Summary: There was potential there, the glimpse of a thought that these extremely independent, highly dangerous individuals could become so much more than just a team – that they could become a family. They just had to survive each other first. Rated for language.

Disclaimer: Not mine.

We Band of Brothers

"You must remember, family is often born of blood, but it doesn't depend on blood. Nor is it exclusive of friendship. Family members can be your best friends, you know. And best friends, whether or not they are related to you, can be your family."

― Trenton Lee Stewart, The Mysterious Benedict Society

…

"The most important thing in life is your family. There are days you love them, and others you don't, but in the end they're the people you always come home to. Sometimes it's the family you're born into, and sometimes it's the one you make for yourself."

― Candice Bergen, Sex and the City

Chapter Twelve

This is such a bad idea, Steve thought to himself as he made his way to Tony's lab. Trying to teach himself history was one thing. It was easy to flip through textbook after textbook and read until he remembered things that he'd never experienced. Trying to teach himself the physics behind his shield was something completely different.

Damn Thor, he thought without malice.

He couldn't really blame the demi-god, he supposed. Thor was only being curious while they trained, wanting to know exactly how Steve managed to throw his shield with the perfect velocity and trajectory each time. The problem came when Steve realized that he had absolutely no idea; he just threw it and it worked. His explanation had satisfied Thor, but not himself, and after a week of dithering, he came to the only course of action he could think of.

Taking a deep breath, Steve knocked on the door to the lab.

"Mr. Stark is currently beneath the roadster, Captain Rogers," JARVIS announced, unlocking the door.

"Hey Cap." Tony's shout was muffled by the chassis he was currently underneath. Rolling out, he sat up and rubbed at an oil smudge on his cheek. "What's up? Have you changed my five day rule to a three day rule and forgotten to tell me?"

"No." Steve shifted, uncomfortable. "How is your leg?"

Tony glanced down at the bulge beneath his pants leg, where white gauze wrapped his accidental knife wound. "Serviceable. Did you need something?"

Steve nodded to himself, and suddenly blurted out, "I don't know how my shield works."

The billionaire blinked at him. "What?"

"Thor asked me how I was able to throw my shield perfectly every time, and I couldn't tell him," Steve confessed, averting his gaze. "The reason is some kind of physics, I know, but I don't know it. And I need to."

Tony remained silent, his eyes unreadable and trained on Steve. The silence stretched and lengthened in the lab.

"You want me to teach you physics?"

Steve's knee jerk reaction was to say "No" as loudly and forcefully as possible, but he bit his tongue. "Not," he responded, slowly. "If it's too much trouble."

"It wouldn't be trouble," Tony said gently. Steve looked up at the soft tone of his voice. Tony was leaning forward, his elbows resting lightly on his knees, with the kindest expression on his face that Steve had ever seen. "It wouldn't be trouble," Tony reiterated when Steve did not reply. "Steve."

"What?" Steve sighed.

"I can help you with this." Tony was quietly earnest and Steve visibly wavered. "Let me help you with this."

"Okay."

Holding out a hand, Steve helped Tony up from the ground and followed the billionaire back to his workbench. Forgoing the desktop, he reached into the cabinet and ruffled around, finally emerging with a battered old physics book.

"I didn't take you for the nostalgic type," Steve murmured.

"I'm not," Tony replied. "I took over the company right out of college, and I never got around to getting rid of them."

Handing the book to Steve, he dropped into his chair and pointed at the couch. "Start with classical physics. You have to have that basis if we're going to get into the properties of vibranium. Read through it and ask me if you have any questions."

Settling himself on the couch at Tony's right, Steve gingerly opened the old book and began reading while Tony worked on various project plans on his desk top. When he reached something that he needed help understanding, Steve would ask Tony, intently listening to the billionaire's surprisingly simple explanations.

The lessons continued for days, Steve carving out bits of time to sit on the couch in Tony's lab. He brought in other books, for history and math and the sciences to simply have a quiet place to work. Tony instructed him to read each chapter carefully and then work through the example problems, handing him a calculator and delving into his own projects.

Steve painstakingly waded through the questions, writing out each step on paper and doing most of the math by hand, as he was used to. When he couldn't complete a problem in, what Tony had dubbed, "his way", he turned to the rather extensive calculator. He figured out most of the functions on the handheld device simply by logic, but was soon stymied by the myriad of commands on the small computer in his hands.

"I give up."

Tony looked up from his work and stared at Steve for a long moment.

"That's not a Captain thing to say," he finally commented. Steve looked uncharacteristically defeated as he dropped his head into his hands.

"I don't care," the soldier retorted, his voice muffled by his palms. "I'm done."

Tony resisted the urge to roll his eyes and stopped for a moment to reason out what had the soldier so out of sorts. He glanced at the multitude of open textbooks surrounding Steve and the calculator sitting innocently atop the looseleaf papers and, suddenly, he knew.

"It's not because you're stupid, Steve." Tony scooted closer and tapped Steve's leg to gain his attention. He waited until the soldier raised his eyes, and then he looked at Steve seriously. "The advancements that have been made in the last seventy years are so massive and numerous that trying to learn them all at once is the single most difficult thing anyone would ever have to do. Even I couldn't manage it."

Steve glanced wryly at Tony. "Yes you could."

"Yes, I could," Tony agreed, leaning back. "But, I was trying to make you feel better. Did it work?"

Steve laughed. "A little, yeah."

Tony's eyes crinkled slightly as he nudged the calculator closer to Steve. "Try again."

The beeping was incessant, a shrill noise that echoed every three seconds, and Maria was at her wit's end. Finally pulling her headboard away from the wall, she found a charger plugged into the electrical outlet and followed the cord to Phil's cellphone. Cursing the sentimentality that had prompted her to keep the phone on and charged, she snatched it up from where it had fallen to the floor.

She keyed up the main screen and rubbed the sleep from her eyes, blearily reading, "Anniversary." Blinking incomprehensively at the screen, she sighed and dismissed the message. She placed the phone on her bedside table and climbed back into bed.

Five minutes later, the beeping began again and she hurtled out of bed. The screen read, "ANNIVERSARY. PRESENT IN DESK DRAWER" and she glared angrily at it. Stalking from her room, she barged into Clint's.

The archer was on his stomach, his face planted firmly in the pillows. The covers were twisted around his hips, revealing broad, scarred shoulders. One arm dangled listlessly off the mattress and he let out a quiet snore. She closed the door and picked her way across the piles of clothes on his floor to the bedside table. Placing Phil's phone on top, she moved it to the other side of the room and flicked the lamp on.

Clint slumbered on and she sighed. Returning to the bedside, she hooked both hands around his wrist and pulled. He dropped to the floor like dead weight, jolting awake with the impact. Maria held the phone out as he rubbed ineffectually at his eyes.

"What the hell is this?"

He looked groggily up at her. "What the hell is this? I was fucking asleep."

"So was I," she retorted. "Until Phil's damned phone decided that three in the morning was a great time to alert me."

He stared at her. "Why in the name of fuck do you have Phil's phone?"

"Because I'm sentimental like that," she snapped. "What anniversary?"

Shifting so that he was comfortably leaning against the bed, Clint reached up a hand for the phone. She handed it over with aplomb, waiting as he inspected it. "I don't know," he finally muttered, rubbing at his eyes. "Mine?"

Everything clicked with perfect clarity. "Oh dear God, your anniversary is coming up."

"Generally does once a year," he said, tipping his head back to rest on the mattress.

She glared at him, prying the phone from his lax grip. "So what are you planning to do?"

"Go back to bed."

"For your anniversary," she clarified through gritted teeth, repressing the urge to punch Clint.

He shrugged. "Phil handled it. The presents, I mean. We never really did anything fancy."

"Of course not," she murmured, reading the notification again. "Do you think it's your present or Natasha's?"

"Fuck if I know," Clint groaned. "Can I go back to bed?"

"No." She tucked one leg behind the other and dropped gracefully to a seated position in front of him. "Where are the contents of his office?"

Clint sighed, finally seeing that she wasn't going to relent and let him go back to sleep. "At the ranch."

"When can you leave?"

"Not fucking now." He stared at her. "Are you serious?"

She raised an eyebrow at him, the motion more questioning than sardonic. "Would Phil let you go back to bed, or would he send you out to the ranch?"

Clint averted his gaze, pressing his lips together. She hummed softly. "I'll give you another couple of hours to sleep, but be on the road by sunrise."

"Give me a day to sell it to Tash," he wheedled. She rolled her eyes at him and he continued. "She's going to want to know why I'm leaving. Honestly, they all will. So, what are you going to tell the others?"

"That I needed a few of Phil's old files and I asked you to get them for me," she replied easily. "It's believable."

He nodded in agreement. "They'll buy it. But Tasha will know what's going on when she realizes it's almost our anniversary."

Maria snorted. "She's just as bad as you in that regard, so I doubt she will."

"Your bed sucks."

Natasha sighed at the whispered declaration, annoyed at both the slight accusation and the fact that Clint had woken her up to tell her. "We've discussed this," she mumbled into her pillow.

"There is nothing wrong with my bed," he told her, propping himself up on his elbow. "Why can't we have sex in my bed?"

"Because it smells like a gym locker," she replied, shifting to her back. She pushed the hair from her face. "Why am I not asleep?"

"Because your bed sucks?"

She groaned. "Barton, I will kill you."

He snorted, wrapping one arm around her waist and tugging her closer. "You've been threatening that for years. If you were going to, you'd have done it already."

"I'm getting soft," she muttered, not protesting when he slipped his leg in between hers and pressed his lips to her skin. "I should work on that."

"I'm getting soft too," he murmured suggestively. "You should work on that."

"Idiot."

Clint nudged his hips into her thigh when she closed her eyes again. "Come on."

"No," she retorted flatly. "You should know by now that you don't get sex if you wake me up in the middle of the night."

"It's not technically the middle of the night," he hedged, reaching over her to adjust the clock and read it. "It's almost morning."

"Then you should get going." Shoving at his shoulders, she slid out of bed, to his audible protest. "Maria needs those files and I have new knives to test."

Clint gaped at her. "You're joking, right?"

She restrained a smile, arching a brow at him as she dipped into her closet for a fresh pair of underwear. "Of course not. Tony made a hollowed out handle that stores poison. It's released when pressure is applied to the blade."

"New toys are not a good enough reason to not have sex with me," he argued, throwing the coverlet to the side and half rising out of bed. When she continued to dress, his eyes narrowed. "Tasha."

She stepped back to the bed, pressing his wrists into the mattress and a kiss to his lips. "Go."

"Fine." He rolled his eyes. "It's almost like you want me gone."

"Concerned?" She smirked at him, darting away before he could pull her back down onto the mattress. "Maybe you should be."

Clint snorted, rolling out of bed faster than she expected and snagging one arm around her waist. "You'd miss me."

Dropping a kiss on her shoulder, he released her to get dressed.

News of Clint's departure was met with causal indifference from the rest of the team. Tony and Bruce were too deep into their Bifrost research to truly care that Clint was going to be absent for a few days. Natasha was ambivalent, accepting that Maria needed the files and Clint had a better chance of finding them than either of the two women. Pepper was in New York for a series of meetings, and Thor had been introduced to the realm of Lord of the Rings and bad eighties action flicks. Steve was slightly more concerned with Clint's solo trip, but was ultimately reassured, and Clint left without incident.

The ranch was quiet and looking a little more dilapidated than he remembered as he drove up to the door. Throwing the truck into park, he hopped out, dragging his small duffel with him. Reaching into his pocket for the key, he froze at its absence.

"Fuck," he muttered to himself, pulling his lockpicks from the duffel.

The door swung open after a minute and he stepped inside. A fine layer of dust kicked up as he strode through the entryway and up to the second floor. Everything had been shipped to a nondescript post office box in the neighboring state and they'd hauled it to the house themselves, stashing the plain, cardboard boxes in one of the old bedrooms.

Shoving the door open, he sighed at the abundance of containers and entered. His and Natasha's things were haphazardly labeled and stored mostly in the front of the room, so Clint picked his way to the back. Maria had clearly marked the boxes from Phil's office, the tags written with precision and detail.

Rooting through the cartons, he finally found the contents of Phil's desk. He hauled the container out to the hallway and dumped the contents onto the floor. Dropping to his haunches, he began rooting through the items.

He found it after a few minutes of searching. It was a small wooden box, held closed with a gleaming brass catch, sitting inconspicuously beside a bag of paperclips. Picking it up, Clint pried the top off and dumped out his prize.

"Fuck," he whispered, blinking rapidly as he fingered the item in his palm.

He grinned involuntarily, rubbing a hand across his mouth. Shaking his head as he rose, he curled his fingers into a loose fist and whispered, "Phil, you son of a bitch."

Her door was locked.

Natasha stared at the knob disbelievingly, wondering how her room had been locked, with her lockpicks inside, when there was a noise from the end of the hall. She whirled, glaring at Clint's door. Shoving it open, she arched brow at the sight of him perched on his bed.

"I see you're finally back."

He grinned at her, tossing a small box in her direction.

"Happy anniversary, zhena."

Turning her back to him, she flicked loose the catch on the box and cracked open the lid.

"Oh," she breathed involuntarily. With her hand trembling, she gently nudged the misshapen lump of lead. Swallowing thickly, she lifted the necklace from the velvet.

"Do you know," she murmured as Clint rose from the bed and moved behind her. "How long I spent staring at this, wondering whose rifle it came from, and whether or not it was meant to miss?"

"Of course it was meant to miss you." Clint ignored her question, reaching over her shoulder to take the chain from her grasp. She lifted her hair and he clasped the necklace around her neck. He placed a soft kiss to the exposed skin, letting his lips linger. "I was aiming at the brick, and I always hit what I aim at."

Despite herself, she grinned, fingering the necklace that rested on her shirt. "Was the brick lethal? Was it plotting to stab me in the back?"

He smiled against her spine. "Bricks can be very shifty. Can't trust the clay bastards."

She smiled. Picking up the bullet pendant, she dropped it beneath her shirt to rest against her sternum. Her eyes took on a distant look as she remembered. "I'd kept it for analysis, in the beginning, to try and track you as best I could. After I defected, I kept it anyway."

"For sentimental reasons, right? Because you were falling in love with me?" He laughed when she punched him.

"No. You were irritating and loud and you never shut up, but that bullet had become a-," she grappled for the right word. "An obsession," she decided finally.

He nodded, understanding perfectly. "Am I still an obsession?"

Smiling, she kissed him gently.

"No."

"So where's my present?" he asked, glancing pointedly at her shirt with a leer.

Rolling her eyes at him, she pulled out of his embrace and dipped into his bag for his lockpicks. She arched a brow at him as slipped out of the door. He made to follow her, but she pressed a palm to his chest, retreating to her room. Stepping over to his bed, Clint fell back and closed his eyes.

He opened them when something landed on his abdomen with a quiet slap. Bringing a hand up to catch the object, he froze when his fingers met with thick cardstock, soft with age. Curling his body upwards, he glanced down at his hand with incredulity.

Captain America's jaunty salute was marred by the browning bloodstain and Clint swallowed back a sudden rush of tears as he traced the edges of the mark.

"Steve took them, after." He faintly registered Natasha's hushed voice. "He carried them in his belt during the battle, and he gave them back to me when we settled onto the helicarrier. He said he didn't feel right keeping them, but that he wasn't sure you were ready to have them."

Clint brought his gaze to hers, unashamed of the tears that dripped down his cheeks and into his lap. Her eyes smiled gently at him. "I think you are now."

"What is that?"

Natasha paused with her fork halfway to her lips, staring at Tony. "What is what?"

He pointed dangerously close to her chest, indicating the chain that disappeared beneath her shirt collar and prompting Bruce to raise an eyebrow at his audacity. "That. The sparkly thing around your neck."

She blinked slowly at him. "A necklace. I thought you were part of MENSA."

"You don't wear jewelry," he said bluntly, ignoring her sarcastic quip. "So what's so special about that?"

"I wear jewelry," she muttered, frowning.

He snorted, turning back to his tablet. "No, you don't. What's with the necklace?"

"I gave it to her," Clint answered, swaggering into the kitchen with a grin and dropping into the chair beside Natasha. "She's sentimental like that."

"Clearly," Bruce murmured dryly, his lips quirked. Natasha shot him a glare as Clint shifted to face Bruce more fully. "You're very chipper this morning."

Clint grinned. "I had a good night."

"I do not need to know that," the scientist replied, dropping his gaze to his notebook.

"Me either," Tony sniped. "Is anyone going to tell me what it is? I've been asking for ten minutes."

Bruce rolled his eyes. "Ten seconds, more likely." To Clint, he added, "Are you sure that you want to do this? She's looking kind of lethal."

"She always looks like that," Clint dismissed. "It's her training."

Natasha muttered something in another language as Maria stepped into the kitchen. "What did Clint do this time?" she asked, smiling lightly. "You only ever curse in Russian when he's really irritated you."

"I'm telling them about her feminine side," Clint informed her.

Maria snorted a laugh. "At your own risk."

"I would like to point out that I still don't know what the big deal is about this necklace is," Tony announced loudly. "And if it's going to annoy Red, then I want to."

Leaning over, Clint curled his finger beneath the chain around her neck and tugged it upwards to expose the mangled bullet on the end. Maria hid a smile behind her hand as Bruce and Tony leaned forward.

"What is that?"

"It looks like a bullet," Bruce said to Tony in answer.

"It is," Maria said laughingly. "Is that the same one you dug out of the wall?"

"Yes," Natasha muttered grudgingly.

Maria's smile gentled as she met Clint's eyes. "I see," she murmured.

Bruce cocked his head curiously at her while Tony grinned slowly. "Why, Red, could Clint be right?"

"I am often right, actually," Clint put in. Natasha glared mutinously at him and he rolled his eyes. "It's an anniversary present."

"Which year?" Clint stared at Steve, who was watching the proceedings with barely restrained amusement. "How many years have you been married?"

"I'm more concerned with why the present is bullet jewelry," Bruce said hesitantly.

"It's the first bullet he ever shot at her," Maria explained.

Bruce's brows disappeared into his hairline. "At her?"

Maria nodded. "He was giving her a warning shot. She went back later and retrieved the bullet to try and find him."

"That is so fucked up," Tony muttered, pouring himself some more coffee.

"That's them," Maria replied, as if it explained everything. "So, Clint, how many?"

Clint remained silent, avoiding eye contact. Natasha shifted. "Three? I think it's three."

"Maybe it's four," Clint mumbled, one finger tracing out profanities on the table.

"You don't know what year you got married," Steve said disbelievingly. "Really?"

Natasha shrugged. "We're married. What does the date matter?"

Tony leaned forward suddenly, intent. "You said date."

The redhead arched a brow at him. "So?"

"Date implied month, day, year. Have you forgotten one, two, or all of those numbers?"

"You'd have to have prior knowledge in order to forget," Clint quipped, oblivious to the incredulous glances the scientists were giving each other. Maria's body shook with the force it took to restrain her peals of laughter. After a moment, Tony turned back to the assassins.

"I'm sorry," he began.

Natasha snorted. "No you're not."

"That is not the point," he insisted. "Are you telling me that you don't know when you got married?"

"I am telling you that we have no idea what date Phil put on the license," she corrected. "Part of our cover was supposed to be this cutesy argument as to the actual date, and we've both forgotten which was the right one."

"And what month it was in," Clint muttered.

"You got married for a mission?" Steve clarified dubiously.

Maria shook her head. "They were supposed to pretend as part of their cover. Phil, on the other hand, decided that he was sick of the two of them dancing around each other and got a legally binding license for them to sign, and then filed it afterwards."

Steve, Tony, and Bruce stared at her in disbelief, and had not moved when Thor joined them. The demi-god arched a brow at the scene in the kitchen. "I feel as though I have missed something important."

"It's complicated," Steve managed.

"What's complicated?" Pepper asked as she breezed into the kitchen, plucking Tony's coffee from his hands. "I'm running late, so tell me fast."

"Phil filed our marriage license without telling us what date he put, so we don't know when our anniversary is," Clint announced peevishly.

Pepper stared at him. "Is it soon?" she asked after a moment, in a perfectly calm tone.

"Yes," Maria answered for them.

"So what are you going to do to celebrate?" Pepper demanded.

"Uh, nothing?" She narrowed her eyes at Clint's response as the others exchanged pointed looks.

"No," she said decisively. "If you don't want a big party, then that's fine. But we are having a nice dinner of your choosing tonight, whether you like it or not. Together."

"Yes, ma'am," Clint muttered, smiling innocently at her when she glared at him. He turned to Steve. "I'll get you the recipe before I head out to the range."

Steve raised an eyebrow at him. "You're not going to stay and make sure I get it right?"

"Like I'd know if you were fucking up," Clint retorted with a snort of laughter. He rose, draining his cup of coffee. "I'll be right back."

The archer darted up the stairs, leaving Natasha to answer any further questions. He returned after a few minutes with a handwritten recipe scrawled on half a sheet of paper. Steve took the offered instructions and raised a brow.

"Are you sure this is it?"

"Are you sure this is edible?" Thor muttered, eyeing the recipe over Steve's shoulder.

Clint rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I'm sure. Just trust me."

"If you insist," Thor murmured dubiously as Clint returned upstairs.

Natasha watched him go for a moment, absently listening to the discussion for the evening's plans, the group dispersed as breakfast ended and Natasha found herself on the receiving end of an understand glance. Turning, she met Maria's gaze. The older agent smiled.

"Shut up," Natasha muttered, pushing away from the table and leaving the kitchen.

"But you didn't say anything," she heard Steve say to Maria as she ascended the stairs. She missed Maria's reply, stepping into the hallway, and quickly snuck down to Clint's room.

He was standing by his bed, the sheets in a tangled mess and lying half on the floor. His bow case was open on the mattress, the bow itself shining softly in the morning sunlight. She peeked through the door as he ran his palm along the curve.

"You can come in, you know," he murmured wryly into the silence.

Hugging her arms closer to herself, she entered the room, quietly closing the door behind her. Moving to his side, she joined him in his contemplation of his weapon.

"It won't change anything," he said after a few long minutes. "If I don't use it again."

"You'll change," she rejoined. "And Ben will be so disappointed in you."

"Phil would kick my ass," he offered, a hint of amusement threading through his tone. Reaching into the case, his palm fitted around the bow and he pulled it from its velvet bed. "And a Glock would never feel right."

"And think of all the arrows that Tony would have to repurpose." He laughed lowly, extending his right arm and pulling back on the string with two fingers. "It doesn't mean anything, you know."

"Still a broken soldier," he reminded her softly. Phil's image rose in his mind unbidden, and he was surprised to find that the team joined it. "But maybe a little less broken now."

The kitchen was filled to the brim as preparations for Clint and Natasha's anniversary dinner were underway. There were two casserole dishes in the oven, some concoction that had no name, but Clint insisted was "the best fucking thing ever," and beers were making the rounds. Clint was perched on the countertop next to the stove, his bare feet dangling. Tony leaned next to him, occasionally swatting at the foot that kicked his way.

"I can't believe you're actually doing a crossword puzzle at the table, Bruce," the billionaire loudly proclaimed. "It's a celebration and everything."

Bruce gave Tony an arch look over the top of his glasses as Pepper pressed a cold beer into Clint's hands with a smile. "Pepper just gave Clint alcohol. I highly doubt he cares about my crossword. I'm sure Natasha doesn't."

"I wouldn't, if you could move out of the way," Natasha sniped with a small smile. She edged a plate beneath his arm. "That newspaper is taking up far too much space."

"Agreed," Tony put in immediately. "And it smells weird."

"I believe that is the meal that Barton has requested for tonight," Thor teased as he followed Natasha with handfuls of cutlery, grinning. "I am not certain that is actually edible."

"It's not like I made it," Clint grumbled. "I gave Cap the recipe."

"That might be his point," Steve murmured, shooing everyone away from the oven. "Come on, sit down. I don't want to burn anyone."

Tony watched him idly for a moment, a suspicious gleam in his eyes.

"You know," the billionaire began leadingly, "There was really only one topic that I remember that could make my dad laugh the hardest."

"That was a strange segue way," Natasha muttered as she ducked beneath the steaming casserole dishes to sneak a sip of Clint's beer. Tony shot her a look and she rolled her eyes. "But I guess it doesn't matter."

The archer frowned as she stole his bottle, but allowed the petty theft, instead raising an eyebrow at Tony. "Your dad didn't laugh?"

"Not like this," Tony replied, his lips curving in a grin. "Want to know why, Spangles?"

Steve wiggled his fingers at Thor for a beer, shooting Tony a teasing glance as he took a sip. "I'm sure you're going to tell me anyway."

"Well yeah, but you have to ask," the billionaire whined. Pepper and Natasha protested loudly to his tone, their noise covered the almost imperceptible sound of the gravel drive crunching beneath car tires and the low growl of an engine turning off.

The soldier rolled his eyes, fondly exasperated. "Why?"

"Actor Wallach, three letters," Bruce interrupted, pausing his crossword to pull his sweater off. Setting it to the side, he didn't react when Natasha picked it up immediately and drew it over her head. Pepper took a place near the end of the table and peeked over Bruce's shoulder.

Clint turned suddenly and answered, "Eli," returning his attention to Tony as Pepper pointed out another solution to the scientist.

"Dad always laughed the hardest when someone talked about getting fondue." The room went silent as Steve paused, his face coloring a burnished red. Tony crowed triumphantly. "Any idea why?"

"Shut up, Tony," the soldier muttered, the tips of his ears darkening with embarrassment.

"Hey Iron Ass," Clint put in casually, clearly taking pity on the mortified soldier. Bruce snorted a laugh as Tony turned his attention, sparing a glower for Bruce as Clint continued, "I saw the new designs for your house in Malibu. Compensating for something?"

Tony leveled a glare at the archer and the two began an easy banter that Thor watched with amusement. Shaking off his embarrassment, Steve opened a drawer and emerged with a handful of forks, dipping them one at a time into the casserole and doling out tastes to the increasingly noisy team. The exclamations of appreciation were loud enough to cover the soft latch of the unlocked front door closing.

"Okay, I admit it," Pepper said with a laugh. "This is the most amazing thing I've ever eaten."

Natasha raised an eyebrow at her. "What about that chocolate mousse we had in Monaco?"

Thor shook his head, interjecting. "You cannot judge sweet and savory on the same scale. Jane Foster has taught me this."

"Jane Foster is a very smart lady," Pepper told him as they shared a smile.

"I don't think it's that amazing," Tony announced, contemplating his empty fork. "One time in college, I had a g-,"

"Do not finish that sentence," Pepper warned him.

He blinked innocently at her as Clint erupted into laughter. "I was going to say a great lasagna but whatever."

"I'll bet you were," Natasha muttered, rising to retrieve another beer. Steve handed her the bottle opener with a pointed look and turned at a strangled noise from the direction of the staircase.

Maria stood on the last step, her body unnaturally frozen and her face pale. The soldier frowned, walking towards her as Bruce leaned back in his chair, his brow furrowed. "What's a six letter word for someone or something of a same or similar kind?"

"Maria? Are you okay?" Steve asked lowly, trying not to cause unnecessary worry for those still in the kitchen that were offering suggestions to help Bruce finish his puzzle. She made no move, and he turned to follow her gaze.

"Fuck."

The sound of the harsh curse falling from Steve's lips gave everyone pause. Attention was collectively riveted to the pair at the staircase first, and then to the person that was standing in the shadows at the edge of the foyer.

Phil Coulson smiled gently as he stepped forward. "I believe that word that you're looking for, Doctor Banner, is family."

Fin.