Epilogue: Postscript

Bruce barely registered the knock on the door, except that he began to write faster. He pressed his lips together, hunched further over his desk, ignored his glasses sliding down his nose until he came to the end of the line, then pushed them up as he swiveled halfway around to look at Natasha in the doorway of his basement study.

"Time to go?" he asked. They had a four-hour drive to the city ahead of them; no quinjets for civilians, he thought with only a touch of ruefulness.

Natasha smiled-a slight tug of the lips that threatened to make her face explode with a grin if she didn't restrain it. He recognized the look, because he felt the same one mirrored on his own face. Was she short of breath, too? Did her stomach flutter and her pulse race with mingled excitement and fear that after all they'd come through, something could still go wrong between Ithaca and New York City?

"Want to do one last check of the house?" she asked.

"Sure. Just let me finish this..."

The chair creaked as Bruce turned back to the desk, and the floorboards clicked beneath Natasha's heels as she came further into the study. She glanced down as she reached over him to straighten the picture that never hung quite straight.

"Letter to Susan?"

"A letter..."

Bruce darted his eyes up to see whether she looked bothered by the evasive answer, but she'd already turned away to check that his chemicals and lab equipment were safely stowed in locked cabinets. He scanned the letter, scribbled his signature, stuffed the folded stationery in an envelope and then in his breast pocket as he stood.

"Fiona wants to see the microscope," he said, when he saw Natasha adjusting its nylon cover.

"I remember."

She grinned at him across the room, and Bruce grinned back, certain now that the racing of his heart was purely due to excitement at the shared memory.

"You're a doctor?"the seven-year-old had asked when Bonita Juarez introduced him as Dr. Banner at St. Agnes Orphanage. Fiona thrust a protective arm in front of her not-quite five-year-old brother Flynn, but looking equally wary as she backed away, eyes narrowed. "Flynn doesn't like shots."

Bruce had found himself chuckling; of all the reasons kids had to be afraid of him, his title wasn't one that ever crossed his mind.

"Not that kind of doctor," he explained. "I'm a scientist."

Fear melted away like the snow, and Fiona bloomed, leaving Flynn's side to march up to Bruce. "With a real live microscope? If you adopt me, will you show me bacteria?"

The children had lost their father to Hell's Kitchen, their mother not long after to Terrigenesis. Afraid of hurting them, and of what might happen to them if she were picked up by the ATCU-or worse-she'd taken them to St. Agnes and disappeared. No one had heard from her since, and Flynn didn't remember her or their father or having a home anywhere other than the orphanage. They'd never even been in the foster system. Although he and his sister hadn't been exposed to the Terrigen, and potentially never would be, Inhuman genetics were a special need beyond even what the most open-hearted of adoptive parents were willing to take on.

"But two former superheroes?" Bonita had asked with a flicker in her eyes when she'd first presented Bruce and Natasha with the children's file.

They hadn't hesitated, hadn't needed to consult with each other. Just joined hands and said yes. Yes, they were willing to give these children a family…more than willing, they wanted to be their family, even before they met Flynn and Fiona.

"I hope you're prepared never to use this for actual science ever again," Natasha said, indicating the microscope with a tilt of her head.

"Maybe we should've invested in a second one instead of some of that other stuff."

Like the new swing set in the back yard. When they went to the kitchen to double check the pantry and fridge were well-stocked with juice boxes and kid-friendly cereal and snacks, Bruce's gaze drifted out the window above the kitchen sink. They'd bought it from Costco and put it together themselves, with the help of their next door neighbor Mitch, a retired dentist who lived to show off his power tools and his sense of humor. Bruce and Natasha spent the better part of the previous Saturday holding back eye rolls at his repeated joke to every neighbor who happened past on the walking trail around the lake about helping the Avengers assemble. When Bruce told Tony, the closest he got to sympathy was, "Hm, well. That's what you get for not asking me to come engineer the project." If dumb jokes were the price of not having a Stark Industries playground monstrosity for the kids, Bruce and Natasha decided, they'd gotten a bargain.

Which was a good thing, since it seemed like they'd bought one of everything at Toys R Us repurposing the gym into a playroom. Natasha flicked on the light switch as they entered, and Bruce jolted at the sound system blaring a music box rendition of "The Itsy Bitsy Spider."

They look at each other and said in unison: "Tony."

The volume dropped a notch as the computerized baritone of Jeeves intoned, "Mr. Stark is on the line, madam, sir. Shall I tell him you're unavailable?"

"Put him through, Jeeves." Natasha barely waited for the visual of Tony to appear on the TV in the corner over a racecar track to let him have it. "Did you hack our sound system, Tony?"

"Is it technically hacking when I'm the one who installed it?"

"Yes," Bruce said.

Unoffended-and also unashamed-Tony's eyes darted around the playroom, taking inventory of every single toy, book, and board game. "Kids there yet?"

"Like we'd tell you," said Natasha. "You'll just crash the party."

"Hm. Probably a safe assumption. No, I know you're going to pick them up today."

"Because you hacked my planner?" Bruce said, and Tony grinned, held up his palms. Guilty as charged.

"By the time we get back," Natasha said, moving to the door, "'The Itsy Bitsy Spider' better not be programmed to play every time we come into the playroom."

"Black Sabbath it is!" Tony rubbed his hands together.

Darting an alarmed glance at Natasha, Bruce opened his mouth, but before he could get out a word of protest, Tony spoke again.

"Don't worry, guys. I read up on bringing home kids from an orphanage. It's very important to avoid startling or overwhelming stimuli in the new environment."

Of course he had. Bruce let out his breath, only for it to hitch again when Tony said, "I maybe would've showed a little more restraint with the toy buying, but that's me. Can I see their rooms?"

Against all good judgment, they transferred the video chat to a tablet and took him on a virtual tour. In the first room, Bruce did a slow pan with the tablet, grin stretching as he watched Tony goggle and blink at the combination of sparkly turquoise bedding, dinosaur throw pillows, Bruce's collection of old Star Wars movie posters which now included ones from the new trilogy, and a glow-in-the-dark galaxy on the ceiling.

"Are the kids sharing this room?" Tony asked.

"No, this is just Fiona's."

"I just thought, you know, with the space and the dinosaurs…"

"What, girls can't like space and dinosaurs?" Natasha asked.

"She's a little…precocious," Bruce said, handing off the tablet to Natasha so she could give Tony a pointed look. "She hangs out with the big girls at St. Agnes. When we asked how she wanted her room decorated, she said, My aesthetic is space princess dino chic."

"Her aesthetic lacks an interior decorator to pull that theme together," Tony replied, "but this kid sounds awesome. Much like that TIE Fighter desk over there."

He'd noticed it as Bruce laid the letter on it. When he turned back, he found Natasha watching him, her curiosity evident.

"We really have to go, Tony," she said.

"But I haven't seen Flynn's room!"

"It's Cars-themed," Bruce said, "you won't like it."

"What do you mean, I won't like it? Cars are some of my favorite things in the world. Especially if they're Teslas and Audis."

"What about Lightning McQueen?"

Tony cringed. "Oh God. The anthropomorphic ones. Those are still a thing?"

"There are what, four movies now?" Bruce looked to Natasha. " Five?"

"I guess Larry the Cable Guy and Owen Wilson have to put food on the table somehow," Tony said. "Okay, hit the road, you two."

"Please don't send a decorator over while we're gone," said Natasha.

Tony sighed. "Okay, but only because you said the magic word. Seriously," he said, his expression softening to look it. "These are lucky kids. Can you adopt me, too?"

"We have talked about adopting a baby sometime," Natasha repled.

With a gasp of mock-outrage, Tony said, "Rude!" and ended the chat.

The bedroom felt oddly silent afterward, the tinny strains of "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" still faintly audible from down the hall. Natasha crossed the carpet soundlessly to join Bruce where he lingered by the desk. He watched her fingers slide across the glass surface to touch the envelope, tracing his curisve on the front: Fiona and Flynn. She looked up at him.

"The letter's for the kids."

Bruce swallowed, reached up and clutched the hair at the back of his head. "Yeah. I just…I want the kids to have…something tangible. So they'll know they're always wanted and never alone. That we've made it through really bad stuff, too, and life's better than we ever thought it could be. Because we found each other. And them." His fingers stilled as he met Natasha's eye. "Is that dumb?"

In answer, she gently pulled his hand from his hair, smoothed it back into place.

"You're a great dad already."

The warmth of her breath kissed him, followed by her lips as she leaned up to press them to his. It lasted only a moment before her smile broke free. She rocked back onto her heels and took his hand.

"Let's go get our kids."

The End

A/N: And in the immortal words of the great Porky Pig, That's all, folks. Thank you so much for going on this journey with Bruce, Natasha, and me which, for the record, I don't think Captain America: Civil War ruled out at all. ;) Every like, follow, and comment of encouragement has meant a lot to me. Special thanks, again, to my awesome beta Malintzin, and to BruceNat writer extraordinare, Magical-Destiny, whose enthusiasm is the reason I even dared to tackle a story like this in the first place. I'm so glad I did!