The battle was fierce for being against only one person. Tony hadn't expected the fight to go so long or stretch across so much of New York. At least they were mostly keeping to warehouses and sparsely populated areas.

Clint had long ago run out of arrows. Natasha had emptied her cartridges. Hulk hadn't been able to get close. Even Steve and Tony were running out of ideas and willing to let Thor try negotiating. They'd had no luck. He wouldn't relent, whoever he was.

Thor had him distracted, just enough, that Hulk smashed through his shield and Natasha was able to secure him. Tony couldn't understand why he laughed so heartily as soon as Natasha tackled him to the ground. He'd been caught. Battle over; they won, just as expected. And yet the bad guy looked like the cat that caught the canary.

Tony hadn't seen the canister. Hadn't heard the beeping or the countdown and certainly didn't expect the explosion. The bad guy was cackling maniacally, screaming something about 'incapacitate' and 'Loki's return', when the canister exploded and filled the warehouse with a noxious red gas.

They ran for it, Natasha dragging their new psychotic prisoner behind her, and everybody made it out the door in one piece. Tony was just starting to ask what happened when Clint, Natasha, and Steve doubled over. Hulk bellowed. There was a loud pop and four puffs of smoke where his friends had stood moments before. Thor grabbed at the prisoner as quickly as he could, staring at the space Natasha had just occupied.

The smoke cleared and Tony gaped, not quite believing his eyes. Where his friends had stood there were now four small, coughing and sputtering children. They came complete with child sized clothes, armor and costumes vanished.

All four of them looked around, bewildered. The little girl where Natasha had stood started to cry. Nobody seemed able to move.

"Fuck me." Tony whispered.

They seemed to be copies of their actual young selves. There didn't appear to be any superpowers or honed skill sets amongst them. Bruce, at seven and a half, had not shown signs of any inner Hulk coming out and Thor had made him plenty mad enough to bring out The Other Guy. Steve was a small and sickly six year old. Definitely not a tiny super soldier. Natasha couldn't speak English, was afraid of everything, and probably couldn't have killed anybody if she'd tried. And she was only four. Clint was his wild card of a six year old. He knew nothing about Clint or his childhood except that it looked like the kid had never picked up a bow before in his life with the way he was dragging the prized possession behind him.

It took mere minutes to hammer out a plan, probably longer than it would have if the tiny version of Natasha hadn't been screaming for home in Russian. Thor would return to Asgard and find the cure all while keeping an eye on Loki. The last thing they needed was a breakout and a fight on Earth while they were down four Avengers. Tony would protect the children. He just had to convince Fury it would work better in the Tower than if they were all locked in rooms on the Helicarrier. There was no way he was going to let any of these kids be poked and prodded by scientists. Well, by anybody other than himself anyway.

That didn't take long either. He won with Fury. He always did. He would settle for nothing less. Now they just had to get the kids back to the Tower and get Loki's minion picked up before anybody saw them. Tony turned to look at the kids.

Natasha, tiny spitfire with hair as red as the sun, clung to his legs. She stared up at him with red rimmed green eyes. Her cheeks were streaked with tears and her hair hung in wisps falling out of her pigtails. He was the only one who spoke a language she could understand. She wouldn't let him go.

Steve stood back, ramrod straight and head held high. His hair was a dusty blond, shaved short and glaringly old fashioned. He was thin as a stick and his clothes hung loosely off his body, but he was quiet and attentive. He'd do as Tony asked, small blessing though that was.

Bruce crouched over the steps of the warehouse, intently studying some bug or plant or crack or Tony didn't know what. His hair was sticking up in all different directions, black and thick and coarse. He didn't seem terribly concerned with being in a new place surrounded by people he didn't know. Always the scientist, he was more interested in how it happened than anything else.

Clint was chasing circles around the others, oblivious to the situation at hand. His hair was long and dirty, a tangled mess of bright blond he pulled back with an elastic band. It wasn't quite long enough in the front and so half of it fell out, framing his dirt streaked face. His clothes were old, too small, and torn and faded. He looked as out of place as Steve.

He stared at them. They stared back at him. Sudden, crippling realization dawned on Tony. He had no clue what he was doing.