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“Cosplaying as a farm boy again, Barton?” Tony slips into an open barstool across from him without taking his eyes off of the phone screen in front of him. A beat-up slipper dangles precariously between his foot and the barstool’s base as he taps away rapidly. His glasses are sliding down the bridge of his nose.
Vision, who was tucked into the corner junction between the counter and table with one hand reassuringly on Wanda’s back, slid a steaming mug of coffee, black, in Tony’s direction. Vision knew all of their coffee orders, and Natasha wasn’t sure if that was a function of being Tony’s former virtual assistant or just some innate kindness and thoughtfulness that he somehow came to possess. For all that she had come to know about him, she was leaning more towards the latter. Tony reaches his hand out to catch it and exhales a small sigh of pleasure as he brings the mug to his lips.
“I don’t think it counts as make-believe if I actually own a farm, Stark. Besides, these bad boys are from Laura’s special family recipe, and...” Clint is vigorously whipping his batter as the pan next to him starts to sizzle with browning butter. The sweet but cloying smell of vanilla extract drifts throughout the room.
“And, lemme guess, the kids love it? It won the “Best in Show” award at your local county fair? It’s a PTO favorite?” Tony fakes retching into his morning coffee. “The domesticity, it’s overwhelming me. You’re practically the Brady Bunch at this point. In fact, I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of this sooner. We should call you the Barton Bunch!”
“You really thought that you did something with that, didn’t you Stark?” Sam strolls in and smiles wide. He’s still heaving and covered with sweat, his shirt clinging to his torso. Behind him, Steve follows closely, looking not nearly as spent. It’s clear that the two of them got in some early morning training prior to meeting everyone for breakfast. Their sneakers squeak against the floor as they cross the room to take a seat on the barstools next to Wanda and Tony. Bruce opens his mouth, seemingly to remind them of the “No Shoes in the House” rule, but ultimately decides against it. Natasha pats his knee reassuringly before giving it a firm squeeze.
“You know,” Tony takes a loud slurp of his coffee and smiles back. It’s all self-depreciation and good humor, and Natasha can’t also help but smile. It’s good to see him like this. “I did think I was doing something. Leaning on the genius aspect of the whole genius, billionaire, etc. You know the rest.”
“If you’re just jealous of me, Tony, you can say that. This is a safe space, we won’t judge.” Clint furrows his eyebrows as he gives the batter one final and aggressive whip. A splatter hits Vision on the face, and he contorts in a way that makes everyone chuckle underneath their breath. Wanda quickly scoops up her napkin and wipes it away. He looks down at her, almost radiantly, and she demurely blushes. His hand starts to rub soothing little patterns into her back.
“Me? Domestic?” Tony fires back. He takes another glug of his coffee, draining the mug. “Unbelievable.”
“It may be much more likely than you think,” Natasha chimes in from her seat at the table. Several sets of specious eyes turn to stare at her. She takes a sip of her water and grins mischievously, relishing the cold sensation on her teeth. A thin strand of red hair tickles against her cheek.
Tony specifically narrows his eyes and studies her. His phone is dropped facedown on the kitchen counter, completely abandoned for the moment. The tapping of his foot against the stool has stopped. “Not unless Pepper told you something that I don’t know. Which I would doubt.”
Clint carefully spoons a ladle of the batter onto the awaiting pan and for the moment the sound of sizzling pancakes is the only noise that fills the rooms.
“No, she hasn’t, but sometimes I like to just stir the pot. Keeps things interesting. Keeps you all on your toes.” Natasha smiles and Tony starts to shake his head in her direction. Bruce gives her a gentle shove, and she can’t help but laugh.
“You would have fit in very well in Asgard, Natasha,” Thor strolls in, the final guest to arrive for breakfast. It’s still odd to see him so comfortably dressed in Earth-style clothes, but these days he transitions between both of them so easily. It’s been good to have him here, away from his home and his people, to spend time with them and help them as they break in their new Avengers base. He takes up a seat next to Bruce, offering him a hearty clasp on the back. “My friends and I were well known during our youth for creating mischief and ‘stirring the pot’ across the realms.”
“I’ll take that as an invitation to join the next time you feel like being up to no good,” Natasha responds. Vision crosses the kitchen to hand Thor an enormous mug of coffee, filled to the brim with the kind of artificial coffee sweeteners that they sell in jugs at the grocery store. He wraps his enormous hands around the thermos and takes in its warmth. Thor’s sweet tooth is well-documented thus far, and they all chalk it up to the pitiful excuses for dessert - nuts, berries - that Asgard passes off.
“No invitation necessary. You are all always welcomed in my home as my personal friends.” Thor smiles brightly at all of them and takes a deep drink from his mug. “Anyway, unrelated, but Bruce, why aren’t you cooking this morning?”
“I didn’t know you were so attached to my cooking.” Bruce fiddles with his thumbs in his lap and scrunches his brow. “Natasha and I had a late night last night, working on some projects, and I guess that I just overslept this morning. When I came down to get started, Clint was already whipping together his apparently ancestral pancake recipe.”
“Mmmm,” Steve finally chimes in from his spot on his barstool. He slings his water bottle back and forth in between his two waiting hands, and it looks almost like a blur with how much strength he’s absentmindedly putting behind the action. It’s a miracle that it hasn’t flown off the granite and smacked someone in the face. “I’m so old that I must be out of the loop. ‘Working on projects’ - is that what the kids are calling it these days?”
Sam shoves him as he tries to hide his own laughter. Steve offers a sly smile Natasha’s way, and she can’t help but roll her eyes in response. Bruce, for his part, is blushing from the roots of his hair to the tips of his toes. Thor claps him again on the back, and Tony lets out a low wolf whistle.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Clint calls their attention as he finally plates the first batch of pancakes. They’re glistering with a huge chunk of melting butter and a heavy drizzle of real maple syrup from the trees out back. The rest of the batter is cooking away while his dirty bowl is abandoned in the sink next to him. A smattering of flour is stuck underneath his eye, giving it a ghostly appearance. He stabs through all three pancakes with a fork. “Get your minds out of the gutter. It’s chow time. And the first batch has to go to Wanda since she shared with me this morning that she has never had a pancake before.”
“Well, that’s not true. I have had a pancake before. Although, what we call pancakes in Sokovia are much more similar to what you all would call a crepe here. So, I guess that I’ve never had an American pancake before.” Wanda carefully reached out and pulled the plate of pancakes closer to her. She tucks a piece of hair behind her ear. It is finally fading from the dark brown that she had dyed it to its natural more reddish color. Natasha thinks that suits her much better, and it’s nice to see the physical remnants of her darker times fade away. She knows what that feels like, how both freeing and difficult that can be.
“Wow, Clint, you find another Eastern European girl to rescue, and then all of a sudden, I’m set to the side. Sad.” Natasha teases him from across the room. Clint rolls his eyes at her, but underneath it, she can still see a compassionate smile. She winks at him, and he can’t help but roll his eyes again.
“She’s kidding. Mostly. But tell me what you think of them.”
Wanda still looks a little demure underneath everyone’s expectant gazes. She carefully cuts off a small piece, dips it in some of the residual maple syrup, and takes a dainty bite. They all watch her as her jaw works, and she finally swallows.
“Good!” She exclaims and starts cutting away at another bite. She has a hearty appetite, one to rival most of the boys, and they never talk about what that means or why that might be. Instead, the team has just gotten into the habit of offering everyone heaping plates and allowing everyone to eat their fill. “This is actually very delicious. I think that it might be the best pancake that I’ve ever had.”
“Well, I’ll be the judge of that,” Thor shouts as he races across the room to pick up the next stack that Clint was in the process of plating.
“No fair, I was here first!” Tony shouted, trying to snag the plate from under Thor’s nose. Sam and Steve try to duck out of his way. Clint has stepped back, away from the chaos for just a moment.
“It,” Clint sighs, “is the only pancake that you’ve ever had.”
-
The air is so cold that it stings, and the couch is punishingly hard underneath her. Natasha reaches her arms up for a full-body stretch, and she can feel the knots along her back stretch and pull. It feels almost unbelievably good, but she knows in the back of her mind that they’re all going to be stiff for the rest of the day. They’ve woken up too many times like this not to know that was going to be the outcome.
Steve is awake next to her, huddled up on the other couch that is way too small for him. His shirt and khakis are the same ones that he was wearing all day yesterday, and they were now horribly crumpled. It created a look of despair and dishevelment that she imagines has to be matching what he feels on the inside. Her own black leggings and sweatshirt, which haven’t been changed in a few days, don’t look any better. Steve’s eyes stare unseeingly at the ceiling above them where the first of the morning light has started to leak in despite their drawn blinds. It gives everything in the room an almost sickly yellow tinge.
“Good dream or bad dream?” Steve whispers. It’s part of their morning routine, the two of them. Before they used to text each other the question, back when they found the motivation to stalk up to their own rooms at the end of a long night. Now, more often than not, they fall asleep in the middle of their work and spend the night on the couch. They know each other well enough that there is rarely a night where a dream or a nightmare doesn’t come to visit them in their sleep.
A weary smile paints her face. “The type of dream that makes you nostalgic for things that never happened.”
“Ah,” Steve smiles back, “so the worst kind.”
-
Hours later, after Steve dismisses her because he insists that she goes and eat something, she is standing alone in the kitchen in the compound. Natasha is choking down a dry piece of white toast with a smear of cheap peanut butter and as she dutifully chews and swallows, she can almost smell the scent of maple syrup and brown butter and pancake batter.
She blinks back a tear.