Chapter Text
It was amazing how normal even the weirdest things that took place in Avenger’s Mansion could be brushed off. It didn’t even register to Steve as odd that one morning he couldn’t get through the living room on his way to the kitchen because most of the room was taken up by an enormous pile of pillows. He looked at it for a few seconds, and then turned around and left the room in search of coffee.
Clint watched him go, his body almost entirely obscured by the pile. It had taken him most of the morning the collect every pillow he could find in the house and bring them all back to the living room. He’d thought it would have been harder, but nearly everyone in the house slept odd hours, when they slept at all. Bruce and Tony had been in the lab most of the night and had probably passed out there, Pepper had been on an important conference call in the study, Natasha and Steve had been sparring together in the gym, and Thor had been out in the gardens, presumably watching the sun rise. All of their rooms had been empty, and with JARVIS’s help, Clint had located every pillow in the house. He was ready to get to work.
***
Nearly all of the Avengers were in the kitchen when Natasha came in, a frown creasing her forehead, “has anyone seen Clint?”
Bruce, who was perching on the counter, looked up from the tablet balanced on his lap. He pursed his lips, thinking for a moment before he responded, “I haven’t seen him since two days ago.”
Pepper nudged him playfully, “that’s because you spend all of your time in the lab with Tony.”
Bruce gave her a sheepish smile, “we’re working on spending less time in there, I promise.” From across the room, Tony made a noise that might have been agreement, but could just as easily have been a snort.
Steve shrugged when Natasha glanced at him, “I think I might have seen him. Unless it was one of you who piled all those pillows in the living room.”
In answer there was a chorus of no’s from Tony and Bruce, Thor shook his head, and Pepper gave Steve an incredulous look.
“A pile of pillows?” Tony raised his eyebrows, “and I was just starting to think that Clint didn’t have the maturity of a five year old.” Natasha gave Tony a sharp look, but even the assassin couldn’t help her lips quirking up into a tiny smirk.
Tony ignored Natasha’s glare, a brave move, and said, “I have to see this. In the living room, right?” He disappeared through the door without waiting for an answer. Bruce glanced at Pepper, then at Natasha and Steve, and finally slid off the counter and followed Tony out of the room, Pepper on his heels. Natasha, Steve, and Thor filed after them.
Tony had halted in the entryway to the living room, where they were greeted, not by the pile of pillows that Steve had seen earlier, but an incredibly well-crafted pillow fort.
“Really Clint,” Tony mocked, “A pillow fort? How old are you?”
Through a tiny gap in the wall of pillow, a small object came flying out, hitting Tony square in the chest and suctioning to the arc reactor. Tony glanced down, eyes wide with surprise, and pulled the foam arrow off his chest, “A nerf arrow. You’re not making a very good case for yourself.”
Bruce couldn’t help the tiny snicker he let out, and he was rewarded with an arrow to the forehead. He startled, ducking behind Pepper with a little yelp. Just as Steve stepped forward, the wave of nerf arrows was turned on him and Thor.
“Clint, stop it!” Tony said indignantly, “this is childish and immature!” His words were punctuated by another couple of arrows hitting him.
“Clint, stop shooting,” Natasha said calmly. She was the only one who hadn’t gotten hit with an arrow yet. At her words, the arrows stopped flying. “Why did you build the fort, Clint?” Natasha asked.
“I felt like it,” came the reply. The shrug was almost audible in Clint’s voice, which was muffled through the layers of pillows.
Natasha rolled her eyes, but her smile was fond, “and why are you shooting everyone?”
Clint sounded chastised when he said, “not everyone.”
“Clint,” Natasha’s tone was stern.
Clint huffed, “I’m not taking it down.” There was a long pause, and then he said, “Do you want to come in?”
Natasha glanced back at the others. Bruce was still half-hiding behind Pepper, Steve had his arms crossed as he watched the two agents go back and forth, and Tony and Thor both looked a combination of amused and exasperated with Clint’s actions. Finally, she replied, “Only if that’s an open invitation.”
The only response was a pillow popping out of the base of the fort. The whole structure had been built strongly enough that it didn’t appear to even jostle the other pillows around it. Natasha promptly got on her hands and knees. She looked back at the others again, gave a small smile, and easily slipped through the gap.
Pepper turned her head to look at Bruce, the silent question never leaving her lips before Bruce nodded, and Pepper followed after Natasha. Bruce had a bit more difficulty getting into the fort since he had a bit more bulk than either of the two girls, but he managed it without disturbing the wall of pillows.
Thor didn’t even hesitate, although his frame was much larger than any of the others, squeezing his considerable mass into an opening that looked a bit too small for him. Tony stayed a minute longer, bouncing on the balls of his feet and watching Steve. The super-soldier raised his eyebrows with a smirk. He gestured to the pillow fort, “after you.”
Tony smirked right back before getting to his knees and crawling into the fort. Steve hesitated, considering the size of the fort and the size of the seven people that were going to be crammed into it, and then shrugged, crawling in behind Tony.
Inside, Steve’s suspicions about how crowded the pillow fort would be was confirmed. Bruce had dragged Pepper into his lap, Clint was sitting cross-legged against the far wall with Thor next to him on one side and Tony on the other, and Natasha was sitting on Tony’s lap, her back up against Pepper and Bruce and her legs draped across Clint and Thor. Even with everyone so close together, there wasn’t much room left for Steve. Still, he pressed in on the other side of Bruce and Pepper, the space so small that his shoulder’s brushed up against both Bruce’s and Thor’s.
"It’s cozy,” Pepper commented, leaning back into Bruce’s arms, “where’d you get all the pillows? I didn’t think we had anywhere near this many in the house.”
Clint shrugged, “you’d be surprised.” JARVIS helped me find all of them. A lot were in closets and guest rooms.”
“It’s pretty impressive,” Tony admitted. He rapped his knuckles against the wall of pillows, “surprisingly sturdy. Have you ever considered a career in engineering?”
Natasha, whose head was tipped back against Pepper’s shoulder and whose eyes were closed, smirked, “Clint doesn’t have the attention span to be an engineer.”
“Hey!” Clint protested, “I spent at least an hour working on this!”
“You let pizza burn in the microwave because you got distracted by a cat video,” Natasha responded.
Clint opened his mouth to argue, considered Natasha’s point, and closed it again with a shrug.
Behind Steve, he felt a smaller form head-butt him. He twisted around to see Loki, tail fluffed up, trying to squeeze her way in with them. He shifted to the side just enough for the cat to step over him, winding her way through the tangle of legs, rubbing her cheek against Natasha’s thigh before climbing Clint’s shirt to sit on his shoulders. She head-butted his ear and Clint rubbed her chin.
Loki accepted the petting for a moment, and then she walked daintily across Clint’s shoulders to Bruce’s, stepping on Natasha’s head as she went. The assassin spluttered at the mouthful of fur, making a face. Pepper laughed, bending forward as the cat balanced on her shoulders with her hind legs on Bruce’s chest. Loki batted at Pepper’s hair for a moment, and Tony, who had whipped out his phone, snapped a picture.
The flash caught Loki’s attention and she sprang towards it to investigate, the motion knocking Pepper forward into Steve’s arms. Tony tumbled backwards as he got an armful of black cat, and his shoulders knocked into the wall of the pillow fort. As well built as it was, the fort couldn’t hold up under the weight of a fully grown man, and the few pillows that Tony knocked out of place were enough to send the whole fort crashing down on them. Pepper let out a shriek, her hands flying up to protect against the pillows, but within seconds all of them were buried.
Thor was the first to stand up. He reached down to grasp Steve’s forearm and pulled him to his feet. Steve had one arm around Pepper’s waist, so she was dragged up with him. Clint popped his head out from under a pillow, digging around to uncover Natasha before standing up himself. Natasha helped Bruce up, smirking slightly at how the avalanche of pillows had knocked his curls askew.
“Everyone okay?” Pepper asked, separating herself from Steve and brushing off her shirt.
Steve glanced down into the waist-deep pile of pillows spread out across the floor, “where’s Tony?”
Pepper got to her knees, most of her body submerged in the pillows, and began digging until she saw the arc reactor’s light. She uncovered the rest of Tony’s body, and the billionaire sat up, a purring Loki in his arms. When Clint began to snicker, Tony shot him a glare that was more embarrassed than harsh.
Clint raised his hands in surrender, “okay, okay. I’ll clean it up.”