Not Everyone Can Fall in Line
The post-mission bath-and-bed routine is mandatory and non-negotiable. Tony trying to sweet-talk his way around it is pretty much mandatory, too.
“I just gotta do that one quick update on the suit,” Tony says. He sprints off the jet and takes a hard left for the elevators, running to press the button before anyone can catch up to him. “It’ll only take like twenty minutes,” he calls over his shoulder. “And then—”
Suddenly Natasha’s hands are on his shoulders, steering him into the elevator that’s going up instead of down. “Not right now, Tony,” she says gently. “You’re too tired to be working where you could hurt yourself.”
Too tired is perhaps an understatement; Steve, Clint, and Bruce shuffle onto the elevator after them, shoulders slumped and eyes struggling to stay open, each breath out of them a yawn. And Tony doesn’t really look much better. They’d managed to get that nap in, but missions like these take a lot more out of you than just a couple hours of rest can remedy.
“I just have to fix that one thing—”
Natasha laughs through her nose, smiling a little, but still undoubtedly serious. “You can fix whatever it is later tonight.”
The elevator door opens and Natasha ushers her boys down the hall toward the bathroom, but Tony won’t go down without a fight. He pulls back toward the elevator, but Natasha keeps him planted with a firm grip.
It’s a fun little part of their play, really. If he wanted to be in the lab, he would be there. If Natasha really wanted him to quit whining, he would be on his best behavior. But they both kind of enjoy the banter of it—Tony being difficult, and Nat gently putting him in his place—especially when they’re still coming down from a mission and settling into their headspaces.
Tony’s voice turns whiny. “But the—”
“Tony.”
“—thrusters—”
“That can be fixed some other time, Tony.” She nods her head toward the bathroom door. “Right now you need to get those sweaty clothes off and jump in the bath with Steve.”
Tony folds his arms over his chest, plants his feet, and puckers out his bottom lip. “I don’t want to take a bath with Steve. He takes up all the room and he smells.”
Natasha catches a laugh between pursed lips. “We all smell. We’ve been in the same clothes for 36 hours.” Tony rolls his eyes at her and she pretends not to notice. “Which is all the more reason to get them off and get in the tub.”
“Fine," he says finally, stomping off toward the bathroom as if it was his choice all along.
In the bathroom, Natasha helps Steve undress. He’s only recently allowed her to do so; he used to protect his naked body at all costs, but he’s learned not to be ashamed in front of Natasha and his brothers. Nat supposes that it’s symbolic for him, maybe, that Mommy takes the Captain America suit off of her little boy, thereby unzipping him of all super-responsibilities.
She helps him climb into the bathtub so he doesn’t slip. He sits, takes one of the yellow rubber ducks from the shelf, and swirls it around in the water, smiling a sleepy little smile.
Tony is next, but he’s easy to get out of his clothes. He slips out of them quickly and slides into the bath across from Steve. He wrinkles his nose a little. “You smell,” he says, testing a little.
Steve cracks a laugh. He pushes the water and a wave rolls toward Tony. “You smell.”
“Do not!” Tony splashes a little back.
Steve slaps his hands against the water, sending a spray Tony’s direction. “Do, too!”
Natasha intervenes with the No Tears shampoo before it can get too out of hand. She massages it into their hair until they’re squeaky clean. The water beneath them has turns a lovely shade of dingy gray.
Clint and Bruce sit in the doorway, little piles of sleepiness, awaiting their turn.
“Alright,” Nat says, getting off her knees and reaching for the towels. “Time for little boys to get out of the tub and into their jammies.”
Tony stands up first, and Natasha wraps him in a big, white fluffy towel. “I wanna wear my rocket ship pajamas,” he says, scrunching up his face as Natasha ruffles a towel through his wet hair. “You know. The ones with the feet.”
“They’re in the top drawer on the right,” Nat says, and pats him on the bottom as he takes off down the hall to finish getting ready for bed.
She holds the towel up for Steve next, who is already standing and sort of shivering, his arms wrapped around his chest. Natasha smiles at him.
His eyes are suddenly very big.
Natasha turns around to see what he’s looking at.
Thor is in the hallway, darkened by the lack of light, but the look on his face is unmistakably one of utter disgust. Clint and Bruce shrink away from him. He is not his friendly, jovial self; there is something cold—nasty, judging—in the way he looks at them. He looks over at Natasha, sets his rigid jaw, then walks off.
Steve crashes into Natasha, forgoing the towel as he buries his face in her shoulder. He whimpers softly at first, then his breathing starts to become erratic. He lets out a loud sob. Nat pulls him closer.
At first, for a moment, Natasha doesn’t know how to react; is he scared? Angry? Sad? Is he just upset because he’s so tired? But in his childlike state, upset is the emotion. It is simply the state of feeling. There is no separation into scared or hurt or angry or sad—there are only tears and uncontrollable shaking.
“It’s okay, Stevie,” Bruce says, suddenly next to him and hugging onto him. Natasha thinks this might be the last thing Steve would want when he’s like this—in a fit of tears and still naked—but it…works somehow.
Steve takes his hands away from his face. Bruce is smiling all big. “It’s okay,” he says again. “Because remember that one time? When I was the Big Guy, and then when I got back to regular size I didn’t have any pants no more?” Steve nods, and the corner of his mouth turns up ever so slightly. Bruce laughs. “It’s funny now, but back then when it happened, I was really upset, too.”
Natasha gets Steve a proper towel and wraps him up tight. “Bruce is right, sweetheart. There’s nothing to cry about. It’s okay.”
Steve sniffles and wipes his face on his towel. “Just ‘mbarrassed,” he hiccups. “And Thor’s mean.”
Natasha sighs. “I’m gonna get Clint and Bruce in the bath and then I’ll go talk to him, okay?”
Steve considers it. He nods. “But after you say goodnight?”
“Of course, little bug,” she says, gives him a little kiss on the forehead, then ushers him down the hall to get a pair of pajamas on.
+
Natasha has unintentionally chosen to have this conversation in one of the boys’ play rooms; Tony’s Legos are strewn about like painful little landmines buried in the fibers of the rug, Bruce has left fake bandages on the imaginary injuries of his stuffed animals, Steve has several picture books open and half-read, and Clint’s Matchbox cars are all upended and on top of each other like a highway pileup. It makes her smile a little.
She closes the door softly behind her. The boys are asleep, now, and it’s best to make sure they stay that way.
She and Thor look each other for longer that would be considered socially acceptable. He looks hard and soft at the same time, she thinks, with his lips turned down into a frown and his whole, large body, towering over her. But there are other things— like the way curls of his hair fall in his face, and how he smells like vanilla shampoo.
She hopes she can get through to him.
“I had not realized that your game was sexual,” he says bluntly, arms folded over his chest.
“It’s not—no. It’s not sexual. It has nothing to do with sex. Just because they didn’t have clothes on doesn’t mean there’s sex involved.” She sighs, thinks of how upset Steve had been. “They were taking a bath for Christ’s sake.”
“Humans are oddly protective of their bodies. They rarely let another see them in the nude, except, perhaps, in the sexual situation.”
It’s an astute observation, Natasha will admit, but one that’s beside the point. She wants to tell him that Steve is more than a little upset that Thor walked in and got a good look at him full-frontal. She wants to tell him that she couldn’t possibly think of her boys as being anything other than her boys—and most definitely not as manipulable sexual objects. She wants to ask him if he knows how hard it is to get four little ones bathed and in bed, especially when they’ve all—herself included—been on their feet for far too long. She wants to scream at him to get it through his head.
Thor waves his hand as if to dismiss every one of these thoughts. “I do not care what it is you all are engaging in. Just know that I do not want any part in it.”
“You said that before” she snaps.
“Then perhaps you should keep it more private so that I do not have to become involved,” he bites back.
Natasha is hurt. She has never known Thor to be like this. He is always so respectful and kind and to-each-their-own. She almost can’t comprehend that this kind of utter revulsion is coming out of his mouth.
“What is with you?”
“I should ask you the same.”
And…This conversation is never truly going to end—or end well—Natasha realizes. She breathes deep. “I think you should move your things to a different floor,” she finds herself saying, her voice sounding kind of wounded.
Thor finds that especially off-putting—they have always congregated on the same common floor when he visits from Asgard. The Tower is so large that to be on separate floors from each other is to feel very far from anyone at all. His thick eyebrows hang heavy over his eyes as they draw together on his forehead. “What?”
“This—” she gestures to the walls around her “—is their only safe space in the world. You’re allowed to not understand it, or not like it, or to feel disgusted by it, but you don’t get to crash land back in here and treat them like that. Treat my boys like that.”
Thor scoffs, looks away.
“I don’t care how you feel about what we do. We are a team, first and foremost, and you owe us some respect.”
“I cannot respect this.”
She pauses, swallows hard. “You should go.”
“Then I will go,” he says.
And he does. And that is that.