A Proper Little Family
Wheels up.
There is a relief in Natasha that she cannot name; the fight was drawn-out, but not particularly difficult or dangerous. No one was injured beyond the unavoidable bruises and scrapes. They hadn’t needed a Code Green. Everyone is alright. She sighs out all the breath in her lungs.
The Quinjet is on autopilot, and the whooshing sound of pressurized air is almost like white noise in the cabin. The great big sun rises all around them, staining the sky pink and orange and purple. The clouds are pillowy and soft and cotton-candy looking. The thought of battle becomes a memory as they fly toward home.
Thor had elected to fly himself back to the Tower. For the best, probably.
Natasha is tired, so she knows that the boys must be as well. None of them have gotten a wink of sleep in the last 36 hours, and it’s starting to show.
“Mommy, come help with something?”
Bruce looks so soft. His eyes are sweet and round, and his smile is sort of lopsided and all too adorable. Natasha can’t help but scoop him up into a little cuddle before kissing him on the cheek. “What do you need, little bear?”
Bruce points upward to the mesh gear hold strapped above them where something soft and pink peeks out. “Pinkie is up there. Can you reach her?” He yawns. “Please?”
Natasha stands unsteadily on the edge of a seat to reach it, knowing that Bruce could’ve reached it himself without even standing on his toes— but he understands space differently when he’s in his headspace. He thinks he’s smaller, and he almost seems it, too.
She hops down from where she had been standing. “Don’t you ever climb up there,” she says, and hands him his little stuffed pig.
Bruce hugs his pig crushingly tight to his chest. “I won’t, Mommy,” he says, and it earns him a lingering kiss to the forehead. He smiles with his eyes closed. “I’m gonna take a nap, I think. I’m sleepy.”
“That’s probably a good idea, sweetheart. There’s some blankets and pillows in the back if you want to get away from all the noise up here.”
A yawn. “Goodnight.”
“All the noise” is coming from the cockpit, where Clint has hands on the disabled yoke, yanking it this way and that and making zooming sound effects with his mouth. Nat can’t help but laugh. “What on earth are you doing over here?” She asks, smiling.
“I’m flying the jet, Mommy!” There is pure, unadulterated joy on his face. He smiles as wide as his mouth will let him.
“Then I better hang on, hadn’t I?” Natasha jokes, reaching for one of the emergency handholds.
“I’m a really good flyer, I promise! JARVIS even said so! And he told me I could fly the jet, so there!”
“Mr. Barton is an exceptional pilot, Ms. Romanov. Even so, I will have been sure to monitor him to ensure the safety of his passengers.” There is something of a wink in the AI’s voice.
Natasha kisses him on the cheek and Clint jerks his face away. “No time for kissies, Mommy. I’m flying, here.” He makes a loud engine noise and jerks the yoke suddenly to the left—something that would indeed send them into a barrel roll if JARVIS wasn’t piloting the thing.
“Maybe my little pilot should take a little nap,” she suggests, folding her arms over her chest.
Clint makes a sharp noise. “No way! Mommy, I’m flying the jet. I can’t just stop! We’ll fall out of the sky!”
“If I may interrupt, Mr. Barton—” JARVIS says, “the flight is a rather straight shot from here until we reach Manhattan. I will put the jet on autopilot until then and wake you when there is assistance needed for the landing.”
Clint considers that. The exhausted part of him must win out—he rubs at his eyes with his fists and jumps down out of his chair. “A little nap,” he says. “And then I gotta wake up so I can land the jet, okay?”
Natasha runs her fingers through his sweaty, dirty hair. “Sounds like a plan.” She points him toward the back of the jet where Bruce is already sound asleep. “Your blanket and your teddy are all ready for you to go lie down.”
He does, hugging Natasha goodnight before he shuffles away.
Steve is leaning on and looking out one of the windows when Natasha comes up. She wraps her arm around him and pulls him closer. He drops his head against her shoulder. “The sky is so pretty,” he says softly, voice sounding half asleep.
“It is very pretty.”
He yawns. “I’m glad the battle is over now,” he says plainly. “And I’m glad nobody got hurt. It’s so scary when somebody gets hurt.”
Natasha kisses the top of his head. “I know it is, sweetheart. But everyone’s alright, now, aren’t we?” Steve nods a little. “So you can calm down, baby. It’s all over now.”
“Hard to calm down.”
Natasha feels for him in moments like these. Steve doesn’t have a hard time transitioning into his little headspace, but he has difficulty leaving his battle headspace behind. Natasha pulls him closer to her chest. “You deserve to relax, sweetheart.” Natasha rubs her hand up and down his back. “You fought so hard, and you did such a good job being a big boy, now it’s time for you to relax, don’t you think?”
“I guess so.” Steve feels lighter. Stress wafts away from him. “I think I wanna go take a nap with Brucie and Clint for a little while.”
“I think that’s exactly what you need right now.”
“But…wake me up if something happens, okay?”
Natasha doesn’t even tell him that she will; she pats him on the bottom and he goes off to get in on the nap puddle with the others.
She goes to Tony last. He has his legs all tucked up into a chair the way a child would have them. He not only looks tired—tired is becoming him. The circles under his eyes are dark and his eyelids seem heavy, and his whole body sort of leans forward.
Natasha kneels down so they’re at eye level. “Are you doing alright sweetheart?
He pores over a StarkPad, eyebrows crunched together. “I’m trying to fix the suit.”
“Something went wrong?” She asks.
“Yeah,” he answers shortly, pulling the StarkPad even closer to his face.
Natasha smiles. “Why don’t you give your eyes a break and go have a little nap with the others?”
Tony simply shakes his head. Natasha watches him for a few minutes as his whole demeanor changes—he suddenly tosses the Pad across and it lands on the floor in a clatter. He sighs sharply in frustration and leans his head back.
“Tony…” Nat says slowly, cautiously. “I think we need to take a break.”
“I can’t, Mommy. I…” Tony tries to speak, but he tears up. He quickly wipes his eyes on the backs of his hands. “I have to finish.” His voice breaks on the last word.
Natasha pulls him into a hug. “Oh, sweetheart. You are one tired little boy, aren’t you?” Reluctantly, Tony nods. “Baby, it’s okay. You don’t have to finish right now.”
Tony sniffles. “Okay,” he gives in, sounding like all the air has gone out of his voice.
Natasha takes his hand and leads him to the back where Steve, Bruce and Clint are asleep all on top of each other. Tony looks up at Natasha, and she smiles encouragingly at him. He drops down to the floor and snuggles up next to Bruce. Nat drops a blanket on top of them and tucks the ends in.
“Mommy?” Clint mumbles as he wakes a little, eyes squinty as he looks up into the light.
Natasha shushes him and raises a finger to her lips. “Go back to sleep, little one,” she says. Clint turns over and closes his eyes again.
Five minutes later, all four boys are snoring softly.
+
It’s not pretty, but it’ll do, Natasha thinks.
She’s managed to make a fort in the cabin of the Quinjet using only the gear on hand—a parachute hangs from the ceiling and drapes around walls made of piled seat cushions and backpacks full of miscellaneous gear. She ties headlamps to the inside for some light, and props a StarkPad with a queue of Disney movies in the corner.
She’s just adding finishing touches to it when she hears the boys stirring in the back. When one of them wakes up, it’s almost always a chain reaction. They come shuffling out looking marginally less exhausted than before.
“Mommy?” Steve asks, looking around for Natasha.
Bruce is instantly nervous about it. “Where’s Mommy?”
Tony kneads his fists into his eyes and points at the large structure in the center of the cabin. “What’s that?”
Meanwhile Clint is already jumping up and down. “It’s a fort! It’s a fort! Mommy made a fort!”
Natasha lifts the flap and peeks out, smiling. Her boys giggle and clap their hands and crash land into the fort, dragging their blankets and stuffies and pillows behind them. They look around at the little hideaway in awe. Mommy made this?
“This is so cool!” Bruce says, glowing under the soft light of the headlamps, and the others agree, all talking on top of each other. They all glow. They all look golden.
“So you like it, then?” Natasha asks and earns four vehement nods.
They get settled, then; Nat passes around pre-packaged chocolate chip cookies and strawberry juice boxes, and they unanimously elect to watch Winnie the Pooh.
Everyone sort of melts back into a state of comfort; they’re cuddly and giggly and wide-eyed and soft. They snuggle together in a tangled little pile with Natasha in the middle of it somewhere. It’s like it always is. Like how she hopes it will always be. And it’s not all that beautiful, really— everyone is still in their battle clothes and they smell precisely like you’d expect five sweaty bodies to smell after 36 hours of intense combat. They’re still all gritty and grimy and greasy. Natasha loves it.
And how can she not? Bruce’s warm, bright eyes as the cartoon on the screen delights him to laughter. Steve’s protective, brotherly arm draped over Tony’s shoulder which shakes as Tony giggles at Tigger’s jokes. Clint stuffs his face with cookies—so many that Natasha knows he’s just testing to see when she’ll tell him he’s had too many.
But she won’t. He deserves this. They all deserve this.
She has an intense feeling of something wash over her all of a sudden. It’s not just that unnamable sense of relief from before, it’s not just love, it’s not just happiness—it’s like…euphoria. It makes her warm from the very center of her body and she feels it radiate outwards.
Life, she thinks, cannot get any better than this.