Making It Home
A few months, and a couple holidays later, and Sage was settling in nicely. She’d taken to going on runs with Steve, Bucky and Pietro when it wasn’t too cold in the mornings, then she would join Tony and Loki for a cup of coffee or two before she went off to school. After school, she’d either pester Clint in the archery range or visit Bruce in his lab or challenge Thor to a game of Mario Kart. Sometimes Natasha would squirrel her away for the night for what they called “girl time,” complete with Wanda, Pepper and Maria Hill, though Tony knew for a fact that Phil was invited too. He could never quite get out of her what she and Loki did together with their afternoons, but the highlight of his weeks were when Sage would visit him in his workshop. The two wouldn’t always talk, sometimes he would just continue tinkering while she played with the bots or read her books. When they did talk however, they always ended up laughing so hard that one or both of them cried, or discussing deep things like boys and feelings.
Tony rolled his eyes and snorted at that last thought. Because boys and feelings were such deep topics. They were though, especially during conversations with Sage. That girl was so self-aware for a fifteen year old, it astounded him. Sure, he’d been at MIT at fifteen, but Sage was so conscious of herself and everything around her. His mom would have loved her, that he could say for certain.
By the time Thanksgiving rolled around, he knew her favourite colour (purple), her Hogwarts house (Ravenclaw, like Bruce), her favourite flower (tulips), her favourite breed of dog (Newfoundland), and her favourite holiday (Saint Patrick’s Day). He’d managed to get away with giving her things over these last few months, despite the look that both she and Loki gave him every time. He’d given her free reign of his Amazon account too, though she still asked him every time she wanted to get something, which he found ridiculously endearing.
Absolutely everyone on the team loved her. She and Pietro never failed to joke around during dinner, and during movie nights she’d curl up between him and Wanda on one of the couches. Tony had caught them on several occasions, pointing to different team members and snickering when Wanda used her powers to flick popcorn at them. They hadn’t targeted him and Loki yet, but he had a feeling it was only a matter of time.
The thing that made Tony the happiest, though, was the bits of her personality that Sage had finally let peek through. She was incredibly shy at the start, but he thought- he hoped that they were moving past that. Whereas before, when she’d snap her mouth shut and stay quiet for several minutes if any of her dry wit or sarcasm escaped, now barely a minute would go by without a sardonic comment or sarcastic remark from Sage. She’d become so comfortable with them in such a short amount of time, and it made Tony’s heart positively soar. He’d noticed from the start that Sage seemed to be somewhat adverse to touch, which made him overly conscious of his more tactile instincts. It was hard, at first, but he completely understood, so he’d tried to keep his distance. And then, one day, they’d had a conversation. It started out normally, Sage telling him about how her day had gone and what had happened, when she suddenly got all choked up.
Truth be told, he’d panicked. He didn’t know what to do with someone who was crying if he wasn’t allowed to hug them. He’d cautiously asked what was wrong, hoping that if he could get Sage to talk it out, then she would feel better.
She’d sniffled and wrapped her arms around herself, obviously trying to pull herself together, and his heart had ached. She whispered something about how that day would have been the day that she’d have celebrated her childhood dog’s birthday. She’d laughed wetly when she said it, wiping her nose on her sleeve and grimacing when she looked at it. It was stupid, she’d said, because she didn’t even know her dog’s birthday. But, when she was little she used to always insist to her parents that it’s birthday was September thirty-first. She said her parents would laugh at her because they knew as well as she did that there was no thirty-first of September, but they would celebrate on October first just the same. After she’d told him, she’d sat there for a moment, just sort of staring at the ground. She’d looked up slightly and choked out a laugh when U bumped her, beeping sadly, then she’d met Tony’s eyes, her own still watering. “Sorry,” she’d said, “I just thought you’d appreciate that.” She bit her lip then, and launched herself into his arms, and his immediate reflex had been to wrap her tightly in a hug.
Since then, he’d discovered how tactile she truly was. It was shortly after this incident that she really began intentionally squeezing between Wanda and Pietro on movie nights. He noticed her hip checking Natasha when the redhead would let her win a game of ping pong, and ecstatically hugging Clint every time she beat Bruce at Mario Kart. He even saw her hug Loki every now and again, though it seemed to him that her favourite people to hug were Thor and the super soldiers. He didn’t blame her. They had so much muscle. Anyway.
Tony smiled as he watched the most recent game of Dutch Blitz commence. Sage had brought the game with her when she moved in, and once she’d taught them how to play, it was an instant hit. There had been a couple times where they nearly had to ban Pietro because he started getting so worked up that he unintentionally used his speed, but once that had become a legitimate threat, he quickly fixed the problem. Usually they would get at least eight people playing at once, and Sage actually had enough sets to play with all eleven of them - twelve if Bruce decided he could handle a few rounds that day - but games with everyone rarely happened. It was funny, actually, because Tony had been surprised that she had enough sets for twelve people to play at first, but she soon explained that she grew up with a very large family, who loved playing. She always got a little sad when she mentioned her birth family, but it didn’t take much to cheer her up again.
Currently, it was Sage against Pietro, Wanda, and Clint, which was always an entertaining game. Sometimes he could have sworn that Clint was the twins’ age for how much he acted like an absolute child. Sage was snickering, and it took him a minute to figure out why. He noticed that her playing had slowed down considerably from five seconds ago, and realised that she’d just blitzed, but she hadn’t called it. He chuckled, and gave her a thumbs up when she glanced up at him.
Sage snorted, and turned her focus back on the game, tongue between her teeth. She may have just technically won the game, but dammit she was here to win by card count. “Clint! Green six.”
“Oh, no. I’m not dumb. Play something else. That’s in your shuffle pile.”
“Come on! I’m trying to help you, dude! It’s right on top of your ten stack! Pleeeeeease?”
“Clint, play the damn card.”
Sage glanced to Wanda, surprised, but saw that the other girl had the green eight, and smirked. Pietro had the same card on his pile.
Clint huffed, but played the card. Sage laid hers down too, and jumped out of the way as the twins slammed their cards down simultaneously.
“That was mine!”
“No way!”
Sage grinned and called, “Dutch! Alright, let’s find out…” She pulled up both green eights and looked at the backs. She grimaced sympathetically at Pietro. “Her card was on bottom.”
“Блядь!”
Wanda smirked at him, and they resumed play, Clint laying a red five and calling,
“Blitz!”
“Dammit!” Pietro picked up his pile and muttered out his count, “One, two, three, four- five! I still had five cards!”
“Guess you’ll just have to be faster, kid.” Sage looked proud of herself for that, and Tony facepalmed at the island.
Wanda pointed to the elevator with a shit-eating grin on her face, “There’s the door. Leave.”
“You just don’t want me to beat you again.” Sage waggled her eyebrows at the other girl as she taunted her, dodging the playful smack easily. She quickly counted up the cards she had out and grinned happily, shouting, “Thirty!”
The rest groaned, Pietro shoving her over lightly as she laughed. “That’s not fair! I only got out seventeen!”
“Ha, you only got seven points.” She stuck out her tongue at the speedster, smiling and throwing her arm around him in a side hug when he pouted. “Don’t worry, скорый. I’ll go easy on you this round.”
Tony laughed loudly from his seat at the island. He knew for a fact that Sage had only learned that in order to taunt Pietro. If he didn’t love her so much, he’d almost feel bad for finding it so funny. “You kids keep me young.”
“You wish!” Clint called over his shoulder, laughing when Tony couldn’t find something nearby to throw at him.
“Hey, old man, you’re keeping us from starting.”
Sage cackled at Pietro’s taunt. “I’ve taught you well, young padawan. Hey, we ready?” She looked to Clint just as he was laying out his last card, and shot Tony a manic grin. “Alright. Ready. Set… Go!”
The chatter stopped in favour of the sound of shuffling cards and shouts of dissent one person played the card another had their eye on.
It was things like this, Tony was sure, that helped Sage settle in so well. The fact that the team was ready and willing to learn and play games with her. The fact that everyone joked so well with each other, and knew not to take offense. Everyone knowing when not to take things too far. Just, that family feeling. He was happy. Sage was happy. This was perfect.