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“Mom!” The cry was Darcy’s only warning before a lanky teenager came barreling into Jane’s lab and promptly hid behind her.
“Hi Peter.” Jane called from her place hovering over a machine that needed tinkering. Hovering courtesy of Tony’s latest invention making ladders almost obsolete. Darcy grabbed her bearings as the Iron scientist came in moments later.
“Parker!” Tony hollered, his eyes quickly focusing on Darcy and the teen behind her.
“Hide me!” Peter ducked under her work desk and with a quiet sigh she summoned her super solider boyfriend to the scene, she was probably going to need back for this conversation.
“FRIDAY will you have James come down here please? Tell him our adoptive spawn angered the landlord again.”
“Already on his way Ms. Lewis.” Darcy smiled, knowing that this was such a normal occurrence that FRIDAY hardly needed direction anymore. She stood her ground before Tony could go behind her to her desk where Peter was currently huddled down.
“C’mon Tony you know the rules, I need explanations first before doling out punishments to all involved parties.” She put her hands on her hips and leveled him with one eye brow slightly raised. Thankfully her hair was done up in a messy bun held up with a pencil and a pen with a Funko Pop! Of Captain America on the end of it.
“Darce you have no idea what you’re defending! He-He! UGH! Play the feed FRIDAY!” Tony stomped his foot like a toddler and Darcy resisted rolling her eyes and FRIDAY pulled up a holo-screen that showed Tony and Bruce working on some new project and Peter taking notes while giving some small input here and there. Everything looked perfectly normal until Bruce excused himself and Tony pulled out the blueprints for the newest Spider-Man suit. Peter and Tony ended up engaged in a battle of the wits over certain aspects of the suit which led Peter, who is still a kid for his grown-up talk, to smart off to Tony and webbed him to the ceiling.
Darcy could barely contain her laughter as Bucky entered the labs, the epitome of “dad mode” enable.
“Alright, who started it this time.” Peter emerged from his hiding spot trying to get his side of the story out while Tony tried to speak at the same time.
“Enough! Tony, you should know that you can’t overwhelm a kid like- Shut it Pete, I’ll deal with you in a minute! You’re taking half-a-day and I’m calling Pepper. Shoo. I’ll deal with Peter.” Tony looked like he was about to argue but Bucky just put a hand on his shoulder and with an indigent huff, he stormed out of the lab, calling up Pepper and having FRIDAY reroute his work for the day.
With Tony gone, Peter and webbed a chair and was pouting awaiting Darcy and Bucky’s punishment.
“Stay put.” Darcy pulled James towards Jane and relayed what he’d missed in the video. After the events that Darcy dubbed “The Avengers are too stupid to communicate” incident, she, Pepper, and Jane had collectively taken Steve and Tony by the ear and forced them to fix their shit. Including bringing a kid into the fray. Darcy had declared that Tony had already brought him in and couldn’t shut him out now because it was convenient. She talked it over with Pepper and had it made official that he would be the new intern for the scientists three; with Darcy overseeing him because obviously Tony couldn’t make adult decisions.
“C’mon Darce, you know you can’t stay mad at that baby face of his.” Jane had stepped away from her machines and was leaning against her desk, drinking coffee from this morning, with a soft smile on her face. Even Bucky was nodding at her declaration.
“I love ya’ doll, but you’re too lax when it comes to their nonsense. I’ll handle it.” Darcy frowned biting her lip.
“But-But, James please don’t be hard on him, he’s a kid!” At some point after Peter joined SI, Darcy had taken to treating him as more than just another charge in her brood of superheroes. While she acted like team mom most of the time, she’d had a special place in her heart for the youngest would be avenger. She had aunt May on speed dial and while she respected his wishes of keeping his alter-ego on the down low, she also made sure he was taken care as far as school and home life went.
After a while even Bucky, who’d been with Darcy since they met in Wakanda had adopted the kid, training him, and helping him sharping his skills, and taking on the harder hand where Darcy like to coddle.
“Yea, Darce he’s a kid, but he’s a superkid, he’s smart enough to know better than to start a war, all be it a small prank war, with Tony. I swear, between Tony, Peter AND Steve I’m more than prepared to handle kids at this point.” He stalked back to Peter, grabbing him by the shoulder and leading him out of the lab.
“He’s gonna be fine Darce, go back your mom cookies, geez.” Jane dismissed her and Darcy all but pouted.
“He’s just a kid-”
“Yea, yea, if I didn’t know better I think he was YOUR kid. Go do your thing Mama.” Jane was already elbow deep in her machine.
Darcy knew James wouldn’t hurt Peter and would more than likely just put him through the new training course that him and Natasha had designed as a fun project to see how many obstacles they could cram into the gym space. Steve was not amused when he went for his daily workout and to run the course to get to the punching bags; by then he had lost the motivation to do his normal work out.
“FRIDAY pull up the video please.” Darcy took over the common room kitchen and began to bake her special, “You’re-in-trouble-but-I-love-you” cookies for Tony and Peter to make up over, once their punishments were done.