhere either of them can hear." Clint would deny he begged later but he knew better. He totally begged.
"Help me get Lizzy cleaned up and lend me those sweats and you have a deal." Charlotte laughed.
"Deal."
Charlotte dug the Pj's she brought Lizzy out of her bag and took the toddler from Clint as he walked back to what Charlotte assumed was the master suite. She started undressing the toddler.
"Fun." Lizzy said.
"Are you having fun baby girl?" Charlotte asked.
"Yep. Fun." Lizzy said happily.
"I’m having fun too baby girl."
"Here," Clint said from behind her. She turned to look at him. He held out a wet wash cloth to her. She grabbed it from him and used it to clean up the toddler in front of her. It didn't take her too long to get most of the pizza goo off of her. The hair would just have to wait until they were back at her apartment.
"I can finish getting her dressed if you want to change." Clint told her. She looked at him again and saw he'd washed himself off and changed into soft black sweats and a dark purple tee shirt. He held out a second pair of black sweats and a red tank top to her. She noticed the tank top was clearly a woman's and raised an eyebrow.
"Shit. It's Natasha's. I didn't even think about giving my date another woman's cloths. That could be weird. That sounds like a thing people would think is weird." Clint babbled.
"Clint it's fine. I can tell you and Natasha are close. Good friends are a typically a good thing." Charlotte laughed and his awkwardness. She noticed she'd laughed a lot more today than she had in a while. She resolved not to tell Esme or Claire, or her two friends would tell her they told her so.
Although telling them might make them stop trying to set her up with various friends of theirs. All of Esme's choices came from her church and Claire kept trying to set her up with doctors from her emergency room. When Charlotte asked Claire why she didn't date any of the hot doctors her only response was to say she didn't date at work.
Clint smiled sheepishly at her and Charlotte got the idea that he dated about as often as she did. Charlotte took the offered clothes before following Clint's directions to the bathroom. When she looked in the mirror she saw tomato sauce stains on the halter of her dress and several smears of sauce on her face. She dug through the vanity drawers and found several face products and make up wipes. She grabbed a couple of wipes and started cleaning the sauce off her face. Not much could be done for the dress right now, but she should be able to get the stains out. If not, she could scrap the dress and make a dress for Lizzy- only the bodice had stains on it and Lizzy would need church clothes if Esme insisted on taking her to church each Sunday.
Charlotte didn't think about how it would take a few weeks at most to find Lizzy's guardians.
She quickly changed and folded her dress to be put back into Lizzy's toy bag. She went back out into the living room the dress folded carefully over her arm. The lights in the living room flashed as she walked back in. She guessed it was one way JARVIS could help Clint without his hearing aids.
"Oh, Pepper texted me. We're supposed to bring your dress and Lizzy's clothes back up with us. She's sending them out to the cleaners so and I quote the chaotic activities of dinner don't persuade you to never come back." Clint said looking up.
"I'll have to say thank you." Charlotte said.
"You can tell her when we get back downstairs. JARVIS is supposedly about to start the sirens according to the countdown clock he is currently projecting on the wall." Clint pointed. Charlotte turned to look at the wall. There was indeed a clock projecting a count down under three minutes.
"Well I guess no one keeps Tony Stark waiting." Charlotte laughed.
"Pepper does." Clint said, "but we are only mere mortals and therefore we abide by our robot overlord JARVIS."
Clint scooped Lizzy up off from the floor when the toddler held her arms up to him.
"More fun?" Charlotte heard the toddler ask as she followed them to the elevator.
"Yep, more fun." Clint said, "We're going to go watch a princess movie."
"Princess?" Lizzy asked.
"Yep! A princess for the princess." Clint started tickling the toddler as they walked into the elevator. JARVIS brought them back down to the main floor. When they reentered the common area, Charlotte saw everyone gathered around the huge couches all dressed in Pj's.
"So, slumber party? On a first date? Clint, I'll have you know I'm just a poor Midwest girl. This New York pace might just be too much for me." She said as they walked toward the couches.
"Hey I'm just an Iowa circus boy. We can blame Natasha and Tony for all of this. In fact, if you're willing to see me again I'll take you and the little one out to eat and we can plot sweet, sweet revenge." Clint whispered in her ear.
"You know Esme has been babysitting Charlotte every Saturday night. She also offered to take her on Tuesday too." Charlotte whispered back.
"What if I took you out to dinner Tuesday and you give me a do over on this date. It'll be just us I swear." Clint said.
"It's a date."
The three settled on the couch as the movie and the subtitles queued up. Tony and Pepper claimed an arm chair together and looked adorable in their matching Ironman Pj's. Steve sprawled on one of the couches with Natasha by his feet on the other side. It didn't escape Charlotte that the end of her couch came up to the end of the couch Clint had claimed for them. Thor, Jane and Darcy had taken a love seat together and although they hadn't spoken directly to each other at dinner the three were cuddled quite close.
As everyone settled JARVIS began to project the title screen of the movie on to the huge TV. When Tiana came on the screen in her princess dress Lizzy jumped off the couch faster than Charlotte could catch her and ran to the screen.
"Princess!" the toddler joyfully cried out clapping her hands.
"Oh my Odin she is the cutest thing in the world." Darcy said above the happy giggle of the adults.
"Lizzy come back and sit down so you can see more of the princess." Charlotte said as she went to grab the toddler.
"I wanna be princess." Lizzy said as she came back to sit in Charlotte's lap.
"Okay honey, we'll find you a princess dress. I think I can maybe make one out of some old clothes, you can help okay?" Charlotte told her.
"I big girl, I help lots." Lizzy insisted as she let herself be snuggled under a blanket.
"Yes you do sweetheart, now we have to be quiet, so we can hear what the princess says."
As Lizzy snuggled into her lap, Clint put an arm around her shoulders. When she looked up at him he raised an eyebrow in a silent question. Charlotte smiled back up at him and snuggled in further. Neither she or Clint noticed the eyes of the other Avengers on them. Soon the opening credits came on and a down on her luck waitress began to sing about being almost there.