A/N: Look who's gotten herself into another huge avengerkink fill fic. Yeeep. As of this posting, I'm 75 pages in and still nowhere near being finished. But I'm posting this first bit now as a little motivation for me to continue.

Disclaimer: As always, I own none of the Avengers stuff and this whole fic is loosely based off a prompt I was given.

"As you all know," Nick Fury began, "Agent Barton discovered a small child in the rubble during your last rescue mission. The child's-"

"Parents been found yet?" Tony asked, fiddling absently with his phone. "I've been looking for the obligatory SHIELD photo-op with the happy family as agents unite them with their beloved baby. Nothing yet."

Fury's eye narrowed. "No, the parents have not been found. And put that damn thing away."

Steve kicked Tony under the table and shot him a look. With a heavy sigh, Tony shoved the phone back in his pocket.

"As I was saying," Fury continued, giving Tony a dark look, "the child's parents have not been located yet, but we are working on it as we speak. In the meantime, SHIELD's medical staff has recommended that the baby leave the facility and stay with a volunteer caregiver."

"Ooh, me, me, me!" Tony waved a hand wildly. "Pick me."

Steve rolled his eyes, tempted to kick him again.

Fury's face remained impassive. "Anybody else?"

"Oh, come on. I'm the only omega on the team. It totally makes sense for me to take care of this kid."

Natasha rolled her eyes. "You have no experience raising a child. You don't even know how to take care of a pet."

"Not true," Tony objected. "Dummy, Butterfingers, and You are my babies. They were just tiny heaps of metal when they were first born and look at them now."

"And yet, you still named them Dummy, Butterfingers, and You," Natasha muttered under her breath.

Tony scowled and crossed his arms over his chest. "You don't want me to give the kid a nickname? Fine, be that way."

"Tony, robots don't require the same level of care as a human child," Bruce said gently. "Your bots manage just fine on their own most of the day, but a baby needs constant attention."

"I know what babies need. Food, toys, clothes, diapers. I can have Jarvis put in an order for everything the baby needs and it'll be at the Tower by the time this boring meeting is over. And, really, I am the best person to handle this baby. I can afford anything and everything it'll ever need."

Fury sighed and massaged his temple. "There's no reasoning with you, is there? Fine. But when you decide this baby isn't the fun little project you thought it was, it's coming right back to SHIELD." He leveled the other Avengers with a stern look. "Make sure he doesn't fuck this up. The last thing we need is a dead baby on our hands."

"Yes, sir," Steve said.

He didn't know why Tony was so bound and determined to take on the responsibility, but even Fury had learned by now it was easier to just let Tony do what he wanted to do and take care of the fallout afterward.

Tony would probably get bored with the baby in a few days, but there were usually six other people in the Tower. If Tony started to forget to feed it, one of the others could step up and help out. Steve had a suspicion that that person was going to be him.

Oh well. It might be fun to play parent for a little bit. It was probably the closest Steve would ever come to having a child of his own.

Tony grinned and gave Fury a thumbs up."You've made the right choice, my friend. You won't regret it."

"I'm already regretting it," Fury growled. "That baby is probably more mature than you'll ever be. Now, we have more pressing matters to discuss. We still have an entire street closed off because of all the rubble from that damn goat man."

"He called himself Battering Ram," Clint added helpfully.

"I don't give a damn what he calls himself. We just have to clean up the motherfucking mess he left behind."

"Yep," Tony said disinterestedly. "Sounds like fun."

Steve frowned at him. He was already back to fiddling with his phone again. Steve nudged him warningly with his foot, but Tony continued to tap buttons.

"Tony," Steve hissed. "Fury's going to-"

"Off the phone, Stark," Fury snapped. "Don't make me tell you again."

Natasha leaned over to whisper to Steve, "Look at that. Already moved on to something else."

"I'm ordering things for the baby," Tony said indignantly. "Boy or girl?"

Fury glowered at him."Girl."

"Excellent. And would you say closer to four months or six months? Because there is this really awesome shirt that says 'Troublemaker' and one that says 'Little Rebel' and I want-"

"Off the phone now," Fury said in a tone that warned dire consequences for any disobedience.

Tony huffed and slipped the phone back into his pocket. "Fine. The kid'll just have to go topless for a couple hours."

Fury shook his head. "This is just another distraction for you, isn't it? Just another thing you can be doing instead of focusing on the meeting."

"Right," Tony said with a dramatic eye roll. "Because everything I do is to avoid listening to your debriefings. And people think I'm the narcissist."

"Tony," Steve said gently. "You already have a lot of commitments. You have your work for Stark Industries, Avengers calls, and your consulting work for SHIELD. If this baby is going to eat into all your time and cause you to neglect the rest of your duties-"

Tony straightened in his seat. "No, no," he said. "I've got this. I'm completely focused on this meeting. We're talking about the rubble right? Easy stuff. Hire a few bulldozers and it'll all be taken care of. Problem solved, meeting adjourned. Let's all go home now."

Fury looked decidedly unhappy about the whole thing, but he waved a hand dismissively. "Fine. Go pick up the damn baby. But I expect you to pitch in to clear the rubble tomorrow with everybody else. And no, you do not get to hire contractors to do your share of the work."

"Aye, aye, boss," Tony said with a snappy salute. "We'll be there."

Steve expected Tony to want to race down to the infirmary to see the baby, but he hung back in the stairwell for a moment. "You guys go ahead," he said. "I have to make arrangements with Pepper."

"If he has Pepper come over and take care of the baby for him, I'm kicking his ass," Natasha said darkly.

"We don't know what he's talking to Pepper about," Steve reminded her.

But the fact that Tony was back on the phone again wasn't a good sign.

The SHIELD medic met them at the door, a wary look on her face. "Director Fury warned me you were coming. I still think letting Mr. Stark handle a baby is a terrible idea, but I can't contradict the director's orders."

"I'm sure it'll be fine," Steve said. "If anything goes wrong, the rest of us are there to help out."

The medic gave him a long, searching look, but finally led them over to the makeshift crib in the corner of the room. The baby was still wearing the same yellow dress she had sported when Clint picked her out of the rubble. It was a little dirty, but she didn't seem to mind. She just gurgled happily to herself and kicked her feet.

"Steve," Natasha breathed. "She looks just like you."

Steve snorted. So, the baby had blue eyes and blonde hair just like her did. It was just a slight resemblance.

Tony wandered in to the infirmary. "Good news. Pepper's going to hook us up with babysitting if we get called on a mission." He padded over to the crib and peered inside."Hey there, princess." He wiggled a finger in front of her face and she reached out to curl her hand around it.

The medic cleared her throat. "Mr. Stark. Before I allow you to take little Emily home, there are a few rules I need to go over."

Tony lifted the baby out of the crib and settled her in his arms. "Emily? Really? Why didn't you name her Stephanie? She looks just like Cap."

"She does not," Steve objected.

The medic scowled. "It doesn't matter what we call her. It's probably not her real name anyway."

"We should have a bet on what the real name is," Clint said eagerly.

"I'm still voting for Stephanie," Tony said.

"We'll bet on the first letter of the name," Clint decided. "That'll be easier. I'll rope in a few of the SHIELD agents so we have all the letters covered."

"S," Tony said. "I'm calling it first."

Clint pulled out his own phone and began setting up the betting pool. "You want in on this, Cap?"

Steve sighed. "Fine. T."

Tony bounced the baby in his arms. "You hear that, Stephy? Cap's betting against me. You better not let me down."

The baby giggled and jammed her fist in her mouth.

The medic sighed. "So, I want to go over the list of supplies you'll need." She grabbed a checklist off the counter.

Tony glanced at the paper. "Already taken care of."

"Mr. Stark, you haven't even read-"

"I put in an order for all the stuff we'll need," Tony said cheerfully. "It's probably at the Tower already."

The medic put her hands on her hips. "And I suppose you thought to order a-"

"Diaper bag? Changing table? Pacifier? Diaper rash ointment? Trust me. I've got it covered."

The medic ground her teeth together. "I guess I'll have to take your word for it," she said. She thrust the checklist at Steve. "Look this over once you get her home. Make sure he's got all the necessities."

"Uh, okay," Steve said.

He wasn't sure why she was making it his job to check up on Tony. Probably just because he was team leader. But it was weird how it always seemed to be his responsibility to fix things when Tony was being Tony.

"Let's take you home," Tony said to the baby. "We'll get you out of these icky, dirty clothes that nobody even bothered to wash. Shame on them."

The medic gave him one last withering glare and shooed them out the door.

Just as Tony had promised, by the time they arrived back at the Tower, there were a couple large boxes on the doorstep from a baby boutique in Brooklyn.

With help from Thor and Steve, everything was dragged to an empty room on Tony's floor, two doors down from his bedroom. And then Tony began excitedly tearing into the boxes, pulling out packages of diapers, bibs, clothes, changing pads, toys, and bottles. He held each item up for the baby's inspection.

Steve surreptitiously shredded the list. With all the things piling up in the baby's new bedroom, he very much doubted Tony had missed a single necessity. He probably had enough supplies to take care of five babies.

Tony glanced around at the mess he had created. "Wow. I might have bought a little more than I needed."

"What can we do to help?" Natasha asked.

"Uhh, I'll probably give her a bath first and change her into something clean. So, if you guys can dig out a wash cloth, towel, baby shampoo, wash basin, and one of the diaper boxes, that'll be great."

Clint spotted most of the things Tony needed pretty quickly and the others pawed through the piles for the rest of the stuff and it was all collected into the wash basin.

Tony shifted the baby to his hip and tucked the basin under his other arm. "Thanks, guys. I'll be back in a few."

"I'll help," Natasha said. "You'll probably need an extra set of hands."

"Nope. I got this," Tony said cheerfully. "But feel to continue unpacking while I'm gone." He vanished into the adjacent bathroom.

Natasha frowned. "Why does he always act like he's too good to accept our help? He's not going to be able to take care of the baby all by himself. You know he's not."

"So, we help him in all the ways we can," Steve said. "Starting with unpacking the rest of this stuff."

Natasha sighed as she bent down to slice open another box with one of her knives. "Realistically, how long do you think Stark is going to last before he decides child care is too difficult?"

"We shouldn't be too worried about that," Bruce said. "He's probably not going to look after the baby for more than a week. Any good parent would be desperately searching for their child so SHIELD should be able to track them down pretty quickly."

"Unless they're dead," Natasha said.

"Unless they're dead," Steve echoed glumly. The Battering Ram had taken out a small cafe, a hair salon, and a brownstone in his rampage. Three people had been critically injured and there were five casualties. The baby's parents could have been among them.

"So what do we do then?

Steve chewed his bottom lip, wishing he had an answer for her. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," he said finally. "In the meantime, let's all just focus on keeping this baby healthy and happy."

"Hey," Clint said. "Did we start a bet on when the parents would turn up yet?"

Natasha rolled her eyes. "Do we really need another bet right now?"

There was supposedly another bet going around on how long Tony would take care of the baby before he realized he didn't know what the hell he was doing. And Agent Hill was only giving Tony until the first diaper change.

Steve found that a little insulting, but maybe it was for the best. Tony's greatest triumphs usually came at a time when everyone was betting against him.

Tony returned with the baby swaddled in a pale purple blanket just as they were unpacking the last of the boxes. "Looking good," he said approvingly. "Did we manage to find the crib yet?"

Natasha stared in disbelief. "Back already? Did you actually wash her or just put a towel over her?"

"Of course I bathed her. How else would my shirt get this wet? No, wait, don't answer that."

Steve steadfastly refused to think of any other explanation.

Tony spread the blanket out on the floor and settled the baby in the middle of it. "There you are," he said. "You just sit tight while we get your crib ready."

The baby tugged at the hem of her pink top and then raised her hands above her head with a whimper.

"Are you sure you put that on her right?" Natasha asked. "She doesn't seem to like wearing it."

Tony scooped the baby back into his arms. "She's just tired," he said. "The bath made her kind of sleepy."

The baby whined and rubbed at her eyes.

"I know, I know," Tony said soothingly. "You've had a long day and now you're ready for bed." He glanced up. "I need an ETA on the crib, guys."

"Do I look like a furniture building expert?" Clint grumbled. "I think all the instructions are in some made-up language."

Tony sighed heavily. "I have to do everything myself, don't I?" He turned to Steve. "Hold Stephy for a moment."

"But, Tony, I don't-"

"Nonsense. You two are practically twins. I'm sure she'll love you." Tony pressed the baby into his arms, pausing for only a moment to adjust Steve's hands into a different position before he scurried off to take over the crib setup.

Steve sighed and awkwardly bounced the baby in his arms as her cries got progressively louder.

He was thankful when Tony finally returned to take her back.

Tony hummed as he rocked the baby in his arms. Eventually the baby's wails tapered off as she snuggled into his chest. "That's it," he said softly. He eased her down carefully into the crib. She made a small sound of protest, but didn't actually appear to be waking up again.

"Awesome," Tony said. "Jarvis, we got this?"

"Yes, sir," Jarvis said. The lights dimmed slightly and a quiet lullaby started playing. "I will alert you when she wakes."

"Okay, great." Tony shooed them towards the door. "It's only eight, so I'm sure you all have places to be, things to do. No one wants to stare at a sleeping baby for hours."

"So, what are you going to do then?" Steve asked.

Tony looked a little startled. "Oh, um, stuff. Just stuff. I'll see you tomorrow." He hurriedly closed the door behind them.

"I think this baby thing is already stressing him out," Natasha muttered. "He's acting weirder than usual."

Steve shrugged. "It's a big responsibility."

"And he doesn't have to do it alone. Look at all of us. We're all willing to pitch in and lend a hand."

"Speak for yourself," Clint said. "I ain't changing no dirty diaper."

Natasha cuffed him upside the head. "I think I trust you with a baby even less than I trust Stark."

They were still playfully bickering as they made their way back down to their own floors.

Steve lingered outside the baby's room for a few more moments, hoping Tony to talk to him for a minute before he retreated down to the lab. But Tony wasn't coming out. With a sigh, Steve finally made his way to the elevator.

He really hoped Tony wasn't having a nervous breakdown. Knowing him, he wouldn't ask for help until it was too late.